1 less gun for grandkids to worry about

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Preaching to the Choir

Gentlemen, your postings are excellent; some even brillant. Do you think it might be more helpful to share that knowledge with the lady by sending her an e-mail with the true facts? Of course the idea that she and Lew were sitting around discussing guns is absurd. And even more absurd is him coming up with this data off the top of his head - just right on the spot.

Smacks of outright lies but that would not be polite to state. Send her a nice note - never pass up an opportunity to shed light in darkness and liberals hate the truth instead of "feelings".

Tell her the truth - tell us how you feel. By the way, her boss is Ed Williams and his e-mail address is [email protected]

John
Charlotte, NC
 
In the 10 years ending in 2006, 486 children under age 18 in North Carolina, alone, died from gun-related injuries.

I wonder if this is all children under age 18 even gang bangers or others shot while committing a crime or actually the number from NDs/ADs, as it just says gun-related injuries.
 
"NATIONWIDE there are less than 200 children killed in firearms accidents PER YEAR."

The actual number is around 60, making firearms accidents one of the least likely forms of death, behind car crashes, burnings, suffocations, poisonings, and fatal falls. You read correctly, more children die every year from falling down than from gun accidents.
 
I see many people point out how dangerous other activities and items around the house are more dangerous than firearms. I even fell into the trap. What we need to send home to these "gun control advocates" is a cost/benefit argument. Part of that is stating statistics but it must also be put into perspective.

I'm not making any claims that my examples are true but for the sake of argument let's assume someone is more likely to get killed by lightning or hit by a meteor than killed by accidental discharge of a firearm in the home. They can, and probably do if given the chance, claim that by removing the firearm they have removed that threat, no matter how small that threat may be.

People die by electrocution but many people view that as an acceptable risk since the alternative is living without electrically powered modern conveniences. A certain number of people drown in their own bathtubs but that risk is quite low considering the risk of disease from not bathing regularly.

This is what we need to address:

Defenseless is better than discovering someone we love dead.

We need to talk about the chances of dying in one's own home at the hands of an attacker because one did not have a firearm to defend themselves versus the chances of dying as the result of an improperly handled firearm.

Here's something to show them. (From Gunfacts.info)
Myth: You are more likely to be injured or killed using a gun for self-defense
Fact: You are far more likely to survive a violent assault if you defend yourself with a gun. In episodes where a robbery victim was injured, the injury/defense rates were:
Resisting with a gun 6%
Did nothing at all 25%
Resisted with a knife 40%
Non-violent resistance 45%

Reading that makes me want to buy a handgun to defend myself in my home.
 
Defenseless is better than discovering someone we love dead.

Of course. There are actually a great many other situations that are "better than discovering someone we love dead."

Among my own favorite alternatives to "discovering someone we love dead" are eating tuna salad sandwiches prepared with homemade mayonaisse, relaxing in a hammock on a summer day, and reading a good novel. Best of all is to combine the three, because the combination of them is far more pleasurable "than discovering someone we love dead." I'd go even further and say that I would rather not find someone I don't love dead.

But it's not awfully bright to tell parents and grandparents that being defenseless is protection against "discovering someone we love dead." Otherwise good parents would make their children defenseless against all dangers, real and potential.

What parent or grandparent other than Mrs. Powell and her husband would lie in a hammock, eating a sandwich, and reading a good book while their grandchildren played with a strange dog whose mouth frothed with rabid spittle? A good parent or grandparent would, I think, discard the sandwich and the book and leap out of the hammock to defend the child they loved. And they would want an effective tool--anything that might work--to defend that child.

Defending the lives and wellbeing of people we love is perhaps the surest sign of our love. Mr. and Mrs. Powell, however, believe otherwise. They consider it a virtue to have their family defenseless. That's strange love indeed.

If defenselessness were any way to protect ourselves and our families, that knowledge would have preceded the Powells by many generations throughout the world. When the first cavedwellers saw their children attacked by fanged beasts they would not have lifted a hairy finger to defend their offspring. Leaping ahead to this century, if defenselessness worked as a way to prevent death the police and the military throughout the world would discard their weapons and body armor at the first sign of attack. Rosie O'Donnell, Ted Kennedy, and Michael Bloomberg would not be accompanied by armed bodyguards. Adam Walsh would be without a television program. The World Trade Center and the Murrah Federal Center would still be standing. Seat belts and car seats for children would be outlawed. Pedophiles would be in great demand as babysitters.

And Mrs. Powell's advice, applauded by her husband, would be sane and sound instead of mere drivel urged upon parents and grandparents whose children's lives will be in great danger if they believe what the Powells are trying to sell them as a good idea. Mr. and Mrs. Powell evidently care everything about their agenda and nothing at all about the lives of other people or their children.

We really were more intelligent in my day as a parent. People like the Powells would have been disregarded entirely or tarred and feathered, then ridden out of town on a rail.

In a sense, though, the Powells do us a favor. They and their newspaper seem dedicated to the creation of easy victims. Predators, madmen, and violent criminals prefer defenseless people to those who defend themselves and their children. In creating easy victims for the lawless and the insane, the Powells insure them a steady supply of prey. What predator is crazy enough to go after a grandchild whose families defend them when there are defenseless children readily at hand? What loving parent or grandparent with a functioning brain could possibly find any sense in Mrs. Powell's "Defenseless is better than discovering someone we love dead."
 
The whole discussion is rediculous.

Kids are taught how to use a Knife, Fork, Spoon, Microwave etc responsibly but somehow since 1980 something we cannot teach kids to behave responsibly around firearms?

The problem isn't firearms, nor is it kids....its PARENTS and GOV.

Parents that fail to be PARENTS and who expect GOV to make up for their failures to Parent.

I grew up in a house where shotguns and ammo were freely avail to me since I was ~8 years old. My first gun was a 12ga Winchester at the age of 12...no joke....I was told that I would grow into it...<lol> no big deal...hold it tight and you're fine.

My best friend was in a similar boat.....

At the age of 16 I bought my first car and Eric and I would go hunting after school.

We reloaded our own shells and had at LEAST 1lb of gunpowder at our disposal, several guns and a car.....never an issue because we knew the consequences of ****ing up with Guns and Ammo...not to mention our fathers getting a hold of us......

Point being that PARENTS are the PROBLEM today....teach kids to be responsible and what the consequences are and problems are few and far between.

I'm SO tired of weak excuses.
 
Amazing the figure is that low, considering that 82,000 kids in this state are exposed each year to unsafely stored firearms.
Quick someone do the math for her
486 children out of 82,000 unsafely stored firearms, what would that percentage be

What would the percentage be in her household if she was not one of the unsafe gun storers

The logic of these people escapes me
but logic seems to escape them too

That's because they're operating emotionally, not logically.

First off, the statistic she states is deceptive. How many of those "children" were indeed teenagers and not children, involved in crime and/or delinquency, and were killed by a gun by a fellow thug? I'd bet very close to 98%, and most of those would have been in the more urban cities.

Second, had her childhood friend been instructed that guns are to be treated as loaded all the frackin' time by her father and that you should check to see if a firearm is loaded when you pick it up in addition to having been told not to touch a gun, or that guns should never be pointed at someone you don't want to kill, or the girl's parents hadn't taught her to fear touching guns (instead, maybe said, "if you want to look, just ask"), then maybe that stupid situation could've been averted.
 
Battlespace...

These were friends....and education is King as they say. Read the story below and understand...the criminals in this story did not care wheter or not you have guns or leave them out for your children to play with....etc. etc. etc.

But know this, because I knew this family it is now WHY...I carry, WHY my family is familiar with firearms and firearm safety and WHY..when I walk in from work I place my pistol in its safe place, and all firearms are secure, and why when I leave for work my pistol goes with me...... I hope I never have to be a victim as my friends had to be, but if so I hope I can change the outcome.

This Should Explain It!

Charles Wesley Roache

Executed October 22, 2004 02:18 a.m. by Lethal Injection in North Carolina

Deceased- Murdered by the above!
Earl Phillips Age 72

Cora Owens Philips Age 71

Eddie Lewis Phillips Age 40

Mitzi Phillips Age 44

Katie Phillips Age 14

Chad McKinley Watt ( Did Not Him...He was murdered earlier by Roache)
W / M / 22 09-29-99 Shotgun None 04-24-01

Summary:
Roache and Chris Lippard were on the run from a 48 hour crime spree that included the killing of Chad Watt. Attempting to leave the state, Lippard drove their vehicle into a ditch, disabling it. Roache and Lippard walked towards the nearest house on Rabbit Skin Road in order to steal a car. This house was 126 Earl Lane, the home of Earl (72) and Cora Phillips (71). Lippard and Roache entered and held them at gunpoint. Roache then took guns from the house, bound the Phillips' hands with duct tape, then fled with Lippard in their 1986 Ford pickup truck. Driving away, Lippard overturned the truck. Lippard returned to the house. Defendant stayed behind to gather their items from the truck. Lippard then yelled for help and Roache saw Lippard fighting with a man, later determined to be the Phillips' son, Eddie. Roache shot Eddie once in the chest with the shotgun. Roache then reloaded the gun and went to the house with Lippard. They were confronted by Mitzi Phillips, Eddies wife. Roache broke open the door and shot her once in the face. Roache then followed their 14 year old daughter, Katie, into the bathroom and shot her once in the side of the head. Lippard and Roache then went to the living room and shot both Earl and Cora Phillips in the head. Three generations of a family were eliminated without provocation and without mercy. Roache was arrested later near the Phillips home, and immediately confessed to the murders. He later waived all appeals. Accomplice Lippard received a life sentence.

Roache was previously convicted and sentenced for Possession of Controlled Substance (1996), Breaking and Entering (1995), Larceny (1992), Breaking and Entering (1991), Larceny (1991), Breaking and Entering (1990), and misdemeanor assault and communicating threats.

GOD BLESS
 
"our grandchildren won't be among them -- not in our house."
I didn't read all three pages to see if anyone else got this. You all misunderstand the point. The grandchildren can find a gun in somebody else's house and shoot each other and everybody else - screw 'em, but not in our house.
 
My guess is that Mrs. Powell would be willing to write in favor of denying everyone the ability to keep firearms in their homes.
 
I guess perhaps I have guns in my house because I, at about the same age, faced a house hold full (family of perps) who broke-into our home. The one child, perhaps a year older than I wanted to know where the money and jewelry was, and advised me that if I told my parents that they were robbing us, they would kill me and my whole family.

I did tell my father...immediately! He broomed them out of our house. It's just a shame that even following that experience my parent never bought a firearm. The closest we ever came was a borrowed shotgun or rifle from a grandparent, an aunt or an uncle. One of those rifles, I believe, saved my life at about 17 years age.

For every sob story about it being for the kids, I can tell you two of people whose lives were saved by owning a firearm. Store the firearms safely. That's all that need be done for the children...store the firearms safely.
 
Battlespace,

When your alarm goes off, and you find your husband bleeding to death from a wound inflicted by an intruder, and your grandaughters are being raped by the hoodlums, what will you do - wait for the police to arrive??? Just think of those in CT who recently expereinced what in effect was the same thing. If they had guns ready, it could have had a very different ending than the father wounded, the wife killed, and the 2 daughters raped or molested and killed.

As for hundreds of children killed by guns in your state over 10 years, go and check out those killings in depth. I am willing to bet quite a bit that they wewre not killed by law abiding gun owners in accidental shootings but were killed in driveby shootings or during the commissions of other crimes wherein they were not the intended victims so it is labelled acidental, or killed while palying with an illegal gun that no one told them about (probably belonging to a dope dealing older sibling), or that none had ever expereinced gun safety lessons given to them by a responsible adult, and that none of them has ever learned how to shoot responsibly from a parent or grandparent.

I have had guns in my home, many of them, and ammunition too, and knives, and clubs, and swords, and bayonets, and even a doctor on a housecall once or twice (they accidentally kill people much more frequently than guns) for the entire livfe spans of my children and never once has either of my children played with a gun, been injured by a gun, or had any mishaps at all involving gun. In fact, not even their curious friends have been so involved, because my children have learned well the lessons I taught them, and because Ia lso inform the friends about the guns in my home and what to do and what not to do if they find one.

Do you own a car, do you drive in it with your grandchildren. Do you cross the street with your grand children. Shame on you if you do, because if you do so you are being hypocrtical about guns. Our lives are in jeopardy each and every moment that we live, guns in a household of responsible adults do not increase that threat to any marked degree.

Al the best,
Glenn B
 
Those of you who are addressing Battlespace directly, might want to take notice that he just posted an opinion piece from a paper. I don't believe those are his actual opinions or his personal story.
 
My daughter is mad at me.
Poor girl had a baby. My Granddaughter.
My Grandbaby gets all my guns when I move on.
Daughter is really mad. She wanted my 1911.
Yeah, fat chance, she has her own. And has had since she's 14. She gets to teach her little girl how to shoot if I'm not around.

AFS

AFS
 
Honestly, the fact that one or two people were irresponsible to allow an untrained kid easy access to a gun (much less a loaded gun) is not an argument against the right to keep and bear arms.
 
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