Never-ending Fools with Guns =
Never-ending American Gun Tragedies
by Brian Thomas Armstrong
by Brian Thomas Armstrong
“In a study of 23 high-income nations, 87 percent of
children under age 15 killed by guns
lived in the United States.
lived in the United States.
The same study found that
the gun homicide rate for teens and young adults
in the U.S. ages 15-24 was 42.7% higher than in
the other high-income countries combined.” (http://www.futureswithoutviolence.org/)
Last year in the beginning of 2013,
a 3
year old boy in South
Carolina got a hold of a small pink hand-gun that looked like a toy, and then
accidentally and fatally shot himself in the head. The boy’s seven year old
sister was also in the room with the child, luckily avoiding being shot herself
while her and her brother played with the small hand gun in a bedroom
unattended. The children’s grandparents where both in another room when the boy
shot himself; his parents were not home.
This year after several more well publicized mass-shootings and heated political debates on the subject of gun control, and mostly stalemate over the right to bare arms, there has not been much national progress in reducing or solving gun violence, let alone addressing public carelessness when it comes to active gun control and gun ownership.
This year after several more well publicized mass-shootings and heated political debates on the subject of gun control, and mostly stalemate over the right to bare arms, there has not been much national progress in reducing or solving gun violence, let alone addressing public carelessness when it comes to active gun control and gun ownership.
The latest shooting
range accident involving a
nine year old girl at the Burgers
and Bullets Range in White Hills, Arizona, highlights
the reckless stupidity factor of gun nuts, when the young girl fatally shot her
shooting range instructor in the head with an Uzi sub-machine-gun while being
taught to fire the weapon on - FULL AUTO!
The tragedy at Burgers and Bullets was not a first national travesty
of stupidity involving a young child at a firing range being given Uzi
sub-machine-gun lessons. In 2008, an 8-year-old Christopher
Bizilj also tragically and
accidentally killed himself while shooting an Uzi at a Massachusetts gun show
Fools with guns cause just as much pain and tragedy as
being mentally ill with a handgun. Universal background checks help, but
certainly they are not a cure for a lack of common sense, sanity, or human
decency in the firearm owner. What we need are good reasons for someone to have
a hand gun permit in order to get a hand gun, funded safety courses that do not
involve machine gun lessons, and of course thorough background checks - Then
society as a whole can truly say that we are all using common sense,
rationality, and human decency ourselves when it comes to real gun control and
public safety in America - For All Americans.
Ø 2694 children and teens died from guns
in 2010. That’s a roughly equivalent to a Newtown
massacre every three days.
Ø Between 1979 and 2010, more children
and teens died from guns
(119,079) than U.S. soldiers in the wars in Vietnam,
Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
Ø In a study of 23 high-income nations,
87 percent of children under age 15 killed by guns lived in
the United States. The same study found that the gun
homicide rate for teens and young adults
in the U.S. ages 15-24 was 42.7 higher than in the
other high-income countries combined.
Ø More than half of youth who commit
suicide with a gun do so with one obtained from their
home—and more often than not, the gun belonged to a
parent.
Ø In 2009, more 15-19 year-olds died
from gun violence than any other cause except motor
vehicles.
Ø In 2010, 82 U.S. children under the
age of five died from guns.
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