12yr old girl died while loading a Muzzleoader.

P

Pahoo

New member
Was not sure where to post this but felt that it is important enough to do so. As some of you know, I teach Hunter Ed, in Iowa and I take this very personal and in fact, it really ticks me off. The last Iowa fatality, was in 2010 and now we have one and it happened with a muzzleloader. Fellas, this is what I teach at our live fire day. The family will be in my prayers, tonight. .... :mad:

http://www.kcci.com/news/12yearold-died-after-gun-she-was-loading-discharged/30449082

As always;
Be Safe !!!
 
Four months ago, Charles Vacca was killed by a 9-year-old girl who he hadn't properly supervised with a submachine gun. Another thread was posted today about a 2-year-old causing a woman's CCW to fire, which killed her.

Now this.

Since the Vacca shooting, the quietly swelling drumbeat from MDA/Bloomberg supporters has been that children should not be allowed access to firearms at all. They cite incidents like this as examples.

The big question is: how do we respond to that?
 
Since the Vacca shooting, the quietly swelling drumbeat from MDA/Bloomberg supporters has been that children should not be allowed access to firearms at all. They cite incidents like this as examples.
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I'll be darned if some big shot New Yorker like Mr. Bloomberg is going to stop me from shooting my guns I payed for. That's how I respond to that.
 
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No access ? What fools. 2 year olds always surprise people .They are always smarter, more physically capable, curious and fearless as far as danger than parents believe.. I know a kid who at 2 was found loading a rifle ! He had never been permitted to touch a gun. I was interesting to watch as he knew the whole sequence and did it correctly. But he never had touched a gun !!! BUT he had watched adults do it many times ! :eek:
For older ones you must teach a kid to be responsible in thinging and acting.
Establish rules , enforce them and punish violations - always !
 
Per BlindStitch above, this incident apparently had nothing to do with...

- The age of the girl
- The muzzleloader involved
- The fact that she was loading.....

Someone else shot her by 'accident'.
(But why waste a good tragedy for lack of facts?)
 
Since it's a muzzle loader, is it even a firearm per BATFE?

Anyway, here's my thinking. One kid dies while loading a muzzle loader. Yet, every year, half a million kids age 5 and younger get into household medications and are poisoned. Rat poison alone endangers 10,000 children every year. 45,000 children die every year from unintended poisoning.

So, when the rest of the world, including drug manufacturers, pest control chemical makers, and household chemical manufactures get their stats down to where only one kid every few years dies as a result of their products being available to the public, then I suppose we can get into discussions about the few kids who are accidentally shot in a nation of 400,000,000 people. For reference and comparison, if you could count one person a second, it would take you well over 10 years, 24 hours every day to count all of the people in the US.
 
Since the Vacca shooting, the quietly swelling drumbeat from MDA/Bloomberg supporters has been that children should not be allowed access to firearms at all. They cite incidents like this as examples.

The big question is: how do we respond to that?
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My response is that in all three of the examples in this thread, the fault lies with others, and not the child. The girl was said to be shot by someone else. Vacca was shot by a child, unfamiliar with that firearm, he did not supervise correctly. The mother allowed the weapon to be accessed by a child obviously not old enough to know better. While we do not need to ban all pre-adults access to firearms, as responsible gun owners we need to provide the instruction and supervision to make sure folks of any age, have the knowledge and the ability to handle a firearm appropriately and safely.
 
mehavey YOU ARE RIGHT ON the media never let the the facts get in the way of a story.It was caused by careless gun handling by another person.Its sad news and I'am sorry for the family but it has nothing to do with loading a muzzleloader
 
My response is that in all three of the examples in this thread, the fault lies with others, and not the child.
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I suspect this is one place where the Moms would say they agree with you. They would also say that these examples prove that many adults are not responsible and thus we need additional regulation. New restrictions on hunting, ranges, storage in the home, etc. and I suspect some who support gun ownership will support the new regulation. Remember Bloomberg’s entire strategy of forming these groups of Moms is to play on emotion and make the actual facts secondary.
 
Remember Bloomberg’s entire strategy of forming these groups of Moms is to play on emotion and make the actual facts secondary.
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That's true, and Skans has given examples of how other consumer products are far more dangerous to children than guns.

It doesn't matter. When the cameras are running, gun-control advocates will criticize us for changing the subject and return to their tack of insisting that children should not be exposed to firearms.

How do we rebut?
 
Tom servo
How do we rebut?
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Well, I'll tell you that my tactic of asking my state rep to detail for me how the new proposed Colorado gun regulations (new in 2013) would have averted the incident (the Aurora theater shooting) that sparked the new legislation.
Crickets.
More crickets.
Deafening silence.

My tactic didn't seem to work. Be smarter than I.
 
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Take a good look at the article in Blindstich's link. It's labeled at the top "Update." However --

The first part of the story, at the top, appears to be the original story, strongly implying that the girl shot herself. Then, below the dashed line, comes what appears to be the update: She was shot by someone else.

But they didn't rewrite the story to correct the suggestion that she had shot herself. In fact, they could have removed everything above the dashed line and still had the story, but they chose to leave the inaccurate information as the lead-in.
 
"They would also say that these examples prove that many adults are not responsible and thus we need additional regulation"
"How do we rebut?"
Well, to be honest, we can't. Not so long as we accept their premise as reality. The fact is that many adults aren't responsible, but the fact also remains that you cannot restrain their behavior without similarly restricting those who are responsible unjustly. It's a much more basic debate than guns, so it is probably beyond the scope of this forum. It ultimately comes down to what sort of world you think we should live in; dangerous freedom, or coddled safety. I also don't think that is something that can be easily settled, being both deeply ingrained and probably genetic in people.

Different strokes for different folks, and I'd be cool with that if the consequences weren't a one-way street (their restrictions will impact my life and all others negatively, while my freedoms are well beyond highly unlikely to harm another)

Back to muzzle loaders, I am always relieved this does not happen more often, simply because these devices require the muzzle to be moved through so much angle to be loaded, through a more complicated process. There are simply more places and ways to make mistakes when loading a smoke pole than a bolt gun, between shots.

TCB
 
There are simply more places and ways to make mistakes when loading a smoke pole than a bolt gun, between shots.
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Aye, but OTH, a guy shooting a ML won't shoot 1/10th as many rounds as the bolt gun guy in a range session .....
 
It "ain't" easy being a parent

I'm trying to word this delicately so as to offend the least people possible. There are 2 aspects to my comment...gun control and people control. The 1st aspect we'll keep short. Keep weapons out of reach of those who neither have the knowledge or skills to be around them. I personally am against the hanging on the wall or in the glass (break in case of emergency) vitrine. All of my HUNTING weapons are in a gun safe. Now more importantly, not all people (adults and children) should be exposed to weapons. We have to know ourselves, our families and most importantly...our children. Children do not develop equally, your 12 year old might be more mature than mine so as parents we have tough decisions to make and as with our children we cannot let "peer pressure" influence our decisions. Example: When my son wanted his 1st skateboard at 6 years old I refused to buy one even though his peers all had one and the parents of those kids all thought I was an ogre. Why not buy him one? Because my son thought he was Evil Knievel and I saw an accident waiting to happen and I believe in Murphy's Law. 6 mos later he mature enough to get one for his birthday. My point! Guns are far, far more dangerous than any skate board and our children have to have the right maturity, the proper guidance and our full attention at all times. We owe them that above all. SO if we feel that our kids are ready, do your thing but be really sure. Safety 1st. No parent wants to lose a child to an accident of any kind. Long winded, maybe but I found the topic important enough. Thanks for the space....
 
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