This is About Stupid Parents, Not Guns

This is the latest and I suspect will become a continued effort by the anti-gun media to demand gun law changes. According to the Washington Post, we have an epidemic of toddlers shooting guns and hurting people.

I’ve found at least 43 instances this year of somebody being shot by a toddler 3 or younger. In 31 of those 43 cases, a toddler found a gun and shot himself or herself.

It is actually an intentional strategy by the media to play up and highlight every single one of these stories. They are convinced that a steady drumbeat of these stories over time will wear down the American people and get them to change their minds on gun laws.

But all of these stories are actually about stupid parents, not guns.

Roughly once a week this year, on average, a small child has found a gun, pointed it at himself or someone else, and pulled the trigger. Boys are disproportionately likely to do this: I could find only three cases where a girl under the age of 4 wounded someone with a gun. In 13 of the 43 total incidents, a child’s self-inflicted injuries were fatal.

It is a horrifying situation to be sure. But my wife and I have a number of guns in the house. Those that are loaded are in places the children cannot access. Those that are not loaded have the bullets in one location, clips in another, and guns in another. That should be common sense. Some parents, however, are stupid. So naturally, the left is demanding legislation. Again from the Washington Post and probably where the Post got the story from originally:

These cases are invariably referred to as “accidents” in media reports. But as Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that advocates for stricter gun laws, argues, many incidents like this are preventable. In a study of accidental shootings by children of all ages (not just toddlers), they estimate that “more than two-thirds of these tragedies could be avoided if gun owners stored their guns responsibly and prevented children from accessing them.”

Get that? The leftwing group ultimately wants more laws in place — mandates on gun ownership.

The piece concludes by blaming the NRA, which actually teaches gun safety and teaches parents how to responsibly own guns. That, of course, is ignored by the left and the media. They instead need someone to blame.

Stupid people do stupid things and bad things happen. Responsible parents are already not leaving loaded guns around the house for kids to find. Stupid parents do not. Stupid people also cause car wrecks, drownings, fire alarms to go off, and other things — some worse than others, but some really terrible.

Unless we ban stupid people, we will not stop this stuff. Responsible people are already behaving responsibly.

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