http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2013/02/08/legal-or-not-gun-goes-off-on-ua-campus Comments On: Legal or not, gun goes off on UA campus by Max Brantley en-us Copyright 2013 Arkansas Times. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, Arkansas Times readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact Arkansas Times. robert@arktimes.com (Arkansas Times Webmaster) Sat, 18 May 2013 00:00:01 -0500 Sat, 18 May 2013 13:00:00 -0500 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Posted by dottholliday]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 20:06:38 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by plainjim]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 18:15:27 -0600 Arkansas Times
However, Gylippus, did state that the Swiss were more suicidal than Americans (U.S.), but (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_count…) lists US suicide rate
at 12 per 100,000 population and the U.S. at 11.1 . . . which if you are looking at the gun death statistics even makes a worse case for U.S. proliferation of guns and lack of gun control rigor.

As to the modern design of firearms, yes they are better. However, I still believe that good practice is to carry an semiautomatic without a cartridge chambered, I freely admit my experience has been more weighted to semiautomatics in training and use. If I am carrying a revolver everyday, I'd still keep the hammer on an empty chamber, but I am a "shoes and galoshes" safety-type. Navy training or experience, I guess, and my instructors were of the opinion less than five rounds is usually more than enough with a handgun, but that was for Vietnam 43 years ago. Plus the only police officer I ever asked about it was a now retired State Police lieutenant who kept his on an empty chamber for safety. I guess he and I would be overly cautious to the pro-gun proliferation members.
Posted by dottholliday]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 22:49:56 -0600 Arkansas Times
Now, you can try and demonize with idiot terms like gun fetish and all, but I have seen here a discussion on gun from people trying to portray themselves as knowledgeable, yet don't even know about design and safety in the newer guns. You don't even care to know about guns, yet you try to pass yourselves off as informed.
Posted by Steven E]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 19:51:22 -0600 Arkansas Times
The gun fetishists and their political lackeys are today in the minority in the US. So to the extent there's tyranny in the minority it's on the side of NRA and those who get off their stroking their gun barrels.
Posted by GrizLee Bear]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 16:17:08 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by DeathbyInches]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 15:33:05 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Steven E]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 15:02:55 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by GrizLee Bear]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 13:41:12 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Steven E]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 10:06:13 -0600 Arkansas Times
Are you somehow extra dead if you are killed by a gun? Do guns steal your soul or something?
You could make a much more credible case if you ditched the gun myopia. You are not going to convince anyone by sticking those two stats in the same sentence.

"Like the person who made the statement, I don't think that U.S. citizens are more homicidal and/or suicidal than those other countries' citizens."

You should think that US citizens are more homicidal, because it is probably true.
Americans are less suicidal than Japanese and the Swiss, something you would miss with a bad case of gun myopia.
Posted by Gylippus]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 09:27:38 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Doc]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 08:48:58 -0600 Arkansas Times
Gene, dott, you can almost be forgiven your ignorance of firearms. Thing is, you don't want to know any more. When your willfully ignorant, then your something worse than merely ignorant.

Dott, did I not state that guns 50 years ago were not the safest? I know why, during the early years of handguns, the hammer was supposed to be down on an empty chamber. Thing is, with the modern revolvers, there was designed a transfer bar. It allows the hammer to strike the primer only when the trigger is pull. Pulling the trigger raises the transfer bar so the gun can fire. If the hammer drops on a loaded chamber when the trigger is NOT pulled, the transfer bar is out of line, and the gun will NOT fire. Period. That is the physics of the design. The only, ONLY way the guns go of on modern handguns is when the trigger IS PULLED.

That is why part of the thre mains rules of safety is to keep your freakin' finger off the freakin' trigger till your ready to shoot.

As for the Taurus Judge, one is in my future. The flexibility of cartridge use is too good to pass up. Far as worries about safety, that is only in the fevered imagination of people that don't know butt from buttstock.
Posted by Steven E]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 08:45:06 -0600 Arkansas Times
I'm sorry if you own one and feel somewhat less of a man at this point.
Posted by Mean Gene]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 07:51:22 -0600 Arkansas Times Which is why, in the 19th and early 20th centuries when large numbers of U.S. citizens carried firearms daily, admittedly of various quality, most carried their cartridge or percussion cap revolvers with the hammer on an empty chamber or their semiautomatic pistols without a cartridge in the chamber, because they knew, knew that firearms do not accidentally discharge . . ., but did so to keep from shooting themselves, and other, in case theirs did.
After that little dose of historical reality, it is still, to the NRA gun nuts' chagrin, an example of an innocent (i don't think he obtained the firearm illegally and I assume he carried it legally to the incident site) being wounded in the insane unchecked proliferation of firearms they are promoting and trying to increase. Thank God or fate or karma (as you prefer) that an innocent bystander was not killed or injured. I also hope the young man recovers from his injuries and without permanent disability.
I happen to watch an old video from 2000 earlier today and there was an interesting statement. I am trying and will continue to try to confirm its facts, but the NRA lobbying has made U.S. Government gun injury and death statistics rather hard to find.
If you combine the population of Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, Great Britain, Germany and France the total will roughly equal the population of the United States. In 1999 or 2000 the United States had 32,000 gun deaths, the other countries who have much stricter gun control laws combined had 112. I could not verify these exact numbers because of the paucity of statistic especially from 13-14 years ago. However, even in 2000 or 1999 the NRA and gun nut's lobby would have forced the numbers to be fairly accurate or the writer to retract the statement.
I was able to track down gun death statics for the US and these countries for 2008-10. US had 32,163 gun deaths the other countries combined 3,721. I'm sure our resident pro-gun proliferation members will check my research for us. However, by total number of gun deaths and gun death rate the United States is ten to eight times worse. Like the person who made the statement, I don't think that U.S. citizens are more homicidal and/or suicidal than those other countries' citizens. They are just reaping the rewards of more gun in circulation and looser gun control laws.
P.S. To the best of my knowledge those countries have not suffered a coup or overthrow because of a lack of privately owned firearms in the last 100 or many more years. I'll let Cato and our other historians verify that statement.
Posted by dottholliday]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 01:07:22 -0600 Arkansas Times
It the 30 years of shooting, teaching and competing, I came to realize there are precious few 'accidental' discharges. They are more appropriately termed 'asinine' discharge. Wear, negligence, those things cause a gun to fire. I did a trigger job for a cop in Los Angeles. He came back in a week complaining that the gun went full auto on him, and it wouldn't safely load the first round because when he racked the slide it went off, firing all seven rounds. When I took it apart, I saw that someone else had filed on the hammer and sear. Cop insisted nobody else had touched the gun, but I knew that some cops always go for that light trigger pull, and folks will file on those things without knowing how it is supposed to be done.

I cannot work up a lot of sympathy for the idiot who shot himself. At least he had the good sense to point it at himself.
Posted by Steven E]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 21:23:05 -0600 Arkansas Times By the way, even well made guns CAN go off unexpectedly and without negligence on the part of the person handling it. It may be fairly rare, but it does happen. Just like your car or anything at all mechanical, things can go wrong and you not realize it until you have an accident.
Posted by Doigotta]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 20:51:19 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by flyairplanes]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 20:46:33 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by GrizLee Bear]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:50:28 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Mean Gene]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:22:45 -0600 Arkansas Times
99.99999...% of the time, a gun just sitting by it's lonesome will not just "go off."
Posted by Peter Griffin]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:29:23 -0600 Arkansas Times >Guns don't just accidentally go off, especially any modern firearm.

Those 'snake-charmers' do. I had one. Kept it for float trips on the upper White River and War Eagle where cottonmouths abound and several times crawled into the boat. I cocked it once to fire and the hammer slipped before my finger was on the trigger. I got rid of the thing.

They're not very well made. High profit item for gun stores.
Posted by eLwood]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:11:07 -0600 Arkansas Times
That's such a relief. It would be interesting to see how comforting those words are to the families of these people:

According to CDC’s WISQARS, there are about 14,000-19,000 nonfatal injuries stemming from accidental shootings per year in the U.S., about 600 people were killed in such shootings, many of them children.
Posted by YossarianMinderbinder]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:48:23 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Peter Griffin]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:06:54 -0600 Arkansas Times
A .410 to the hand probably did a lot of damage. Hope the kid is OK.
Posted by scrapper72]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 14:46:48 -0600 Arkansas Times