The Positive Gun Story

[Crockett]

As evidenced on these boards, i'm not a fan or the political activities of the NRA. However I will laud NRA hunter safety and gun safety efforts, along with those of 4-H, Boy Scouts and numerous other organizations have implemented stellar eucational programs. Ray Sasser, outdoors columnist for the Dallas Morning News, reports that from 1966-1987, there were an average of 19.3 hunting accident fatalities in Texas per year. Since 1988, when hunter education became mandatory, it has fallen to 5.6 per year.
The Link

I've got no problems with intelligent, responsible gun ownership. Knucklehead gun ownership and use is a problem and as these statistics prove, many aspects of knuckleheadedness are curable with education.

 

[Mr. Fiesta]

Knuckleheadedness is bad with anything.

 

[Mr. Fiesta]

Here is another positive gun story even though you probably won't see much of it in the press: Gun murders are down 39% although THEY don't want to tell you that information. The link

 

[Crockett]

Fiesta: Good link. The story was front page news in the Dallas Morning News, but the message never sinks in.
Folks selling gun control, guns, relaxation of gun control, protection systems, pre-K or whatever love to keep us worried about "the wave of violence sweeping the country." People hear about tragic events and extrapolate results.

It drives me crazy to hear folks say stuff like -- when I was a kid my friends and I used to ride through the neigborhoods on our bikes, carefree. Boy, I wouldn't let my kids do that now!' Hell, statistically kids are safer now, especially with cell phones and the effective "stranger danger" teaching going on everywhere.

 

[Seattle Husker]

The fringes of both sides prohibit common sense approaches to gun rights.

 

[theiioftx]

Interesting post Crockett. I have never seen any statistics on crime on children today versus yester year. I am assuming you are saying that it is that we just hear more today on TV and Internet?

Regardless, I am scared every time my daughter leaves the house not with me or the wife. It is definitely not safer today in my eyes.

 

[Crockett]

I don't have year by year statistics like the ones cited in Fiesta's link on gun violence. But this storyThe Link suggested there may be 115 of the stranger or acqauintance kidnapping of a child for nefarious pruposes per year. Nothing to sneeze at, but compared the losses of life to children ... drowning, choking on food, auto accients, food allergies ... it's not a big statistical threat. But it is more worrisome than snake or shark attacks.

I love remarks I heard from a statistician once. "Americans worry exactly the right amount ... they don't worry about the right stuff, but they worry the right amount because eventually something gets everybody."

Child kidnappings, espcially of white suburban kids, are stories the media follow with only slightly less interest than a royal wedding. A kid drowns in Lake Lewisville or the backyard, it's one paragraph news story and an obituary.