Mother Jones: Here’s How the Rifle That Just Killed a 2-Year-Old Girl Is Marketed for Kids : “On Tuesday, inside a rural Kentucky home, a five-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed his two-year-old sister. The boy had been playing with a .22 caliber single-shot Crickett rifle made and marketed for kids. The children’s mother was reportedly outside the house when the shooting took place, and apparently didn’t know that the gun contained a shell.

“Just one of those crazy accidents,” said the Cumberland County coroner, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Clearly the issue of parental responsibility is at the center of this tragedy. But against the backdrop of the Newtown massacre and ongoing national debate over regulating firearms, it also points back to the big business of guns—including how the industry profits from products aimed at children.

The Pennsylvania-based maker of Crickett rifles, Keystone Sporting Arms, markets its guns with the slogan “My First Rifle.” They are available with different barrel and stock designs, including some made in hot pink to appeal to young girls.

Business has boomed since the company’s inception in 1996, according to its website. In its first year, it had four employees and produced 4,000 rifles for kids; by 2008 it had greatly expanded its operations, with 70 employees and an output of 60,000 rifles a year. KSA’s site states that its goal is “to instill gun safety in the minds of youth shooters and encourage them to gain the knowledge and respect that hunting and shooting activities require and deserve.”

But a visit to the “kids corner” page reveals a gallery of photos that some people might find unsettling:

Then again, KSA’s approach to arming America’s tykes may be no more disturbing than the post-Newtown boom in bulletproof backpacks and school clothes.”

link: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/05/crickett-rifle-marketing-kids

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teachthemhowtothink:

I don’t like to throw around the term child abuse, but I do know that teaching a child that someone was tortured and killed because of them is cruel and disgusting and emotionally scarring. And emotional abuse IS abuse.

No child should ever feel that type of guilt.

And honestly…isn’t it bizarre that parents want them too? Like, if kids can process and get past THAT guilt, think about how minor bullying or lying or stealing seems. “I’m already responsible for Jesus’ death, who cares if I punch this kid in the face too.” ~JJ

odinsblog:

John McCain Attacked By His Hate-Filled, Misinformed Constituents At Town Hall Meeting. Memorable constituent quotes below:

• “Most of the people that come across the border are illiterate. They don’t speak English and they’re a dependent class. Cutoff their welfare and all their stuff and they’ll go back!”
• “Why did the army go down there and stop them? Because the only thing that stops them, I am afraid to say, it’s too damn bad, but is a gun.”
• “You said build the damn fence. Where is the fence? That’s not a fence.”

This is representative of the conservative Republicans who actually cheered for allowing the death  the uninsured and boo’d an active-duty gay soldier in Iraq. 

► Dishonorable mention: After John McCain tells the mother of an Aurora shooting victim that she needs some “straight talk,” the crowd of Republicans cheer the prospect of no gun control laws. The mother lost her child and Republicans are cheering. No compassion, no empathy. 

Filed under: Why Republicans make horrible excuses for human beings.

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inothernews:

From the New York Daily News, a story of yet another tragic gun death:

A 15-year-old Chicago honor student who participated in inaugural events celebrating President Obama’s re-election was fatally shot Tuesday just blocks from her school.

Hadiya Pendleton was among approximately a dozen teens taking cover from the rain in a local park at 2:30 p.m. when a gunman jumped a fence and opened fire, according to reports.

Pendleton and other King College Prep students had been dismissed from school early due to exams. The gunshots sent the entire group running out of the park in a panic, authorities say.

Pendleton and a 16-year-old boy were both hit and collapsed about one block away. Pendleton was shot once in the back and later died at the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital. The wounded boy was in serious condition Tuesday night, according to the Chicago Tribune.

CHICAGO (AP) — At least five people were gunned down Saturday in Chicago, including a 34-year-old man whose mother had already lost her three other children to shootings.

Ronnie Chambers, who was his mother Shirley’s youngest child, was shot in the head while sitting in a parked car on the city’s West Side. A 21-year-old man who was also in the car was wounded, police said.

Shirley Chambers, whose two other sons and daughter were shot in separate attacks more than a decade ago, was left grieving again on Saturday, WLS-TV reported (http://bit.ly/VCSh8i ).

“Right now, I’m totally lost because Ronnie was my only surviving son,” Chambers said.

Shirley Chambers’ first child, Carlos, was shot and killed by a high school classmate in 1995 after an argument. He was 18. Her daughter Latoya, then 15, and her other son Jerome were shot and killed within months of one another in 2000.

cognitivedissonance:

Rebloggable by request:

Your argument is invalid. Youre basically saying that someone can either use guns to kill someone fast or they can use something other then a gun to get the same fucking result. So should we outlaw baseball bats because I can take one swing a someones fucking dome and kill them instantly? Fucking stupid. Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. Doesn’t matter the weapon.

 Anonymous

 Meg at Cognitive Dissonance:

Yep, you’re right. Obviously, a gun sitting on a table is not going to simply kill someone. However, you cannot deny that a semi-automatic rifle makes it easier to kill larger amounts of people in a shorter amount of time from further away.

Ever heard of dozens of people being killed and wounded by a mass-batting in a movie theater? Or a drive-by knifing committed by an assailant from the window of a moving car? Doubtful. Though pro-gun proponents have pointed to the case of children being knifed in China on the same day as those slain in Connecticut, unlike the children in Newtown, all the children in China survived the attack.

Or how about the number of homicides committed with firearms versus other methods? From the Bureau of Justice Statistics:

In 2009, the latest year for which the Center for Disease Control has national statistics, there were 16,799 deaths from homicide in the U.S. — of those, 11,493 were committed with a firearm. That means of the homicides committed in the U.S., 32% used something other than a firearm. According to the Department of Justice, the likelihood of surviving a violent attack increases dramatically without the presence of a firearm by either civilian or criminal.

The Harvard School of Public Health debunks several myths surrounding guns, primarily that guns are used in self-defense all the time (false), and that guns do not increase the rate of homicide (false again). From the University of Utah School of Medicine:

A study of 626 shootings in or around a residence in three U.S. cities revealed that, for every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides. In another study, regardless of storage practice, type of gun, or number of firearms in the home, having a gun in the home was associated with an increased risk of firearm homicide and suicide in the home. Individuals in possession of a gun at the time of an assault are 4.46 times more likely to be shot in the assault than persons not in possession.

The University of Utah also finds that when firearms are used for hunting, accidental injuries are very rare — more rare than among all gun owners. That’s the only time guns are used as tools, but their purpose is the same across the board — to kill something. 

I make the tool distinction because a baseball bat, a car, a knife, rope, your hands etc. have a purpose other than killing something or someone. A gun’s purpose is to kill. Period. Even when a gun is used by a police officer, a homeowner, or a hunter in a legitimate manner, the intent is to kill that at which said person is aiming. 

I think we need to examine a culture where it’s easier to purchase a gun than to get mental health treatment. It’s easier to get a gun than to get a driver’s license in many states.

Here’s a thought experiment for you. Meet Nixon:

My husband and I adopted him in 2009. In order to do so, we had to get a background check, pay an application fee, fill out this form, and then wait to be approved. Obviously, we were, but the animal rescue has rejected numerous unfit people.

Now, in 2005, I walked into a gun show in Wyoming, and purchased a Springfield bolt action 30.06 Rifle for my then-husband, and a .40 Glock for myself. I bought from two private sellers and neither checked my ID. I actually asked the dealer I purchased the Glock from if I needed to give him my ID, or if he needed to do a background check or anything, and he laughed. He explained that our forefathers didn’t need “a fucking background check — they lie anyhow” and that the Second Amendment was better than any ID. He ended his speech by throwing in a free box of bullets, and said, “God bless the Second Amendment!”

Indeed.

In conclusion, it was harder and more arduous to adopt my cat than to purchase a gun. I’m glad it’s tough to adopt. It’s fucked that it’s harder than buying the guns.

Unlike many people who own guns, I was in the military and know how to shoot. But I no longer own guns. I don’t know if my ex-husband does, nor do I care. One big reason I got rid of mine? See above.

Cheers,

Meg

politicaldirtylaundry:

Moderator’s Note: With this post we initiate a new series on FOOD FIGHTS: Hunger Politics and Struggles for Autonomy and Resilience. The series will examine hunger as a longstanding neoliberal capitalist political project that intentionally, and sometimes perhaps inadvertently, punishes tens of millions in the USA and a billion-plus bodies in the Two-Thirds World suffering from malnutrition, hunger, famine, and the loss and disruption of native agroecosystems, foodways, and heritage cuisines.

The political project to homogenize and control the global food system dominated by a handful of multinational corporations and powerful nation states is capitalist at its core and manifest source. This reflects the culmination of five decades of American policies that made food into political weaponry, as Harry Cleaver presciently observed way back in 1977.  As part of this series we will be posting Cleaver’s article, “Food, famine, and the international crisis,” in ten segments over the course of the next few months. The repost will include comments by ejfood that bring this analysis into contemporary context.

Food as political weaponry became official US policy during the Nixon Administration when Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, declared that food was indeed part of the toolkit of American “diplomacy.”  Butz announced this policy in 1974 with the simple statement: “Food is a weapon.”

This policy has also involved the imposition of the American corporate agribusiness model of high-input scaled-up monocultures, and more recently of the endless iteration of products delivered by the proponents of the biotechnology and transgenics paradigm. We have covered this aspect over the years - for e.g., in reports on the Gates Foundation and its Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa and the various transgenic crops marketed by Monsanto through our GEO Watch Series. @ejfood.blogspot.com

I don’t think this story is true, it might be but I can’t find any evidence that it is. Regardless I believed it to be true for a very long time and it really shaped my view of the police.

When I was about 8 or 9 I remember hearing, I don’t know where, about a cop who wanted a really good promotion. He decided to do what most in his situation would do, schmooze, so he invited his boss and some of his cop buddies over for poker and drinks. Good times. Until they got drunk and decided they wanted to have some sex. So he let everyone of them rape his teenaged daughter.

Never since then have I viewed cops as the ‘good guys’. I remember being taught in schools that if I was ever lost I could ask a police officer for help and if need be to drive me home but always knowing I would never get in a car with one of those people. Cops were the bad guys. They could get away with anything and it meant they did whatever they wanted.

Recently I’ve been remembering that story I heard so long ago. It’s probably just an urban legend or a tall tale with roots in reality but it could be true. In my city an off duty cop strangled a teenaged boy to death just this week. I keep reading about police brutality and abuse of power. They think they can do whatever they want and they’re out of control.