I’m not really in favor of most gun control laws. And I think the 2nd Amendment is not there for hunters and target practice, but with the (perhaps quaint) idea that an armed populace can resist a tyrannical government. But, if nothing else, stories like this make me careful about where I let my kids go to play:
Crawfordsville police Detective David Long tells WRTV of Indianapolis that witnesses reported 27-year-old Steven Bixler was acting carelessly with a gun in a bedroom where four children were playing when it went off, striking the 10-year-old in the torso.
I wonder how the number of burglars fended off or criminals deterred by gun owners compares to the number of kids and other innocent bystanders who are killed or injured by improper use of firearms.
… a few years ago I did some research and found more people had died from firearms in the 3rd Ward of Indianapolis than in all of Japan in that year.
Strangely enough, Japan pretty much doesn’t even enforce their gun control laws. Backround checks are generally done “after the fact”, according to it’s entry under Gun Politics on wikipedia.
Quote:
As is common in Japan, “regulations are treated more as road maps than as rules subject to active enforcement. Japan is still a very safe country when it comes to guns, a reality that has less to do with laws than with prevailing attitudes”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics#Japan
My first question whenever I hear a story like this is: was the gun legal?
In this case, I’m guessing no. And if the gun was illegal, how will making guns more difficult for law abiding citizens to get stop a tragedy like this from happening?