The left supports abortion is a lifestyle choice, a private matter between a woman and her doctor. Yet a few suicides at gun ranges is driven them bonkers. Consider this editorial from Ronald Pilling, secretary of The Jesse Klump Memorial Fund Inc. Email him at [email protected].
The dialogue generated by the accidental shooting death of a firearms instructor in Arizona by a 9-year old girl reveals one of several tragedies that can happen when weapons are placed in the hands of the emotionally immature or mentally challenged. Even in the presence of trained professionals — settings that value safety above all — tragedy can result.
On a single Saturday in January 2013, five persons were accidentally shot at firing ranges or gun shows in three states. In neither venue is a background check required for admission, rent or fire a weapon.
Source: http://www.delmarvanow.com/story/opinion/readers/2014/09/10/letter-editor/15428939/
Are we required a background check to hike a mountain, dive an ocean, jump out of a plane? Frankly, there’s no “dialogue” going on, there’s only idiot anti-gunners talking about things they don’t understand. If they had to live under the rules they propose to us, the dialogue would be very different. I’d like to see a background check and waiting period for anyone visiting a winery in Napa Valley, then the liberals would scream.
Another occurrence at ranges is suicide. The Target Sports Range in Royal Oak, Michigan, after experiencing 12 suicide attempts in as many years, instituted a policy preventing individuals from obtaining a gun if they are not known by range instructors. A list of those denied access to a firearm is maintained; those individuals will be turned away in the future.
A private business is free to make decisions, even bad ones. The fact that those individuals will be turned away means nothing, they’ll simply find other ways to kill themselves. Maybe we can learn from the Israelis, in Israel if a Palestinian suicide bomber explodes and kills people, his family home is demolished. Let the suicide “victim” know that his actions will have consequences on the people he loves, perhaps demand that 10% of his State go to the gun range he used to kill himself. Or if you want to be really heartless, let every customer know you’ll sue his family if they use your range to commit suicide.
City Commissioner Peggy Goodwin praised the proactive response. “If these were homicides, something would have been done after the first one. Because it’s suicide no one wants to even talk about it. I want to talk about preventing it.”
It isn’t just in Michigan. The Orange County Register, using data from coroners’ reports, documented 64 suicides at public ranges in three California counties in the 12-year period studied. The common denominator is easy, unregulated access to a firearm.
Cops and military personnel are certainly over-regulated, yet they manage to commit suicide with guns. As for the 64 suicides at public ranges, maybe we should call them self-abortions, then Planned Parenthood would defend them. Seriously though, 64 deaths in 12-years is nothing, it’s statistically insignificant.
The Daily Times headline was: “Should firing ranges be age-restricted?” What we know about brain development and function tells us clearly the answer is “yes.” The last segment of the brain to be fully developed and integrated into the rest of the brain’s functions is the prefrontal area. This is where we learn to assess the long-term implications of actions, control impulses and make basic value judgments.
In some cases this development is not complete until age 25. In the Arizona case, clearly accidental and not a failure of judgment, brain maturation was probably not at fault. But with range-related suicides of young people, it is.
Then why do we let 16-year-olds drive cars, 17-year-olds join the military (with parental permission), and 18-year-olds vote? Here’s a kicker, a minor can sue his parents for emancipation, so clearly the law and human experience says otherwise.
Should we put deadly weapons into the hands of young people at all? Is the wise solution, as Arie Klapholz suggested, to “teach young persons to properly use and respect guns and rifles?” One common reaction to the suicide of a young person in a gun-owning household is “I don’t understand it — he was trained to use guns safely.”
In the work we do at the Worcester County Youth Suicide Awareness and Prevention Program, we have learned this the hard way.
With rates of youth homicide and gun-related accidental deaths and youth suicide on the rise, it is undeniably in society’s best interests to keep guns out of the hands of young people.
The problem of suicide prevention people and psychologists in general is that they rarely meet normal people, if they did, they would realize most people don’t kill themselves, don’t even think about killing themselves. Those of us who respect individual rights don’t punish the innocents for the acts of the guilty.
People who kill themselves are guilty, but we live a culture where nobody’s responsible for their own actions, where it’s always someone else’s fault. Deaths at the gun range or anywhere else are tragic, but they are rare. If a gun is malfunctioning, you can recall it, but they have no right to recall our 2nd Amendment.
Our rights aren’t restricted by age, Freedom of Speech doesn’t apply to the 25-year-old and older, but to everyone within U.S. Borders. It’s the reason even illegal aliens have the right to due process in a court of law. It’s the same with the 2nd Amendment, it’s the reason a father can give his underage son his gun, even if he can’t legally own it until he turns 18 (for rifles and shotguns) or 21 for handguns, and some would argue even those restrictions are unconstitutional.
So I’m sorry if some people feel sad about gun range suicides, maybe they should get a life and worry about the living, the good people that don’t kill themselves and put their families through so much pain.
There are certain rights that only manifest fully at the age of majority. Be careful with your argument.
It is that argument that has now virtually eliminated the right of parents to discipline their children by spanking. Not only does that defy millennia of the universal recognition of the right of parents to direct their children’s upbringing, it defies common sense. (Witness what is now happening to Minnesota running back Adrian Peterson, who used a switch to discipline his son. They’re doing the same thing to him that they did to Bernard Goetz. A grand jury who recognized the stupidity of this phenomenon refused to indict, so they convened ANOTHER grand jury, which DID indict him for “child abuse”.)
Any argument that could be taken to advocate nine-year-olds carrying concealed weapons around is just nonsense, and arguing that there are no such limits since the Constitution doesn’t define the age of majority is inane.
I hear what you’re saying, and I do believe parents do be masters of their children, which is why I want them making decisions for their own kids and nobody else’s. Just remember that a parent needs to influence his kids before society does. For example, some radical Atheists think it should be illegal to teach your kids about religion until they’re 18 and are able to choose for themselves. Of course, if we did that most kids would be atheists.