WAGCEVP
October 18, 2003, 10:42 PM
Latest anti RKBA drivel from DesNews. Lock up your safety bill.
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More anti-gun drivel from the DesNews. How about if we let current neglect laws
handle this, just as we do with car keys, household chemicals, swimming pools
etc?
===========
<http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,515034578,00.html>
Legislature ignoring problem of gun safety
By Jay Evensen
Deseret Morning News
[Logo] An old superstition holds that bad things come in threes. If that
were true, Utah wouldn't see any more of its young people killed in accidental
shootings for a long while.
But old superstitions are seldom true. They are useless when it comes to
predicting the future or establishing public policies.
Last week, a 14-year-old Salt Lake boy died of a gunshot wound to the
head, which was inflicted by his 13-year-old friend. Somehow, the two of them
found themselves playing with two sawed-off shotguns and two handguns at a time
they should have been in school. Police were trying to figure out where and how
the two had come into possession of the weapons.
Earlier this month, a 12-year-old boy, the younger brother of one of my
children's classmates, died under similar circumstances. This time, the toy in
question was a .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol.
To round out the triumvirate, last June a 15-year-old boy shot himself to
death accidentally with a gun he found. That happened only a few blocks from
where last week's accident took place. Maybe that eerie connection closes the
circle on this pattern of threes.
Does anybody really believe that?
When innocent youths die accidentally at the hands of other innocent
youths, it's hard to ignore the situation. Yet that is what Utah's lawmakers do
with this problem, year after year.
First, I must make something clear. I am not a fan of gun-control. I do
not wish to repeal the Second Amendment.
Those are important matters to establish in this debate because in Utah
the gun lobby has turned any talk of a law requiring people to store guns safely
into a gun-control issue. That explains why, for most of a decade, a bill that
would make it a felony to leave a gun in a place where a child could get at it
didn't even get a committee hearing. It finally emerged earlier this year and
was voted down without much discussion.
If you vote to require parents to lock away guns, you might as well vote
to make them lock away liquid drain cleaners, baseball bats and swimming pools,
not to mention a host of other things that could be harmful to children. So goes
the argument Marla Kennedy often hears on Capitol Hill. She is executive
director of the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah, a prime force behind a
tougher law. That argument usually is followed closely by one that says the
government has no right to mandate what a person does within his or her home — a
dangerous argument to use if you support laws against sodomy.
But, of course, responsible parents already do put drain cleaners and ball
bats in places where vulnerable kids can't get them. They install locks on
cupboards and on gates to their pools. None of those things, however, is as
attractive to kids as a gun.
Not long ago, ABC's Primetime did an experiment in which it planted a
disabled gun in a place where teenagers, who had been trained how to handle such
situations, would find them. The boys in this experiment, unaware they were
being watched, seemed transformed by their discoveries. They picked up the
weapon, played with it, and even pointed it at friends.
Other studies, conducted by universities, have found the same thing. Many
teenagers lack the maturity to treat the sudden discovery of a gun properly. To
many youths, guns are seductive. Not so a bottle of Drain-O or a baseball bat.
Still, most Utah lawmakers want kids to be solely responsible for their
own gun safety.
The latest version of the bill, by the way, would not hold an adult
responsible if a minor took a gun that was within arm's length of an adult. You
could still sleep with one under your pillow, in other words. It would give
police and prosecutors discretion as to whether to charge someone, taking into
account the grief a parent may be experiencing.
A law wouldn't stop accidents from happening. It can't substitute for
plain old good parenting. But it would penalize people who are negligent. And,
yes, the number of accidental shooting deaths nationwide is on the decline, but
that is little comfort to anyone who knew the latest three victims.
Marla Kennedy, who plans to continue her fight, says, "As soon as someone
gives me one decent, common-sense reason as to why we don't need this law, I'll
stop."
Let's see. So far we have arguments that equate accidental child gunshots
to consuming drain cleaners, swinging baseball bats and falling into swimming
pools.
Maybe bad comparisons come in threes, as well.
ADVERTISEMENT
More anti-gun drivel from the DesNews. How about if we let current neglect laws
handle this, just as we do with car keys, household chemicals, swimming pools
etc?
===========
<http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,515034578,00.html>
Legislature ignoring problem of gun safety
By Jay Evensen
Deseret Morning News
[Logo] An old superstition holds that bad things come in threes. If that
were true, Utah wouldn't see any more of its young people killed in accidental
shootings for a long while.
But old superstitions are seldom true. They are useless when it comes to
predicting the future or establishing public policies.
Last week, a 14-year-old Salt Lake boy died of a gunshot wound to the
head, which was inflicted by his 13-year-old friend. Somehow, the two of them
found themselves playing with two sawed-off shotguns and two handguns at a time
they should have been in school. Police were trying to figure out where and how
the two had come into possession of the weapons.
Earlier this month, a 12-year-old boy, the younger brother of one of my
children's classmates, died under similar circumstances. This time, the toy in
question was a .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol.
To round out the triumvirate, last June a 15-year-old boy shot himself to
death accidentally with a gun he found. That happened only a few blocks from
where last week's accident took place. Maybe that eerie connection closes the
circle on this pattern of threes.
Does anybody really believe that?
When innocent youths die accidentally at the hands of other innocent
youths, it's hard to ignore the situation. Yet that is what Utah's lawmakers do
with this problem, year after year.
First, I must make something clear. I am not a fan of gun-control. I do
not wish to repeal the Second Amendment.
Those are important matters to establish in this debate because in Utah
the gun lobby has turned any talk of a law requiring people to store guns safely
into a gun-control issue. That explains why, for most of a decade, a bill that
would make it a felony to leave a gun in a place where a child could get at it
didn't even get a committee hearing. It finally emerged earlier this year and
was voted down without much discussion.
If you vote to require parents to lock away guns, you might as well vote
to make them lock away liquid drain cleaners, baseball bats and swimming pools,
not to mention a host of other things that could be harmful to children. So goes
the argument Marla Kennedy often hears on Capitol Hill. She is executive
director of the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah, a prime force behind a
tougher law. That argument usually is followed closely by one that says the
government has no right to mandate what a person does within his or her home — a
dangerous argument to use if you support laws against sodomy.
But, of course, responsible parents already do put drain cleaners and ball
bats in places where vulnerable kids can't get them. They install locks on
cupboards and on gates to their pools. None of those things, however, is as
attractive to kids as a gun.
Not long ago, ABC's Primetime did an experiment in which it planted a
disabled gun in a place where teenagers, who had been trained how to handle such
situations, would find them. The boys in this experiment, unaware they were
being watched, seemed transformed by their discoveries. They picked up the
weapon, played with it, and even pointed it at friends.
Other studies, conducted by universities, have found the same thing. Many
teenagers lack the maturity to treat the sudden discovery of a gun properly. To
many youths, guns are seductive. Not so a bottle of Drain-O or a baseball bat.
Still, most Utah lawmakers want kids to be solely responsible for their
own gun safety.
The latest version of the bill, by the way, would not hold an adult
responsible if a minor took a gun that was within arm's length of an adult. You
could still sleep with one under your pillow, in other words. It would give
police and prosecutors discretion as to whether to charge someone, taking into
account the grief a parent may be experiencing.
A law wouldn't stop accidents from happening. It can't substitute for
plain old good parenting. But it would penalize people who are negligent. And,
yes, the number of accidental shooting deaths nationwide is on the decline, but
that is little comfort to anyone who knew the latest three victims.
Marla Kennedy, who plans to continue her fight, says, "As soon as someone
gives me one decent, common-sense reason as to why we don't need this law, I'll
stop."
Let's see. So far we have arguments that equate accidental child gunshots
to consuming drain cleaners, swinging baseball bats and falling into swimming
pools.
Maybe bad comparisons come in threes, as well.