Why can't we try to fix both, or even more, threats to kids?

@kmdskit3 Not saying we shouldn't. I'm simply questioning the hyper-focus on only one danger - and a danger that is way, way down the list of things killing kids. Just taking the politics out of the equation.

@Piratefish 1. Almost 39,000 ain't a small number even over 19 years. Epidemic is a better description. 2. Most other rich countries have an infinitesimally smaller number of children dying from guns. 3. If even fewer on duty cops and active military (see link) are killed by guns then this is even less important than the number of children dying from guns right?
[google.com]

@kmdskit3 Now you're trying to politicize the subject. Nowhere even close to 39,000 children have been killed by accidental gun discharges in the U.S., not even in the last 19 years combined (I would love to see a valid source supporting that assertion).

Try to stay focused on the topic at hand without inserting red herrings. We're talking about kids being shot accidentally, not all firearm deaths (including intentional suicides and police shootings) from all sources. Save the politics for those who are interested in such debates. If you want to talk about the specific topic at hand, I am fine with that, but I am not going to engage in a politicized debate with a complete stranger today. Especially if the discussion is going to go all over the place and include additional, unrelated premises.

Kids are hyper-observant. There are a ton of studies that show kids can walk someone exactly to where the gun was in their house. Or that if there's a gun and no adults around they will touch/play with it.

@CommonHuman How good are they at picking locks?

@indirect76 For some, it is easier to see inanimate objects as inherently bad. They even go as far as ascribing supernatural abilities to them. Probably because it's nice and convenient and fits neatly into an extremely oversimplified viewpoint.

You will never convince the anti-gun people of that...they are too emotional invested in the rhetoric to every accept that.

The CDC reports that about 730 children are killed from accidental poisoning in the U.S. every year, and that another 300 kids a day are treated in emergency rooms across the country because household chemicals were not secured. Not much media noise on this far deadlier tragedy. Not sure I understand the logic in focusing on something statistically insignificant, like accidental gun deaths, while almost entirely ignoring multiple activities and objects that are exponentially more deadly to children. I also wonder why the media makes almost no sound about the dozens, even hundreds, of children our government kills in drone strikes each and every year for the last 15 years. I guess lives only matter when it's an American kid, and there is a firearm involved - at least going by what the media is trying to sell.

@Piratefish You make an excellent point. I cannot believe I forgot that fairly common example, but again it's never newsworthy.

I agree with you, the same can be said with any piece of machinery or tool.

Can you understand how some would see that as draconian and facist?

When I was 14 my mom died. My 8 year old sister started to play with her toys in mom and dad's bedroom. After the funeral while the house was full of relatives, my sister was in the bedroom and noticed a handgun (antique unloaded silver pistol) on the dresser and she was touching it when my dad caught her. He scolded her terribly. My aunt who was Japanese by birth and about 4'11", 89 pounds lit into my dad. She scolded him up one side and down the other about leaving a weapon where a child could access it. Aunt Mickie became my hero that day. And after Mickie got done, dad's mother and brother also chimed in. I don't know where that handgun ended up, but it was never seen again. I don't know if dad just wasn't thinking, or if that had been a habit. I know there were shotguns in the house, and very likely accessible to youngsters. But then again this was the very early 70s. I spent 6 years in the Army, I fired expert with an M16. I have never felt the need to have any sort of gun in my house once I had kids.

@HippieChick58 "...unloaded silver pistol..." The keyword is "unloaded", a.k.a., "harmless." The mere sight of a gun elicited a fright response from your aunt similar to fear of mice. Lets pass a law.