"No person driving or in charge of a motor vehicle shall permit it to stand unattended without first stopping the engine, locking the ignition, removing the key from the ignition, effectively setting the parking brake, and, when the motor vehicle is standing upon any grade, turning the front wheels to the curb or side of the highway." Ohio Revised Code 4511.661(A)One might think the same logic would apply to leaving a loaded gun lying around and particularly where unauthorized people and children might get to it. One would be right, at least in Homestead, Florida where Juan Manuel Martinez, Jr. described as a hard working truck driver and part time volunteer youth baseball coach handed his father a loaded AK-47 at a party and just to show it off.
For no sane reason, here was a 7.62X39 round in the chamber and the safety was off when Juan Sr. put it down on a picnic table where his six year old grandson saw it and pulled the trigger. Grandpa Juan Sr. was dead before he got to the hospital. According to the news, alcohol and perhaps some other drugs were involved as one so often hears when idiotic and ignorant things pertaining to firearms and cars are done.
Yes, this is a huge country and one in a million is a big number, but one still hears too many stories like this. It's not superfluous to say that according to the time honored principle of always treating any firearm as loaded even when you know for damn sure it isn't, the thing never should have been anywhere near a minor or displayed where there's a party and people are drinking -- or displayed at all in the opinion of this writer.
Again, Florida law holds Martinez Jr. responsible and he now faces charges of culpable negligence of a firearm with easy access to a minor. I'm sure he wasn't aware of the law and wasn't thinking about it, if in fact, he was thinking anything beyond "hey look at my cool toy" Which makes me wonder how effective laws are when practically no one reads or understands or knows about them. We constantly hear there aren't enough of them and simultaneously that there are too many of them but the most heated proclamations of that sort rarely involve specifics. Neither side of the great gun divide really likes specifics because those lead to reason and interfere with the zealotry.
Now Martinez didn't need any kind of permit to own that weapon and wasn't required to take any kind of training or pass any kind of test. If he had, perhaps he might be surprised like so many are, by how difficult the laws are to understand even for lawyers, but he would, even with the meager level of education for a permit in Florida, been aware that to do what he did was illegal even if he didn't realize it was massively stupid.
In fact although I'm licensed to carry a concealed weapon, I'm scared to do it because of laws that can make it illegal to use a gun to frighten an assailant or to display it in anger -- but not to kill him with it. You'll recall the Florida woman sentenced to 20 years for using a gun to warn off someone against whom she had a restraining order. Is it so awful to think that requiring someone to learn the relevant laws and rules of safety might not really run afoul of the second amendment -- and might just increase public safety?
But I'm not going to get into the need for more or less in the way of legislation, I'm going to argue against ignorance and for teaching the public about what they can and cannot do, about what they should and shouldn't do with a dangerous thing like a gun. The people who used to make it a business to teach safety have gone rogue and turned paranoid -- the other side is also often so paranoid that it fears safety education will interfere with their mission and in a nation so well armed and poorly informed there is a need no one is there to fill.
Of course there is far less sturm und drang when it comes to the equally tragic weekly stories of kids left in hot cars to die, strangled by pet snakes, drowned in pools and swimming holes, beaten, neglected, poisoned and starved. Our concerns about guns are too choreographed and involve so many stereotypes and straw men and political shibboleths to leave us room to consider that child safety has so much to do with informed and responsible adult behavior. Reducing the stupid factor might just be an effective way to reducing such tragedy whether it's about pools, hot tubs, hot cars and hot lead and it is something we can start to do right now and without having to resolve our passionate differences. Can't we all agree?
Unfortunately we cannot all agree. Joe the Plumber said this week that his gun rights trump your dead child. That was after yet another killing of 7 (3 by knife) and his comments are representative of the pro gun crowd.
ReplyDeleteCheck out: mikeb302000.blogspot.com
A site about gun crimes, and sadly this kind of thing happens everyday.
As if there was a monolithic "gun crowd." I'm trying to get way from the pernicious use of stereotypes that prevent us from addressing common interests. Is the guy who lives in an Alaskan cabin, owns a lodge on Kodiak Island or raises cattle in Montana part of the gun crowd or is it the 17 year old gang banger or the wealthy Liberal who belongs to a country club and shoots skeet? What about my flintlock, my 19th century percussion guns? What gun crowd am I part of. Am I an outlaw biker because I own a Harley, a userer because I'm a Jew, a communist because I voted for Obama?
DeleteI would prefer to address my arguments more accurately. Otherwise this becomes another shit-flinging contest.
I'm not in favor of refusing to look for solutions just because my tribe doesn't advocate or does advocate some approach exclusively.
Sorry, laws that cover the nation cannot address individual differences. And we need better gun laws if we have a chance of stopping some of the carnage. Fence sitting will not solve this problem, as it has never solved any problem. There will be some winners and losers, as long as the death rate from gun shot goes down. If you read Madison there is historic first hand evidence that the 2nd amendment was not addressing anything but the armed militia question, but we don't have to solve that debate to pass laws and regulations that help stop gun shot deaths. When a grandfather leaves a loaded weapon on a picnic table with young children around and gets shot by a 3 year old, is that an accident, or negligence on the part of the grandfather? The difference of the word usage is if it is an accident there is no punishment, or lesson learned by the gun owner, or other gun owners. Maybe if those idiots got punishment their behavior would change. That's the aim of any law and it works. So sorry but the differences you talk about are keeping us from taking the steps to stop some of the carnage. If you are a hunter in Alaska you should have nothing to fear from a background check before you get your hunting weapon, but it might stop some city banger from getting a gun and killing someone.
DeleteYou're aware that we already have background checks and much more thorough ones for carry permits including sending your fingerprints to the FBI? We're not going to get anywhere by making vague calls for stricter gun laws without something a bit more concrete and a bit more aware of what's already on the books. But I'm not talking about hardened criminals but about careless handling and storage of firearms.
DeleteAs I mentioned, both father and grandfather broke the law - a real law with penalties attached. How much more law do you think it would take to stop such things? How many laws that the public is unaware of do we need? How many gang bangers get their guns from a dealer and do the three day waiting period like good little boys. I do not share your faith in making bad things go away by putting laws on the books where only the lawyers can see them - sorry.
Punishment doesn't stop crime else there would be less crime where there was more punishment and losing a child or grandchild makes a jail term a bit superfluous. Sorry, but I cannot understand an approach that denies the benefit of education. If you had to learn a tenth of what you need to know to get a driver's license to get a gun owners permit, fewer accidental shootings would occur.
But this is all a perfect example of polarization and arrogance and what keeps any chance of progress from happening, isn't it? No cooperation with the ritually impure, with infidels who don't say the right words in the right sequence.
The Error of Mystification. There is an article of faith in science that everything is knowable, or at least potentially knowable. People who invoke The Error of Mystification may claim that some things are beyond the reach of human understanding and are therefore unknowable, that some phenomena occur at random, that certain lines of inquiry are off limits, that what we now know is all we need to know, and recursive studies will not improve our knowledge and therefore constitute a waste of taxpayer money. The Error of Mystification is merely another error of logical reasoning; and the people who invoke it often have a bias or special interest agenda. Often what they really want is a premature closure of inquiry to keep us in a permanent state of mystification ... and ignorance.
ReplyDeleteThe NRA trades on errors of mystification and wants to keep it this way by blocking serious research into gun violence. The NRA ...
Punished the Centers for Disease Control for publishing data on major causes of death including death by firearms - stripping $2.6 million from the CDC budget (the amount spent on the death by firearm study);
Successfully outlawed Federal research grants with this provision: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control;”
Introduced bills in the state legislatures of Alabama, Florida, and North Carolina to ban doctors from asking their patients if they owned or kept a gun in the house (with no exemption for patients who are depressed, suicidal, or seriously disturbed).
The NRA wants the American public to believe that the issue of gun violence is an intractable problem with no possible legislative solution, and that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” In other words, the NRA wants to keep us in a permanent state of mystification because ignorance breeds fear, and fear means more guns.
"The Error of Mystification may claim that some things are beyond the reach of human understanding and are therefore unknowable,"
ReplyDeleteIndeed. I think it's close to the heart of our culture in many ways. How many old Sci-fi movies had some sententious dude in a white coat telling us "there are things man was not intended to know?" Of course it's an attempt to stifle science and it's been around at least since the Tower of Babel story. Icarus never should have tried to fly, you know and of course Galileo should never have looked through that telescope at God's secrets.
We can't know what next years climate will be or tomorrow's weather so why bother with global warming? It's all random and damn the mountains of data that prove otherwise.
But ask why in the same town, the most dangerous neighborhoods may have fewer guns than the safest and you're walking on eggshells. Try to study the correlation between regulations and results and your exit may be replete with tar and feathers. I've been there too many times And sure as hell someone will poison the well with talk of the boogeyman. Nobody owns the "don't make waves" attitude.
And yes, Premature Closure of Inquiry indeed!
While everything may not be knowable right now mystification is self fulfilling and intentionally so, but I think I can demonstrate that attitude in almost any movement, intellectual, academic, social and political and I feel it's necessary to avoid falling into opposite but equal positions. That's exactly what Nietzsche meant and as we know, when you're out of Nietzsche, you're out of truth.
Here's my closing argument and summation. I think we can save some lives through educating some people and perhaps instituting some sort of licensing. Not a total solution, not a condemnation of anyone, but a way we can save a few lives. It's a suggestion than might make partial converts out of the vast number of people in the no man's land between the opposing sides.
Captain,
DeleteSome months ago, we talked in theory about liability insurance mandates for gun owners similar to state laws that require owners of motor vehicles to carry some minimum standard of accident and liability coverage. A simple solution with hidden serendipity:
Like victims of auto accident victims, gun accidents victims and/or their survivors will be entitled to automatic coverage for medical expenses, lost wages, the right to litigate claims for pain and suffering or loss of life, among other reimbursements.
From a profit windfall viewpoint, I think the insurance industry would embrace the idea insomuch as the universe of gun owners represents a lucrative new insurance market.
From a political viewpoint, insurance companies may impose requirements on gun owners that would gridlock any legislature, such as trigger locks, safe gun storage, and an inventory of weapons per households (a backdoor and less contentious approach to outright gun registration). A mandated insurance requirement, plus additional conditions imposed by insurance carriers, would encourage more responsible gun ownership - while giving law enforcement one more tool to force compliance.
From a lobbying viewpoint, the concept would array one powerful industry group against another thus neutralizing the power of the NRA.
Overall, insurance companies may impose reforms and standards that would stymie most legislatures - in effect ”privatizing” gun control. What conservative politician could resist this proposition?
We can be sure that the paranoid right would raise holy hell, suddenly taking the side of the poor folk who can afford a $2,500 rifle and a $10,000 shotgun but not insurance, but it might help. It would certainly create jobs.
DeleteHell, allow the NRA to sell the insurance and make them pass up some huge profits when they argue the constitution forbids infringing on that right to irresponsibility they claim all other rights depend on. I suppose that my personal umbrella policy would cover an accidental shooting already, but it certainly won't cover illegal or reckless or criminal use nor will any liability policy, but it's a damn good idea to be insured, required or not.
Would it have been a factor in preventing the shooting in question though? I'm concerned here with accidental shootings, not crime. Registration, waiting periods, limits on ammunition quantities, number of guns owned, background checks. . . irrelevant. Even the laws about gun handling didn't prevent it and probably because nobody reads the law or hears about them. Why not? There's actually a lot of pressure from gun control advocates not to talk about safety, perhaps because the possibility of safe gun handling argues against the stereotypes and straw men the zealous depend on: "guns are evil and gun owners are sick bastards and potential murderers"
Is there any reason NOT to spend a tiny fraction of the money we spend on demonstrations to tell people not to leave guns where kids can get them? Obviously the message hasn't got out yet. We spend money telling the public to wear life jackets, to drive sober, to prevent forest fires - not to leave their kids and dogs in closed cars, use sun screen. Lock up your guns? Eeeewwww guns! don't talk about guns!
It's a sad state but in my experience most of the stupid are that way by choice. Usually for selfish reasons and many times these reasons are stupid like not wanting to be inconvenienced. I wish I could put Joe the Plumber in this category as we share a first name but he is one of the legitimately stupid people. Easily exploited by groups like the NRA. This disproves the theory of ignorance being bliss cause most of these right wing, pro gun at all costs ignoramuses are angry all the time.
ReplyDeleteI agree, there seems to be a 'culture of stupid' and a proud one that loves to mock the less stupid. How smart do you have to be to lock up the gun when you are having a party with booze and drugs. How much of a genius do you have to be to make sure you kids can't get to guns and that the ammunition is kept separate and trigger locks are in place?
DeleteHow much would it cost to run some PSAs about this?
Ezra Klein brings up some interesting points vis-a-vis gun culture in Isreal and Switzerland.
ReplyDeleteWe actually could learn something from the Swiss on gun control measures.
Yes we could. Switzerland doesn't have the 'cultural' diversity we have by any means: millions of unemployed, uneducated, drunk and stoned, but shooting is probably the most popular sport and it's shocking to an American to see machine guns in hardware store windows and mobs of guys carrying full auto military weapons in train stations on weekends.
DeleteThey have a militia and universal conscription and virtually everyone is trained. We keep such things in the closet and are afraid to talk about guns - hoping they will just go away if we pass more and more secret gun laws without regard to enforceability or self-contradiction.
In contrast to the US, they don't have a huge prison population and the law is respected. We have a culture of armed scofflaws pointing their guns at people.