Categorized in Guns
Tags: Alaska, Guns, Firearms, Republican, NRA, Crime, Pistol, Palin, Juneau, RickRydell, Handguns
Guns are pretty fantastic in the 21st Century. They are safer than ever. Let's take an example of an older firearm: the Colt Single Action Army revolver put into service in the latter half of the 19th century. This revolver was one of the guns that won the west. It was a top-quality premium item in its day. And it lacked a transfer bar safety. The impact of this is that the hammer fell directly on a cartridge, which could leave to unintended accidental discharges. The remedy was to only load five rounds in a six shot revolver ("load one, skip one, load four) and carry the revolver with an empty chamber under the uncocked hammer.
Today's firearms are much safer. Almost any revolver has a transfer bar safety. The Glock has a "safe action" system with triple features (internal trigger safety, drop safety, and firing pin safety). The Beretta 92FS -- standard sidearm of the US military -- adds a slide mounted safety/decocking lever. Ammunition is manufactured to modern, western quality control standards which means that pressures are quite predictable, and you rarely hear about a rifle that explodes.
However, there is no invented safety that prevents someone from being an idiot. There's nothing to prevent a negligent discharge, which is the result of a human factor, not engineering. In fact, guns engineered with "safety" in mind can be less effective and less safe (extremely heavy "New Your Special" double action triggers, for example, are often harder to aim accurately). This guy was shot because he and his buddies were hanging out shooting their guns at each other. That is not smart, and its something that no firearms designer could prevent.
Witnesses told police about six people were sitting around a campfire drinking and shooting guns... "He's a calm guy, a peaceful guy," Alcorn said. "He was just relaxing, maybe having a beer. That's all he ever does."
Removing a particular tool doesn't stop people with very poor judgment from hurting themselves. If you take away guns, then they'll flip over ATVs. If you take away ATVs, they'll get into their cars. If you take away their cars, they'll play with something sharp.
Even if this guy wasn't shooting, he chose his friends poorly and put himself in a bad situation: after all, would you hang out with someone who liked to "relax" by seeing how close he could come to running you over with his ATV, throwing knives at you, or driving you around town while drunk? This is a case of operator error, failure to follow basic gun safety rules, and poor judgment. Don't blame the instrument of the incident; blame the "adults" involved who exercised terrible judgment.
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