Another Reply to Bryan Miller
My last attempt to comment on Bryan Miller’s dancing in the blood of an eight year old boy while making fun of his small penis did not make it through moderation.
Here’s another try:
Freedom is not safe.
That said, accidents like this are extremely rare. Fewer than a hundred children a year die from accidents involving guns. (And, yes, this was an “accident”, although negligence was certainly a huge factor.)
According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2004 seventy-two children between the ages of 1 and 15 died in “Unintentional Firearm” incidents, ranked at number 14.
What really kills kids? Top three causes in 2004 were: 2479 deaths due to “Unintentional MV traffic”; 739 due to “Unintentional drowning”; and 502 due to “Unintentional Fire/burn”. Next comes 350 “Homicide Firearm”. Note that those last three together are not even two thirds of the total due to cars.
The right of the people to keep and bear arms has already been very substantially infringed by some 20,000 federal, state, and local laws and regulations. Your state, New Jersey, and the state in which this shooting occurred, Massachusetts, heavily regulate gun ownership, yet are not known for their low crime rates.
If, Mr. Miller, you want to further infringe that right, I believe we can reasonably insist that you make a strong case that your infringements will a) substantially reduce gun deaths among children even further, and b) not increase child death (or even adult death) through increased violent crime or increased tyranny.
[I reused part of my last reply, which I will not reproduce here. CDC stats copied from this earlier post.]
Tags: Bryan Miller, Christopher Bizilj