Two children 3 and six are dead from guns that their fathers had in their presence. I am so thoroughly disgusted with these events and so are many people in my city. Gun are most certainly the problem
Read more:
http://www.conductdisorders.com/forum/f11/kathy-school-shooting-atlanta-52348/#ixzz2JcElZpCX
Nancy?
I will agree that guns are PART of the problem.
But not THE problem.
OK, I'm Canadian. But from an area where hunting is important, and many people significantly supplement their diet from the land (and need to). For the record, our family does not have guns.
The two cases you mentioned?
First rule of responsible gun ownership is that you NEVER leave the gun loaded, except when it is
in your own hands. If you are going to own a gun, you take the onerous responsibility of ALWAYS following the rules - ammo and gun locked up, in separate locations, with separate keys not stored together. Ammo never in the gun except in active use. Gun in vehicle ONLY in secure locked rack. And on and on.
We don't have the rate of gun violence that you have. But our rate of violence - and homicide in particular - is HIGH. Less guns, more knives, but we do get cases like the two you mentioned, or cases where the kid is in another room, and a drug deal gone bad results in a gunfight... and the kid gets killed through the wall (not intended). First tragedy is that kids are growing up in that environment at all. (no easy solutions to that either)
In theory, all sharp knives should be handled like guns - but we don't think that way (unless you raise a difficult child with certain issues... it would never cross a person's mind to do so).
Get rid of semi- and automatic guns, and you reduce the carnage of a single incident (for the most part). Get rid of ALL guns... and the rates of violence and homicide won't go down. (accidental homicide might go down a bit)
The problems are complex. There's no way the solutions will be simple.