Gun Guys: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

The Gun Guys (why do they call themselves that?) use an example of an accidental shooting to make their point:

That is the case with this story out of Arizona:

A Sun City woman, a gun enthusiast, was killed Sunday in an apparent accidental shooting while her boyfriend was handling a loaded weapon, authorities said Monday.

Susan Noben, 54, was pronounced dead at her home in the 11600 block of North Desert Hills Drive, said Detective Aaron Douglas, a Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office spokesman.

Investigators believe Noben was shot once while her boyfriend was handling one of many weapons in her house, Douglas said. The weapon turned out to be loaded, he said.

We don’t like to be cynical, particularly when a person is shot, but wouldn’t you expect that in a house with two gun “enthusiasts,” one of the guns might, well, just be loaded?

These sort of incidents put a dent in the gun lobby mantra of gun worshipers always being “responsible” and accident proof with their weapons.

This is an example of poor judgment on the part of a gun owner, true enough. But nobody claims gun owners are accident proof, only that they are in fact actually responsible. Lots of people have accidents of all sorts who are responsible. People make mistakes. What is the solution offered by the "Gun Guys"? They don't offer one.

Since they don't offer us a typical idiotic solution that we could demolish, lets demolish the idea that guns are bad because people have accidents with them. From one of my favorite sources of facts about guns: guncite:

Deaths Due to Unintentional Injuries, 2000 (Estimates) (Chart compiled by GunCite. Source of data, except as noted, National Safety Council, Injury Facts, 2001 Edition, pp. 8-9, 84)





Given that there are over 200 million firearms in the United States, and given that 16,200 people died in this country in 2000 due to falls, I'd say that legitimate gun owners were remarkably responsible.