Hmmmm I think I'll try that to what could possmmffp pppfmmmtp mmhhhpp
Posted on 11/13/2004 2:34:57 PM PST by neverdem
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Nothing kills Democratic candidates' prospects more than guns. If it weren't for guns, President-elect Kerry might now be conferring with incoming Senate Majority Leader Daschle.
Since the Brady Bill took effect in 1994, gun-control efforts have been a catastrophe for Democrats. They have accomplished almost nothing nationally, other than giving a big boost to the Republicans. Mr. Kerry tried to get around the problem by blasting away at small animals, but nervous Red Staters still suspected Democrats of plotting to seize guns.
Moreover, it's clear that in this political climate, further efforts at gun control are a nonstarter. You can talk until you're blue in the face about the 30,000 gun deaths each year, about children who are nine times as likely to die in a gun accident in America as elsewhere in the developed world, about the $17,000 average cost (half directly borne by taxpayers) of treating each gun injury. But nationally, gun control is dead.
So it's time for a fundamentally new approach, emblematic of how Democrats must think in new ways about old issues. The new approach is to accept that handguns are part of the American landscape, but to use a public health approach to try to make them much safer.
The model is automobiles, for a high rate of traffic deaths was once thought to be inevitable. But then we figured out ways to mitigate the harm with seat belts, air bags and collapsible steering columns, and since the 1950's the death rate per mile driven has dropped 80 percent.
Similar steps are feasible in the world of guns.
"You can tell whether a camera is loaded by looking at it, and you should be able to tell whether a gun is loaded by looking at it," said David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. Professor Hemenway has written "Private Guns, Public Health," a brilliant and clear-eyed primer for the country.
We take safety steps that reduce the risks of everything from chain saws (so they don't kick back and cut off an arm) to refrigerators (so kids can't lock themselves inside). But firearms have been exempt. Companies make cellphones that survive if dropped, but some handguns can fire if they hit the ground.
Professor Hemenway notes that in the 1990's, two children a year, on average, died after locking themselves in car trunks. This was considered unacceptable, so a government agency studied the problem, and General Motors and Ford engineered safety mechanisms to prevent such deaths.
In contrast, 15 children under the age of 5 die annually in fatal gun accidents in the U.S., along with 18 children 5 to 9 years old. We routinely make aspirin bottles childproof, but not guns, even though childproof pistols were sold back in the 19th century - they wouldn't fire unless the shooter put pressure on the handle as well as the trigger.
Aside from making childproof guns, here are other steps we could take:
Require magazine safeties so a gun cannot be fired when the clip is removed (people can forget that a bullet may still be in the chamber and pull the trigger). Many guns already have magazine safeties, but not all.
Finance research to develop "smart guns," which can be fired only by authorized users. If a cellphone can be locked with a PIN, why not a gun? This innovation would protect children - and thwart criminals.
Start public safety campaigns urging families to keep guns locked up in a gun safe or with a trigger lock (now, 12 to 14 percent of gun owners with young children keep loaded and unlocked weapons in their homes).
Encourage doctors to counsel depressed patients not to keep guns, and to advise new parents on storing firearms safely.
Make gun serial numbers harder for criminals to remove.
Create a national database for gun deaths. In a traffic fatality, 120 bits of data are collected, like the positions of the passengers and the local speed limit, so we now understand what works well (air bags, no "right on red") and what doesn't (driver safety courses). Statistics on gun violence are much flimsier, so we don't know what policies would work best, and much of the data hurled by rival camps at each other is inaccurate.
Would these steps fly politically? Maybe. One poll showed that 88 percent of the public favors requiring that guns be childproof. And such measures demonstrate the kind of fresh thinking that can keep alive not only thousands of Americans, but the Democratic Party as well.
We have an annual Elmer Keith shoot; the targets are at 150 yds, and no scopes allowed - iron sights only. Most are pretty amazed at what you can do with a .22.
John Linebaugh's Six-Gun Seminar this last June saw some great results with .38 Special "plinker" loads at 500 yards, and .357 Mag at 600 yds. Folks shooting the full-house .475 and .500 loads were duly impressed!
Guns are as safe as they can be made. As with other inanimate objects, they do not rise up of their own volition and strike either out of instinct or with malice aforethought.
Do you have a link that explains the source of U.S. Dept of Health Human Services statistics. Unless they have new and better studies to base that number, they are using exaggerated numbers and blaming it all on docs. I started the thread. I'm a doc who believes in the Second Amendment.
As others have said, guns are quite safe. Unsafe guns tend not to do very well in the marketplace. The issues this clown brings up are all instances of unsafe handling practices, not unsafe guns. Strange that he doesn't propose teaching children to handle guns safely. Oh wait, the NRA already does that, and he certainly can't acknowledge THAT.
Nice graphic, otherwise!
I have a Colt .25 "vestpocket" model that uses the grip safety. It was made in 1918. Not 19th century.
Your point would make sense if it were applied equally to cars, bicycles, ladders, airplanes and every other item of manufacture which has been lawyered to death. Since this theory has not been applied in this way, it is difficult to develop a rationale as a result of which firearms are exempt from the standards applied to all other products.
Mandatory sentencing for the idiots that allow children access to guns should take care of the problem.
Attention sports fans:
The sensor/indicator of a loaded gun is a RED HERRING for law suits and lawyer seeking a new cash cow.
No matter how good it may be some fool will claim the "indicator showed unloaded" or "too hard to read".
Proper gun safety lesson number one is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS treat, assume and handle ALL guns as if loaded. Somebody hands you a gun they just checked to be empty YOU check it again. No indicator will work for a round in the chamber of an automatic without compromising safety from the explosion.
Thanks for the links Duncan. Good-to-go.
the number-one most effective gun safety measure:
a properly trained firearms operator.
the stats re: accidental discharge indicate that an NRA trained gunner is nowhere near as likely to cause such an accident as is a gunner with no NRA training. I forget the ration, but it was pretty impressive.
Hmmmm I think I'll try that to what could possmmffp pppfmmmtp mmhhhpp
This is garbage.
This was dealt with years ago.
There are some older ones that this may apply to but modern handguns will not fire unless the trigger is pulled, unless defective.
The government passed regulations requiring all handguns to pass a drop test around 1970.
The good news in that case is that Alex Penelas, who was considered THE rising star in the Florida Democratic Party, has since seen his star fizzle and will probably next be seen doing a McGreevey due to his personal predelictions. Nevertheless, his career was cut short at least partially by his advocacy of gun control for the "public health" a few years back.
Clueless.
IIRC, it's BS. His 1903 autopistol (1911 pre-cursor) lacked a grip safety.
IF they concede that handguns are a part of the fabric of American society, and they embrace this......what will be the reaction of the US public to an initiative by their leaders in Congress to push and pass legislation that would allow for total federal reciprocity for holders of concealed firearms permits under the 14th Amendment's Full Faith and Credit clause as well as the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection clause AND of course the Second Amendment? Meaning of course, that if your drivers license is good in another and all other states, so too, is your concealed weapons permit.
If they REALLY REALLY push this and successfully pass it with a majority, maybe even a super majority in House and Senate, then I'd say they have a good chance at regaining the White House next term, if their candidate also embraces the legislation. Maybe even with a comfortable majority of the votes. Even more so if they remain quiet and neutral on the issue of "assault weapons."
The difference is that traffic deaths are caused by accidents, preventable perhaps, but not deliberate acts. Most "gun deaths" are a result of someone's deliberate act. No amount of *legitimate* safety features are going to prevent those acts. Thus all the cries for "gun safety" laws, are just smokescreens for more gun control.
Nice try, but no Kewpie doll.
Not "gun safety" classes, those would become a forum for "Gun are evil" brainwashing. Shooting classes, where gun safety would be an integral part of the curriculum. Every freeman should know how to handle a gun. Just think how the presence of the "lab equipment" would tend to discourage anyone intending harm to the students in the school.
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