Police: Teen Accidentally Shoots Himself In Leg For Second Time In 3 Months

http://houston.cbslocal.com/2015/09/14/police-teen-accidentally-shoots-himself-in-leg-for-second-time-in-3-months/

Saw this on reddit, accompanied by this comment:

Serious question here from the UK - is there an equivalent of a driving licence test required for a gun ?

Why isn’t there? What’s the NRA’s stance on this stuff?

Bonus comments for your enjoyment:

[ul]
[li]That kid should get to keep his gun rights, but lose his leg rights. Nobody has a constitutional right to bear legs.[/li]> [li]If his leg had a gun this wouldn’t have happened.[/li]> [li]“The only thing that will stop bad legs with guns is good legs with guns.” -FDR[/li]> [/ul]

“If his leg had a gun this wouldn’t have happened.” really got me. Nice.

It’s bad because the 2nd Amendment says you should be able to have a gun regardless of how awful you are at safety.

Or, the 2nd Amendment was written some freakin’ 200+ years ago when it was reasonable for the authors to figure that everyone knew something about the old musket over the fireplace or what not. I suspect they harbored fears about gun safety too, but not as many as they had about the dangers of idiots voting; just look at the electoral college…

Here in AMERICA we have states that decide what they want to do about that.

I’ve always said I’d be more than happy to see mandatory safety classes in public school systems, since schools are compulsory and largely ineffective anyway. There’s really no reason anyone should ever shoot themselves accidentally. That’s why these stories are so rare, though I’ve always wondered if accidental shootings have increased since handguns became popular. I’m too old to look up statistics for P&R anymore though. I don’t care that much.

I may as well have this one bookmarked, given the number of times I have to pull it out. Fatal accidental shootings peaked in 1930. Nonfatal accidental shootings are harder to track, because the CDC’s data only goes back to 2001. They’re steady at about 15,000 per year in the last decade; but then, the fatal accidental shooting rate follows a similar trend.

Yeah, “accidental” shootings should be read as “really stupid and often tragic fuck up shootings.” If you follow basic gun safety, it’s nearly impossible to “accidentally” shoot yourself or someone else.

Back in the days of the .38 special revolver, the most common injury in the NYPD was cops shooting themselves in the feet. Because they’d draw their guns with a finger on the trigger, and because they kept a bullet under the hammer in contravention of department rules. Needless to say they had plenty of training and regular practice too. But 6 bullets is better than 5, and you can’t really do a fast draw if you don’t put your finger on the trigger…

This is not at all true.

Attributing the idea to an anxious police officer who wants to shoot right now at someone.

The majority of fatal gun accidents happen to youth, often an older brother pulling the trigger (Harvard Injury Centre). So of the 600 dead you have say 500 brothers shooting 500 siblings per year, 500 destroyed families and damaged communities, per year. Since 9/11 I wonder if more kids have been killed by accidental gun shootings or soldiers in Iran and Afghanistan? Someone do the research. Put another way, what’s the population of your city or state? For every 500K a kid likely died this year in an accidental shooting. And last year, and the year before. Of course public education has helped reduce this over time as people become less stupid on firearm storage.

In Canada (gun control communist land) the fatal accident rate is about one fifth of that of the US, and we’re about 1/10th the size. So say 12-15 fatalities per year, though with small number statistics, numbers can go up and down. Don’t know about you, but to me even 12 kids getting shot by their brother sounds pretty tragic…

But yeah, it’s rare.

By the way, I just learned something interesting about Switzerland I didn’t know. The country is often cited by American gun-lovers as an example of a place where guns are common but murders and gun violence are rare. And so the argument goes that there should be no problem in the US for responsible gun-owning citizens.

However in Switzerland it seems most people aren’t allowed to keep ammunition in their homes, despite the requirement to keep guns. I guess they have to go down to the local armory or gun range to actually fire their weapons. So except for a few rare special license-holders, most of the citizen-army just don’t have the chance to shoot one another either by accident or by design. Not only will children never find loaded weapons left lying around or improperly secured, but heat-of-the-moment murders and drunken home gunplay accidents are much less likely to occur there for obvious reasons. Of course similar rules could never be applied in the US because of the NRA. Apologies if this was cited earlier in the thread, but I haven’t read all 94 pages.

Never mind. Too good of a mood to be mean. :)

Except that law doesn’t exist at all. Google translation of the laws.

Chapter 3 Acquisition and possession of ammunition and ammunition components
Art. 15 Acquisition of ammunition and ammunition components
[INDENT]1 Only persons authorized to acquire a weapon can acquire ammunition and ammunition components for this weapon.
2 The transferor verifies if all vesting conditions are satisfied. Art. 10 applies by analogy to the audit.[/INDENT]

Art. 16 Acquisition during shooting events
[INDENT]1 Anyone who participates in firing demonstrations by shooting clubs can freely acquire necessary ammunition. The organizing shooting company exercises appropriate control over the delivery of munitions. 1
2 People who are not 18 years can freely acquire ammunition provided to shoot them immediately and under control.
3 The provisions concerning off-duty shooting are reserved.[/INDENT]

Art. 16a Authorization of Possession
[INDENT]Anyone who has legally acquired ammunition or ammunition components is authorized to possess these objects.[/INDENT]

Chapter 6: storing, carrying and transporting weapons and ammunition, abusive carrying dangerous articles
Art. 26 Storing
[INDENT]1 weapons, essential weapon components, weapon accessories, ammunition and ammunition components are kept carefully and to protect against access by unauthorized third parties.
2 Any loss of a weapon must be reported immediately to the police.[/INDENT]

Art. 27 bear arms
[INDENT]1 Who wants to carry a weapon in public places or transport them, requires a license to carry arms. This must be carried and produced on demand to the police or the customs authorities. Is reserved to Article 28 paragraph 1.
2 A license to carry arms, an individual if:
[INDENT]a. for they no obstacle under Article 8 paragraph 2, exists;
b. she proves that she needed a gun to protect themselves or other persons or things from a real threat;
c. she has passed an exam on the handling of weapons and knowledge of the legal conditions use of weapons; the Federal Department of Justice and Police shall issue an audit regulations.[/INDENT]
3 Permits will be issued by the competent authority of the canton of residence for a particular type of weapon and for no longer than five years. It applies to the whole of Switzerland and may be subject to conditions. Persons residing abroad can be obtained from the competent authority of the entry canton.
4 No permit needed:
[INDENT]a. Holders of a hunting permit, game wardens and gamekeepers interior, rangers and game wardens inside for the carrying of arms in pursuit of its business;
b. Participants in events, be where worn in relation to historical events weapons;
c. Participants at shooting events with soft-air guns at a safe terrain for carrying such weapons.
d. foreign security officers aviation in the field of Swiss airports, as long as the body responsible for aviation security foreign authority via a general license pursuant to Article 27 A has;
e. Employees of foreign border authorities, participating together with employees of Swiss border guard authorities in operational deployments at the external borders of the Schengen area in Switzerland.[/INDENT]
5 The Federal Council shall regulate the issuing of Licences to carry in detail, in particular the granting of foreign staff members of diplomatic missions, permanent missions to international organizations, consular posts and special missions.[/INDENT]

Art. 27A general license in the field of Swiss airports
[INDENT]1 In order to perform safety functions in the field of Swiss airports, a general license to foreign airlines are granted.
2 To prevent criminal acts and to protect passengers on board an aircraft, a general license to the foreign authorities responsible for aviation security to be issued.
3 A general license may be granted only if the competent foreign authority or foreign airlines for any person who performs a function referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2, guarantees that the person:
[INDENT]a. is entitled under the law of the relevant foreign state, to carry a weapon, and;
b. is adequately trained.[/INDENT]
4 The general license regulates the locations, types of weapons, cooperation with local authorities and the scope of the security features.[/INDENT]

Art. 28 transportation of weapons
[INDENT]1 No weapon carrying permit is required for the transport of weapons, in particular:
[INDENT]a. to and from classes, exercises and events from shooting ranges, hunting or Soft-Air-Force-clubs and military organizations or associations;
b. to and from an armory;
c. to and from an owner or a holder of a weapons trade license;
d. of and trade events;
e. with a change of residence.[/INDENT]
2 When transporting firearms firearm and ammunition must be separated.[/INDENT]

Art. 28 A Abusive carrying dangerous articles
Wearing dangerous items in public places and the keeping of such items into the vehicles is prohibited if:
[INDENT]a. can not be satisfied that this is justified by the intended use or maintenance of the items; and
b. the impression that the items are to be used abusively, in particular in order to intimidate people, to threaten or injure.[/INDENT]

This is much clearer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

I see that the mandatory militia firearms are not stored with ammunition in the private home. This is presumably what I was reading about in excerpt. However if you as a Swiss citizen have a private gun license, possibly for a militia gun that was converted to private ownership after your service is up, then you can store your ammunition at home. However you do have to apply for and be granted such a license.

This is kind of a stunning chart (to me anyway)

That chart is clearly wrong though, since the civil war alone killed nearly three quarters of a million people.

Even with the old numbers, civil war killed topped 600k alone. And WWII accounted for another 400k. I just don’t see how that number in that chart could even be remotely close to true.

This. What are they considering “Killed in war” that results in numbers like that which are so at odds with the usually understood values?

Apparently that chart has been circulating the internet, from some kind of left wing report, related on sites like the daily kos… And no one has bothered to point out that there is no way it is even remotely close to true.

Who needs history? Just copy something incorrectly from wikipedia and go with it.