The first story is as tragic as it is stupid: 5-Year-old boy shoots 2-year-old sister in Ky.
Who knew that you can buy a rifle, scaled down, for a five-year-old child? I've heard of My Little Pony, but My Little Rifle, not so much…
The manufacturer of these scaled down rifles is Crickett, which features a line of guns called My First Rifle. Crickett targets grade school aged children. It is kind of creepy in a backwood marry-your-first-cousin kind of way. What kind of parent buys a five-year-old a rifle? It makes no sense to us city dwellers.
I understand the American birthright and heritage angle in the story. After all, Kentucky is the home of Daniel Boone. Most boys in my generation grew up idolizing Boone and men like him, plus we all dreamed about hunting and fishing and all the other manly stuff we were exposed to via the glass teat in our living rooms. We all wanted real rifles too. We all wanted to hunt deer, and possibly hunt our little sisters. A few of us got BB guns instead of real guns, but we were kids so it did not matter. As a 10-year-old with a BB gun, I managed to kill a flock of sparrows, break a few windows, dismember a thousand little army men, and to shoot the little girl who lived behind us in the face with a .77 cal pellet. I still remember the police showing up. Officer Arnold put the cuffs on me. I was so busted. If I had had a little pony rifle, I think I might have killed poor Lori. (It was an accident, but She never forgave me)
The children's mother was home at the time of the shooting Tuesday afternoon but had stepped out to the front porch for a few minutes and "she heard the gun go off," Cumberland County Coroner Gary White said. He said the rifle was kept in a corner and the family didn't realize a bullet was left inside it.
Who keeps a loaded 22 rifle within reach of a child? Who gives a five-year-old a weapon that can kill others and then allows him to play with it like it is a toy? This tragic death is just another example of stupid people doing stupid things under the banner of American gun rights. Stupid people should not have guns. Which brings me to my point; the parents in this case should lose their gun rights. Idiots like them give responsible gun owners a bad name.
Story two is another example of guns, stupidity and politics: Background Checks Died Because GOP Didn't Want to Help Obama.
The bipartisan background checks amendment was apparently killed by Republican Senators who did not want to be seen helping President Obama. When you consider that the bill was supposed to help us keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, I think their actions amount to treason. Well, if not treason, then they own the next violent act committed by a gun-toting nutball. We've been sold us out. I have come to expect it.
"In the end it didn’t pass because we're so politicized. There were some on my side who did not want to be seen helping the president do something he wanted to get done, just because the president wanted to do it,” Toomey admitted on Tuesday in an interview with Digital First Media editors in the offices of the Times Herald newspaper in Norristown, Pa.
The Times Herald noted that in "subsequent comments," Toomey "tried to walk that remark part-way back by noting he meant to say Republicans across the nation in general, not just those in the Senate."
Did I mention that I hate political doublespeak too? Pat Toomey is a tool. Please vote him out of office.
On another note, nearly half of Republicans believe an armed revolution may be needed. I wonder how many Republican Senators believe that too?
Technorati Tags: Politics, Gun Rights
