Here’s a statistic that all of us in the Republic of The Holy Second Amendment can be proud of: In 2015, there’s been an average of roughly one case per week in which children aged three or under have gotten their tiny hands on a firearm and managed to shoot someone with it. And that’s not even including cases where no one was hit, or the kid merely grabbed a gun without firing it. Rarely is the question asked: Is our children using lethal force? Looks like they are! In the most recent incident, a two-year-old South Carolina boy riding in the back seat of a car found a .357 revolver safely tucked away in the storage pouch behind the passenger seat and fired a single shot through the seat, hitting his grandmother in the back. Grandma’s sister, who was driving, says she keeps the gun in her car for “protection[.]”
It fascinates- and aggravates- me that the one word we rarely hear from Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes &vopy; is “responsibility.” You know, as in “Gun owners have a RESPONSIBILITY to ensure their weapons are properly and safely secured and not accessible to children.” Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © will expound volubly and at considerable length about their 2nd Amendment RIGHTS…yet are strangely silent when it comes to accepting and fulfilling the corresponding RESPONSIBILITIES.
Self-interest much??
In the case of the two-year-old South Carolina boy who accidentally “freedomed” his grandmother with a .357 (Remember, “gun control” means hitting what you aim at), the gun’s owner (Grandma’s sister) was strangely sanguine about the event. It seems she keeps the gun “for protection”:
I own a gun, I live alone, travel alone, I am vulnerable; that’s why I have my weapon in an accessible position. I have a two-door car — I don’t carry children in my car, ever.
Except when she does.
The truly sad and sick thing about this sorry saga is that the gun’s owner seemed far more concerned about the possible impact on her future than on the well-being of her sister. Never mind explaining how it came about that a gun was available and accessible to a two-year boy in the back seat of her car.
Yep, another Responsible, Patriotic American Gun Owner © who loves America. And freedom. And the 2nd Amendment.
“He thought he was playing. Guns kill. What happened was serious — my sister could’ve died. I could’ve been in prison now — a college graduate with a degree in social work, getting my license in January — with everything lost behind me,” she said.
Of course, since the grandmother was released from the hospital with non-life threatening injuries, this almost doesn’t even count as a shooting. Besides, what’s truly important here is the gun owner’s pending career as a social worker.
If it seems there are a distressing number of instances in which small children get ahold of a gun and accidentally “freedom” adults in their vicinity…it’s because there are. To >em>Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes ©, though, that just the cost of freedumb freedom.
If only there were something that could be done to prevent these unfortunate uses of firearms, like perhaps laws requiring that firearms be properly secured in homes with children. But that would be an infringement on liberty, according to the NRA, so hey, get ready for some more record-setting years of carnage. Sure, the NRA prints recommendations for safe gun storage on its website, but the minute anyone suggests that such measures be made mandatory, that’s an infringement on the Holy Second.
This is what happens when Proudly Closed-Minded Gun Control Foes © demand their 2nd Amendment “rights” be respected without question or reservation…even as they steadfastly refuse to accept any corresponding responsibility. Take the responsibility to safely store and secure guns in order to keep them out of the hands of children. That, at least by the self-interested definition employed by Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes ©, would be an unacceptable and unconstitutional infringement on the holy, Divinely-granted 2nd Amendment.
In the meantime, children (and adults) continue to accidentally “freedom” innocents unfortunate enough to be around when 2nd Amendment rights are being exercised. Hey, accidental bloodshed is just the price of freedom, patriots! As long as you’re not burying one of your own, what’s the problem??
And so the madness continues unabated because sometimes the Tree of Liberty must be refreshed with the blood of those you have no connection to or concern for.
