Now do you get it?

[Tominator]

The following story was taken from the current issue of "The Gun Owner".
An informative newsletter offered by the GOA website.
For the complete story click here: Gun Grabbers on Parade

Jessica is 14 years old.

She knows how to shoot; her father taught her.

And there were adequate firearms to deal with the crisis that arose in
their home in Merced, Calif. -- a San Joaquin Valley farming community 130
miles southeast of San Francisco -- when 27-year-old Jonathon David Bruce
came calling on Wednesday morning, Aug. 23.

There was just one problem.

Under the new "safe storage" laws being enacted in California and
elsewhere, parents can be held criminally liable unless they lock up their
guns when their children are home alone... so that's just what law-abiding
parents John and Tephanie Carpenter had done.

Some of Jessica's siblings -- Anna, 13; Vanessa, 11; Ashley, 9; and John
William, 7 -- were still in their bedrooms when Bruce broke into the
farmhouse shortly after 9 a.m.

Bruce, who was armed with a pitchfork -- but to whom police remain unable
to attribute any motive -- had apparently cut the phone lines.

9-1-1 doesn't always work
So when he forced his way into the house and began stabbing the younger
children in their beds, Jessica's attempts to dial 9-1-1 didn't do much
good.

Next, the sensible girl ran for where the family guns were stored. But
they were locked up tight.

"When the 14-year-old girl ran to a nearby house to escape the
pitchfork-wielding man attacking her siblings," writes Kimi Yoshino of the
Fresno Bee, "she didn't ask her neighbor to call 9-1-1.

She begged him to grab his rifle and 'take care of this guy.'"

He didn't. Jessica ended up on the phone.

By the time Merced County sheriff's deputies arrived at the home,
7-year-old John William and 9-year-old Ashley Danielle were dead. Ashley
had apparently hung onto her assailant's leg long enough for her older
sisters to escape. Thirteen-year-old Anna was wounded but survived.

Once the deputies arrived, Bruce rushed them with his bloody pitchfork. So
they shot him dead. They shot him more than a dozen times. With their
guns.

Now do you get it?
:|

 

[shiner]

Sad story but it points out what I've been saying since this "lock up your guns" craziness began. Do you REALLY think a criminal is going to wait for you to get your guns out of the safe or remove the trigger lock? I think not...

Damn sad that those kids had to die due to anti-gun stupidity.

 

[johnjohn320]

That's a true story, right? It's sad, although, someone will argue (and this someone is NOT me), that here's another story:

Jessica is 14 years old.

She was playing with her friend Ricky in their home, when Jessica picked up her father's gun and was jokingly swinging it around, thinking it wasn't loaded. BANG! Ricky's dead.

Again, that doesn't mean I disagree with you, I'm just saying that it's something to consider.

 

[osage]

sad, very sad

 

[osage]

JohnJohn, if your Jessica had been taught correct firearms safety it would have never happened.

 

[Jmman]

Yep, I say we all carry guns everywhere we go. Definitely will keep us safe. Don't forget to carry a backup also, just in case the first one jams....

 

[XMan]

<< Jessica picked up her father's gun and was jokingly swinging it around, thinking it wasn't loaded. >>



If Jessica had been properly educated by her father, she would have known that a gun is ALWAYS loaded - even when it isn't. The irresponsible parent is solely to blame in the instance you describe.

 

[Jmman]

Osage

Just a comment. Children always do what their parents tell them to do, don't they?

 

[Michael]

You can teach your kids anything. They're still kids. One moment of immaturity with a gun and a terrible accident can happen. I know that accidents can happen at any time and guns do not have to be involved, but I bet that they happen many, many more times than a pitchfork wielding murderer attacks a family.

It is like wearing seatbelts. Usually, it is better to be wearing a seatbelt than not in an accident. Every once and a while it is worse to be wearing a seatbelt. That doesn't invalidate seatbelt laws.

Michael

 

[Azraele]

Your story poses a valid point, but the fact remains that you still hear stories about kids killing kids by accident with guns. The message 'lock up your guns' was an attempt to protect children as not everyone's parents teach the kids how to properly use and handle firearms. It was not an attack at gun rights or anything else.

Just mho.

 

[DefRef]

Remember: It's better to be a victim of a criminal's attack and be killed rather than take the risk of an accident due to poor education!

Disarm everyone! The Liberals want it, so it must be a good idea!

 

[osage]

Jmman, as I'm sure you know they don't always do as we tell them

 

[XMan]

<< Your story poses a valid point, but the fact remains that you still hear stories about kids killing kids by accident with guns. >>



Interesting point.



<< Such laws are based on the notion that young children often &quot;find daddy's gun&quot; and accidentally shoot each other.

But in fact only five American children under the age of 10 died of accidents involving handguns in 1997, Lott reports. &quot;People get the impression that kids under 10 are killing each other. In fact this is very rare: three to four per year.&quot;

The typical shooter in an accidental child gun death is a male in his late teens or 20s, who, statistically, is probably a drug addict or an alcoholic and has already been charged with multiple crimes, Lott reports. &quot;These are the data that correlate. Are these the kind of people who are going to obey one more law?&quot; >>



On average, three to four per year? Wow. Three kids have died on the ski slopes in Colorado this year - I guess we should ban skiing, too, huh?

 

[Azraele]

<<I know that accidents can happen at any time>>

True. My middle school phys ed teacher had an awful tragedy when her 14 year old son accidently shot and killed his father. They had taught him proper gun handling, and he had gotten the gun out because he and his dad were going to go hunting. The gun went off accidently and his dad died.

This story may not have much to do with the man and the pitchfork and locking up guns, but it does go to show that even knowing proper handling of firearms, accidents can happen. What would have happened if the guns hadn't been locked up and the kids got them down in a moment of boredom to go shoot at cans or just to look at them or something and an accident occurred?

I'm not necessarily arguing that guns should be kept locked up when parents are away, I'm just trying to pose a different perspective.

 

[Jmman]

Here are the national numbers for 1997.......

In 1997, 4,223 young people ages 0-19 were killed by gunfire-- one every two hours, nearly 12 every day. Of these:

2,580 were murdered by gunfire.

1,282 committed suicide using a gun -- more than three every day.

306 died from an unintentional or accidental shooting.

630 young people killed by guns were under the age of 15.2

 

[urbantechie]

Whats the moral of this story?

Anyways, i'll shoot any SOB that goes in my house.

 

[Azraele]

Xerox Man: I see your point and you have it well backed by stats. However, perhaps the gun lockup law is not solely based on accidental shootings. What about all of the school shootings that have occurred. Could not the law also be an attempt to cut back on those?

 

[Michael]

DefRef - Too bad you are incapable of reading and comprehending. Even if you assume that the children were taught gun safety, the risk of an accident leading to a death is so much higher that the chance that a pitchfork-wielding maniac will break in that I see no need to change a sensible law. That assumes that the parent's are very responsible and actually teach their children properly. Of course, an irresponsible parent probably would have left the guns unlocked as well.

At no point to I suggest that the parents could not own guns. I persinally do not want them in my house, but I don't have an issue with others owning them. If my daughter is going over to play where there are guns, I hope to God they're locked up. She's 3 1/2 and really wouldn't understand about not playing with them.

Michael

 

[Thanatopsis]

Azraele,

For Columbine (which is the only school shooting I really know about) the parents didn't even know that their kids had the guns and bombs. &quot;Locking up your gun&quot; helped not one bit in that case.

 

[GaryTcs]

Unfortunate story. The absence of a gun can be as deadly as the presence of a gun. Too bad an adult was not around.

We grew up with guns around, and niether me, nor my siblings would ever have played with them. We were very aware of the killing potential of guns at an early age.

I agree that there are those who have no need for a gun. They cannot handle the responsibility of it. A gun owner should be held responsible for his weapon anytime it's misused, unless he can show that he took adequate measures to prevent it. You should be able to wiegh the risk of having a gun accessable vs. not.

I find it interesting the deputies shot him more than a dozen times. Talk about poor shots. (I'm thinking he must still be standing after 11 shots, right?) We had a similar incident here (with a hatchet) and the cops shot this dude 7 times- and still didn't kill him!! (luckily he killed no one before they showed up- domestic dispute of some sort)

 

[Imaginer]

Yep. I get it.

I get that it is foolish to keep a way of immediate defense out of reach and I think that if the locks are not there then perhaps the family would been saved.

But what I also think is that it is all in the education and that even kids are kids, they should be ingraned on how serious of an item a gun is.

But then again, either way both sides lose....

I think that if you keep guns under lock and key then how ready are you in case of an immediate break-in like in the story.

Or if you do educate kids, what makes you think that one day that a boy might show off due to peer pressure or a friend of his gets the gun by accident. (then you have a whole mess of problems)

If you elimate weapons alltogether, then what makes you think that anyone will break in silently and killing everyone with a <exaggeration>well sharpened PENCIL</exaggeration>.

It just makes me mad how the world is. :|

 

[Tominator]

Imaginer ...there is no easy answer. The same Liberal Weeinies that want your Guns also want to teach your children about sex. They state that if they are knowledgeable they are less likely to misuse it.....and they fail at both!

More kids drown in buckets, on bicycles or in Cars every year than gun accidents. We teach safety for those, yet if you propose gun safety it's suddenly evil to do so.

 

[Ulfwald]

GUN CONTROL
A Simple Solution for Simple Minds.
Over twenty-five years of holding forth on talk radio has revealed certain undeniable truths to me. Among those is the fact that modern-day liberals are absolutely incapable of engaging in a logical fact-based discussion of important issues. Logic is to your typical big-government liberal what a clove of garlic is to Dracula. They can't handle it, so they hide from it.
Nowhere is this aversion to logic more evident than in discussions of gun control. Simply stated, the facts are not on the side of those who argue for either registration of our outlawing the private ownership of handguns, let alone so-called assault weapons.
I strongly feel that the people who founded this country absolutely meant for the people to have the right to own firearms. . If you will listen to some of the anti-gun types out there you will hear them make reference to a particular type of gun as a gun &quot;not suitable for hunting or target shooting.&quot; The premise here is that hunting and sport shooting are the only legitimate reasons for gun ownership. Contrary to what some liberal commentators might have you believe, our founding fathers wanted us to have the right to bear arms so that we could protect our lives, our property and our freedoms. Not so we could target shoot or hunt deer.
You've seen the old (and somewhat tired) bumper sticker &quot;If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.&quot; The beauty of this bumper sticker is that it is absolutely correct! There are no bona-fide gun control proposals out there that would get the guns out of the hands of criminals or that would prevent predators from buying guns. All of the proposals only restrict the ability of law-abiding citizens to obtain and own firearms. I propose another bumper sticker ... one even more terrifying:
If Guns Are Outlawed, Only the Government Will Have Guns.
Last year Georgia made it easier for a citizen to obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon. The liberals in this State were absolutely enraged! Cynthia Tucker, the Editorial Page Editor of The Atlanta Constitution, wrote that it would be &quot;open season&quot; on police officers, and that police officers would die in large numbers if it were easier for private citizens to obtain permits to carry concealed weapons. This is a good example of the aversion to facts that most lefties have on this issue. The fact is that there has never been one documented incident anywhere in this country where a police officer was shot in the line of duty by a private citizen carrying a concealed handgun for which he had a permit! Just where did she get this &quot;police will die in the streets&quot; nonsense? Straight out of her illogical mind, that's where. (Actually, Cynthia is really a nice person. She just can't think all that well.)
Oddly enough, the statistics --- the FACTS ---- show that violent crime rates go down when it becomes easier for private law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons. The reason is simple, and logical. Criminals don't like the idea that their victim may be armed!
An interesting thing happened in Florida in recent years when the law was changed to make it easier for people to get carry permits. The violent crime rate, including murders and armed robberies, went down. The predators were afraid! Finally they figured out where they could find some victims who would most likely have some cash, and who most likely would not have guns! Get them coming off the airplanes at Miami International Airport! These people are coming to Florida for a vacation, so they have cash. They have just been through airport security, so they don't have guns. Now that's the type of victim the predators want! Unarmed ones!
One more thought before you go back to my home page. This is a fact that draws a blank stare from the gun control crowd. They have no idea in the world how to handle it. Out of all the privately owned handguns, legal and illegal, in the United States, guess what percentage of them are not used in a murder in any given year? Guess what percentage of them are not used in a crime of any type?
99.998% of all privately owned handguns in the U.S. are not used in a murder in any given year.
99.96% of all privately owned handguns in the U.S. are not used in any crime in a given year.
Now that really screams for gun control, doesn't it?
How about some CRIMINAL control?
Addendum:
Someone e-mailed me with this thought. If, in fact, the purpose of the Second Amendment to our Constitution is to enable to GOVERNMENT to arm a GOVERNMENT MILITIA .... then this would be the only one of the 10 Amendments constituting the Bill of Rights that confers a power or right on the government.

 

[XMan]

Ulfwald - right on.

 

[Yeeny]

If Jessica had been properly educated by her father, she would have known that a gun is ALWAYS loaded - even when it isn't. The irresponsible parent is solely to blame in the instance you describe.

I am all for people having the right to bear arms. My only problem with it is those irresponsible parents who don't teach their kids correctly could cost me my child. I don't keep a gun in my house, because I don't feel I am responsible enough to own one. Unfortunately, not everyone is as willing as I am to admit that fact. And even if its only three or four kids per year that die that way, to their parents its still one too many.