The headline at Think Progress, “5 People Shot At 3 Different Gun Shows On Gun Appreciation Day” was too perfect not to re-use in this case.
CNN describes yesterday’s “Gun Appreciation Day” festivities this way today…
The most casualties came at the Dixie Gun and Knife Show in Raleigh, North Carolina, where attendees bolted — with at least one woman wiping out in the frenetic scene — when gunfire rang out around 1 p.m., as seen on video captured by CNN affiliate WRAL.
Here’s video from the NC gun show revealing the freedom fighters there scrambling after a 12-guage shotgun “accidentally discharged”, injuring three people…
In Ohio, one man is hospitalized in stable condition today “after being shot by his business partner at a gun show” in the northern part of the state yesterday. It seems the owner of the Taurus semi-automatic 9mm handgun “brought the firearm into the show fully loaded,” despite a policy barring loaded weapons.
Why, since NRA stooges tell us that “guns make us safer”, are they not allowed to carry loaded weapons at gun shows, of all places? Seems, I dunno, hypocritical.
“In Indianapolis,” the CNN report continues describing the third incident yesterday, “a man walking out of the Indy 1500 Gun and Knife Show shot himself in the hand as he was loading his .45-caliber semi-automatic firearm, Indiana State Police said in a statement.”
In a less amusing incident Saturday, also on “Gun Appreciation Day”, tragedy struck in Georgia, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, when a 14-year old boy playing with his 15-year old brother and a friend spending the night, got access to his mother’s unloaded gun, loaded the weapon, pointed it at the older brother and “accidentally” killed him.
As journalist Brooke Jarvis tweeted yesterday, appropriately enough, a 1998 study on guns in homes found that “For every use in self defense, there were 4 accidental shootings, 7 assaults/homicides, & 11 suicide attempts.”
But, ya know, guns don’t kill people. Gunshot wounds from guns in people’s houses kill people.
UPDATE 1/21/12: “Gun Appreciation Day” had an even darker ending in New Mexico, with yet another 15-year old involved, as Albuquerque Journal reports…
The suspect in custody is the couple’s 15-year-old son, Nehemiah Griego, who neighbors said often wore “nothing but camouflage” and wanted to be in the army.
“I’ve never seen a scene quite like this,” Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan Houston said at a news conference Sunday morning.
The teen is accused of using several weapons, including a “military style” assault rifle, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, to kill his parents and three youngest siblings.
…
Nehemiah told neighbors he wanted to be a soldier. He always wore army clothing and camouflage, but he wasn’t allowed to play violent video games, according to one neighbor, since the boy’s parents didn’t allow anything “dirty or violent” and limited TV watching.
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So the question for five gun show attendees: Do you now appreciate the gun that shot you? Or are you still basking in the belief that guns don’t shoot people.
Someone said that if guns don’t kill people then why don’t we just send people (& no guns) to war?
The key word in “a 1998 study on guns in homes found that “For every use in self defense,…” is ‘1998’. The CDC has been barred by Congress from studying gun deaths since then, or at analyzing and releasing data.
The worst gun show incident: in 2008 an 8 year old at a gun show a few years ago accidentally shot himself on the range, with a fully automatic micro UZI. The lawsuit provided this quote from ABC News:
“Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, has been following the case and was astonished that the father filmed the incident in the first place.
Helmke said there are about 600 unintentional gun deaths in the U.S. each year.”
Is it really that difficult to figure out where gun heaven was created?
The fact that more people don’t get injured from guns in a country awash with them seems to suggest that the system itself is sound, but there are probably cracks in the system where most of these problems could be traced back to. i.e. gun shows, poor screening of prospective gun owners, Ted Nugent. Err.
Irwin Mainway @4 wrote:
That ban has not extended to private institutions, like the Harvard School of Public Health, whose Harvard Injury Control Research Center reported:
Their study discloses a direct correlation between the availability of guns and deaths, adding: “We found that states with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm homicide and overall homicide.”
What guns would Jesus Own?
We do know that Jesus commanded his disciples to arm themselves with swords so that they could defend themselves if someone attacked them on the roads.
Luke 22:36.
It’s interesting that he said this directly to people of little means, to the poor. Just like Gary Kleck’s studies indicate that firearms ownership and moderate training is the cheapest thing a poor person can do to greatly increase his safety.