Posted on 02/06/2002 5:25:58 AM PST by chuknospam
Want to make a liberal angry tell them your thoughts on "Gun Control"....
Gun control is hitting your target.
Yes and no. If a person feels in any way that they could have prevented killing a fellow human being, they can experience remorse and regret that can cause psychological problems later. If a person feels justified and that they may have saved lives by their actions, no problems result. As one person described it, the sky was bluer, the air fresher and the beer tasted better. The article even mentioned that the boy felt proud of himself.
What may cause problems for the boy is how others feel about this. If teasing from classmates occurs or the authorities consider sending him to some special classes to deal with his "problem", then the boy may have some change in personality.
Changing the sequence of events is never a good idea especially for someone who invited the person in their home in the first place. Never change or alter evidence.
It was a gruesome story. At the end of August, a naked man broke into a Merced, Calif., home and used a pitchfork to stab to death 9-year-old Ashley Carpenter and her 7-year-old brother, John. Three other sisters barely escaped, with two “bleeding from dozens of puncture wounds,” according to one report. Little Ashley bravely slowed down the killer as she held on to his leg while screaming, “Stop it, don’t hurt my sister.” Her actions saved her three sisters’ lives.
In a scenario worthy of a horror movie, the children’s first response was to call the police, but the telephone lines had been cut.
Still, this tragedy could have been prevented. While the attacker was breaking into the house, 14-year-old sister Jessica, who was baby-sitting her younger siblings, desperately attempted to get their fathers’ gun.
But as a good law-abiding citizen, the father had locked the gun away in compliance with California law.
Jessica knows how to use the gun and is a good shot. The children’s great-uncle, the Rev. John Hilton, said, “If only Jessica had a gun available to her, she could have stopped the whole thing. If she had been properly armed, she could have stopped him in his tracks.”
Gun locks are touted as reducing accidental gun deaths among children. But as the Merced killing illustrate, making guns inaccessible sometimes costs lives. The evidence indicates that mandating gun locks are more likely to cost lives than save them.
Accidental gun deaths among children are fortunately rare. With almost 35 million children under the age of 10, 48 children died in 1997 from all accidental gun shots, including five from handguns.
With over 80 million adults owning at least one gun, the overwhelming majority of gun owners must be extremely careful of the figures would be much higher. Almost as many children under 5 drowned in Five-gallon water buckets as died from accidental gun shots.
Gun lock laws do not reduce accidental shootings for two reasons: Only a few cases involve children shooting other children, and the adults who fire these guns accidentally wouldn’t obey gun lock laws in the first place.
The overwhelming number of shooters have problems with alcoholism and long criminal histories, particularly arrests for violent acts.
They are disproportionately involved in car crashes, and they are much more likely to have had their driver’s license suspended of revoked. Besides, no locking technology will stop an adult from accidentally firing his own gun.
The increased time required to unlock a gun, however, can be crucial. And many mechanical locks (such as barrel or trigger locks) also require that the gun be stored unloaded, further reducing the ability for a quick response.
Recent research examining juvenile accidental gun deaths or suicide for all the states in the U.S. from 1977 to 1996 found that safe storage laws had no impact on either type of death.
The research did show, however, that law-abiding citizens were more vulnerable to crime. The 15 states that adopted these laws faced an increase of over 300 more murders and 3,860 more rapes per year relative to other states. Burglaries also increased dramatically.
Earlier this year, in an effort to promote gun lock legislation, Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening held a press conference to demonstrate the ease with which gun locks could be used. But the press conference ended up illustrating the danger of locks – he couldn’t get the lock off the gun and ended up having to get help from several police officers.
While accidental shootings of children make the national news, tragedies that could have been averted by access to guns, like the Merced murders, often get much less notice.
The elections this year will determine whether more gun lock laws like those in California and Maryland are passed. Thank God for children like Ashley. It is sad her sister wasn’t allowed to save her life.
Casper? How funny!
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