10 year old shoots 9 year old sister in face over chips with dad's shotgun

[John Dibble]

Seriously, why was this gun in a place a 10 year old could get to it?

[John Dibble]

Seriously, why was this gun in a place a 10 year old could get to it?

Why was this gun in a house with young children, indeed?

Because the gun crawled into the house and laid itself in a place where it could be easily accessed by this otherwise normal child/family.  And then, when the kid found it, the gun told the kid to shoot his sister.  It's the gun's fault.

GUNS ARE EVIL!!!  BAN GUNS NOW!!!

Has it really not occurred to anyone to ask the question: "Why was this kid so messed up to begin with?"  I grew up around plenty of guns and last I checked I never shot my sister.  Maybe the gun was accessible because the family was screwed up, which woudl explain why this kid is screwed up... oh, but no... it's the gun's fault.

I never said it was the gun's fault - you should know that given my history on defending the 2nd Amendment. My question is about the responsibility of the gunowner. Those who own guns, especially when they have kids living in or coming into their homes, have a responsibility to store them appropriately to prevent accidents and irresponsible use.

[John Dibble]

As fa as I see it, no gun in house, no gun accidentally in child's possession, no sister shot.

You could argue that he could have found a gun another way, but somehow I doubt that there'd be that much effort put in by the kid.

Right, because guns are the only weapon in a home that a nut could get a hole of and seriously harm a family memeber.

One quick squeeze of a trigger does a lot more damage than one stab.

One quick swipe with a sharp kitchen knife across the throat is all it takes to bleed a person to death. The human body is actually quite fragile and has a number of places where a single stab or slash can result in death.

[John Dibble]

As fa as I see it, no gun in house, no gun accidentally in child's possession, no sister shot.

You could argue that he could have found a gun another way, but somehow I doubt that there'd be that much effort put in by the kid.

Right, because guns are the only weapon in a home that a nut could get a hole of and seriously harm a family memeber.

One quick squeeze of a trigger does a lot more damage than one stab.

One quick swipe with a sharp kitchen knife across the throat is all it takes to bleed a person to death. The human body is actually quite fragile and has a number of places where a single stab or slash can result in death.

Psychologically, it's far easier to fire a gun to kill someone than to use a knife to kill someone.

If you're pissed off a single slash of a knife might be just as easy as pulling a trigger. In this case we've got an irrational 10 year old who seems to have been having a bit of a tantrum.

[John Dibble]

  Limiting the amount of guns someone can buy during a certain period of time (something similar to what was proposed by Rendell), more stringent gun registry systems

One gun a month is BS because, again, an overwhelming majority of these crimes are committed with illegally obtained weapons.

Yes and how to those guns become illegal in the 1st place??  People buying them legally then selling them off on the black market.

You should know that while the system you propose might help reduce the number of guns on the black market, it's not a perfect plan. Reducing the supply won't reduce the demand, so the black market price will ultimately rise. Rising black market prices usually increase the crimes that surround the black market.