TPT Almanac-Pediatric Gun Violence

[daleamn]

TPT Alamanc did a segment “Alarming Pediatric Gun Violence Statistics”.
It first ran 10/6/2023 (Clip: Season 2024 Episode 6. Note: their numbering, not mine).
They had HCMC Pediatric ER Dr. Anupam Kharbanda on as a guest. His main point, besides emphasizing what a pressing problem gun violence is, was to point out the need for people to lock up their guns and, separately, lock up their ammunition.

Here’s a few quotes from the show.

Cathy Wurzer: The American Academy of Pediatrics released a study this week that showed that gun violence is now the biggest cause of accidental fatal and non-fatal injuries among children.

Dr. Kharbanda: You can break it [gun violence] up by age group. Under age 12 we know that most of these injuries are occurring in the home due to firearms. Probably, we speculate, guns, firearms, that were not locked up. And then from 13 to 20 those injuries were predominantly homicides that are occurring on the street.

So they kind of admit they’re counting 20 year olds as children (and there was no pushback from Cathy Wurzer or Eric Eskola.)

Cathy Wurzer: The legislature passed several bills this past session-might some of the gun control bills passed be helpful in this situation?
Dr. Kharbanda: I think they’re a start.

“They’re a start.” Goodness, I wonder what else they’d like to pass. My own opinion is they would like to set things up so that the desire to own a gun would disqualify you (according to the mental health standards they would set up) from owning a gun. You know, like a firearms “Catch 22”.

Dr. Kharbanda: We don’t have a good funding source for gun storage and a way to supervise or police it.

Now there’s a question. If they pass a firearms storage bill how are they going to enforce it? Answer is they can’t. I speculate it would have little no effect on ‘gun violence’.

Here’s a link to the segment, it’s about 6 minutes long.
https://video.tpt.org/video/alarming-pe ... ics-40396/

P.S. TPT Almanac has had members of Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus on several times and they have had kind words about the show and the show’s hosts, Cathy Wurzer and Eric Eskola, so I think I should mention that to be fair.

[bstrawse]

Thanks for posting this, I didn't see this segment but have been busy with family stuff this weekend. We'll review.

We do have good dialogue w/ Cathy and Erik and both Rob and I have been on previously.
b

[jdege]

Now there’s a question. If they pass a firearms storage bill how are they going to enforce it? Answer is they can’t. I speculate it would have little no effect on ‘gun violence’.

What proportion of the guns involved in the problem instances are already illegally possessed?

Will a law against improper storage really make much of a difference in the behavior of someone for whom possession of a gun is already illegal?

[Markemp]

Now there’s a question. If they pass a firearms storage bill how are they going to enforce it? Answer is they can’t. I speculate it would have little no effect on ‘gun violence’.

What proportion of the guns involved in the problem instances are already illegally possessed?

Will a law against improper storage really make much of a difference in the behavior of someone for whom possession of a gun is already illegal?

If a little more than half of gun deaths are due to suicide, and this strategy can prevent a significant percentage of those, it seems like it could save thousands of lives a year. It'll probably be especially effective in families with troubled children where the gun owners are responsible adults and parents and decide to follow the law or official recommendations because it's the right thing to do.

Just because it doesn't affect one part of a multi-faceted problem doesn't mean it won't help in another.

[Jackpine Savage]

I just want to know when we are finally going to ban backyard pools.

[bstrawse]

Now there’s a question. If they pass a firearms storage bill how are they going to enforce it? Answer is they can’t. I speculate it would have little no effect on ‘gun violence’.

What proportion of the guns involved in the problem instances are already illegally possessed?

Will a law against improper storage really make much of a difference in the behavior of someone for whom possession of a gun is already illegal?

If a little more than half of gun deaths are due to suicide, and this strategy can prevent a significant percentage of those, it seems like it could save thousands of lives a year. It'll probably be especially effective in families with troubled children where the gun owners are responsible adults and parents and decide to follow the law or official recommendations because it's the right thing to do.

Just because it doesn't affect one part of a multi-faceted problem doesn't mean it won't help in another.

We've existing law in Minnesota that makes it a crime to leave a loaded firearm in a place where a child can gain access to it. We see that as an appropriate measure.

The "safe storage" law proposed in Minnesota was unconstitutional on its face - it was opposed by all but 5 county sheriffs in the state and several county prosecutors. It violated one of the core holdings from Heller. If passed into law, we would have litigated it that very same day - and we would have won easily.

[Markemp]

If we already have a law to prevent access to loaded firearms by children, that seems like a decent compromise.

[crbutler]

So how many folks with teenage kids really think that they can absolutely lock guns in the house away from them?

As I recall my teenage years, my siblings and I got in to everything.

We knew where all the keys were, and could open everything and could easily have taken my dads back up old truck on joyrides any time. My friends who’s folks had gun safes or cabinets all had the keys or combinations (the combinations by knowing where mom and dad wrote them down, them memorized them…) etc.

It seems that while a reasonable attempt could be made, that folks who live together have a very hard time keeping secrets or locking away things.

Further, if a gun is a defensive item, it needs to be accessible in order to be useful.

Now, small children are a bit different situation. It’s certainly reasonable to expect locking something up can keep them away from items.

In today’s day and age of support for a right to die, and support for increasing rights for juveniles, I’m not sure how you can really expect to curtail access to suicide methods.

The attempt to conflate gun violence in the young adult and suicide prevention seems a bit weak here. A suicidal person is going to find a means to attempt the act if that is their decision- a gun being both less painful and more deadly does make it the first choice for a serious attempt if you can access one.

It would be interesting to see the actual breakdown of fatal accident due to access by young children vs suicide vs violence vs criminality. We have certainly heard that gun accidents have been decreasing for the last several years, so is there really an epidemic of accidental child access deaths, or are we seeing the gun grabbers selectively using strangely obtained statistics to push an agenda?

[Bearcatrp]

Only way to slow down kids getting access to unlocked firearms is make punishment the death penalty if a child gets ahold of a firearm and kills themself or another person!

[Grayskies]

Only way to slow down kids getting access to unlocked firearms is make punishment the death penalty if a child gets ahold of a firearm and kills themself or another person!

This is a bad idea, spend some time watching the lock picking lawyer on youtube to see how easy it is to open modern locks.

[Bearcatrp]

Only way to slow down kids getting access to unlocked firearms is make punishment the death penalty if a child gets ahold of a firearm and kills themself or another person!

This is a bad idea, spend some time watching the lock picking lawyer on youtube to see how easy it is to open modern locks.

Get a better safe! But, if the parents can prove they did break into the safe, then no penalty.

[hard h2o]

TPT Alamanc did a segment “Alarming Pediatric Gun Violence Statistics”.

Dr. Kharbanda: We don’t have a good funding source for gun storage and a way to supervise or police it.

Now there’s a question. If they pass a firearms storage bill how are they going to enforce it? Answer is they can’t. I speculate it would have little no effect on ‘gun violence’.

It becomes one of the laws that they tack on to other charges. They serve a warrant on someone and search the house. Guns not stored according to whatever the law says and you have more charges.

Investigating a disturbance or domestic violence and discover guns store improperly they add those charges.

In Canada, before their relatively recent draconian laws were passed, If you called the police to report anything and they came to your house they would ask if you had any firearms. If you said yes it instantly became a gun related crime. Someone throws a rock through your window and you have guns in the house it is a gun related crime. Effective way to inflate the statistics.

[daleamn]

In Canada, before their relatively recent draconian laws were passed, If you called the police to report anything and they came to your house they would ask if you had any firearms. If you said yes it instantly became a gun related crime. Someone throws a rock through your window and you have guns in the house it is a gun related crime. Effective way to inflate the statistics.

Good land!
But I see more and more how that could be done in our country too.

[daleamn]

Well, because this topic as drawn some interest I did some research (translation: I did ONE Google search and found a couple articles on the subject) and here's some links about the 'guns being the leading cause of death to children' issue.

Here's one from Snopes that's more friendly to the gun rights group than you'd suspect but still leans toward the gun control folk:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/03/29/ ... ildren-us/

Here's a couple on the gun rights side of things. Note: One is from John Lott---the gun control folk just dismiss anything John Lott has to say out of hand.
https://highlandcountypress.com/no-joe- ... #gsc.tab=0
https://www.gunowners.org/guns-are-not- ... hildren-2/

And here's one that confirms more folk are killed by folk using their hands and feet than are killed by 'assault rifles', or ALL rifles no matter the type.
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/po ... 960682002/

[Grayskies]

Only way to slow down kids getting access to unlocked firearms is make punishment the death penalty if a child gets ahold of a firearm and kills themself or another person!

This is a bad idea, spend some time watching the lock picking lawyer on youtube to see how easy it is to open modern locks.

Get a better safe! But, if the parents can prove they did break into the safe, then no penalty.

Exactly how would they do this?