Quote:
Originally Posted by Bucco
WITH all due respect, have you actually read that article ? Beyond the headline I mean ?? WOW is all I can say.
And,as I said, it is still very misleading to say what you said and I again do not have a dog in this race, but misleading stuff like this tends to distort any discussion...it just aint true...PLEASE read the article. This is an article I will keep as I am engaged in ongoing work on the media distortion of facts.
I am not defending the NRA, just defending honesty actually.
I will offer the following from the NRA website...
"Store guns so they are not accessible to unauthorized persons.
Many factors must be considered when deciding where and how to store guns. A person's particular situation will be a major part of the consideration. Dozens of gun storage devices, as well as locking devices that attach directly to the gun, are available. However, mechanical locking devices, like the mechanical safeties built into guns, can fail and should not be used as a substitute for safe gun handling and the observance of all gun safety rules."
Education and Training|NRA Gun Safety Rules |
Because of the point made by Bucco for one to read the entire article rather than just the headline, I did so to see what the “agenda” actually is from a comprehension point of view. Here are some quotes from it. My focus is on reading the actual article, as recommended by Bucco, and my understanding of the quotes.
“NRA News host Cam Edwards attacked laws to prevent children from accessing guns by positing that there should be no criminal penalty even when an admittedly careless adult allows a child access to a gun that the child then uses to kill themselves.”
Does this mean that the NRA believes there should be no legal penalty against a careless adult allowing a child to easily get hold of a gun and use it on himself or another person, possibly with a death resulting?
“Edwards responded to Watts' USA Today interview by suggesting that if "you are careless with a firearm and one of your own children accidentally kills themself" [sic] that the "horror" of the incident alone would be sufficient punishment for the adult.”
This seems to imply that living with the death of one's child—
or possibly someone else’s child?—is sufficient punishment, in contrast to drunk driving laws that criminalize the death of someone resulting from drunk driving?
“Mocking Watts' comparison between a child access prevention law and a law that criminalizes killing someone while driving drunk, Edwards said, "We don't have a negligent storage law for alcohol," and, "We don't have a negligent storage law for automobiles, and so I'm not quite sure what she is talking about." ”
This seems to imply that the NRA representative equates carelessly leaving a loaded gun where a child can have easy access to it with the
existence of automobiles and alcohol rather than the
results of using the automobile or the alcohol carelessly.
“Edwards also attempted to distract from an epidemic of fatal gun accidents involving young children by highlighting unintentional deaths caused in children by suffocation and other methods. Even so, according to the Centers for Disease Control unintentional shootings remain a top ten cause of accidental death for children ages 1-4 and 10-14. (Firearm homicides are the top violence-related cause of death for children 5-9 and a top five violence-related cause of death for children of all ages.)
While NRA lobbying has prevented the CDC from studying gun violence for years, in 1997 the CDC found that children in the United States were nine times more likely to die in gun accidents compared to other high-income nations.”
This appears clear and revealing. The statistics, presuming the CDC is accurate, would appear to speak for themselves. Granted, statistics can be used to illustrate a specific point of view, but they are not focusing on any
one sensationalized case (a common accusation). Why would the NRA lobby against the CDC studying gun violence? Are they concerned what might be a result of such a study? Could there be other reasons?
“The topic of accidental fatal shootings involving young children became national news in April 2013 following a tragedy where a 5-year-old boy unintentionally shot his 2-year-old sister with a rifle designed to be used by young children. Edwards responded to controversy over that shooting by attacking the media for covering the incident.”
This seems to imply that to the NRA, the accidental fatal shootings are
not an issue, that the
real issue is that they are reported in the media. While it is true that the media often have their own agenda, is the NRA implying that only the Second Amendment counts and not the First Amendment?
What am I missing? In no way am I expressing a personal view one way or the other. My interest here is not the content of the debate but rather our ability to comprehend an article that we’ve been encouraged to read.