About once a week in America, a child of age 3 or less finds an unsecured, loaded gun and shoots themselves or someone else with it. About a third of the time, those injuries
have proven fatal.
These cases are invariably referred to as "accidents" in media reports. But as Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that advocates for stricter gun laws, argues, many incidents like this are preventable. In a study of accidental shootings by children of all ages (not just toddlers), they estimate that "more than two-thirds of these tragedies could be avoided if gun owners stored their guns responsibly and prevented children from accessing them."
There are policy and technical responses to preventable childhood gun deaths as well. States and localities could require guns to be locked up at home, a policy supported by 67 percent of Americans. Various types of smart gun technology, which prevent anyone other than their owners from firing a given gun, exist as well. But gun lock requirements and smart guns have been vehemently opposed by the National Rifle Association and its allies. [...]
Depending on where you stand on gun policy, you may feel that 13 dead toddlers in 10 months is too many. Or, you might reason that stuff happens, and that this is part of the price we must pay to protect our gun rights.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2007—One quick note on Frank Rich:
Bloggers use links to give readers the opportunity to view their source material. When a blogger makes an assertion, you can typically check the validity of that assertion by following links to that blogger's source, and decide for yourself whether it's been properly analyzed.
When traditional media use links, they tend to point to that media outlet's collection of archived articles on the proper noun they've attached the link to.
So when a blogger says, "President Bush today announced his intention to invade Liechtenstein," that blogger would tend to attach the link to something like "announced his intention," and have it point to a newspaper article or White House press release containing a quote from Bush, saying, "I intend to invade Liechtenstein."
When a newspaper says, "President Bush today announced his intention to invade Liechtenstein," the links are on "President Bush," and "Liechtenstein." And they link to archived articles about President Bush and Liechtenstein, in every other context in which that paper has written about those subjects.
Useless.
Tweet of the Day
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show, an "encore performance" of our 10/14/13 show. Still in shutdown, almost at default. GunFAIL
inside termination hearing of gun nut cop Mark Kessler!
Greg Dworkin on the state of play on the shutdown & debt ceiling, and how the Tea Party = modern Birchers. Right wing protesters treated with kid gloves (unlike left wing protesters who get pepper sprayed & beaten).
Bruce McF's diaries pose an alternative to "The Coin." Then, the gun nut ploy to hijack the Sandy Hook anniversary, as noted by
verbalpaintball. Finally, how House Gop altered the rules to block a clean CR, and how they're moving to undo the Dem discharge petition.
Find us on iTunes | Find us on Stitcher | RSS | Donate to support the show!
High Impact Posts • Top Comments