We have yet another child injured by one of the certifiable morons who shoot their guns in the air as a form of celebration. Diego Duran, 12, was outside on New Year’s Eve when a bullet fired miles away entered his brain.
Diego suddenly dropped to the ground bleeding from his nose and eyes — the bullet wound was not found until later at the hospital. This is a pet peeve of mine, as many on the blog can attest. The idiot who hurt this child probably will never be found — or even informed of how his stupidity left a child in a near fatal condition.
Despite a concerted and public effort to end this dangerous practice in Florida, the carnage continues unabated.
Source: CBS
Intelligence is not a severe condition in some parts of the wood….
Angryman, speaking of tools used responsibly; or not.
I once knew a fellow who decided he was “impure” because he had not been circumcised and knew that Jesus was circumcised. This guy was not a kid, but a middle aged man. So as to be pure, he decided to circumcise himself. On a pine stump in his back yard. With a double-bit axe.
I love it. Kind of makes you wonder how he made it to middle age doesn’t it?
I remember reading Roots back in the late seventies and there is a description of a group circumcision using a sharpened shell or stone. I thought that was pretty gruesome. Ax Huh? Can you even get an ax sharp enough to perform such a surgery? So many questions.
OS,
I’m with you. I learned to hunt and handle guns when I was young and I was taught the same very critical lesson. It is a basic tenet of any gunhandling course.
Frankly,
I don’t think intelligence is so much the problem as maturity. And good mentoring. Also concern for the repercussions of your actions. I believe that one of the reasons is (your going to love this) gun handling is not taught as seriously as it should be. By that I mean that everyone should know how to handle a firearm and own one. It is a right recognized clearly by the constitution and one we should not be so quick to give up.
It seems foolish for a supposedly free people to purposely deny themselves the ability to defend themselves.
I am not proposing everyone become a hunter or a soldier or that they ever fire the damn thing in anger. I am suggesting that the way things in this country look; anything could happen. Any one of us could easily find ourselves in a survival situation. Natural or manmade doesn’t matter. If that should happen you will be at the whims of the winds if you can’t protect yourself and your family.
If those of us who are lets’s say; to the left of center to cover the field; refuse to excercise out right to keep arms for our defence; we are choosing to trust our protection to the very people who are likely to be the attackers; and they will have guns. The right to bear arms is not a Conservative stance. The Republicans embrace it because it is a money related thing in that guns cost money so people with money have more guns thus republicans have more guns and it makes them seem to be defenders of the peoples rights and the Constituion which we know they are not. That fact alone should give us enough reason to wonder why they support this particular right so strongly and make us suspicious enough to go buy a damned gun; learn to shoot it; well; then put it up for the future possibility of need.
The right to bear arms is a Liberal stance by definition.
Conservatives take rights from the people.
Liberals are supposed to secure and defend those rights. Why is that flip-flopped in this case?
I believe it is because those to the left tend to be kinder; gentler souls. Many are afraid of guns (because they have been conditioned to be afraid and have not been acclimated to gun handling when they were young.)
Many can’t imagine themselves using one because they have always associated guns with crime (again largely due to conditioning)
I understand that but I say that we can’t afford to be timid. We can’t afford to give up our guns because they scare us anymore than we can afford to give up our cars because they have powerful explosions inside the engine that could kill us if they get out of hand. It’s true. Your car is a dangerous piece of machinery if it goes wrong or is used inappropriately; much like a gun. But we’re not rushing to give up our cars; are we? We might need them to run away; for instance.
Common sense tells us that we shouldn’t give up the tool; we should learn how to properly handle and use it. Any tool.
This isn’t the time to be timid. This is the time to take a stand. The outcome of that choice? Who knows. Maybe we will find ourselves in the same situation the Syrians are in or the Egyptions.
But firing a gun into the Air? repulsive lack of maturity; self control; and responsible firearms handling
The thought of loosing a child to random tragedy is heart breaking enough, the thought of loosing one to random stupidity is even worse.
I guess that should read that stupid voters have put in the executives all through our history who have waged wars for mostly no good reason. But the end result is the same, those young people are dead.
Frankly:
can we do the same with voting? That has killed many more people than guns.
Guns don’t kill people . . . bullets do.
People should have to pass some sort of intelligence test before they are allowed to have access to a gun.
As a long time firearms owner, the urge of some to fire into the air totally escapes me. I learned to shoot at a very young age and the first thing my dad and grandfather taught was to never discharge a weapon unless you knew where the round would end up, especially if you missed your target.
That is Rule One of responsible gun ownership. I agree with Professor Turley that I hope the perpetrator is caught and prosecuted. I put people who do things like that right up there with those who shine lasers at passing aircraft. Having fun? People can and do end up dead from “fun” such as that.
why not just buy blanks or load your own blanks for special occaisions if you just cant control the urge.
Would that the media report the more relevant news of thousands of family suicides going on monthly due to there lack of hope for the future.
These emotional choices the media cartel pick to speak of, although important, shadow the more intense and more important travesties that would move the people to action at the root of the horror.
I cannot understand such people who fire guns into the air. I have to say that I am guilty of doing that when I am goose hunting, but then the pellets have spent themselves and pose no danger to anybody other than the decoys. It is just as easy and less dangerous if they feel they must shoot off guns to celebrate to aim into the ground, preferably soft lawn with no rocks or metal to deflect the bullet.
I was going to say something really snarky about guns and the people who shoot them but this is too sad a situation for snark. I feel so badly for this child and his family that words fail me.