It could also be argued that this is another death caused not only by a firearm, but by the gun lunatic fetish culture that makes a firearm something to show off to other people as a fetish object of power. This is all part of the same old, same old, tired monologue from the gun loons:
"I'm safe, trust me! I know what I'm doing! LOOK, I'm exercising my 2nd Amendment Rights! No, really, I know what I'm doing! Hey, why don't you trust me? I don't have a fetish relationship with my gun. It just makes me more powerful so I can shoot bad guys, but don't worry, I will only use my power for good, and to kill goblins and bad guys! Whoooo hoo look at me with my gun! NO NO, it's ok, I'm HIGHLY trained, and I only do things that are safe, and I'm in complete control of my firearm at all times, no really! Why don't you trust me? I KNOW what I'm doing, I DO! I DO!..... ~ BANG!"
Yup, I bet he was perfectly safe with guns and never harmed another innocent person.......right up until he blew his brains out to impress someone in a bar.
How many gun deaths are we up to now for the first week of 2012? How many FEWER per capita deaths are there in other countries without so many guns and stricter regulation , in contrast? We'll have to wait for those numbersto be counted.
From MSNBC.com and the news services:
Cops: Navy SEAL accidentally shoots self in head
SAN DIEGO -- A 22-year-old Navy SEAL was on life support Friday after he accidentally shot himself in the head while showing off a pistol to a woman he met at a bar, police said.
San Diego Police Officer Frank Cali told U-T San Diego officers were called to a home in Pacific Beach about 2 a.m. Thursday on a report that a man had shot himself in the head while playing with a gun.
Cali says the man was showing guns to a woman he'd met earlier at a bar and put a pistol he believed was unloaded to his head. Cali says he then pulled the trigger.
A Navy spokesman confirmed to U-T San Diego that the sailor had completed SEAL training last week and was assigned to a West Coast-based team.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the shooting, a Navy spokesman told the San Diego newspaper.
Commodore Collin P. Green, commander of Naval Special Warfare Group One, released a statement saying, “On behalf of the entire Naval Special Warfare community, we are deeply saddened by this unfortunate incident and extend both our hearts and prayers to our teammate’s family during this very difficult time.”
This post includes reporting from msnbc.com staff and The Associated Press.
This was a terrible incident, but this was avoidable, and the simplest way it could have been avoided was by the victim being less cocky about his skills and assumptions about safety. Those of us who oppose the prevalence of guns and gun violence do so because these are tragic, and preventable, and because neither firearms nor the violence tha results from them makes ANY of us more free, or safer.
Are you recommending that the Navy SEAL teams be disarmed? That's what you advocate when a civilian does something stupid with a firearm. If your logic is correct, since cops and service personnel can't be trusted with weapons, they should not have them, either.
ReplyDeleteOf course, those of us with sense recognize that actions have consequences. We don't point our guns at our heads, whether we believe them to be loaded or not--Cooper's Rule Number One. Nor do we point them at anyone else who isn't threatening our lives. This guy got exactly what he should have expected.
could this be another example of background checks and psychological exams not predicting someone will use a firearm in a bad way? I think it is. Thank you for posting these and showing us your suggested psycho tests don't work.
ReplyDeletedog gone said....
"How many FEWER per capita deaths are there in other countries without so many guns and stricter regulation , in contrast? We'll have to wait for those numbersto be counted."
While we're waiting on those numbers to come in. I'm sure this homeowner was glad to have a gun in the home.
GC wrote Are you recommending that the Navy SEAL teams be disarmed? That's what you advocate when a civilian does something stupid with a firearm.
ReplyDeleteNo, I would not advocate disarming the Navy Seals WHEN THEY ARE ON DUTY. Do you seriously believe this kind of behavior would have occurred in the presence of a Seal superior officer or team mates? Of course not.
But given incidents like this, incidents like the navy pilot murder / suicide, and the Mt. Rainier ranger shooting, and the 40% rate of domestic violence among law enforcement officers that is often overlooked by their colleagues it DOES argue that these individuals are safer armed when a firearm is required and when there is greater accountability for their actions, and safer UN-armed when they are not.
If your logic is correct, since cops and service personnel can't be trusted with weapons, they should not have them, either.
And if your claims about safety and training are correct, then you wouldn't do the stupid and dangerous things you do while telling us the whole time how safe you are, including how safe your training has made you.
Are you going to seriously try to argue that you are better trained, or trained to be more safe than this seal? And yet he still did this.
You are not any safer than this guy.
I'm still waiting for you to tell us how you are in control of your firearm while you are effectively unconscious during sleep every night. Or how you can miraculously tell by just looking at someone if they are a criminal or not.
I'm sure you're going to whinge on about how old people couldn't be criminals.
Wake up dummy. There are a lot of old criminals - look at the Georgia terrorists connected with Ricin, look at felons like Bernie Madoff.
People around them thought they were just nice old people too.
Greg Camp and the rest of the dishonest gunzloonz conflate EVERY reasonable suggestion to try to keep people from doing stupid things with gunz to "YOU'RE TAKIN' EVERBUDDY'S GUNZ AWAY, ZOMFG!!".
ReplyDeleteA SEAL has NO MISSION when he's in a bar, unless he's working for the NSA or some other spy organization in a clandestine role. Two things argue against this having been the case:
1.) He got drunk.
4.) He shot himself in the FUCKING HEAD.
If he was NOT on a mission (the most likely possibility) and he did not have a CCW that is valid in CA then he will be looking at charges, if he survives.
someguy sez:
"could this be another example of background checks and psychological exams not predicting someone will use a firearm in a bad way? I think it is. Thank you for posting these and showing us your suggested psycho tests don't work."
No test is perfect, no service branch or police agency is comprised of personnel who specialize in analyzing recruits psychological make-ups. They use standardized tests and they manage to keep many (if not most) of the really KKKrazzepants gunzloonz from getting their hands on military weapons. Most of them have to content themselves, after being turned down by the aforementioned agencies, with being warrior wannabes.
Yo me this is a story of what can happen when one doesn't adhere to the 4 Rules of Gun Safety.
ReplyDeleteIt could also be an example of what happens when the mental health background screening is inadequate. Isn't it possible that tendencies toward reckless behavior like that can be detected in psyche exams?
Mikeb302000,
ReplyDeleteThis is a SEAL we're talking about. A certain measure of risk taking goes with the job. Name the psych. test that's going to find people who are just risky enough, but not too much.
Dog Gone,
I'm not going to play this game with you. I've told you how much I'm in control of my handgun while I'm asleep. You haven't answered my questions about how it would be useful if it were locked up or about how someone will sneak in silently without us noticing.
Regarding the training of various types of people, I'm not claiming that I'm better trained than a SEAL. Nor am I saying that training equals good behavior. I've said all along that stupid people will do stupid things. You're the one who keeps insisting on training and tests for gun owners.
As for the old couple, you're really going to argue that they were a serious risk? You like numbers. How risky are an elderly couple, compared to the rest of the population?
But I'm going to go a step further. I don't care. I engaged in a legal trade. My responsibility ends there. What they did with the rifle that had been mine is their responsibility. Until you can get the law changed, that's where it ends.
Democommie,
You just admitted that no test and no agency is perfect, and yet your side keeps whining about testing. If there are false negatives in the testing, don't you imagine that there are also false positives? Of course, I suspect that you really don't care when a good person is denied a job or a firearm.
Greg writes This is a SEAL we're talking about. A certain measure of risk taking goes with the job. Name the psych. test that's going to find people who are just risky enough, but not too much.
ReplyDeleteBullshit.
No one has suggested that kind of psychological testing to determine who is a good risk taker and who is not.
What has been argued we do is to do the sound and reliable testing that would screen out dangerous mental illnesses like schizophrenia, which for example it appears to be the diagnosis of Jared Loughner, as one example. Mass murderer Anders Breivik is another who was diagnosed only AFTER he killed an awful lot of people.
That's what you're fighting Greg - weeding out the dangerously criminally insane. There may be some arguemnt about the finer points of such diagnoses, but it is rare that there is any general disagreement among health care professionals about these people being dangerously crazy.
You are obsessing over people who might be marginally disturbed or ill-adjusted.
We're not; we're arguing that there should be some kind of minimal test to avoid the very worst, the most severe crazy people from getting guns.
You conflate, as usual, very different and not comparable things.
Then Greg writes:I'm not going to play this game with you. I've told you how much I'm in control of my handgun while I'm asleep.
You are approximately as NOT in control of your firearm as you would be if you were unconscious, under anesthetic. It is part of your delusion about gun safety that makes it clear you engage in dangerous and unsecure firearm practices.
You are emphatically NOT in control of your firearm asleep. You are as capable of managing your firearm as you would be capable of driving while sound asleep in your bed.
And you wonder why we have absolutely no faith whatsoever in your assurances.
Well who knows what the Navy Seal was thinking but that was just plain stupidity to the Nth degree. I can see no reason to ever point a gun at your own head much less pull the trigger -- even if the action were locked open.
ReplyDeleteOn a simpler note, I would argue that I am better trained than that person because I have never pointed a gun at anyone's head, ever ... whether or not I thought a gun was unloaded. Training is more than just making people memorize rules. It is also impressing upon people the gravity of what happens when they break the rules.
Dog gone,
ReplyDeleteHow do you propose a firearm owner keeps their firearms at night while sleeping?
Dog Gone,
ReplyDeleteAnd I haven't seen your answer yet as to how my handgun would be of any use to me if it were locked in a safe. What I see here is a deliberate attempt to make firearms unavailable or useless. It's not enough that you want to "weed out" lots of good gun owners; you also want those who still get to have a gun to have no practical use for it. Answer that.
dog gone said...
ReplyDelete"You are as capable of managing your firearm as you would be capable of driving while sound asleep in your bed."
and you haven't told us how you're in control of your automobile while you're sleeping. Automobiles kill way more innocent people than firearms do, and contribute to other crimes.
someguy:and you haven't told us how you're in control of your automobile while you're sleeping.
ReplyDelete?????????
I don't keep my automobile next to my bed, or expect to wake up and use it instantaneously from a sound sleep against an intruder (presumably in the case of our delusional gun nut, Greg, AFTER fumbling for and putting on his glasses).
I have very reasonable expectations from a firearm and from an automobile.
NO firearm is secure if it is lying around while you are sleeping.
No firearm is secure when - as was the case with one shooting we reported here, it was kept in the shooter's kitchen junk drawer.
Guns are lethal weapons which should be secured accordingly.
Your lot does not do that. And then you moan and wring your hands wondering why it is we distrust your seriously illogical claims that you,are safe and responsible.
We don't trust you, we don't believe you, because you are not, as a group, and as individuals, either safe OR responsible. And the gun statistics for murder, suicide, accident, injury, and threats, all support that belief that you are not, as a group or as individuals, safe or responsible.
dog gone said...
ReplyDelete"Guns are lethal weapons which should be secured accordingly."
Because......they might shoot themselves?
"And the gun statistics for murder, suicide, accident, injury, and threats, all support that belief that you are not, as a group or as individuals, safe or responsible."
Are you suggesting that the 592 accidential firearm deaths are caused from someone waking up at night to shoot at a bad guy and killing an innocent person? I bet Sarah McKinley is glad she didn't have to fumble with a safe.
And speaking of a group of people that aren't safe did you know that drivers kill over 41,000 people a year?
"You just admitted that no test and no agency is perfect, and yet your side keeps whining about testing."
ReplyDeleteActually, asshole, we don't "whine", that is your specialty. Being a crybaby is unbecoming of a man, but I can see where teh gunz make you feel more manly when you're a crybaby.
You moronz insist on your INALIENABLE RIGHTZ to keep your loaded hog legz on the nightstand or under the pillow 'cuz, y'know, if a badperp comes in the house you're gonna roll off the mattress, assume a kneeling, combat stance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MFCyeOy1pQ) and having ascertained that there is nobody else, like a sleepy toddler, awakened by the noise--or maybe just a sleepy toddler that IS the intruder--get off a cylinder or magazine full of hollowpoints 'fore the perp knows what hit him. If it turns out it WAS a sleepy toddler, well, he'll know better in the next life.
I bet Sarah McKinley is glad she didn't have to fumble with a safe.
ReplyDeleteShe made it clear in at least one interview that she DID have to take the hand gun out of a locked box; I believe that the shotgun was also secured with a trigger guard. Given how long she observed the intruders attempting to break in, she had time to call 911, get the guns, give her child a bottle, and then WAIT for them to enter the home.
And speaking of a group of people that aren't safe did you know that drivers kill over 41,000 people a year?
And yet I bet not one of those people who have ACCIDENTS each year ever buy a car specifically to defensively kill other people.
So, those are very different deaths. This is another of your failed analogies, like conflating screwdrivers with firearms. It demonstrates how weak your arguments are and how desperate your side is to grasp at any straw to defend the indefensible.
"So, those are very different deaths. This is another of your failed analogies, like conflating screwdrivers with firearms."
ReplyDeleteAnd one that he has trotted out several times before, despite the thorough debunking of such nonsense here and elsewhere.
This sort of foolishness in the realm of "supporting data" for the gunzloonz' fanatasies also includes the invisible documentation of DGU's and the oft touted extermination of european jewry being the result of nazi gunzlawz.
But, when bullshit is all ya got, bullshit is what you spout.
dog gone said...
ReplyDelete"And yet I bet not one of those people who have ACCIDENTS each year ever buy a car specifically to defensively kill other people."
So now you're against defending yourself, again.
"This is another of your failed analogies.."
I wasn't comparing defensive deaths, I was comparing accidental deaths.
You suggested that firearms should be locked up because someone might accidently kill the wrong person then You go on to co-mingle accidenal deaths and defensive deaths. And, no, people don't buy cars to defend themselves, that's why they buy guns.
democommie said...
"But, when bullshit is all ya got, bullshit is what you spout."
That explains all of your comments
dog gone,
ReplyDeleteI don't have firearms so that I can defensively kill other people, I have firearms so that I have an additional option available if someone attacks me or my family ... or maybe another citizen if I know with 110% certainty what is happening and conditions allow for responsible intervention.
And if I choose to use one of my firearms, my objective is to stop the attack with the least amount of force necessary. Countless sources and common sense indicate that simply pointing my firearm at the attacker, without even having to shoot, will end the attack an overwhelming majority of the time. If pointing my firearm at the attacker doesn't end the attack, then I will shoot the attacker until the attacker stops the attack.
And the facts show that all of the other armed citizens are acting the same way. One of the FBI Uniform Crime Reports indicates that there were 278 total justifiable homicides where citizens used firearms in 2010.
Now on to your other assertions that citizens who own firearms store them or handle them in a dangerous manner, the Centers For Disease control indicates that there were 613 unintentional firearm deaths in 2007 (the latest year for which they provide data). While I cannot provide the exact number for 2010, there is no sensible reason to assume that the number would increase significantly.
So the 80 million or so citizens who own firearms were responsible for about 891 unintentional deaths and justifiable homicides in 2010. While that is deeply regrettable, that is an extraordinarily low number and it refutes your assertion that citizens who own firearms are a huge bunch of dangerous crazy people leaving a trail of dead bodies wherever they go.
Here are the links to find the data I cited above ...
Justifiable homicides by citizens:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10shrtbl15.xls
Unintentional firearm deaths:
http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html
Democommie,
ReplyDeleteI'd be shocked to find a toddler in my house, since no toddler and no child of any age lives here. I know exactly who belongs in my home.
Dog Gone,
1. How is my handgun on my nightstand a danger to anyone while I'm asleep? Is someone going to get into my bedroom and steal my gun without my noticing? Be realistic, and identify the danger, please.
2. Also do tell me how the handgun will be useful to me if it's locked up and unloaded. It would be pleasant if all attackers gave plenty of warning, but many of them don't. If you add the extra complication of unlocking a safe and loading the gun (since the ammunition is in a separate safe, under your systems that you favor), that's a lot of unnecessary time to get ready. As I have it, I grab up the piece and put my thumb on the safety lever.
Don't forget putting on your glasses, or calling 911.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is Greg, I don't believe that you have any prayer of being useful with your firearm in self defense.
I don't think you have the judgment I'd expect of a responsible kindergarten student.
You have a fundamentally irresponsible attitude, no different than that of the guy in Colorado who 'forgot', or thought his gun was safe.
The only way not to forget, not to make a mistake, is to lock up your gun and your ammo.
It doesn't take that long to unlock secure storage. It takes longer than that for you to get your glasses on, and wake up sufficiently to engage your brain in making a sound and responsible decision before you shoot someone in any kind of self defense.
You are not in control of your firearm while you sleep. Period. It is irresponsible behavior.
My opinion is guns should be locked away while the owner is sleeping. There are many products with quick access, keypad locks and even the conventional key locks that would cause only seconds of delay.
ReplyDeleteI'd say if your PCP-crazed, 300 lb., black, intruder is within two or three seconds of you by the time you go for your magical talisman, you're a goner anyway.
And by locking it away while sleeping you prevent the stealth thief, or family member from having access.
If I had children in my home, I'd make sure that they couldn't get to my handgun, but there are no children living with me. The only other person is also a responsible adult.
ReplyDeleteDog Gone,
I'll call 911 once the situation is safe enough for me to do so. As for your suggestions about safes and so on, the more layers that get added to the operation, the less likely it is to succeed. That is especially true in an emergency. I'm not fond of Glocks, but I've considered getting one for my nightstand precisely because it's point and shoot. But I train enough with my 1911 to remember how to work it, or so I conclude.
You do have yet to show how I'm endangering anyone by having my handgun on my nightstand. Who is going to use it? How is an unauthorized person going to get it? No one who belongs in my house is going to do anything stupid with it, and a house invader will have to make some noise in coming in. For once, answer the questions that you're asked.
Mikeb302000,
ReplyDeleteThere you go again, sneaking hints of racism into your comments. A PCP-crazed intruder will get the same response from me, whether he's black, white, or green with yellow spots.
Greg Camp:
ReplyDelete"Democommie,
I'd be shocked to find a toddler in my house, since no toddler and no child of any age lives here. I know exactly who belongs in my home."
I'd be shocked as well, but probably not for the same reason.
So you sleep on the door side of the bed and your partner knows not to move and get in the line of fire when you're perpblastin' in th dark?
You said, in a previous comment, that you always secure your weppins when children are in the house. So we can take that to mean that no children EVER sleep in your house? Or can we take it to mean that you DO secure your weppinz when the kiddies are in the room down the hall?
Your first comment, the first sentence, in this thread:
"Are you recommending that the Navy SEAL teams be disarmed?"
is typical of your disingenuous or dishonest framing of questions.
Nowhere in this thread or anywhere else has anyone suggested that Navy SEALs be disarmed--and certainly not while they are on a mission. But to ask a more intelligent question, such as:
"Do you think that active duty military personnel (including Navy SEALs) should NOT be allowed to carry weapons on their persons, unless they are licensed to do so in the state where they serve and reside?"
just doesn't give you the chance to clutch your pearls so tightly.
There's actually, afaia, no indication that the shooter even owned the gun used in the killings. I have not seen anything in the few reports about the crime to know what happened in that regard.
It may even be the case that the gun belonged to either the "stranger", the visiting pilot or the other pilot's sister. No kids in the house, four dead people, shit happens.
'But, when bullshit is all ya got, bullshit is what you spout."
That explains all of your comments'
This comes from someguy who stll uses the analogy of auto driving and gun shooting as being somehow compararable. Accidents you say:
Let me know the next time your favorite shooting range is in whiteout conditions with black ice and several thousand other shooters in the lanes in front of you--some shooting in YOUR direction. Let me know when 16 yo's are routinely given semi-automatic weppins and told to "shoot safely" while out for an evening of testosterone and drug fueled teenage idiocy.
Greg said, "A PCP-crazed intruder will get the same response from me, whether he's black, white, or green with yellow spots."
ReplyDeleteThat would make you a rare example, Greg. Generally, the white man fears and dreads the black man. This is a vestige of slavery. Of course, you may be a superior specimen and immune to such social ills.
Mikeb302000,
ReplyDeleteYou're so wrapped up in your own prejudices that you can't see clearly. "Generally, the white man fears and dreads the black man"? Why, oh, why won't Dog Gone smack you for your wild assertions without any support?
Because just when we start to hope that racism in it's current manifestation is receding, we have Nut Gingrich opening his bigoted, racist mouth, and showing us otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThat's why.
Dog Gone,
ReplyDelete1. Mikeb said "generally." That is more than a simple majority. "Generally" implies that such feeling is the norm, that most everyone in the group shares the characteristic. The idea that most every white man fears black men is an unsupported assertion.
2. While Gingrich's comments were rash, I don't know that they were racist. He didn't say that receiving food stamps is determined by genetic heritage. One may call him insensitive (if you care about sensitivity) or in error, but racism is something else.
GC wrotedidn't say that receiving food stamps is determined by genetic heritage.
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't have to link it to genetics for it to be racist Greg.
He made a false and derogatory comment about a group of people which indicated they didn't know what paychecks are, they had never seen them. It does not reference any other group of people, despite the fact that there are more caucasian people on welfare than blacks, when he made statements similar to these in Iowa. There 90% of people receiving assistance were white.
This ties in to precisely the same stereotypes one hears from people like Rush Limbaugh. It ties into the same stereotypes that produce the racist 'code' urban thugs referring to blacks in areas suffering from urban poverty.
This is part of a larger pattern of racism and stereotypes. Those include fear of black men.
C'mon, Greg, get real. It'll do ya no harm.
ReplyDelete