Greenville deputies said the toddler reached into his father's pocket and grabbed a pistol and the weapon fired.
Greenville deputies said a 2-year-old child is in the hospital after an accidental shooting in Greenville County.
Deputies said the toddler and his father were visiting the child's grandparents on Fenwick Lane in Berea, when the toddler reached into his father's pocket and grabbed the weapon. The gun fired striking the toddler in the chest.
The incident is under investigation.
I suppose due process demands a lengthy investigation to determine who was at fault here.
Come on--this qualifies as a freak accident, surely. Pocket carry is a common technique, taught even by experts. I would recommend a gun with a heavy trigger for pockets, but the method of carry is standard.
ReplyDeleteIf you condemn pocket carry as reckless, you show that you oppose carry altogether--or, at least, that you oppose carry under so many circumstances as to make it look as though you oppose it categorically.
Your knee-jerk reaction to defend gun owners is really out-of-control on this one. Pocket carry is not standard. Furthermore, pocket carry with a gun that has no safety or one that's not engaged is grossly negligent.
DeleteI carry several guns in precisely the way described in my comment. They have no safeties because the trigger pull is sufficiently heavy to preclude accidents. But tell me, do you really want to argue with me about what experts on the subject have to say? Between the two of us, which one do you imagine is more informed on that?
DeleteIt's not your shocking ignorance that alarms me the most. Ignorance can be cured. It's your pig-headed refusal to admit when you don't know that makes me imagine there to be no hope for you.
It's certainly more of a risk than I'm willing to take, but it is a fairly common and legitimate way to carry. Usually, to mitigate the risk, you use a pocket holster that fully covers the trigger (smart design for Any holster).
DeleteGreg is correct that pocket carry is a common technique. Most of us prefer a holster on our hip, but there are times when pocket carry is the best or only option. You are calling it negligent, but a gun carried on the hip is far more accessible and can be more easily involved in a freak accident like this.
Mikeb, I prefer a gun in an inside-the-waistband holster, but when I'm wearing a tuck-in shirt, that's not easy to arrange. Yes, there are tuckable holsters, but that sounds like too much fumbling when seconds count. A pocket gun is easy for me to get at, and I'm not in the habit of allowing others to stick their hands where they don't belong.
DeleteGreg, you'll do anything to avoid condemning the actions of a fellow gun owner, won't you?
DeleteWould you have a gun in your pocked with no safety on? Yes or no?
A person who does that and someone gets hurt or killed as a result, would be what exactly? According to you, would he be just unlucky, the victim of an accident?
T., what about the safety? Is it not irresponsible to pocket carry with the safety off?
DeleteMikeb, how dense are you? I answered your question before you asked it. But for your benefit, I'll spell it out:
Delete1. Yes, I have a number of pocket guns that I carry when the weather and dress requirements don't make something else work.
2. With only a few exceptions, revolvers have no safety in the sense that you mean. Many semiautomatics have no such safeties, either, since their trigger weights are enough.
3. An adult who tries to insert a hand into my pocket without asking permission first has crossed a line, and I don't spend time around children. If I did the latter, I'd evaluate what needed to be done.
Now, Mikeb, tell us why you're arguing about something that you really don't understand.
Not necessarily, Mike. In many cases, it would be no different than carrying something like a Kel-Tec P3AT--the safety-less .380 pistol that lots of people carry and use for defense. They key thing, for your own safety and that of people around you, is keeping the pocket clear of other items that could catch the trigger, and getting a proper holster that keeps the gun pointed downward and covers the trigger.
DeleteWhen you start carrying, you discover that safeties can sometimes get switched off just by the gun moving against your body, etc. I consider them a nice, added feature, but the best defense against the gun unintentionally firing is trigger discipline when handling the gun and having a good holster.
What don't I understand, Greg? My opinion is that carrying in your pocket is irresponsible, and if your gun has no safety or the safety is off, even more so.
DeleteMikeb, your opinion is worth slightly less than Joe Biden's on the same subject.
DeleteLess? Really? That hurts, man.
DeleteOnly because you're not in a position to make your opinion into government policy.
DeleteThe sheer number of these "accidents" that Mike posts multiple times a day and week, is enough to prove to much irresponsibility with guns. Irresponsibility with guns means useless death and serious injury. A two year old with a chest wound, I wonder how his health is and will be the rest of his life.
ReplyDeleteOh, brave Anonymous, here to tell us how to run our lives under the cover of a computer. Do explain how what Mikeb posts indicates that there's "to [sic] much irresponsibility with guns." Even if we had three of these a day, that would still be only about a thousand in a year. There are 100,000,000 gun owners in this country. Of those, at least 8,000,000 have carry licenses, and many more live in states that recognize a right to carry without government permission. I'll take those odds.
DeleteYou keep downplaying the numbers and you refuse to condemn the guilty gun owners. You're too biased, Greg.
DeleteI'm downplaying nothing. I know the numbers. What I keep showing is that they represent only tiny percentages of the relevant totals. I refuse to condemn anyone without knowing the facts. You, by contrast, demand judgement in the absence of facts.
DeleteThe laws regarding accident, negligence, and willful action are well-established and make sense. You've even gone on about how no charges are filed, only to see later that charges were indeed filed. We'll keep due process, thanks, instead of changing to the witch hunts that you desire.
Sorry Greg, I didn't see you in person, nor have I ever seen your wacko gun nut pronouncements anywhere but your computer rants on this site. So coward, explain why you are willing to live with thousands of needless deaths per year? This is why I call you guys gun nuts.
DeleteAfter you explain why you're willing to live with tens of thousands of needless deaths each year just so that you can have the convenience of automobile travel, Car nut.
DeleteAnd don't give me a pile of bull about convenience, or all the supposed benefits that you car nuts ascribe to your vehicles. You imagine most of this good and exaggerate the rest, trying to cover up the truly horrifying number of people killed in crashes.
Also, you should note that your chances of you or a family member dying in an automobile accident increase dramatically if you have a car at home. Your car does not make you safer or more able to get around--it makes you less safe and more likely to die surrounded by the sound of rending metal. Only a real carloon would think otherwise!
Anonymous, your failure to do a little research is not my fault. I post under my own name wherever I comment. I write two blogs and a Twitter account under my own name. You look foolish calling me a coward, given how often and in how many contexts I have discussed the very question that you accuse me of not addressing.
DeleteCalling me a gun nut is a compliment, so I'll accept that.
T., the reason the car comparison is such a bad one is because the average car owner uses his car much more than the average gun owner. Plus, because of the regulations on cars, licensing, registration, insurance, seat belts, and so on, the number of deaths has already been reduced to a minimum.
DeleteIf guns were regulated like cars, instead of 30,000 deaths we'd probably have about 5,000 a year.
Mike, we already regulate guns as much or more than cars. I can buy a car in any state--not so with guns. I can sell a car in any state--again, not so with guns. No, I don't have to have a license to buy a gun, but neither do I have to have a license to buy a car. I do have to have a license to drive that car on public roads, and most states require me to have a permit to carry my gun in public. At least my driver's license is recognized from state to state--not so with my carry permit.
DeleteIf I move to California, I'll have to get my car worked on to bring it into compliance with their environmental laws. If I'm just driving through New Jersey, I can go to Jail for the mere possession of hollow-point rounds.
I'm tired of making these comparison's, so I'll drop it here--I think I've made my point about your hollow and false statement that cars are regulated and guns aren't at all. As for your numbers--there's no science behind that estimate of an 83% drop in firearms fatalities, just a bunch of wishful thinking, posturing, and pulling numbers out of your ass.
I can do that too. If we do what you want, straw purchasing will go down by 45%. However, demand will stay the same, so smugglers will begin bringing in guns as well as drugs and high flow toilets. Because a smuggling run has fixed costs, the gun runners will try to bring in as many guns as they can each time to maximize profits. This will cause gun smuggling to increase to such a volume that the black market will actually, within 18 months, have 145% as many guns in it as it had before the enactment of gun control.
See how easy it is to make wild estimates? And neither one is, worth even wiping with since printer paper is not very soft.
Finally, to come back to my use of a car comparison--that was just the quickest thing that came to mind to use. I was responding to Anonymous who asked why we were willing to live with gun deaths each year just so that we could have guns.
That argument sounds sound at first, until you look at life in general. We accept bathtubs, swimming pools, cars, motorcycles, rock climbing, kayaking, etc., etc., etc. Things, activities, and sports in which danger is a factor and people die in accidents, sometimes even children. This doesn't lead us to ban these other items, so the argument that there are fatal accidents involved with X, so X should be banned seems to give us an incomplete picture.
This is a peeve I've had several time in the debate over the past few months. The more common way it is expressed is, "Why do you people insist on your rights? Why are you willing to have children die as a side effect as long as you can have your right!" This is typically stated regarding something like the tragedy at Newtown, and is followed or preceded with some comment about how we are cold-hearted bastards, and nobody should protect a freedom that lets children die.
Except guns are the only place you apply this. You dislike the warrantless wiretapping, you dislike aggressive interrogations, presumably you would dislike living in a total police state, but without those things, there's a lot greater chance of a maniac setting off a bomb and killing people like in Boston.
On MSNBC this evening, I was pleasantly surprised to hear them saying that, while they don't like this fact about the modern world, we are just going to have to accept that sometimes things like this happen if we live in a free society. And just to clarify--my pleasant surprise was not because I like the state of affairs, but because they were looking at it with clear eyes. I just wish they and the rest of your side could open your eyes and see that the calculus with guns is the same as with other things.
You can say that, but it doesn't make it so. Licensing, registration, liability insurance are required for cars and not for guns. You can twist it around all you like about selling a gun in another state or driving through NJ with your favorite bullets but the fact remains, reasonable people understand that cars are more regulated than guns.
Delete"about your hollow and false statement that cars are regulated and guns aren't at all."
Now, why in the world would you say I said guns aren't regulated AT ALL? Why do you guys keep exaggerating and lying about what your opponents say?
Mikeb, look at what he's telling you. My freedom with my vehicle is much greater nationwide than with my guns.
DeleteSorry Mike, I said "at all" rather than "barely at all", which is a way that your side has presented the issue.
DeleteBut that's a minor point, and we're not going to get distracted by it. Instead, we're going to look at a larger point--the issue of which is more regulated. I presented arguments. You answered with an appeal to the bandwagon and with an insult that I was obviously not a reasonable person. Apparently you either couldn't argue with what I said, or you're refusing to discuss the matter, and prefer to toss a couple of distracting logical fallacies while burying your head in the sand.
"Oh, brave Anonymous, here to tell us how to run our lives"
ReplyDeleteOnly responding to your childish crap as you wrote above
Want respect, give some
I don't need your respect. If you want mine, how about being specific in what you object to, rather than making vague pronouncements? Perhaps you're incapable of arguing something through its details.
DeleteHow was Greg disrespectful in that first post? All he did was disagree with Mike's position. Is disagreement now disrespectful?
DeleteI will record your snide remark and treat you accordingly in the future. My original comment was very clear, sorry you cannot seem to read English. Ask a question, I might reply to a serious, civil request, without the egotistical attitude.
ReplyDeleteIf that comment is aimed at me, let's note that I stated my position clearly. I also answered you with facts. When you're ready to offer a detailed explanation of your side, I'll listen.
DeleteE.N. Is that you?
Delete