Toddler shoots his mother dead

[zebo-the-fat]

As I have said in other related threads, I do not understand why any normal member of the public would ever want or need to possess a firearm. In 61 years I have never felt the need, but then I don't live in the USA

[Tonus]

As I have said in other related threads, I do not understand why any normal member of the public would ever want or need to possess a firearm.

I dunno about need, but many people find them fun for target shooting. Most gun owners observe the necessary precautions. The number of accidental gun deaths in the USA would number in the hundreds of thousands, otherwise.

[abaris]

I dunno about need, but many people find them fun for target shooting. Most gun owners observe the necessary precautions. The number of accidental gun deaths in the USA would number in the hundreds of thousands, otherwise.

I made it to 51 without seeing the need for a gun either. When I was younger, I loved a bit of target shooting without ever owning a gun.

But look at the actual charts. This site gives a pretty comprehensive list for international comparison of gun ownership and deaths per capita.

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states

[JuliaL]

But look at the actual charts. This site gives a pretty comprehensive list for international comparison of gun ownership and deaths per capita.

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states

Perhaps you can clarify.
Out of curiosity I followed your link and found the following:
2010 Gun Suicides(total) 19392
2010 Handgun Suicides 4603
2010 Long gun Suicides 2957
2010 Gun suicides, other 11892

So what are the other 11892 (19392-4603-2957) gun suicides using, Cannon?

[abaris]

So what are the other 11892 (19392-4603-2957) gun suicides using, Cannon?

I guess shotgun, since it isn't long gun or handgun.

[Zen Badger]

I know a few people who shoot guns - none of them, ever under any circumstances, carry a loaded gun around in transit. Now I understand that the USA is not Australia and that the yobo-redneck hillbillies there like to carry loaded guns - but in what world is it sensible to have a loaded gun that is not on your persons? It isn't, plain and simple.

Did you know that the U.S. is just filled with regular people? Who go about their daily lives and drink coffee and stuff.

But nowhere else in the world has anything like the open carry movement.
Who think taking an assault rifle into Target is perfectly normal.

[Brian37]

*sigh*

Sometimes I think everyone needs to take a class before they are allowed to carry a gun.

Several classes, with official certification and licensure that should be renewed every two years. Gun owners (and it doesn't matter what kind of gun) should be required to individually register and insure every weapon they own. Any conviction for violent crime, crime involving firearms, or diagnosis of disassociative mental disorders, should be accompanied by a lifetime ban from possessing any kind of firearm.

A responsible gun owner would have no problem with firearms being regulated. And, since we can't just get rid of guns, we should try our best to make sure that only responsible people possess guns.

Until the gun manufacturers are sued and the NRA is sued for scaring the crap out of everyone convincing them everyone is "responsible" and anyone objecting to the no rules attitude is evil, until they get put in their place, to the gun nutters everyone is "responsible".

[Whateverist]

Dumb bitch had a loaded gun in her handbag. As if that wasn't stupid enough, the gun was within reach of her 2-year old that as I understand it was sitting in the shopping trolley.

Guns don't kill people....babies kill people!

Ban babies! Take them from the cold dead hands of their mothers! March right up to their shopping carts in your jackboots and strip them of their constitutional rights, their panties and most especially of their loaded weapons.

[abaris]

Ban babies! Take them from the cold dead hands of their mothers! March right up to their shopping carts in your jackboots and strip them of their constitutional rights, their panties and most especially of their loaded weapons.

Maybe they should pin stickers on guns: "babies in gun sight are closer than they appear".

[Brian37]

As I have said in other related threads, I do not understand why any normal member of the public would ever want or need to possess a firearm. In 61 years I have never felt the need, but then I don't live in the USA

I am not going to live in a delusional utopia. You need them in war most certainly, Not because war is good, but because humans form competing groups. And maybe if North Korea's oppressed population had them they could overthrow their government. And there are places in America where wild Animals can creep up on you.

But as far as why people feel the need for them for crime, and protection from that, the long term solution is not more guns, but a better economy and better investment.

You can, for example understand why we shot and killed the Somali Pirates. But the part the world's rich do not want to face is that those pirates would not get to that point if their country was economically stable.

I am 48 years old. I also have never owned a gun. I figure it this way. If someone wants me dead that badly, I won't see it coming anyway.