Tag Archives: Gun

May 12, 2013 · 7:29 AM

Guns in the home proving deadly for kids

Guns

USA Today

While efforts at gun control are still being fought, children’s advocates are urging parents and communities to take their own steps to protect kids.

He didn’t know the gun was loaded.

The 14-year-old Massachusetts boy had recently found his mother’s handgun, which she kept hidden under her mattress for protection.

“Promise me you’ll never touch it,” his mother, a single mom, had asked him.

But the lure of the gun was irresistible. He decided to show it off to his neighbor, 12-year-old Brian Crowell.

“He was going, ‘Click, click, click,’” pretending to shoot the gun, says Brian’s mother, Ann Marie Crowell, who spoke to the child and his mother after the incident. “But there was one last bullet. It went into Brian’s neck.”

And just like that, Crowell’s son was gone.

Nearly 800 children under 14 were killed in gun accidents from 1999 to 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly one in five injury-related deaths in children and adolescents involve firearms.

Although mass shootings get more attention, children are far more likely to be killed at home.

Through homicide, suicide and accidents, guns cause twice as many deaths in young people as cancer, five times as many as heart disease and 15 times as many as infections, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Continue reading here…

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May 6, 2013 · 8:31 AM

Another Toddler Dies From Self-Inflicted Gun Shot – This Time Three Year-Old In AZ

I really don’t like the NRA nor its cowardly servants in Congress…

Addicting Info

It seems like an everyday thing now. You get online or turn on the TV and there it is. Another headline of a child/toddler getting hold of a gun, playing with a gun, and dying by a gun.

Some of he public and media seems to getting tired or numb to such stories. The Arizona death of a 3-year old, didn’t even make it to mainstream media news, and it’s been four days. Why? Is this kind of story no longer shiny and sexy news? I’m angry. Children –babies are dying for no good reasons, while pompous NRA advocates are finding more ways to lobby/buy more pro-gun laws. In Arizona, the state where this child died, Governor Jan Brewer passed two anti-safety gun laws this very week. One demands resale of guns that were brought to community gun buybacks events, by citizens, wanting to help get firearms off the street and out of the hands of wrong people. Brewer ignored those citizens and also passed a law making it illegal to gather or maintain background checks on current gun owners. Yes, you read that right.

I wonder if the Arizona governor has any feelings about this toddler’s death. If so, did it cause her to rethink her new laws? At three, many children are still in diapers. How the hell do we live in a country, where a toddler can so easily find a gun, and shoot himself in the face?  How many innocent children, and adults are going to die in this country before all lawmakers start doing the right thing.

3,835 wrongful deaths have occurred by guns, since the Sandy Hook gun massacre. That’s over 75% of the total American deaths in the Iraq war (4,486 U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq)  About 70 of the known gun deaths since Sandy Hook have been children. This means we have basically allowed three more Sandy Hook Massacres to take place, one child at a time.  Here are three very recent tragic child deaths;

This week, in Yuma Arizona,  3-year old, Darrien Nez, shot himself after finding a 9mm pistol in his 35-year old grandmother’s backpack

 April 30, in Kentucky, a 5-year old boy shoots and kills his 2-year old sister with a .22 caliber rifle he received as a gift.

April 17, in Kansas,  a 7-year old, Gavin Brummett,  shot himself in the head while firing a semiautomatic handgun. He was on a family shooting trip.  

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May 2, 2013 · 7:24 PM

Two-year-old gets shot and killed and, yawn, it’s just another day in America

USA Gun Map : http://mariopiperni.com/

More on the shooting of a two-year old child by her five-year old brother from Piperni…

Mario Piperni

America’s gun culture takes another life.

Authorities in southern Kentucky say a 2-year-old girl has been accidentally shot and killed by her 5-year-old brother, who was playing with a .22-caliber rifle he received as a gift.

…the boy received the rifle made for youths last year and is used to shooting it. He said the gun was kept in a corner and the family didn’t realize a shell was left inside it.

It’s difficult to say anything meaningful any longer that adds to the conversation on guns. It’s all been said a thousand times…but I’ll say this anyway. Yes, there are no gun laws that one could put in place that would prevent parents from acting irresponsibly. No amount of legislation can overcome stupidity. Got it.

But is there not something seriously wrong with a gun culture where this statement,

“In rural southern Kentucky, far removed from the national debate over gun control, where some children get their first guns even before they start first grade.“

…is true? Under what set of rules is it acceptable to place in the hands of a 4-year-old a weapon that could blow off another person’s head with a twitch of a finger?

For anyone who doesn’t find that argument convincing, just know that another 86 Americans will be killed by guns today – 30 by murder, 53 by suicide, 2 accidentally and 1 by police intervention. Add to that the 86 Americans who were killed by guns yesterday…and the 86 who will be killed by guns tomorrow…and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that…

For a little perspective on the matter, you might recall that in 2010, drop-side cribs were outlawed because over the previous 10 years, an average of 3 children a year were killed by moving side rails in cribs. Three deaths a year was enough to move the government to act. Fortunately, there was no powerful crib lobby in Washington pushing to have drop-side cribs left in place because, “cribs don’t kill babies, people do.” Also, there was no 240-year-old constitutional amendment stating that, “A well regulated Baby’s Room, being necessary to the freedoms of a Happy Family, the right of the people to purchase drop-side cribs, shall not be infringed.”

There was none of that. There was only data that 3 children a year were dying and something could be done to stop it.

We know that 58 children, including 2, 3, 4 and 5-year-olds, have been killed since the Newtown school shooting…and yet, not a damn thing is being done to stop it or to attempt to reduce the number of preventable deaths. Nothing.

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· 11:37 AM

5-Year-Old Boy Killed Sister With Gun Made For Kids

The sad part about this is that it won’t phase gun advocates one iota…

Think Progress

On Wednesday, a five-year-old Kentucky boy accidentally shot and killed his two-year-old sister with a gun he’d been given as a birthday present. The weapon, a small rifle, wasmanufactured specifically for children’s use.

The boy’s weapon was a “My First Rifle” .22-caliber gun from Keystone Sporting Arms’ youth branch, Crickett. Crickett’s website markets itself “especially for youth shooters.” The firearms come in several neon colors, and the website even has a “kids corner” featuring pictures of small children with guns:

Crickett does not manufacture bullets. The company offers books for “Grades 2-3 and up,” and says their guns are “ideally sized for children four to ten years old.”

The militarization of children has been tragically spotlighted in the aftermath of the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut last December. Since then, the country has paid heart-sickening attention to the myriad accidental shootings that have taken place around the country, and the growth of a market of bulletproof children’s clothing.

In one week alone last month, four people were shot by toddlers.

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February 19, 2013 · 8:31 PM

Flash a gun, get 15% off your pizza (seriously)

What’s happening to the country?

America Blog

A pizza joint in Virginia Beach, Virginia is offering a 15% discount to anyone who flashes a weapon in the store.

Gun nuts have been doing a lot of this since the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre, when a young man took his gun-nut mother’s guns and shot dead 20 six- and seven- year old children, taking care to shoot each child three times before moving on to the next child, in order to ensure they were truly dead.

So the gun-nut response to Sandy Hook is to get gun-nuttier.

You’d almost think they were the victims of Sandy Hook, the way the gun nuts are responding.  They’re the aggrieved party because the country got more than a bit upset that one of their own decided to go on a rampage, yet again, against innocent people, in this case small children.

So the gun nuts have decided they need to flaunt their guns in public, rub them in our faces, lest anyone get “too” upset about the mass slaughter of first-graders two weeks before Christmas.

Case in point: All Around Pizza and Deli in Virginia Beach, Virginia, offering a 15% discount to anyone who openly carries a weapon into the pizza joint or who showed a concealed carry permit.

All Aound Pizza gun ad

And who can forget the Utah gun nut who in mid-January went into a JC Penny with his assault rifle and a Glock in order to “make a statement.”  Folks got his statement, all right.

gun-nut-jc-penney-utah

One of these days, one of these guys is going to be mistakenly shot dead, by either a patron or the cops. But it’s actually worse than that.  Contrary to the notion that more guns make you safe, in places like Virginia and Utah, where gun nuts like to flaunt their guns in public, you won’t know when the next gunman comes into a place of business whether he’s a nut or a gun nut.  You really won’t know whether to call the cops until he’s shot his first child dead, then you’ll know to call.  That’s a problem.

Think about it.  If Sandy Hook Elementary had permitted guns at the school, and teachers had seen Adam Lanza, the guy who perpetrated the massacre, carrying a gun, they  might not be sure what to think.  Maybe he was a pistol-packing parent?  Or a Sherrif-Arpaio-type vigilante “posse” there to help keep the kids safe.  No one would really be sure.  And no one would call the cops, or challenge him, until the first bodies dropped. Just imagine the outrage, and the lawsuit, if you dared challenge a gun nut about why he was carrying a gun at a school?  You’d be violating his Second Amendment rights by even asking.

And could you imagine the 911 call?

Hello, Virginia 911.
Yes, there’s a man, he’s got a gun.
Yeah, so?
What do you mean ‘yeah so’? I’m calling from a pre-school.
Did he shoot anyone?
No.
Call us back when he kills someone.

Mass murderer, or just another guy with a fetish for violence?  The difference is becoming increasingly difficult to discern.

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January 29, 2013 · 12:49 AM

Father Of Newtown Victim Heckled While Calling For Gun Control

Is it insanity or callousness?

Either way, this nation and especially our children are in grave danger if trying to implement some control on assault weapons is not taken seriously.

No one is looking to take anyone’s hunting guns or home protection weapons away here.  Yet, no one needs an assault weapon to shoot a deer.  A decent handgun or rifle can stop a home intruder in their tracks.

In the case below, the “gun control” hearing was about limiting the rounds on an automatic weapons to ten…

Alan Colmes’ Liberaland

Neil Heslin, the father of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, was in the minority at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford, where hundreds wore yellow armbands reading, “Another responsible gun owner.”

Heslin, the father of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, who was killed by Lanza, was puzzled by the protests, by the assertions that their families will be unsafe if they are limited to 10-round magazines, as is proposed by one bill.

“We’re not living in the Wild West,” Heslin said.

Heslin, who grew up hunting, said he was wary about a widespread ban on firearms, but he also said he could imagine no reason why Nancy Lanza or any parent would have owned a weapon like the AR-15, a semiautomatic modeled after the military’s fully automatic M-16.

“The sole purpose of those AR-15s or AK-47s is to put a lot of lead out on the battlefield quickly, and that’s what they do. And that’s what they did at Sandy Hook Elementary School on the 14th,” Heslin said.

When he wondered aloud how such guns could be privately owned, someone shouted, “The Second Amendment!”

Heslin spoke while holding a gilt-framed portrait of him and his son, taken when Jesse was a baby.

Neil Heslin on the Sandy Hook Shooting

This is Mr. Heslin on the evening of the Sandy Hooks shootings appearing on Piers Morgan’s show.

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January 15, 2013 · 12:19 AM

The NRA’s New Shooting App Is for Kids of the Same Age of Sandy Hook Victims (and Up)

Unbelievable.  Where’s the logic in this sort of thing, given what happened a month ago?

Gizmodo

Here is some free PR advice for the National Rifle Association: Now is not the time to release a target practice iOS app—especially one intended for kids. According to the NRA, the app is intended for children as young as age four.

In Target Practice you can choose to test your skills in an indoor or outdoor range or opt to shoot skeet. You get to pick your weapon, and you can pony up $1 to unlock better (more powerful) guns. For example, in the outdoor range your default is an M16, but you can upgrade to an AK47 or an MK11 if you pay. It’s really just a point-and-shoot game, but the fact that it’s meant for kids is straight up stupid.

It would be a different story if the app were teaching kids about gun safety. As advertised, Target Practice does give safety tips, but they aren’t the kinds of things that are going to keep a child from accidentally setting off a gun in the home. They’re tidbits like, “keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot” or “know your target and what is beyond it.” And the official Safety Tips section just takes you out of the app to the NRA’s website.

Not that it should surprise you at this point, but the organization really missed an opportunity here. This would be an excellent time to teach kids about gun safety; too many children are killed each year by accidentally setting off firearms in their homes. Kids see guns in games and they think guns in real life are games. That’s just how innocent minds work. And that’s what makes this app—like most moves this out of touch lobbyist group has made in recent memory—both poorly timed and poorly executed. How about something productive for once? I guess that’s too much to ask of an organization whose only interest is to get guns into peoples’ hands. [The Appside via TheNextWeb via App Store]

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January 8, 2013 · 3:47 AM

Piers Morgan, radio host who wants him deported face off

CNN

The man who wants Piers Morgan deported for advocating gun control faced off with the CNN host on Morgan’s show Monday night, denouncing Morgan as “a hatchet man of the New World Order” and warning of a new American revolution.

Radio talk show host Alex Jones backed a petition on the White House website calling on Morgan, a British citizen, to be deported “for his effort to undermine the Bill of Rights and for exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens.”

“We did (this) to point out that this is globalism, and the megabanks that control the planet and brag they have taken over in Bloomberg, AP, Reuters, you name it — brag they’re going to get our guns as well,” said Jones, who said his show is carried on 140 U.S. stations. “They have taken everybody’s guns but the Swiss and the American people. When they get our guns, they can have their world tyranny while the government buys 1.6 billion bullets, armored vehicles, tanks, helicopters. Predator drones, armed, now in U.S. skies, being used to arrest people in North Dakota.”

Morgan has been outspoken in calling for restrictions of semi-automatic rifles like the kind used in last year’s mass killings in Newtown, Connecticut, and Aurora, Colorado. But Jones said the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of a right to bear arms “isn’t there for duck hunting. It’s there to protect us from tyrannical government and street thugs.”

“Hitler took the guns. Stalin took the guns. Mao took the guns. Fidel Castro took the guns. Hugo Chavez took the guns. And I’m here to tell you, 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms,” Jones shouted.

“You’re a very loud man. You make a loud noise,” Morgan said at another point, as he attempted to quiz Jones about the comparative difference in firearm homicides between the United States and the United Kingdom, where 35 people were killed in shootings in 2012, compared to more than 11,000 in the United States.

Jones replied that Britain was “a total police state.”

“England has a lot lower gun crime rate, because you took all the guns,” Jones said. “But you’ve got hordes of people burning down cities and beating old ladies’ brains out every day.”

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July 13, 2011 · 7:17 AM

AZ GOPer: I Didn’t Aim My Loaded Gun At A Reporter — He Sat Down In Front Of It!

Once again, TFC looks at sorting out the crazies, and this AZ State Senator is at the top of the list in today’s headlines…

TPMMuckraker  

Arizona state Sen. Lori Klein (R) is disputing a reporter’s claim that she aimed her loaded gun at him during an interview, instead recounting that she was asked to show her gun and the reporter got up and sat down in the gun’s sight.

Here’s what we know happened.

Richard Ruelas wrote an article for the Arizona Republic about guns in Arizona, published Sunday, that described an interview he had with Klein in June. Klein is known for bringing her loaded raspberry pink .380 Ruger into the legislative chamber — most infamously in January, two days after the Giffords shooting in Tucson, when security tried to stop her.

In the piece, Ruelas writes that during the interview in the state Senate lounge, Klein pulled out her gun and pointed it at his chest. Here’s the key exchange:

“Oh, it’s so cute,” Klein said, as she unzipped the loaded Ruger from its carrying case to show a reporter and photographer. She was sitting on a leather couch in a lounge, just outside the Senate chamber.

She showed off the laser sighting by pointing the red beam at the reporter’s chest. The gun has no safety, she said, but there was no need to worry.

“I just didn’t have my hand on the trigger,” she said.

Continue reading here…  

 

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