Feeling Safer, Dontcha Know
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, October 20, 2015
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54 comments
Via KWCH: Salina police investigate accidental shooting in theater
“This guy started shouting ‘Oh my God, I just shot myself! I just got my concealed and carry,’ and then everybody jumped up and that’s when we heard call 9-11.
According to Salina police, the man accidentally shot himself once in the leg.
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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I love the smell of cordite in a crowded room. It smells like freedom.
Mike Royko wrote this item in May 1988 after Laurie Dann killed one child and wounded five with a handgun at a Winnetka, Illinois elementary school.
It is reproduced here.
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/December-2012-1/Mike-Royko-on-Gun-Control/
I suspect that even though 27 years have passed some will claim that bringing up this incident is “politicizing” the issue.
That’s just too goddamn bad!
He was probably trying to reach into the back pocket of his pants so he could scratch his brains.
Perspective, always perspective. By some estimates, there are about 8,000,000 concealed carry permits in the US. 7,999,999 did not shoot themselves this week. But, by all means, publish (or link to) this story in an attempt to make the other 7,999,999 look stupid. If the readers are falling for that…
Perspective, always perspective. By some estimates, there are about 8,000,000 concealed carry permits in the US. 7,999,999 of these did not shoot themselves this week. But, by all means, publish (or link to) this story in an attempt to make the other 7,999,999 look stupid. If the readers are falling for that…
@John Peabody: I read of about half a dozen who had “accidents” every week. The only reason you don’t seem to know of them is because you must willfully avoid reading about them. What I want to know is WTF are these people so afraid of that scares me not at all? Am I just so much more courageous than they ever dreamed of?
And don’t give me any of this “Just wait…” crap. I’ve lived in some of the worst neighborhoods in STL and seen more than my share of sh!t and I never needed a gun.
Stupid? Maybe, maybe not. Paranoid for sure.
@John Peabody:
Argument from facts not in evidence. Only one guy shooting himself, or his wife, or his kid, or being shot by them, would be an unusually good week.
A pity there weren’t more gun totin’ NRA heroes in the theater – they could have heard the shot and started blazing away. Dozens might have been killed, which would have made it a really great, profitable day for the NRA and their GOP bootlicks.
Or a good year in Japan.
http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/08/united-states-learn-japans-anti-gun-policies/
I wish the man a speedy recovery, with only a small limp or twinge when the weather changes to remind him that he is a complete dumbass and that he’s lucky he didn’t shoot anyone else.
@Gustopher: I’m not as nice a human being as you are. I hope that he has enough problems with the injury that every step he takes reminds him that he’s an idiot.
@John Peabody:
I’ll bet your numbers are off…I’m sure way more than just 1 person shot himself this week…which means you should reconsider your position.
Muwahahahahahha…I crack myself up.
John Peabody makes a point, insofar as yes: these types of events are rare in a broad sense. The question remains, however, as to whether encouraging people to carry weapons increases the odds that someone is going to accidentally fire their weapon like this (and, indeed, the odds, such as they are, are higher that a careless person will misfire a gun and harm someone, if only themselves, than are the odds that that same person is going to be a hero and stop a shooting).
@Steven L. Taylor:
There is no question that gun violence is far more likely when a gun is present…than when one isn’t.
@Steven L. Taylor: The question remains, however, as to whether encouraging people to carry weapons
So, allowing people to make their own choices is “encouraging” them to make one choice over another?
And if the plural of anecdotes is now data, then I offer this gun owner’s experiences.
And the NRA collects stories of citizens using guns on a regular basis. Most are stories of how responsible people used guns responsibly to save themselves and others, but they also include stories of gun owners who acted wrongly. In the latter case, they usually say what the owner did wrong, and condemn it.
@John Peabody: Just for some clarity, here’s what I found by doing a search for “self-inflicted accidental gunshot” on Google News, with the filter for the last week:
A waistband adjustment
A stupid criminal
A kid
A mystery
And when we search for “accidentally shot himself” in the same way, we get these bonus ones:
After a car crash (!?!)
Another driver
A showoff
A football fan
A re-enactor
GTA gone wrong
A guy who should have stayed in North Dakota
Someone who actually played Russian Roulette
A gun shop owner
A security guard
A guy protecting his property from ghosts
(That’s the end of Page 2 of 11 in the search. I’ll spare you the rest.)
Yes, that’s this week. In only a couple cases is the gun being used to commit a crime (or suicide) — instead it’s discharging while the owner is clearing the chamber, or when the owner jostles it, or when the wielder isn’t well-versed in its use.
Clearly there are tens of millions of gun owners who aren’t shooting themselves this week. But there are dozens or maybe even 100+ who are; the fact that one guy’s story is broadcast more widely doesn’t mean they don’t exist, or that guns are way safer than we idiot non-owners think they are.
@Jenos Idanian:
Look…we understand…you are an unpaid dupe of the gun industry lobby.
But do you really expect the rest of us to read lobbyist propaganda and be convinced, just because you are?
If there is a gun in your house you are 3 times as likely to be shot…and it’s far worse if you are a woman.
For every alleged case of self-defense there are at least 32 homicides.
Let’s teach you idiots how to handle and store a gun through rigorous training, which must be renewed regularly…check your backgrounds thoroughly…submit you to physical and mental examinations…and make sure you carry liability insurance on your prosthetic. I’d even call for unscheduled inspections of your weapon…if you are so intent on using a well-regulated militia as a basis of your fetish. Then you can lube and stroke your guns all you want.
@Jenos Idanian:
Laws such as the one passed in Texas regarding campuses is, in fact, encouraging more people to carry guns, yes.
@C. Clavin: Cliffy, you raise an interesting argument. Americans just can’t be trusted to make important choices. They need people who are much smarter and more responsible than they are to make their choices for them.
Want to own a gun? We’ll decide that for you.
Want to choose whether or not to get health insurance? We’ll decide that for you.
Want to eat really unhealthy foods? We’ll decide that for you.
Want to skip your seat belt? We’ll decide that for you.
Want to pay someone for sex? We’ll decide that for you.
Want to smoke around your own children? We’ll decide that for you.
Want to allow your children to walk around your neighborhood without being watched 24/7? We’ll decide that for you.
But I really admire your logic here. Because bad people do bad things with guns, and because dumb people do dumb things with guns, we’ll take away everyone’s guns. And we’ll start with the law-abiding, and hope that it “trickles down” to the bad people.
And by “admire,” I mean “respect the courage you show to exhibit such breathtaking stupidity coupled with totally unjustified arrogance. I’d always thought that was a lethal combination, but somehow you keep beating the odds…
@Jenos Idanian: Nothing like making complex issues into a binary choice. It does make thinking a lot easier.
@Steven L. Taylor: Much like Roe v. Wade encouraged more abortions? That certainly was the result…
@Jenos Idanian: Google Translate, sadly, doesn’t speak non sequitur.
In all seriousness: you are being either too bloody simplistic or trying too hard to attempt to be clever (as if these arguments can be settled by some simple analogy).
@Steven L. Taylor: That’s because it is binary. Either you support the right of people to make the choice of whether or not to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights.
If you choose to follow Mr. reynolds’ plan, and attack it “softly,” through social pressure, that’s fine. I respect that. I think you’re wrong and going to fail, but I respect your sincerity and respect for the Constitution.
Then there are those who want all the guns to just go away, and will do what they can to achieve that impossible goal. So you get people like Hillary Clinton saying she’s against confiscation, but saying that we should look at how other countries have addressed it — and singles out those countries that tried confiscation.
@Steven L. Taylor: You could simplify matters, you know, by saying where you think people should have a choice, and where they shouldn’t.
I’d also be curious how you think allowing people to own guns “encourages” people to own guns. There are still plenty of “soft” barriers — cost of guns and ammo, the permitting process, etc. that make it more difficult to own a gun than to not own a gun.
I have the choice to own a gun. I weighed all the factors, and made the decision that I don’t wish to own a gun.
But I reserve the right to revisit that decision. Hell, I’ve done so many times, and each time I’ve decided I don’t want a gun — and the responsibilities and risks and burdens that it brings.
But I reserve the right to reconsider should my circumstances change in the future.
@Jenos Idanian:
Why do you find it necessary to lie with every comment?
If you must lie to make your point…you don’t have a point.
@Jenos Idanian:
But it isn’t. Choices are rarely truly binary and public policy rarely is.
For example: the choice is not to drive or not to drive. If one chooses to drive then one has to meet certain standards and follow certain rules. It is not some simplistic 1 or 0 issue.
But if you think everything is a yes or no proposition with public policy, then I better understand why you argue the way you do.
@Jenos Idanian:
Dude…I don’t want to restrict your choices…I want you to have a gun.
Studies show conclusively that having a gun in your home makes you more likely to successfully attempt suicide.
@C. Clavin: Was that really necessary?
@Steven L. Taylor:
I just want Jenos to be free to make whatever choices he wants to make….
@Steven L. Taylor: Was that really necessary?
It’s Cliffy. For him, that was remarkably restrained.
@Jenos Idanian:
@Steven L. Taylor:
Not sure why your panties are in a twist over an extremely well documented effect of owning guns???
Guns breed gun violence…and they breed suicides.
You cannot advocate for guns and not suicide.
Period.
@C. Clavin: “Well documented?” By whom? Cite the anti-gun propagandists you’re cutting and pasting from.
And yeah, it’s very well-documented that guns lead to violence. Especially when the guns are concentrated in the hands of bad guys.
300+ million guns in the US, Cliffy. If deporting 11 million illegal aliens is impossible, how you gonna handle 300+ million guns? Please, be specific.
You keep saying you favor “common sense” solutions. Who could oppose that? The problem is, “common sense” is a completely foreign concept to you, and you can’t actually put out any ideas that meet that standard.
Also, finally… isn’t suicide a choice, also? Don’t people have the right to choose when and how they wish to die? You’re sounding awfully Catholic there, Cliffy…
@Jenos Idanian:
That’s quite a word salad there….that says nothing…as per usual.
Guns are inextricably linked to suicide rates. (that means impossible to separate, Jenos)
If you want more guns you ipso facto want more suicides.
End of story. Don’t get all worked up over it. You want what you want.
@C. Clavin: Giving people choices means accepting that they might make choices you don’t like. You’re not accepting that, so you’re not letting people make choices.
Ipso facto yourself.
You really put the “loco” in “in loco parentis.”
@Jenos Idanian:
@C. Clavin:
@C. Clavin: “Word Salad.” Thanks.
Now I just need a “Dunning-Kruger” and “fwcking” to win Cliffy Clavin Buzzword Bingo.
@C. Clavin: It’s almost cute how you think those ideas are 1) “common sense,” 2) practical, and 3) in the spirit of the original meaning of “well-regulated.”
@Jenos Idanian:
@Jenos Idanian:
Blah, blah, blah…you keep posting comments that say nothing. I’m sure you are convinced you are “winning”!!!
@C. Clavin: Cliffy, it’s obvious that you not only don’t believe in people having the right to choose in this area, you’re too stupid to even understand what “choice” means. So why waste my time? I don’t have a finite amount to spare.
@C. Clavin: Advocating that a person go kill themselves is also advocating for suicide. Which is obviously the underlying intent of this comment:
Look, I think Jenos has some really strange ideas about how the world works and what policy decisions actually mean.
He’s at a loss to distinguish between rights reasonably restricted (you can be kicked out of a public library or arrested at 4:30 a.m. for shouting; you don’t get to own your own arsenal) and rights (“freedom of speech! … right to bear arms!”) He fails to recognize the consequences of actions that don’t directly affect him — such as voter ID laws and same-sex marriage laws and, yes, gun control laws. And we can’t really expect him to be swept along in a wave of social change, as he’s firmly anchored in a time and place that’s foreign to those who would incite such change.
But that doesn’t suggest in any way that he should harm himself. Hell, I don’t even want him to disappear from this discussion board.
I only wish he were less quick to excitation when discussing topics that have a lot of nuance: he’s a little sloppy in his arguments in the first place (which we all get leeway on what with it being a comment board), but when he gets exasperated, any hope of sounding reasonable disappears.
To me, that’s a shame, because he’s my window into why anyone thinks Hillary wants to confiscate all the guns in this country (christ, think how bad the deer population would be in Michigan without hunters!) in spite of all evidence to the contrary, or why he’s convinced the NRA’s anecdotal list of (over an unspecified time period that seems to be about 10 years) 1,000 times a person with a gun felt safe because of that gun — reading some of these accounts, you get a story like “A guy walked up behind me in a dark alley, and I pulled out my gun and pointed it, and the guy ran away!” = not really fighting crime so much as the gun owner is the guy you don’t want to meet in a dark alley — outweighs the literally 10s of thousands of deaths and injuries from firearms each year, of which a surprisingly large percentage are accidental.
My 2p…YMMV.
@Jenos Idanian:
@Jenos Idanian:
Kinda like your obsession with Benghazi…blah blah blah….Benghazi!!!! Blah blah blah, Clinton!!!
Look at the fool that made of you.
@C. Clavin: Whose obsession with Benghazi? I can’t recall the last time I brought it up here. You, on the other hand…
@ptfe: Cliffy’s idea of “gun control” is “Cliffy controls who has guns.” And people who he doesn’t like are only allowed guns if they promise to kill themselves with them.
Which he then will use to bolster his arguments for more gun control, of course…
@Jenos Idanian:
hahahahahahahahaha….look man…own your f’ups. Its the manly thing to do. You are right about as often as Dick Morris and Bill Kristol…so it will be a full-time job…but still.
@Jenos Idanian:
you really can’t type without lying can you? your mother must be proud of her little lying rat boy.
@Jenos Idanian:
Tsk. Tsk. That would require a balanced view, not trafficking in bizarre notions of movie goers “blazing away” willy nilly.
@Guarneri:
you want what you want. don’t pretend you don’t….own your nonsense!!!
@ptfe: Well, if we don’t get the deer with the guns, we’ll get them with the cars….
@Jenos Idanian:
No. But the NRA and the industry do seem to go a deal past “allowing”, don’t they? Yes, the NRA collects what stories they can to support their position. This guy collects stories of Gun Fail.
See. So cars are just like guns.
So if U have a car U don’t need a gun.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/arizona-road-rage-killing-arrest_562890a3e4b0443bb562ba32
@Steven L. Taylor: @C. Clavin: Kind of a bottom line here is that if you own a gun for self defense there is a) a small chance you or one of your family will attempt suicide with it, with real good odds of success. There is b) a small chance you or one of your family will be shot in anger or accident. There is c) a very small chance you will use it for legitimate self defense. The odds of a) or b) happening are much larger than of c). The only way to reduce the odds of a) or b) is to lock the thing up properly, unloaded, with ammo separate, which makes it almost useless for c). So why have the thing?
And if you don’t agree with my estimate of relative odds, I assume you back funding research to find out for sure.
Yes, dear readers, Jenos is all about choice.
Just like he wanted gays to be allowed to marry – as soon as the conservatives who despise them said its ok, and no sooner.