Unintentional gun-related injuries on upswing

[SecularMotion]

One evening in May 2012, Karl Johnson took apart his newly purchased .45-caliber Springfield pistol, intending to clean it.

Johnson, 24, had recently moved back home to Kennewick and was sitting on a bed in his basement next to his roommate, Bradly Slater, 22, playing a video game.

The men had met two years earlier as Marines in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. They became best friends and, after surviving convoy ambushes and roadside bombs, left war with plans to attend college together at Washington State University.

But that evening, Johnson forgot to remove the semi-automatic’s magazine before disassembling it. So when he pulled back the weapon’s slide, a bullet entered the chamber. Taking off the part required him to squeeze the trigger. And when he did, the bullet thundered out.

http://union-bulletin.com/news/2014/mar/17/unintentional-gun-related-injuries-upswing/

[clffrdjk]

1. That the rate or number?

Also how does this rate compare to other accident rates?

[Starboard Tack]

2. I'm sure many consider the numbers statistically insignificant.

Pointing out events like this is really not conducive to family fun with guns.

[clffrdjk]

3. Actually it plays a very large role in family fun with guns.

Safe practices always have to be adhered to, the example in the op shows what carelessness can lead to even with highly trained individuals.

[Starboard Tack]

6. Isn't that the truth

Good job it never happens to those who have been trained in gun safety, like military professionals.

[clffrdjk]

7. Good job? Your sarcasm is too thick for me to see any sort of point.

[Starboard Tack]

9. Sarcasm. What need is there for sarcasm?

See Spin's excellent post #5. Kinda says it all.
This tragedy along with the thousands of other similar tragedies, fly in the face of the very notion that guns are safe. Regardless the training and sense of responsibility shown by most gun owners, the numbers speak for themselves. I enjoy shooting and I enjoy individual freedoms, but the time has come to face the realities of the costs involved.
I'm very happy to be living back in the real world, where guns are not carried by non professionals performing their jobs, and are not seen as toys to have family fun time with.

[gejohnston]

11. Do you drive a car?

That is even greater danger. Of course there is that Ben Franklin quote which is 100 percent correct.

[Starboard Tack]

17. Sorry GE, but that is a ridiculous analogy.

Maybe you have a link to all those people who died by cleaning their cars. Or accidentally killed neighbors and family members while cleaning their cars.
We are not talking about driving cars or using guns here, just cleaning them and performing gun safety practices.
But, to answer your question, Yes, occasionally I drive and have driven several million miles during my life, all without killing or mamiming anyone. How many miles would you want these idiots, who shoot themselves and others accidentally, to carry their guns in public?

Another thing, cars are designed and built to be safer every year, while guns are designed to be more lethal. Maybe it's time for the boys to get some new toys.

[gejohnston]

21. actually it isn't

because I don't buy the "cleaning my gun" excuse to handwave acts of stupidity and negligence. When they say "I was just cleaning my gun" I think they are lying.

Guns are no more and no less lethal than they were 100 years ago.

[Starboard Tack]

22. There may have been just as lethal weapons 100 years ago

But the average gun owner did not possess the kind of arsenal common today. Few guns carried more than 6 bullets. Scopes were rare, but that's another discussion.
However, you were talking about cars being more dangerous, which is nonsense for many reasons.

1. Cars are rarely used to intentionally maim or kill.
2. Cars are not designed to kill
3. There are many more cars in use at any one time than guns, most of which remain locked up where they belong.
4. The purpose of cars is essentially benign, while the purpose of most guns is lethality.
5. You think the "gun cleaners" are lying? What about?
6. Do you think Spin is lying in post #5?

I could go on all day about the difference, but what's the point......?

[clffrdjk]

27. And yet

Cars kill more people than guns do hmm interesting.

1. Cars are rarely used to intentionally maim or kill.
36,000 in 2009

2. Cars are not designed to kill
But they are very good at it

3. There are many more cars in use at any one time than guns, most of which remain locked up where they belong.
I would really like to see a study comparing the rate of car deaths per hour driven to the rate of gun deaths per hour loaded, separating suicide, accidents, and homicide.

4. The purpose of cars is essentially benign, while the purpose of most guns is lethality.
You are repeating.

So one incorrect statement, one unproven opinion, and a repeat of the old no other purpose but to kill line (which is interesting coming from someone who claimed to enjoy target shooting) and you threaten that you can continue like this all day, that's not a very high bar.

Oh yea are you counting 5 and 6 because I really don't see what they have to do with the car analogy?

[Starboard Tack]

29. 36,000 intentional vehicular homicides in 2012?

Link please
I like guns btw, but I'm smart enough not to carry one. I also like a few drugs, but am smart enough not to consume them. YMMV

[clffrdjk]

31. Yea I saw that after I posted, no they weren't intentional that's total deaths.

But considering that this whole thread has been about accidents so far, I think I will leave it up.
Oh yea the link https://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tab

[gejohnston]

33. and?

1. Cars are rarely used to intentionally maim or kill. As far as we know.

2. Cars are not designed to kill yet they do much better job at it

3. There are many more cars in use at any one time than guns, most of which remain locked up where they belong. I don't see how that is an apples to apples comparison.

4. The purpose of cars is essentially benign, while the purpose of most guns is lethality. Yet some of the social effects are quite different. The invention of the car created health problems from exhaust, including lead, and pollution that didn't exist before. There is suburban sprawl that takes away sense of community, healthy ways of getting around, and wild space. Without the car, there couldn't be McMansions in gated communities. Before guns were invented, most people were either slaves or serfs. Armies were mostly members of a warrior class who, who were the thugs for the oligarchs. These warriors, knights and sumari etc were expensive because all they did was train. Sparta could not exist without the Helots. The democratization of violence changed all of that for the most part. Europeans stopped enslaving other Europeans (other than the English rounding up Irish people and loading them on slave ships to the New World for about 100 years, and private slavers buying Africans from other Africans). As a digression, the last victim of Cotton Mather's witch trial was an exslave that escaped from Barbados and landed up in Salem. Her crime? Clinging to her Latin Bible and saying the Lord's Prayer in Gaelic. After the Shogunate lost the Boshin War, Japan realized that they could enlist anyone to create a disciplined army when needed, just like the European advisers.

5. You think the "gun cleaners" are lying? What about? Growing up in a culture where most of the population have guns, have handled guns, along with everyone else in my neighborhood, since second grade, never with any accident while cleaning a gun. The only accident was a friend of mine's dad forgot to unload the .30-06 before going home from hunting. Older, but intellectually impaired, found it and took out the TV. My first impression, before I know the details, and often after hearing them, makes me skeptical.

6. Do you think Spin is lying in post #5? no. The cop might have lied to Spin, but Spin is not lying to us. I would be curious to see how the cop did that. From what I understand of Glocks, you have to pull the trigger to field strip it, it is possible that he spaced out the round in the chamber for cleaning. Hint, that is why I prefer Walther and Ruger, and everybody else before Glock.

[clffrdjk]

12. My individual freedoms have never done any harm to any person

If you want to give up yours go right ahead, I will keep mine and continue to use them safely.

Was this "it never happens to those who have been trained in gun safety, like military professionals." Not sarcasm?

"I'm very happy to be living back in the real world, where guns are not carried by non professionals performing their jobs, and are not seen as toys to have family fun time with."
Do you not live in the U.S, or maybe you live inside some small guarded compound were no guns are allowed in?

[Starboard Tack]

18. Enjoy, my friend.

No, I decided to return to the rest of the world. Got tired of living in a paranoid police state. That is the irony, I left the guarded compound that you call the US.

[SQUEE]

15. Just how much time does an ENLISTED Marine

Spend on training, and day to day usage of the 1911? hint.. almost none.
You are, (one of many, to be fair) dazzled by the idea of military and LEO training as the be all end all of profeciency.

For myself, beyond a very rudimentary famiiarization with the M9 and 1911, Basic and AIT taught me very little about pistols, and also more disinfo about the M16 than truth, as a civilian I spend far more time with my rifle and pistols, literally an order of magnitude.

I have seen at least 5 ND/ AD into the clearing barrels in the arms room, I've seen feedtrays lifted on a live round on the M-60.
Shit happens even among the "professional", proper training involves a list of steps and safeguards that help to mitigate these incidents into embarresing and thought provoking situations, not tragedies.

[ManiacJoe]

4. The Four Gun Safety Rules work well

when they are followed. Proper gun storage is also a good thing.

I am surprised that the article had actual stats in it.

[spin]

5. Always remember to practice muzzle safety when handling a firearm. It's surprising how ...

often experienced shooters forget this simple rule.

I remember years ago when I used to shoot at an indoor police range that was open to the public that a police instructor had two accidental discharges in the lobby when loading, unloading his Glock pistol. He managed to kill a Pepsi machine and a small TV. There was a sand trap in the lobby.

After the second incident, I believe he lost his job as a police firearms instructor.

[ileus]

8. I've taken my new p220 apart 4 times since Saturday...not one issue.

each time I had to unload it....


I've decocked it with a round chambered a couple of dozen times...no issues.


Safety first I always say.




You can keep your Glock...

[Starboard Tack]

10. Good for you. Obviously nothing untoward could ever happen with such care.

You guys remind me of the builders of the Titanic.

[oneshooter]

13. It took an Irishman to build the Titanic,

But it took an Englishman to sink her.

You got something against the Irish, Englishman?

[Starboard Tack]

23. Nope, you got something against the English?

Do you feel it's appropriate or relevant to bring up nationality or do I detect a hint of bigotry?

[oneshooter]

34. Not too much. It was you who brought up the builders of the Titanic.

[Starboard Tack]

36. And you who felt the need to turn it into a race thing.

[oneshooter]

37. So you believe that the English and the Irish are diffrent races?

[Starboard Tack]

38. Nope, but it sounds like you do

[oneshooter]

39. I never mentioned race, you did. " you who felt the need to turn it into a race thing."

Apparently you believe that the English and the Irish are separate races.

[clffrdjk]

40. Mom, Dad stop fighting over nothing!!!!

[Starboard Tack]

41. Apparently you felt it necessary to point out who built and sank the Titanic

in an effort to cause some ethnic friction. Nice one. But I'm not biting.

[ileus]

14. Like I always say, safety first.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

16. "You guys remind me of the builders of the Titanic."

If only we go through the planning, time and expense of building a gun free society we will then have a completely safe and "unsinkable" society. Right?

[Starboard Tack]

19. A tad late for that, I think. The horse is already out of the barn.

As long as gun use and ownership is seen as a "right", then you will never find a lasting solution.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

20. Golly. If only you had said something sooner --

[Starboard Tack]

24. That scene was pre barns and horses

Interesting that you deal with the primordial barbarity of man by emulating it. American football being a great example. Such irony, the rest of the world plays soccer to entertain the masses and demonstrate healthy athletic competition. Admittedly the fans often get carried away, but players rarely try to harm each other.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

25. "That scene was pre barns and horses"

Whaaaa?

Interesting that you deal with the primordial barbarity of man by emulating it.

I have not beaten anyone to death with a bone club in quite some time. Weeks even.

American football being a great example.

Whaaaa?

Such irony, the rest of the world plays soccer to entertain the masses and demonstrate healthy athletic competition. Admittedly the fans often get carried away, but players rarely try to harm each other.

How about the time when the ref knifed a player on the field and then the fans rushed the referee, decapitated him and posted his head on a stake. Yeah, civilization.

The point of the clip is that -- even in the absolute absence of weapons -- there are those who will seek to subjugate others through force and violence. It part of the price of admission to planet Earth. Silly ideas will not remediate the issue. Insults won't help you sell it, either.

[Starboard Tack]

30. The fans and the ref, but not the players. My point exactly.

Don't you love life's ironies. Sorry, if you felt insulted, no offence intended.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

32. "My point exactly."

Whatever that may be.

[bowens43]

26. if you have a gun the injuries are intentional and expected.

[clffrdjk]

28. Right

And this is evident from your vast personal experience?
Oh wait nope just another grabber making it up as they go.

[pablo_marmol]

35. Nice to see a claim with a reliable source.

"It was the highest injury tally since 1995 and 30 percent higher than the average over that period, according to a Seattle Times analysis of state Health Department records. The state’s population grew about half that much over that time."

After all - the news media & health advocacy groups have been so rigorously honest w/regard to the gun violence issue!

[ileus]

42. If you're worried about ND when cleaning the new Sig P320 is your new baby.