It seems I sure stirred up a pot of opinions when I started this thread
While I'm not one to normally beat the political drum around here, I chose to comment on this particular issue as the result of a conversation that I recently had with some of my anti-gun relatives. To summarize that debate, my uninformed relatives firmly believed (as do many anti-gun folks) that a gun is capable of 'just going off' as a matter of normal function...
While we here at THR all realize that this is a completely foolish notion, many folks who are not accustomed to handling firearms do not. As such, I feel that the media has played into those fears quite a bit when you consider their choice of verbage. I'm far from a black helicopter watching conspiracy theorist, but I do think that today's media outlets thrive on using attention grabbing titles and creatively pointed statements! This issue goes far beyond just firearms issues... Surely anyone who regularly reads any form of print media has laughed at some of these misleading stories in the past (for that matter, ever notice how the stories that are teased throughout the evening news rarely live up to the hype?).
Anyway, I felt that this thread also had another point to be made, beyond just looking at my over analyzation of the article itself! That second, and perhaps far more important point, is that a person lost his life as the result of some moron's foolishness. And, beyond all of the obvious ramifications to that particular family, I feel that incidents like these tend to turn the tide of public opinion against gun owners.
Most of us already safely handle firearms, and that means that I'm largely preaching to the choir here. Nevertheless, we should always be mindful of those opportunities where we can help to educate a gun owner who doesn't have the experience and/or presence of mind that we do!