In April 1987 seven-year-old Michelle Snow was killed in Riverside, California
http://www.armedwithreason.com/debunking-the-guns-dont-kill-people-people-kill-people-myth/
Guns don’t kill people, children do. Cassie Culpepper, age 11, was riding in the back of a pickup when her 12-year-old brother pointed his father’s pistol at her. He believed he had removed the bullets, and so jokingly pulled the trigger. He was
wrong.
Since January 1st, 2013 there have been 11 reported gun fatalities involving preschool children as the shooter. Ten more toddlers have accidentally shot themselves or somebody else this year. And this statistic represents only data for which a toddler is the shooter in a death (MotherJones reports that 71 children have been killed by guns since Newtown). The BBC originally reported on this phenomenon in 2009 when, in the span of 24 hours, two children were shot by their toddler siblings. In both cases, the deaths were a result of improperly secured weapons. A New York Times’ piece added to the controversy showing that, due to idiosyncrasies over what constitutes a ‘homicide’ or an ‘accident’, child firearm accidental killings happen roughly twice as much as they are reported in national databases.
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In April 1987 seven-year-old Michelle Snow was killed in Riverside, California by a stray lawn dart that was thrown by her brother’s playmate. These darts were part of a children’s game in the 70′s and 80′s involving large, weighted darts with sharp metal tips, designed to pierce a horizontal target on the ground. Michelle’s father immediately began a campaign to ban the darts, arguing that anything less than a full-scale ban would be insufficient—after all, even if you were to ban lawn darts in your own home, nothing can stop a neighbor’s child from throwing one over the fence. The campaign led to an all-out ban in the US and Canada. To this day, it is illegal to assemble a lawn dart in either of the two countries. The problem wasn’t just that lawn darts were dangerous, it was that they were dangerous AND they were being marketed to children as a game, despite being responsible for 6,100 emergency room visits over a span of eight years. So when parents observed that these unnecessarily dangerous toys were injuring and killing their children, they did what any sensible parent would do: they complained until the government listened.
Now examine how differently our society treats guns in a similar context: On April 20th, 2013, a five-year-old Kentucky boy shot and killed his two-year-old sister with a gun that had been specifically manufactured for child use. The gun was called “My First Rifle”, a .22 caliber gun which marketed itself as “especially for youth shooters.” Instead of massive public backlash, the National Rifle Association (NRA) instead, days after the event, held its Annual Meeting where it explicitly marketed firearms and firearm paraphernalia to kids, including NRA bibs for children, ‘Youth Model’ firearms, and NRA publications focused on ‘Youth Shooters.’ Where was the outcry over the blatant militarization of children by one of the most powerful political lobbies in the United States? Where was the parental campaigns demanding that children not be subject to the propagandization of firearms? Where are the restrictions, the regulations, the bans? The NRA’s response, instead, sent a different message: “You’ll have to take my gun from my child’s cold, dead hands.”
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