While I can get where you’re coming from, would you say the same thing in the case of the drunk driver who mows people down? Do we always let people free if we think it was just a mistake, and that they probably feel guilty and learned their lessons?
Obviously a drunk driver doesn’t mean to kill anyone.
Exactly. There’s a reason negligent homicide and manslaughter are crimes and negligence is a liable issue for things like child welfare and other important responsibilities. Mistakes happen, but sometimes they’re still someone’s fault for causing them or not preventing them when they were responsible for doing so.
Or in front of an immigration court.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/immigration/la-na-immigration-judge-20160306-story.html
In the UK, yes. But there is a difference, isn’t there? Motor vehicles incur risks but they have enormous advantages - they have made modern society possible. We could not exist at our present population density without them. I can also make a point of driving cars with a 5* NCAP rating, and using the defensive driving techniques I was taught by my motorcycle trainer years ago.
Handguns are completely unnecessary. They fulfil no useful function whatsoever except to shoot people. The economic destruction caused by crime and wars is enormous, and guns are facilitators of wars and crime. Of course, so are motor vehicles, but that is not their principal purpose.
In the UK and Australia we have decided that there is no good reason for having public access to handguns, and as a result we do not have frequent shooting deaths. Violent criminals tend to use knives, but these are far less effective as weapons.
The chance of a shark attack on a British beach is, by the way, extremely small. The death rate from flying is also much less than the US death rate from gun violence. But please do not let boring facts get in the way of your prejudices.
Question. Should that extend to other things?
Nope. The handling of lethal weapons requires a special level of care not seen in devices whose designed purpose is not to kill people. Dangerous, potentially lethal stupidity with such devices requires public sanction as a punitive measure. For the good of society.
Supporting a right to bear arms does not mean one supports irresponsible and dangerous activity with them.
I am all for the responsible and legal ownership of firearms and I find her behavior beyond the pale of acceptable and worthy of punishment. Even just to make the point that there should be no excuses for stupid irresponsible behavior with one’s firearm. If you want to be seen as a sane responsible individual, you have to call out stupidity even when its from people who you would normally support.
In this case the moron mom deserved far worse punishment, at least in order to save the integrity of gun owners who are not idiots.
That isn’t the issue nor the question. The issue is if you should be afraid to drive or not. Clearly the risk/reward of using a motor vehicle is generally worth it.
But should you fear being shot in America? No. Unless you stumbled into a really bad neighborhood, you probably have nothing to fear. Even then the odds are you be fine. Statistically if you are shot in a crime, it will be someone you know and they will have an arrest record. Also if you’re not black, your statistically even less likely to be a crime victim. Accidental shooting are even rarer and in most cases take place in the home or where people are shooting like a range or private land where people are engaged in the activity of shooting. Accidents in public such as this are exceedingly rare.
Yes - that is my point. The risk of you randomly getting shot in America is also very rare, so don’t let your prejudices keep you up at night.
Sigh. And yet we have 80+ million gun owners not shooting anyone and using their fire arms for things other than shooting people. Really, this is such a silly, tired argument. And economic destruction causes crime, not the other way around. Also you had very low hand gun shootings before the laws in the UK and Australia, and while the murder rates are less, you haven’t seen a sharp decline since your new laws. The UK even had a huge bump in homicides at one point.
But anyway - the main point I was making is fearing getting shot in America is an irrational fear, especially for a visitor from the UK.
What would be achieved other than feeding the bloodlust of the gun haters?
Sending a message to responsible gun owners that they endanger their right to bear arms when they minimize, sanction or ignore dangerous blithering stupidity with guns. That they do nobody favors by encouraging negligent and dangerous behavior.
That doesn’t make a lot of sense. I agree they require a special level of care, but so do A LOT of things. Being causal and non-vigilant with all sorts of dangers yield similar results.
I mean drunk driving alone kills as nearly as many as gun crime, and injures many more plus billions in damages and WAY WAY more than accidental gun shootings. A gun accident can be a momentary lapse in judgement, but drunk driving usually involves multiple lapses in judgement. That is just one example, I am sure you can come up with others. It seems the passion against one thing and not the other stems from some prejudice.
It’s apparently substantially increased if you put your loaded handgun within reach of your 4yo.
In that case, I recommend our UK friend leave his 4 year old at home.
You seem to be confused about the topic of conversation here. I severely doubt that people commenting here think drunk driving is okay and nothing should be done to prevent it. But irresponsible gun ownership is the issue at hand. Wanting to reduce drunk driving, drunk driving-related deaths, and gun-related injuries/death are not at all mutually exclusive. Pointing out that others things are more dangerous statistically doesn’t counter the reasoning that we should try to prevent otherwise preventable incidents of gun violence and reducing gun possession would go a long way to do that.
I think it’s people finding grim amusement in a poster girl for responsible gun ownership being shown to be utterly irresponsible with her gun.
But not a lot of things have an instant legion of apologists and paid lobbyists to support their position in public like guns have.
Nobody makes excuses for drunk driving or claims that criticizing drunk drivers is really an effort to take cars away from people. Drunk drivers face far worse legal sanctions than this woman did. There are far more penalties for drunk driving than irresponsible gun ownership. Plus car owners are all expected to carry liability insurance to cover losses of others for their negligence outside of drunk driving (except for NH, but its still stupid not to have it in that state). Gun owners still expect society to carry the burdens of covering the damages their negligence causes.
If the statistics of getting shot, even intentionally during the commission of a crime, are so low, then you just eliminated the justification of possessing a gun for the purposes of self-defense. That just leaves using guns for entertainment or hunting purposes. Hunting is fine. You don’t need a handgun or even a semi-automatic to go hunting. Entertainment can be handled by keeping guns at the range instead of in your home or on your person (or under the seat of your car). I could easily get on board with that kind of reform.
I am not saying that either. The headline and original article was about punishment for being neglectful and causing an accident. I am simply attempting to temper some of the pitchforks and torches that while the person was irresponsible, and is 100% wrong, some of the suggested punishments and general lack of empathy is because of passionate biases. And if one tried to apply these same punishments to other more relate-able instances of neglect/stupidity causing a potentially life ending accident, I think one can might see some of the blood lust is uncalled for.
No they don’t. At least not first timers. Well, YMMV, but drunk driving usually gets a slap on the wrist in many cases through plea deals and the like. And I don’t believe I have heard anyone suggest making it so someone loses their driving privileged for life from one DUI. Would that be reasonable to do so? Anyway, my point I tried to make clear above.
The Insurance is irrelevant to the topic at hand. Accidental shootings fall under your health insurance, just like if you cut yourself, fell off something, lopped of a hand at the wrist with a chain saw, etc. So no, gun owners aren’t having society carry any burdens.
If you are talking about gun CRIME, that is a different matter. Because the people who commit gun crime, half of whom shouldn’t have a gun anyway, aren’t going to buy insurance in case they shoot someone/rob a place, etc.
Thank you for your opinion on what I do and don’t “need”.
Uhm, no. Accidental shootings (aka negligent discharge) of other people do not fall under the shooter’s healthcare coverage, even if they have healthcare. So, yes, the car insurance analogy is valid.
According to such people I don’t need peroxide, nitric acid, nor cyanide.
But my circuitboard etching, mirror etching, and metal plating desires say otherwise.
Twice? We’re gonna punish her a million times on the internet! Haha! We love stories of gun owners, especially if they’re dumb enough to be public advocates of gun rights, who end up having some kind of accident with a gun. Makes us feel real smart. Look at BoingBoing’s (grammatically tortured) description:
“…an obviously Floridian, gun-regulation-hating, 31-year-old mother…”
Then enjoy all the smug and self-congratulatory comments.
