JPL says that we should be talking about kids shooting kids, so I’ll just refer you to David Waldman at the Daily Kos, who’s been tracking gun deaths for 16 weeks. Here’s last week’s update:
This week’s compilation includes three God-given-but-somehow-forgotten guns, four accidents while cleaning loaded guns (which nobody ever does, though I’ve now found 102 who’ve done it so far this year), two home invasion shootings, one NRA-certified instructor shooting himself, six law enforcement officer FAILs, two more turkey hunters shot, and 10 kids accidentally shot, nine of whom either shot themselves or were identifiably shot by other kids under the age of 16. The victims are (or were) ages 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 14 and 14. All were accidentally shot within a seven-day span, from April 27th through May 3rd.
He posts it every Saturday, so only one more day until the next body count.
c u n d gulag
I hate to say this, but at this point, I’m starting to consider all of these gun deaths, as “culling the herd.”
Sadly, too many children are culled along with the gun-nut herds.
Only adults should be eligible for “The Darwin Award” – and not for taking their own children out of the human genome chain. Only themselves.
Jerzy Russian
Guns don’t shoot NRA-certified instructors—NRA-certified instructors shoot themselves.
Elizabelle
Joe Nocera has been covering gun deaths in his NYTimes blog too.
The Gun Report: May 9, 2013
(It’s a blog, so should not count against NYTimes pageviews, for those eluding the paywall.)
different-church-lady
Those kids would still be alive today if they had been armed.
/NRA-bot
Schlemizel
REMEMBER!
Guns don’t kill children
Children kill children
jayackroyd
KagroX and Cliff Schecter spent some time talking about #gunFAIL week before last.
David mentions Nocera’s column in that discussion. Also he’s hoping there will be more traditional media pickup. AP did a piece on incidents on Gun Appreciation day, when David started doing his compilations. Myself, I think Colbert should do a running segment on Mondays.
I also post a weekly link on Saturdays at eschaton.
wuzzat
@different-church-lady: If we make it a crime to let children to shoot each other with loaded weapons, then only criminals’ children will shoot each other with loaded weapons.
SiubhanDuinne
Similarly, at Mother Jones.
different-church-lady
@wuzzat:
some guy
Darwinism in action.
Shalimar
Is it also possible for him to keep track of how many homeowners and intruders are killed per week during home invasions? Sure, we may lose 500 children per year to accidental shootings, but that would be worth it if a dozen men were able to be extra-manly action heroes by defending their home from evil invaders.
aimai
The thing is that the people who live in gun culture states simply refuse to believe that it matters, or is true. Paul Krugman made the argument (makes the argument) that there are facts which exist above and beyond politics but everything we know about Authoritarian Personalities (thanks to Bob Altemeyer) or human psychology generally (see “Mistakes Were Made, but Not By Me) leads us to understand that if something is too painful, or contradicts too many other strongly held beliefs, people will simply refuse to believe it. If you read the comment threads underneath each and everyone one of those “accidental death” stories you will see a hundred posts explaining that
1) It was an accident
2) It was no one’s fault
3) It was someone else’s fault
4) It didn’t happen at all
5) It happened but something else that proves it doesn’t mater also happened
6) Its political (and therefore suspect) that it is even reported at all
7) The poster doesn’t remember lots of these shootings happening in the past therefore they didn’t happen and this shooting is an outlier, false, bad reporting, etc..etc…etc..
Against this kind of motivated self deception, the gods themselves contend in vain.
JPL
@Schlemizel: I’d love LaPierre to see Luckovich’s editorial cartoon. He would probably not get it though.
Eric U.
it’s tragic how many children are killed by guns. There was a dKos diary recently that detailed over 100 kids killed by guns since Newtown. It’s all moronic negligence too. The thing about the gunfail collections that gets to me is how many people are shooting at and sometimes hitting their neighbors. Makes that newspaper that published gun owners names look prescient.
JPL
@Elizabelle: Thank you for the link. I knew about other sources but missed his blog.
Punchy
Speaking of guns and such, the Missouri State legy just demonstrated that they are not able to read the Constitution.
Yup, its the same bill KS passed that will be shot down (zing!) by the courts. For added measure, they also passed a anti-UN Reso21 bill AND for the trifecta, threw in a “no Sharia Laws in our courts” ban in there for good measure.
MO is increasingly becoming the new Kansas.
JPL
@aimai: Compare statements like that to the laws the right want to pass against a women’s right to choose.
dr.hypercube
Turkey hunting is dangerous. In the spring, you’re sitting in full camo, making turkey sounds maybe with a turkey decoy in front of you. If everyone plays by the rules (don’t wander around shooting at turkey-looking things), all is well. Unfortunately…
How anyone shoots themselves while cleaning a gun is beyond me. That is def herd-culling right there.
Schlemizel
@JPL:
yeah, he would say thats just angry propaganda against good hearted gun owners.
I made the joke on another blog that it was too bad there was not a good guy with a bomb in Boston because we all know that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a bomb is a good guy with a bomb.
That lite a very nice fire. One moran even tried to argue that a good guy with a guy could have prevented the bombing. It would be hysterically funny if it were not so sad & so deadly.
Suffern ACE
@dr.hypercube: I’ve always thought a lot of those cleaning deaths were suicides where folks didn’t leave notes. Not all, but enough where it would be noticeable. Life insurance pays off one, but not the other.
dr.hypercube
@Suffern ACE: Makes sense.
aimai
@JPL:
Oddly, I just wrote about this very comparison on my blog.
Citizen_X
@Schlemizel:
I knew teh gheys were powerful, but not that powerful.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
Given that this is the Age of Big Data, I’m sure someone, somewhere, is putting all these gun deaths into a database, coding by type, and mapping them. From a purely data-geek perspective, I wonder where the preponderance of such shootings occur.
From a human perspective, I wish people wouldn’t take guns so lightly in personal space, or so rabidly in political space.
JPL
@aimai: Good! As tragic as these deaths are, they will continue until the media focuses on this issue. Grieving parents should be thrown in jail with a box of tissues.
c u n d gulag
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
I suspect that if those deaths were put on the map in red, it would look like the map of the districts that voted for McCain and Romney – with a few red zones in blue cities.
Todd
@dr.hypercube:
So you’re saying that it is a bad idea for me to sit on the ground behind bushes wearing my lucky turkey hat while blowing on a turkey call?
Who knew?
Snarki, child of Loki
It would be just horribly uncivil, if someone were to pile up toddler & kid size coffins in front of NRA headquarters in the same number as the kids killed this year.
Why, it might even block the front door, which would keep the gun makers from backing up dumptrucks full of cash. Horrors!
Todd
@JPL:
But to quote local cops and prosecutors: “They feel really bad and the feelings they have will be with them for life and are punishment enough. Plus, they’re white.”
RSA
@c u n d gulag:
I don’t know whether this map is being maintained (it appeared last month), but it looks to me as though gun deaths just track population density.
(If the map is representative, that is, which I don’t know.)
Omnes Omnibus
@dr.hypercube:
Some people are just plain stupid. From before I was even allowed to touch a gun, I was told to always presume a gun is loaded. The first thing you do when you pick up a weapon is to clear it break open the 12 ga., work the bolt on the rifle, etc., and even after that I presume that someone stuck a bullet in the chamber while I wasn’t looking.
Also, a bit of English gun culture doggerel:
Never ever let your gun
Pointed be at anyone
The fact that it unloaded be
Matters not the least to me.
JPL
@aimai: I just read your article and it’s excellent. If they released photos of the Sandy Hook school massacre, the discussion would change.
JCT
I’ve been following Waldman and Nocera’s compilations since they started. Having watched (often in horror) as some of the folks at my local range do stupid ass things with firearms, I had often wondered how they managed to avoid killing themselves. Now I know that they shoot holes in themselves all of the time. And leave their fucking LOADED guns around children.
The real eye-opener, of course, are the children and this needs to be waved around like a flag. I cannot comprehend how anyone can leave a loaded gun (presumably with the safety off) on tables, in backpacks, in purses when there are children around.
This is the inevitable outcome when you can buy a powerful handgun as easily as a pair of shoes. Any thoughtless fool can buy one without a lick of instruction regarding safe practices. Every last one of these adults who facilitated the death of a child with a firearm should go to jail. It seems that rarely happens.
aimai
@JPL: Oh, thanks! I appreciate that. If I’d thought anyone would ever read it I would have written it more clearly and in a less backwards fashion.
different-church-lady
@Schlemizel: Proof reading: it’s your friend.
different-church-lady
@JPL:
They are focused on the issue. Unfortunately they’re focused on the “We can’t do anything about this because of the second amendment, America — Fuck Yeah!” view of the issue.
Southern Beale
Glad so many of us are following this story. Over at the Accidental Shootings Tumblr they clocked thier 700th entry since starting the tally in January.
Freedom!
Somehow one child’s right to make it past adolescence isn’t as important as some redneck yahoo’s right to misread the Second Amendment. Amazing.
RAven
ATL airport was a nightmare! Security lines were insane and I barely made it! On to Providence from mouse world.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@JCT: I like my local range people. They’ve known me for years. I hadn’t been in a long time and they asked me why.
I told them. I’m working M-F 8-5 like a normal non-unionized wage slave, and I refuse to go in there any longer during “idiot time”, which seems to be anytime outside of, you guessed it, M-F, 8-5. People waving loaded guns around, taking pictures of themselves with them, that sort of shit. Amazes me they’ve had only the one shooting and that a suicide.
Early Sunday mornings during football season seems to be the best way to go.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Punchy:
MO is increasingly becoming the new Kansas.
Which sucks for those of us living in the bluish parts of MO.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Suffern ACE:
A percentage of small aircraft crashes are thought to be suicides…
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
I believe there are laws preventing the federal government from doing what you’re describing…
Omnes Omnibus
@Punchy: The only people this law will affect is the lawyers who get to bill hours litigating it – oh yeah, and the taxpayers who will foot the bill.
@Certified Mutant Enemy: There is nothing to stop a journalistic enterprise from doing it (ha!). Public records and all that.
rikyrah
depressing stats
Eric U.
I used to be required to go to gun ranges and I never will again. Ignoring the range at boy scout camp, I’ve been to gun ranges 3 times and stared down the barrel of a loaded gun twice. Probably the only reason it didn’t happen the third time is that it’s really awkward to point an AR22 any direction other than down-range. I don’t really like my odds for any future gun range visits.
lojasmo
@aimai:
“Safe, Legal, and Rare”
Again, I say, FUCK BILL CLINTON.
El Cid
What our kids need are more guns, not fewer, so that they can defend themselves from the guns about to accidentally shoot them.
Dr. Mantis Toboggan
I wonder if ore people were killed by drones in that time.
Mnemosyne
@Dr. Mantis Toboggan:
Why don’t you investigate and find out? Remember, the number you need to beat is 50 people killed by drones in 1 week (or 7 days, however you prefer).
Since the numbers you guys love to quote seem to average 40 people per year in each of four countries, I think you’re going to be disappointed, but feel free to go out and find the numbers.
Betty Cracker
I just got an email from Marco Rubio in response to a call and email I sent during the run-up to the glorious NRA victory over the weak, watered-down background check bill sponsored by A-rated NRA humpers Manchin and Toomey. Gyad, what a mealy-mouthed motherfucker Rubio is. I guess I’ll keep trolling the bastard, but that’s all it is — trolling. Motherfucker doesn’t represent me.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dr. Mantis Toboggan: You are right; the issues of gun violence and gun safety are unimportant. Let’s concentrate only on your particular pet issue. Ass.
cathyx
That list by David Waldman is hardly complete. I know of 2 gun fatalities involving children in my area in that last month that aren’t listed on his site.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
For those of us who live in the reddest counties (my county is *the* reddest), this is bidness as usual. Sigh.
Cassidy
@Omnes Omnibus: There is always one. Ten percent rule applies.
Mike in NC
The NRA will advocate mandatory nationwide gun safety training for all kindergartens, to be held just after finger painting but just before nap time.
gene108
@Todd:
You really want to make an example out of this gun safety issue, throw the 5 year old in jail for first degree murder.
Hopefully enough gun owners will realize the destruction of these parents lives caused by poor gun safety and they will make sure no one else will go through their pain.
But who am I kidding…for this to work you need people, who can empathize with others and that’s a trait lacking in conservatives…
Redshift
@cathyx:
I’m pretty sure he’s just scanning news reports; if there are more you could add, I expect he’d appreciate it.
Redshift
@Suffern ACE:
Pretty much all of the cleaning shootings Waldman posts about (I follow him on Twitter) aren’t deaths, just injuries, so the report that they were cleaning their gun and didn’t realize it was loaded is their explanation for what happened. They really are just that stupid.
JCT
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Good point, and “idiot time” has become far more idiotic since the last election as tons of apparent nitwits went running to Sportsman’s Warehouse and bought every firearm in sight. And tried to figure out what to do with them (along with all of their friends) every Sat-Sun since.
About a month ago my son was visiting and I took a morning off during the week to take him to eat and then we went to the range . It was the first time I had gone outside of idiot time and the difference was amazing. What a pleasure to not have to spend most of the time nervously watching the next table.
In reading the blogs that are tallying the GUN FAIL events, a fair number of them seem to be caused by straightforward negligence, I wonder how many of these guys are just the clueless idgits I see at the range – new to firearms, no requirements for even the most basic of safety instruction, relatively still young and careless….
Gun safety rules work if you follow them.
catclub
@Mike in NC: But they never seem to advocate for the taxes to pay for such training, or school guards.
The most suitable taxes would of course be on guns.
“It’s not a tax, it’s a user fee!”
Mike in NC
@catclub: True fact: the state of South Carolina (where else?) has an annual Tax Holiday where people can buy all the guns and ammo they crave without paying sales tax.
wuzzat
@different-church-lady: We have a constitutionally-guaranteed right to let our kids shoot whoever the hell they want! Why won’t someone think of the children?
…ew. Thinking like the NRA is gross.
RaflW
@aimai:
Against this kind of motivated self deception, the gods themselves contend in vain.
And even clergy can’t break thru the fog. In part because of so many winger “Christian” orgs going all-in with the no-tax, no-gays, all-guns agenda.
Cassidy
The list was incomplete.
Bill in Section 147
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): If there is not a law preventing the government from gathering the data or publishing the data there soon will be.
Pretty soon the CDC will only be allowed to gather and send out data showing the number of Christians saved by guns as this seems the only acceptable data to support the narrative.
Mnemosyne
@JCT:
Even the most diligent gun owner will have an occasional brain fart and do something stupid (like tripping in the woods while hunting), but I do agree with you that 90 percent of the gun accidents we hear about are caused by sheer fucking ignorance and carelessness.
Yes, a gun is “just a tool,” but does that mean that you give your five-year-old a band saw for his birthday and leave it laying in the corner for him to play with?
ETA: Also, as I’ve said before, my dad always had guns in the house, but he also made all of us kids take a hunter safety course as soon as we were old enough. He would still brag years later that my 12-year-old (girl) self outscored all of the grown men in the class. :-)
Mnemosyne
And any discussion of ignorance and carelessness is incomplete without a passage that has always stayed with me, from Black Beauty:
jayackroyd
@cathyx: He knows these are undercounts–that many, probably most, accidental shootings don’t make it into the news sources he has access to via the search engines David uses.