smith_6288
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www.vote.com is currently conducting a poll regarding child safety locks. Please take a minute and vote so that your elected officials can "hear your voices".
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VOTE.COM POLL
- Thread starter smith_6288
- Start date
This is the lamest worded poll I've ever read:
First, the question "For Gun Locks" question is, "Guns Shouldn't Be Usable By Children". Pretty hard to argue that guns should be usable by children WITHOUT supervision.
Then, the lame arguments continue:
The Facts For Locks:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The firearm death rate for US children is extraordinarily high[/quote]
I haven't done research on other countries, but for children 14 and under, where trigger locks would be most effective, there are only 142 accidental deaths for all of 1997. (The six-year-old shooting really must be classified as an accident. That child had no concept of what he was doing.) More than seven times that number of children in that age group drown (1010). We have 275 million people in this country. Let's get realistic about this nonsense!*
The Arguments For Locks:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Trigger locks could have prevented many senseless tragedies[/quote]
This is undoubtedly true, but as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found, there would probably be more risk by requiring seatbelts on school buses than by ordering them installed. It's a question of cost/benefit, and while no one wants to see a child die, the question would be how many would die as a result of the inability to get the gun lock off in an emergency.
The Facts Against Locks:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Trigger locks probably wouldn't have prevented the recent shooting by a 6-year-old [/quote]
That is so obvious, it shouldn't even be brought up. Yeh, right, a crackhouse resident is going to make sure a gun lock is put on a stolen gun. Ugh!
The Arguments Against Locks:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Don't use a child's death as a political football[/quote]
It's all a political football. Deal with a real response, such as the potential harm and death resulting from lock handguns being rendered unusable in an emergency. We've got 2.5 million assaults a year, and 142 gun-related accidental deaths with real children. That's the issue. Although Larry Pratt didn't make a very good argument of it, IMO, during an interview on MSNBC, he at least had the right argument.
___________________________
Voted. For locks, 725 or 30%. Against locks, 1667 or 70%
*Source: The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) 1997 Mortality Rates, Table 19.
[This message has been edited by Joseph (edited March 05, 2000).]
First, the question "For Gun Locks" question is, "Guns Shouldn't Be Usable By Children". Pretty hard to argue that guns should be usable by children WITHOUT supervision.
Then, the lame arguments continue:
The Facts For Locks:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The firearm death rate for US children is extraordinarily high[/quote]
I haven't done research on other countries, but for children 14 and under, where trigger locks would be most effective, there are only 142 accidental deaths for all of 1997. (The six-year-old shooting really must be classified as an accident. That child had no concept of what he was doing.) More than seven times that number of children in that age group drown (1010). We have 275 million people in this country. Let's get realistic about this nonsense!*
The Arguments For Locks:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Trigger locks could have prevented many senseless tragedies[/quote]
This is undoubtedly true, but as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found, there would probably be more risk by requiring seatbelts on school buses than by ordering them installed. It's a question of cost/benefit, and while no one wants to see a child die, the question would be how many would die as a result of the inability to get the gun lock off in an emergency.
The Facts Against Locks:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Trigger locks probably wouldn't have prevented the recent shooting by a 6-year-old [/quote]
That is so obvious, it shouldn't even be brought up. Yeh, right, a crackhouse resident is going to make sure a gun lock is put on a stolen gun. Ugh!
The Arguments Against Locks:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Don't use a child's death as a political football[/quote]
It's all a political football. Deal with a real response, such as the potential harm and death resulting from lock handguns being rendered unusable in an emergency. We've got 2.5 million assaults a year, and 142 gun-related accidental deaths with real children. That's the issue. Although Larry Pratt didn't make a very good argument of it, IMO, during an interview on MSNBC, he at least had the right argument.
___________________________
Voted. For locks, 725 or 30%. Against locks, 1667 or 70%
*Source: The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) 1997 Mortality Rates, Table 19.
[This message has been edited by Joseph (edited March 05, 2000).]