20/20 about Guns vs Pools

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model4006

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Interesting Statistic on 20/20

children are 100 times more likely to be killed at a house with a swimming pool, than a house with a gun.
 
That's not all swimming pools, though - a lot of those are Assault Pools - with the threaded pipes for cleaning the water, and the cop-killer-armor-piercing chlorine tablets.
 
Not sure if this is the right forum to post this but I just heard John Stossel say on ABC 20/20 that kids are 100 times more likely to drowned in a pool than be killed by a gun. The question was asked of kids, what was more dangerous. a home with a pool or a home with a gun. The vast majority say the home with a gun. They were wrong by 100 to 1.
 
A quick google seach string of "John Stossel gun control" reviews the article posted below. We need more truthful reporting like this without being pressured by political correctness or the media itself. The only thing that seems incorrect is the number of self-defensive use. Even the most conservative figures I've seen are at least in the millions.

October 19, 2005
Myths About Gun Control
By John Stossel

Guns are dangerous. But myths are dangerous, too. Myths about guns are very dangerous, because they lead to bad laws. And bad laws kill people.

"Don't tell me this bill will not make a difference," said President Clinton, who signed the Brady Bill into law.

Sorry. Even the federal government can't say it has made a difference. The Centers for Disease Control did an extensive review of various types of gun control: waiting periods, registration and licensing, and bans on certain firearms. It found that the idea that gun control laws have reduced violent crime is simply a myth.

I wanted to know why the laws weren't working, so I asked the experts. "I'm not going in the store to buy no gun," said one maximum-security inmate in New Jersey. "So, I could care less if they had a background check or not."

"There's guns everywhere," said another inmate. "If you got money, you can get a gun."

Talking to prisoners about guns emphasizes a few key lessons. First, criminals don't obey the law. (That's why we call them "criminals.") Second, no law can repeal the law of supply and demand. If there's money to be made selling something, someone will sell it.

A study funded by the Department of Justice confirmed what the prisoners said. Criminals buy their guns illegally and easily. The study found that what felons fear most is not the police or the prison system, but their fellow citizens, who might be armed. One inmate told me, "When you gonna rob somebody you don't know, it makes it harder because you don't know what to expect out of them."

What if it were legal in America for adults to carry concealed weapons? I put that question to gun-control advocate Rev. Al Sharpton. His eyes opened wide, and he said, "We'd be living in a state of terror!"

In fact, it was a trick question. Most states now have "right to carry" laws. And their people are not living in a state of terror. Not one of those states reported an upsurge in crime.

Why? Because guns are used more than twice as often defensively as criminally. When armed men broke into Susan Gonzalez' house and shot her, she grabbed her husband's gun and started firing. "I figured if I could shoot one of them, even if we both died, someone would know who had been in my home." She killed one of the intruders. She lived. Studies on defensive use of guns find this kind of thing happens at least 700,000 times a year.

And there's another myth, with a special risk of its own. The myth has it that the Supreme Court, in a case called United States v. Miller, interpreted the Second Amendment -- "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" -- as conferring a special privilege on the National Guard, and not as affirming an individual right. In fact, what the court held is only that the right to bear arms doesn't mean Congress can't prohibit certain kinds of guns that aren't necessary for the common defense. Interestingly, federal law still says every able-bodied American man from 17 to 44 is a member of the United States militia.

What's the special risk? As Alex Kozinski, a federal appeals judge and an immigrant from Eastern Europe, warned in 2003, "the simple truth -- born of experience -- is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people."

"The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do," Judge Kozinski noted. "But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed -- where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."

http://realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-10_19_05_JS.html
 
Stossel is indeed a self described Libertarian. His book "Give Me a Break" is a good read. Basically a collection of his columns exposing liberal BS. Definitely a friend of the 2A.
 
Frustrating that in this big world of adults & educated thinkers, logic has nothing to do w/ the discussion! :scrutiny: :banghead:
 
John Stossel's career is one of the only reasons I'm not 100% convinced that liberty and common sense are dead.
 
Perhaps if kids were required to clean pools starting at an early age it would take away the mystery of pools and reduce tragic accidents.


:p
 
dang I live in a house with guns and a pool.
Its a wonder that all kids within a 5 mile radius of your house haven't spontaneously dropped dead already!

Its 6:15 on a Saturday and I'm up. Wow! Off to a gun control meeting. About 20 of us will be trying to determine who can achieve the most effective gun control. Whoever makes the smallest pattern of holes on a piece of paper posted at 200 yds wins the title of Most Effective Gun Control Advocate.
 
Wow, what about all those people that have high fences around their pools co "conceal" them..those are the real people you have to watch out for. Yep, and what about the pools that are equipped with "da switch" to turn on and off the high density (read: high capacity) pool lights.


We must put an end to this nonsense, its for the children folks!



On a serious note, its always good to see ANY pro-gun conversation on ANY tv show.
 
vis-à-vis wrote:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stossel
Interestingly, federal law still says every able-bodied American man from 17 to 44 is a member of the United States militia.

Can someone source this?

From Title 10, U.S. Code (my emphasis):
TITLE 10--ARMED FORCES

Subtitle A--General Military Law

PART I--ORGANIZATION AND GENERAL MILITARY POWERS

CHAPTER 13--THE MILITIA

Sec. 311. Militia: composition and classes

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied
males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of
title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration
of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female
citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

(b) The classes of the militia are--
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard
and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of
the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval
Militia.
 
States have more expansive definitions of the militia.

"Section 1. A militia shall be provided and shall consist of all persons over the age of seventeen (17) years, except those persons who may be exempted by the laws of the United States or of this state. The militia may be divided into active and inactive classes and consist of such military organizations as may be provided by law." IND. CONST. Art. 12, §1 (all persons, male and female, 17 and over with no top end).

The ban on pools does not address the root problem of child safety. It's not pools that is murdering our kids, it is water. Our child deserve to live in a safe world, we must ban water--for the children, of course!
 
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