The macabre truth of gun control in the US is that toddlers kill more people than terrorists [View all]

[rjsquirrel]

This week, in my country, considered by some of its more embarrassing denizens to be the “greatest country in the world”, an outspoken Florida “gun rights” advocate left a loaded .45 calibre handgun in the back seat of her car and was promptly shot and wounded by her four-year-old child. Truly a pinnacle of human potential, much like the invention of paper in second-century BC China, or Aristotle holding forth in the Lyceum, or whoever first pointed out that Florida looks like America’s penis.

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In the US in 2015, more people were shot and killed by toddlers than by terrorists. In 2013, the New York Times reported on children shot by other children: “Children shot accidentally – usually by other children – are collateral casualties of the accessibility of guns in America, their deaths all the more devastating for being eminently preventable.

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States with more guns have more gun deaths. Keeping a gun in your house increases your chances of accidental death by shooting, but does not make you safer. A woman’s chance of being murdered by an abusive partner increases fivefold if the partner has access to a gun. “Good guys with guns” are a fantasy. How much longer will we keep participating in this great collective lie that deadly weapons keep us safe?

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The accidental shooting of Jamie Gilt is the object lesson that my absurd nation deserves. When even supposed gun safety experts cannot keep themselves safe from their own toddlers, we should take that as an unequivocal reminder that guns are inherently dangerous. They are exploding projectile machines designed specifically for killing. And that’s not bleeding-heart hyperbole – it’s the explicit reason why many people are drawn to them. Cowboy games. Vigilante justice. Power.

More at:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/13/the-macabre-truth-of-gun-control-in-the-us-is-that-toddlers-kill-more-people-than-terrorists-do
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The way things are going we will need to arm every child to prevent her getting shot by another kid. Nothing stops a bad toddler with a gun like a good toddler with a gun.


#gunfail #warontoddlers