North Carolina 3-year-old who accidentally shot herself on Christmas Day has died

[conuly]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/29/us/north-carolina-christmas-shooting-toddler-dies/index.html

In 2020 in the US, more than 5,100 children younger than 18 were killed or injured in gun incidents, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

People say they get guns to protect themselves and their families, and therefore they MUST have a gun and CAN'T secure it because they need it ready to access, but they really are only putting themselves and their families at risk.

If you want to protect yourself, don't get a gun. If you really do have a reason for it, keep it locked up, with the ammunition locked up separately.

If you're sure that you need a gun to protect yourself from violence - well, firstly, you probably don't, not in the US, but if you did the best way to protect yourself from gun violence is to advocate for better gun control.

This death, like all those deaths, is framed as a tragedy, but really? It's a statistic. Tragedies are rare, isolated incidents, not wholly predictable and common events.

Protect your family by not getting a gun.

Comments

[hudebnik]

If you're making decisions about your own behavior rather than public policy, that's the right question to ask. And as conuly says, the answer for most people is still "no". Having a gun in the house makes you substantially more likely to get shot by accident, or by suicide, or by a partner. As mentioned above, it makes no difference in the case of burglary while you're not at home (except that it's one more attractive thing to steal).

In the case of a violent stalker who's specifically targeting you, having a gun in the house might enable you to get him before he gets you (at the risk of also shooting a family member, a pet, or a neighbor). [I use "he" because most violent stalkers are male.]

But the odds are in the bad guy's favor. He probably knew hours ago that he was coming to get you, while you were surprised a few seconds ago, so you're full of adrenaline, which impedes your aim. And he's probably less concerned than you are about family members, pets, and neighbors, which again gives him a tactical advantage.

And your possession of a gun escalates conflict. If you both have lethal weapons and you both know that, your stalker has every reason to believe you're going to shoot him, so he has to shoot you first (rather than, say, just beating you up, which would be no fun for you but better than dying).