Associated Press
Even before this weekend's "Gun Appreciation Day" gatherings, the occasion generated controversy when organizers made controversial remarks about gun violence and Martin Luther King's legacy. That the day originated from a Republican consulting firm called Political Media added an additional partisan element.
But once events intended to coincide with "Gun Appreciation Day" were held, a very different kind of controversy emerged.
Five people were wounded in accidents at gun shows in North Carolina, Ohio and Indiana on Saturday, according to authorities.
In Raleigh, N.C., authorities said three people were wounded when a loaded shotgun accidentally discharged at the Dixie Gun and Knife Show at the N.C. State Fairgrounds.
Officials say Gary Lynn Wilson, 36, was having his shotgun checked before entering the show when the incident happened. He was unzipping his 12-gauge shotgun's case when it accidentally fired birdshot pellets, hitting three people, The News & Observer in Raleigh reported.
All three of the victims were treated at a local hospital for non-life threatening injuries, and the Wake County Sheriff's Department is investigating the incident.
Meanwhile, 600 miles to the north, an exhibitor at a Medina, Ohio, gun show accidentally shot his partner when opening a box holding a gun. The victim was shot in the arm and thigh, but the injuries were also not life threatening. And in Indianapolis the same afternoon, a man attending an event accidentally shot himself in the hand while loading his .45 caliber semi-automatic.
If "Gun Appreciation Day" was intended to highlight the safe environment around responsible gun owners, I suspect this weekend's headlines were not what organizers had in mind.
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My Daddy always told me, "Every gun is a loaded gun". You'd think gun advocates would know that since their lives revolve around such.
Really? I don't THINK people have had to come out in such numbers to protect the Constitution until this failure came along....
Those on the right, especially outright Neo-Confederates, clearly have a warped, self-serving idea of what the Contitution says and means.
Scott, the fact you are here being the worthless pain in the ass you are, is proof we treated your inbred southern traitor ancestors far too easily. We should have hanged them all as the traitors they were.
New York and The bankrupt Kalifornia...Seems the rest of the map is bright Red. I don't think you have a lot to say about what goes on in this country....
In 10 years the country will be mostly blue and purple....and not a @!$%#ing thing you can do about it.
Obama won't do anything about guns..he'll leave it the SCOTUS. He will in the next 4 years put 3 to 4 new members on the court and Heller and the 2nd will be revisited. And the right to bear arms will be only for organized state militias like the founding fathers wanted.
RobDon - Comparing traffic deaths due to the number of vehicles on the nation's roads and gun deaths due to the number of guns in possession has a slight flaw in it: Trucks transport food from place to place, ambulances take injured people to hospitals, cars take people back and forth to work. Other than entertainment, off road/high-performance race cars and monster trucks do not serve any benefit to society. This is the same with guns in the hands of non-law enforcement individuals. Guns for non-law enforcement and non-military are toys. Now, please don't tell me they're there to protect your family because more family members get shot/injured and shot/killed due to these weapons than the number of home invasions thwarted. Guns are equal to specialized vehicles used in racing, not the everyday trucks and cars that provide a direct benefit to society.
What was that little saying about playing with matches and getting burned again? Fools all, and all for a murder projectile device.. One word for the title article, "good" (Parsed with "they deserved it").
I am shocked, SHOCKED to learn that "responsible" gun owners could have done this....
U.S Constitution, Article 1, Section 8:
"The Congress shall have the power ... To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions.
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia to the discipline prescribed by Congress."
Does this sound as if "a well regulated militia" was designed to be a defense against the government that created it? And doesn't it also sound an awful lot like the National Guard?
Yes, the Founding Fathers were "traitors" because they rebelled against the government under which they were being governed. They all knew that they were subject to execution if tried and convicted of treason.
Equivalency? When a law enforcement officer approaches you after a traffic stop, what does he/she ask for? "License, registration, and proof of insurance, please." License = proof of competency; registration = on record with the government; proof of insurance = liability for damage done. When we have those safeguards for firearms, just as for motor vehicles, I'll feel much safer.
This is what happens when you don't respect a weapon. Follow your safety protocols, boneheads.
Remember, firearms are tools. If you have a gathering of enough band saw enthusiasts, eventually you're going to come across a guy who's missing a couple fingers. And the people missing fingers? They lost them due to their own negligence. They have no one to blame but themselves.
Cars are just like guns.....right.....and guns are only designed to "fire projectiles"....right....and the electric chair is only designed to create an electric charge and the Atomic bomb is only designed to start a thermonuclear reaction....and the hangman's noose is only designed to suspend the weight of a person.... we get the picture......
turdforbrains!!!!!
I'm almost sure this wasn't what the NRA had in mind for Peni ... er ... Gun Appreciation Day.
Yes the more guns around, the safer we are. Was it "gun appreciation day" or "gunshot wound day"? It obvious that we need guns in our schools to make the children safe. Sure there are bound to be accidental shootings but that's a risk the NRA is willing to take.
On "Gun Appreciation Day" in America, five civilians were injured by guns. On that same day, no personnel stationed in Afghanistan were injured or killed in that WAR. A well ordered militia indeed.
The legislation that makes gun manufacturers immune to liability needs to be repealed. It is unconstitutional under the "equal protection" (for manufacturers) clause. I am certain we'd have safer guns if the manufacturers had to face the liability issue.
This is a hit piece you sheep. You are being lead to lose your rights.
These shootings happened at gun shows. NOT at the rallies.
The two are not related. Demanding your rights at the capitol does not have commerce associated with it.
This article is attempting to draw parallels between the two to discredit the rallies.
The title says: "Five shot at 'Gun Appreciation Day' events" it would seem like that the shooting happened at the rallies held at the state capitols.
However, that is NOT what happened, these were 2 negligent discharges at gun shows. These had nothing to do with the rallies.
This is the same as reporting that "115 were killed in car accidents at NASCAR",
When the car accidents happened on the highways around the country in the same day.
For a group that prides itself on education you seem to be unable to read or think critically.
Reread the article and look up the police reports on the 2 shootings. You have the internet! Stop being lazy and letting the news decide what happened.
Morons. Morons everywhere. We're surrounded by them. But we are NEVER outgunned by the NRA and their IQ-of-a-rattle membership. Why? Because we have two weapons that will ALWAYS defeat the chumps. TIME and DARWIN! LMAO!
I find it hilarious how people compare Automobile Safety to that of Gun Safety.
First reason, Automobiles have been researched and studied by the government for decades for safety concerns. Gun Safety research was defunded by Congress and further outlawed from ever being attempted by those same legislators.
Next reason, accidents by automobiles have dramatically decreased as new safety regulations, licensing, and highway safety projects have been put in place. Gun violence and accidents have only increased as more gun are sold each year and more powerful semi-automatics make each instance more devastating.
Now comparing automobiles and guns isn't a bad comparison. Automobiles aren't enshrined in our Constitution, but they are here to stay as a necessary part of our daily lives. Whereas guns are not necessary for anything other than hunting "for sport" since we have grocery stores, self defense from "other" gun toting people and defending our "freedums", which is useless against today's military and police.
In essence, guns are less important in today's society than they ever were back in the day they wrote the Constitution. We have the most powerful military, police in every city, and food at every market. I am not saying to outlaw guns. But I am saying their importance is much less than even that of a mere automobile which without it we are either stuck at home or late for work and can't pick up the kids at school.
We don't need guns. But we do need Gun Control.
This is a silly argument. The mechanical differences between a firearm and a car are vast. A firearm by nature is dangerous and unsafe, requiring diligent care when handling.
Gun violence and accidents have not gone up. You are missing one important wariable in looking at that kind of data. Population growth. It is a little like the argument that England only has 300 gun deaths per year. There are 258 million more peopl in the US.
There is a joke I like to use when trying to help people understand the primary purpose of the second amendment.
"Fearing the local deer population might suddenly turn tyrannical, the Founding Fathers hastily drafted the 2nd Ammendment."
Firearms today in the hands of the public are not useless against the military and police. Your not thinking that through.
The public will have zero tolerance for the government declaring war on the people, (it would require that declaration to be remotely constitutional) and then rolling out the heavy armor down the streets of suburbia, flying Apache attack helicopters over our cities or flying drones around raining down missiles. You are also not considering the fact that a large percentage of the police and military would have none of this. They would defect. The final issue is that there are plenty of hardened combat veterans on the streets today who will be fully capable of using all equipment that would be looted from the military by way of enlisted sympathisers.
People argue that the Constitution only allows for single shot muskets. I believe that the kind of weapons allowed in the Constitution were not listed, but the intent was that We the People should be as well equipped as the Military in order to protect the freedoms given to We the People, by the Constitution, from Ursurpers and Dictators, who would threaten those freedoms.
Utterly baffling... I thought only geniuses went to gun shows....
At the time the Constitution was written the success of the new nation was far from assured. Attacks from Great Britain, Spain, even France, our late ally during the Rev War, were not out of the question. Every state was within shooting distance of the Atlantic Ocean. Native Americans were still a threat at some level. The fear of a slave uprising was prominent in many slave-owners' minds. It was believed then that our best defense was an armed civilian populace, even if only armed with single-shot muskets.
But perhaps you've noticed -- times have changed. Our potential enemies have or will soon have nuclear capabilities, from which an "assault rifle," no matter how "military" it looks, will provide little defense. Acts of domestic terrorism will be handled by law enforcement organizations, not by a citizen militia.
A militia was, then, made up of every able-bodied man called to military duty by the government. That "well regulated militia" has been supplanted by the National Guard -- able-bodied men and women who are well-trained and well-regulated and available to be called to military service to insure the security of their states and their nation, to supplement a standing military. According to Article 1, Section 8, the militia was seen as an arm of the government, not a deterrent to it.
Our actions have kept pace with changes in security requirements; but I believe our interpretation of the Second Amendment has not. There is no longer a need for a citizen militia of the type needed in the late 18th century. A Minuteman is now a missile, not a butcher, baker or candlestick maker. Those folks are now known as Guardsmen.
Still, there has been no effort at all to take away anyone's legally owned firearm. So, as a firearms owner, be happy that that portion of the Second Amendment is still interpreted in the original way, even though the rationale for its existence has gone the way of the dodo bird. Please, accept a few modest changes to firearms availability, and don't go all conspiracy-theory on us.
(BTW, I don't think I've seen any reference to "Ursurpers" in the Constitution.)
Folks I am not quite sure what a gun appreciation day is but I do know for a fact that it is NOT a GUN SHOW.
Gun shows do not allow loaded firearms but occasionally a mistake is made and a misfire happens. This is really no different than someone getting in a car accident while in the parking lot of a car show. Accidents happen. It is a fact of life.
The only time I have ever heard of a gun appreciation day was in the form of an event held at a firing range where one could shoot various types of weapons. Everything from old civil war rifles to the kinds of machine guns mounted on tanks. So there was a lot of shooting going on as that was the main draw.
A gun show on the other hand is not about shooting but about buying guns from FFL dealers.
With all of the misinformation out there I thought I would help clarify things a bit.