Lock and Load

NY Times ^ | November 13, 2004 | NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

[Lando Lincoln]

Good Lord......the libs can be sure gun ownwership will be an issue - to their detriment. We must never miss an opportunity to bring this topic to the fore. Now, my challenge is my adopted state of Illinois.....

Lando

[VeniVidiVici]

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

So gun accidents kill 33 children per year. Hmm. What about bottlecaps?

"Sadly, statistics indicate that there are 3,500 additional poisonings of children under age 5 each year".

What about other accidents involving children?

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reports that each year in the United States:

• Residential fires injure about 12,000 children 14 years old or younger. Preschool children die in fires at twice the national rate.

• About 50 children die in crib-related incidents and about a dozen die from choking on toys, balloons and other children's products.

• About 83,000 children 14 years old or younger were treated for burns in hospital emergency rooms (1997 data).

• Poison control centers have responded to about one million calls involving children under five years of age since 1990.

• More than 350 children under five years of age drown in swimming pools; most of these are in home pools. Almost 3,000 young children are seen in hospital emergency rooms because of near-drowning incidents in pools.

• More than 3,000 children age 14 or younger are treated for carbon monoxide poisoning in hospital emergency rooms.

• More than 3,000 children under 10 years of age are treated in hospital emergency rooms for injuries related to inserting objects into electrical outlets.

• About 4,700 children 14 years old and younger are treated in emergency rooms for injuries caused by falls from windows.

• Thousands of children under six years of age are identified with elevated blood lead levels, which may cause damage to a child's developing brain. Nearly 900,000 children are estimated to have elevated blood lead levels.

[neverdem]

This clown conveniently ignores that about half or more of deaths caused by firearms in the U.S. are suicides. Japan, with laws that basically outlaw gun possession, has one of the world's highest rates of suicide. Some references that show the futility of gun control with respect to suicide follow.

Homicide and suicide rates associated with implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.

First Reports Evaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies for Preventing Violence: Firearms Laws

Methods of suicide among persons aged 10-19 years--United States, 1992-2001.

[El Gato]

Someone, somewhere...thought that our houses and families would be made safer by putting locks on the doors and windows.

The only situation I know where such locks are mandatory is in rental housing. Even then, at least in Texas, only that there be a blind deadbolt lock on each exterior door. No law whatsoever that they must be used. That's in contrast to various "lock up your safety" laws.

Still there is a fundamental difference. Locks on your house are not to keep you in, they are to keep others out. You wouldn't have the locks set up so that it took a key to get *out*. Not so with gun locks which are designed to keep everybody out.

[El Gato]

Bush may have been born in, and even educated in, Texas b

Actually he was born in Conn. But he was raised in Texas, around oilmen, and thinks more or less like a Texan. He was educated in Texas through high school, but then went to college up east.

[El Gato]

You could certainly make one. Miniguns are perfect for vehicles since they require a strong power source to run the motor. A pickup bed would be perfect to fit a 4000 round magazine to feed this monster.

But you'd have to install stiff springs, and maybe some stabilization jacks to avoid flipping the truck over from the recoil, especially the smaller pickups.

[El Gato]

And retool the 34 NFA a lot too. I'd raise the taxes to $1000 but make it easier otherwise to get things. Perhaps make it a licensed thing like with CCW

Effectively, it's just like CCW, although they had the honesty to call it a tax back then. (Well only because the tax power was the only way the courts would let them do what the Constitution clearly said they could not do. Times have changed) It comes down to begging the government for a license to exercise your Constitutional right.

However things can be set right by increments. To start, eliminate the tax, or at least reduce it to a fee to cover the costs of issuance. Remove the CLEO sign-off requirement, and make it "shall issue" and base it on the same instant background check as for other arms.

[lentulusgracchus]

How do you like that antique Colt?

'Course, .25 is pretty much the mildest autopistol caliber out there in terms of bang for a buck.

Different days, though, eh?

[lentulusgracchus]

However things can be set right by increments.

Start by repealing the 1987 gun-control act in toto. That's a real worm in the apple. Wonder what triggered that ban on production of full-auto weapons for civilian use?

But it needs to be found unconstitutional. A Class III FFL challenged the law in court, but SCOTUS wouldn't give him a hearing -- simply refused cert. They wouldn't do that to an Attorney General of the United States.

Time to get busy. Paging Dr. Emerson, Dr. Timothy Emerson, please!

[Freedom2specul8]

Can't argue with your points...although I have purchased a deadbolt that requires a key to "get out"...they are nice for a few reasons. However, I was being a bit sarcastic when I wrote that post. I was trying to point out that door and window locks do not prevent break-ins. Although they can prevent most elementary kids from getting in and wreaking havoc. (The more elaborate the security...obviously the better the defense) The author just annoyed me. ;-)

[Imabeliever]

I doubt if the author could pour water out of a boot, even with the instructions on the heel.

[Imabeliever]

This is why they call them "Practicing Physicians."

[El Gato]

although I have purchased a deadbolt that requires a key to "get out"...they are nice for a few reasons

The place I'm in now has one, because the door it's in has a window in it. If the window was broken, a non-keyed lock could easily be reached through the window. However, that's only one of three entrance doors, the other two have non-keyed blind deadbolts.

[El Gato]

my point is that he is at least not blaming the Dems plight on "not getting the message out" but on the message itself

And his solution seems to be to disguise the message to make it *appear* more palatable. This once again shows that the dems think We The People are dumber than rocks. We aren't.

[El Gato]

Start by repealing the 1987 gun-control act in toto.... Wonder what triggered that ban on production of full-auto weapons for civilian use?

Since you mention the machine gun ban, I guess you mean the 1986 Firearms Owners Protection Act? Actually the machine gun ban was about the only bad provision of that act, which removed many of the more abused provisions of the 1968 Gun Control Act (and earlier gun laws as well) and attempted to reign in the BATF. See Hardy. It was a last minute amendment on the floor by Congressman William Hughes of New Jersey, and engendered no debate until the bill went to the Senate, and even that was generally in the nature the "it doesn't change anything", even though the intent of the amendment's author was to do just what has been done, that is to ban new production of machine guns for the civilian market. Why? Because he could. No trigger is required for gun grabbers, although they will make use of various incidents to further their agenda, which is always there.

[neverdem]

Thanks for the Hardy link.

[neverdem]

El Gato has provided a very interesting link on the 1986 FOPA in comment# 155, IIRC.

[kAcknor]

The old *bang_list is no more. Use keywords instead. In this case,it's BANGLIST . If that keyword isn't in the list of keywords just add it.

[RKV]

"Shall not be infringed" does not allow the government to be in the gun safety business at all. If these features were so great the police and military would have them already. What is so bad about letting the private sector do this on its own?

[Squantos]

Kerry and his band of socialists demise, with regards to firearms, was that they think the 2nd is only about hunting. It's about Enemies , Foreign and Domestic and the individuals right to self defense......

Harvesting game for the table is a secondary use of liberties primary tool.....