15-year-old Aaron Xue shot himself at Essex High School on April 17, 2009. An investigation determined Aaron got the gun from a friend who took it from his parent's house.
"We were stunned and heartbroken when we learned we lost Aaron because guns were made available to him when he was at a vulnerable moment," said Ge Wu, Aaron's mother.
The bereaved parents are in the news now because they participated in a community forum in their town, trying to find a solution.
They are calling on the state to pass tougher gun laws. They want Vermont to adopt a Child Access Prevention - or CAP - law, which would hold adults criminally responsible if a child gains access to a gun because it is not secure.
"Aaron would have been here today if he had no access to guns that day," Wu said at the forum. "If the guns were not in the hands of that boy that day and if the guns were secured at home by his parent."
The CAP laws are interesting. Why do you suppose they're necessary though? Are some gun owners so irresponsible in the securing of their weapons that they need legislation to encourage proper behaviour? By the way, isn't this the very type of thing that Mike W. denied the existence of? I remember somewhere along the line arguing that some states require gun owners to secure their guns, but Mike said that was false.
Well, as it turns out many states do have such requirements, but sadly for the Xue family, Vermont is not one of them.
What's your opinion? Did gun availability play a part in this tragedy? I've always claimed that since a bullet to the brain is more likely to result in death than other means of suicide, that it does. I find the pro-gun denial of this amazing. I suppose it's their knee-jerk defensive reaction to any criticism of guns. What do you think?
"Even if someone attempts suicide by another means, such as cutting themselves or taking pills, they're much more likely to survive the attempt," pediatrician Eliot Nelson, told the parents gathered at EHS (Essex High School).
To me, this seems like simple common sense, but there are many studies and surveys out there to prove it. Teenagers who kill themselves are good examples of my favorite adage, "suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem."
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
Why haven't you posted about the tragic times a teen used pills for suicide?
ReplyDeleteOr a razor blade?
Or a car?
Oh, that is right....a firearm is not like anything else...is it MikeB?
Sure, you could send some people to prison after their gun was used by a suicidal teenager. That should make everyone happy.
ReplyDeleteThere is, of course, the downside of "safe storage" laws. You could argue that such cases are quite rare, and that the number of lives lost because of a lack of "gun availability" for young people (who apparently cannot be trusted with guns at the age of 17 years and 364 days, but suddenly can at midnight of that 364th day) would be exceeded by the number saved by denying that gun availability.
Perhaps. But when a young person kills himself/herself, that is his/her conscious choice, as tragic a choice as it is. When a young person (or more than one, as was the tragic case of the Carpenter children alluded to above) is murdered, in part because of a lack of available lifesaving firepower, with said lack having been mandated by law, the choice was made for them by others. Those others include everyone who pushed for such laws.
I am certainly glad I don't have anything like that on my conscience.
We already have too many unenforceable laws. How do you enforce these laws, except after it is too late?
ReplyDeleteWould a law like this keep me from having a gun ready by my bed at night?
Would a law like this keep me from having a gun ready by my bed at night?
ReplyDeleteExcellent point. Any gun that is too inaccessible to be used for suicide is too inaccessible to be used for self-defense (for which there tends, after all, to be a much greater urgency). "Safe storage" requirements are basically self-defense prohibitions.
I would like to expand on this point I made previously:
ReplyDeleteSure, you could send some people to prison after their gun was used by a suicidal teenager. That should make everyone happy.
Proponents of "Child Access Prevention" laws might respond by explaining that such laws are meant as a deterrent, rather than a punishment.
Is there anyone else here who finds that rather bizarre? Are we really to believe that parents who aren't deterred by the thought of their child (or, in this case, their child's friend) using the gun to commit suicide will be deterred by the threat of a jail sentence?
What kind of parent would be more worried about jail than by the death of their child?
By the way, Mikeb, I just noticed that the title of this post is "Tragic Suicide in Gun-Friendly Vermont." Is the first word included in order to distinguish this particular suicide from the non-tragic ones? Which would those be, Mike--those committed by means other than firearms?
ReplyDeleteHere's a cheerful suicide method for you, Mike--suicide by ingestion of insecticide. Sounds lovely doesn't it? Much better than suicide by gunshot, eh? Better yet, it's gaining in popularity, becoming, globally, a leading method.
Doesn't that just give you a warm, fuzzy feeling?
The downside of safe storage is well known to me. I've mentioned it before as the great dilemma. You want the gun to protect yourself and your family, but if you kept it like some people recommend, it would be too inaccessible to serve its purpose. If you don't, the thief or the suicidal teenager can get to it too easily. It's a dilemma.
ReplyDeleteThe downside of safe storage is well known to me. I've mentioned it before as the great dilemma. You want the gun to protect yourself and your family, but if you kept it like some people recommend, it would be too inaccessible to serve its purpose.
ReplyDeleteWho are you, and what have you done with the real Mikeb? That sounded, well . . . reasonable.
The answer to the dilemma is to "teach your children well." Raise them in the kind of home in which they have the love and family support they need to overcome the demons of adolescent angst.
Balancing security against external threats vs. safety (in terms of negligence or suicide) is a personal decision for each family, with no one-size-fits-all solution. That's why those decisions must be left to the individual families, rather than mandated from above. Inevitably, mistakes will be made, with tragic results. It's horrible, but tragedies--with guns and without--happen all the time, and always will.
Why don't you talk about the "safe storage" of prescription drugs?
ReplyDeleteOr razor blades?
You can ignore me all you want MikeB but the questions still stand.
You show your bigotry by not addressing the question. You say you want to prevent harm...yet you don't address the fact that most suicides and attempts aren't committed with firearms.
Looks like I'll have to respond to this at my place
ReplyDeletePretty despicable for you to flat out lie about what I said MikeB.
No surpise you don't quote me either. What a jerk.
"but there are many studies and surveys out there to prove it."
ReplyDeleteAs usual MikeB, you make claims without backing them up.
"Even if someone attempts suicide by another means, such as cutting themselves or taking pills, they're much more likely to survive the attempt,"
ReplyDeleteYou and this guy seem to have a problem discerning cause and effect.
Perhaps, just perhaps, people who use pills or cutting as a method of suicide attempt really are trying to cry for attention instead of insure they die?
If people deliberately choose a method because they will likely survive it, then that skews the stats. wouldn't you say Sparky?