Sunday, July 24, 2011

In other shooting news

A four-year-old boy was shot in the temple - and perhaps it is unnecessary to relate, died - while fishing with his father. A friend of the family described it as a "freak accident."

The father and son duo were fishing on a pier when a neighbor decided, in a drunken haze, to shoot out a light on the pier. The shot went a little wide! Unknown to this writer is whether the boy was on the shooter's curtilage.

I think the family friend got it almost right: it was a gun freak accident. Law enforcement authorities, having no sense of humor whatsoever, are calling it reckless homicide.

In the same article, there's a report of another Indiana four year old who "accidentally shot himself at a suburban Chicago liquor store."

I'm not making that up.

This brings to four the number of Indiana children's deaths from gun violence in the last three-and-a-half weeks.

According to the Brady Campaign, over 30,000 people a year die from gun violence in the United States, and twice that number survive a gun shot.

I mention all of this because the Second Amendment types are already beginning to wail that guns would have been the answer to the right-wing terrorism in Norway. Even after yesterday, however, the rate of death from gun violence is still much lower in Norway than say, Texas. Far lower.

Some security one the island would have been a good idea, but the idea of a bunch of teenagers packing as the solution to this event is ludicrous.

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