The death of Pentecostal minister Jaimie Coots, from a rattlesnake bite to the back of his hand, sure rattled William Saletan, at Slate, who took the occasion to make a point about how dangerous … guns are.
In “A Nation of Snake Handlers,” Saletan cleverly regaled us with stories of youngsters and others who died playing with snakes. But he had deliberately swapped “gun” with “snake” and “discharge” with “bite,” taking accidental gun deaths and turning them into snakebite deaths, to get our attention: “We are a nation of gun handlers, as reckless as anyone who handles serpents.”
In one year, he reports, there were over 12,000 gunshot fatalities. Americans own over 300 million guns. What to do?
I’m not going to tell you that the solution to this madness is to pass another gun law.… We need more than laws. We need to change our culture. We must ask ourselves whether the comforts and pleasures of owning a firearm are worth the risks. Having a gun in your home is far more dangerous than having a snake.
No one wants gun accidents. But “[h]aving a gun in your home is far more dangerous than having a snake”? Really? Hardly anyone owns poisonous snakes. But Americans own millions of guns, with comparatively few accidental deaths.
Sadly, Saletan played switcheroo with the stat on those 12,000+ gun deaths. Only a few were accidental (in 2010, the number was 606). Most were homicides.
The rule for handling snakes and guns is: peaceful people don’t point them at others. (Better not to point them at yourself, either.)
Respect danger. Respect the rights of others.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
7 replies on “Point Those Fangs Elsewhere”
606 is “only a few”?
Grasping at straws comes to mind.
I am an avid reader of your column/email newsletter for years, I love it and you are sharp, very sharp, you have helped me to learn to think better. Thanks.
Hillary and Her Pig
Will the woman who watched while her reckless pig Bill
Used women like toys moving in for the kill,
Who coerced his sweet intern to once again please,
Abide him, unzip him, and drop to her knees,
Will the woman who sought her political gain
Pretend not to know and proceed now to feign,
That her man respects women and honors their rights
While he plans and he schemes to turn out the lights?
And what of the dozens who claimed as they should,
That Bill did them wrong while he did himself good
That he used them abused them and even did bite,
That poor girl on the lip who he forced that pale night,
Her confirmed testimony recorded on tape,
Everywhere else we call his crime rape,
Blind to Bill’s crimes, how can they ignore,
The pillory of shame all these women abhor,
Where he binds women fast in the place they should be
To attend to his pig-hood in slick willy glee.
Will she still front her man as pro-feminine rights,
While pursuing the Oval’s penultimate heights?
She cannot be a champion of women you see,
Not honoring each woman’s right to be free.
Will this election then prove to be her next gig,
To get back in the White House along with her pig?
I’m warning you now if we let this thing fly,
We will all be living in Hillary’s sty.
Our liberties squashed in messy pig mire
Freedom and justice a forgotten desire.
Benghazi and scandals and IRS schemes
Are only a taste of what she now dreams
Power, again, to extort and to take
And really, now, “what difference does it make?”
We’ve suffered already this “hope and change” lie
Perhaps we should welcome this Hillary’s sty
A new social welfare, a victimized nation
Equality’s game for pig Bill’s pure elation.
And to play out the sick Orwellian theme
Feed slop to the masses, a corn-cob dream,
No, we cannot buy into Ms Hillary’s lies
Feeding in troughs and living in sties
Subjected to Bill and his slick willy glees
Making her interns drop to their knees.
So keep the truth moving and shout the alarm
Vote NO in the polls to the Animal Farm.
by: DE Navarro
©2014 DE Navarro. You have my permission to use this poem and repost it anywhere you like as long as you include the by line — “by: DE Navarro”, and this copyright/permission statement.
Nobody is mentioning the horror of all of our children killed each year by bicycles, far more than guns.
When I was a kid, my dad was a state Game Warden in an area where there were rattle snakes. He had a portable cage with rattle snakes that he took to classrooms to educate kids on the dangers, what they sounded like and looked like and what sizes they were.
When the snakes weren’t out on show, they were in our garage or separate entry if it was too cold.
There were a multitude of guns in the house as well. All of us kids feared the snakes, not the guns. Wonder why!?
That gun just laid there, not so if the snakes got loose! We knew how to handle a gun and respected it, but not those snakes!
On a family outing, I ran down a path on a hill. Legs stretched out as far as they would go, so no stopping. I came to a rattle snake sunning itself on the path. I sailed over the top of it. I finally got stopped and froze. I was still headed in the direction I was running and started yelling like I was being attacked, to stop my younger siblings from meeting a worse fate, they would get bit. Now it was my mom who had to deal with this huge rattler. She killed it with a shovel. Chopped the head off which was larger than my fist at age 9.
My dad also taught firearm safety classes to youth starting at age 12, where they were old enough by law to be licensed to hunt.
The guns in our house never ever struck fear in my heart, but those dang snakes are another emotion.
A few years ago, a child about 4 or so (details a bit fuzzy) in Manhattan (NYC) on a TRICYCLE, hit a woman, she fell to the ground, and ended up dying. So, should (don’t give Di Basso ideas – Bloomberg was intelligent enough not to) Ban tricycles in Manhattan? Why not? (I don’t care, I live in FL).
But Chicago and NY have strict gun laws- and more murders then FL. And, of the 606-accidental (with 300,000,000 guns-yes, small per ‑cent age)-how many were done by deranged people? Who would kill with a car, or a knife or a rock?
In 1848, when the British partitioned India and Pakistan, with strict gun laws, almost 1,000,000 people (or more) were kille. Rocks; stones; sticks; setting fire to houses; etc.. But, there were no shootings.
OT again:
“JPMorgan was uniquely positioned for 20 years to see Madoff’s crimes and put a stop to them,” the lawsuit said.
“But faced with the prospect of shutting down Madoff’s account and losing lucrative profits,” it added, “JPMorgan — at its highest level — chose to turn a blind eye.”
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/madoff-said-jpmorgan-executives-knew-2014 – 2#ixzz2tu5CEHlx
JATR: How is one accidental gun death per roughly 500,000 guns not “only a few?”