A lot of effort to kill someone bare-handed? Not at all. What kind of fool leaves around a loaded gun for a child to pick up and use? Someone who's clearly not responsible and shouldn't own one.Bara_no_Hime said:Wow, way to miss the point.Ravage said:Right, because it's guns that kill people. I guess knives kill people too. And baseball bats. And bare hands. Water can suffocate people, and make them drown. Damnable, evil water. I guess we shouldn't own any of those either. So, so very dangerous.Bara_no_Hime said:Wow. That was just... sad. On so many levels.
This, ladies and gents, is why I do not and will never own a gun, as much as I like them.
Guns can be mistaken for toys and can kill people accidentally.
The whole point of the article is that the kid didn't know it was a real gun and didn't mean to hurt anyone. Sometimes people accidentally cut themselves with a knife, but it is very, very rare to accidentally kill someone with a knife. Everything else you mentioned pretty much either requires someone to actively try to murder someone (it is very difficult to kill someone bare-handed - it takes a lot of effort), a massive accident (like falling into a river), or a natural disaster (ie, a hurricane or flood).
Yes, many things can be used to kill. But very few things can kill by accident that fast. Guns make killing very, very easy. So easy it's easy to make a mistake. And not just failing to realize the gun is real. You can kill yourself or another while cleaning a gun, by dropping a gun, or by failing to remove a chambered round.
Guns DO kill people.
Any idiot who can't operate a gun and care for it correctly doesn't deserve one. Guns don't kill anyone. Only fools do. This was that situation. A gun-owner left a weapon around for their kid to screw around with. End of story.
Look at it this way, cops are more likely to screw up than gun owners are. Far more likely. If someone broke in to your house wanting to kill you, would you call 911 and wait 45 minutes for the cops to clean up whatever mess the invader left behind or are you going to exercise your rights and defend yourself? We need guns. Chicago is has the heaviest gun control and the most crime. Because no one can own a gun.
My point being we should all be trained to how to care for our weapons, we'd be living in a utopia right now. I believe it was the Netherlands, or Sweden, I forgot which, it's a mandatory two years in the military there and everyone HAS to own a gun, by law. Rarely any accidents, and the crime rate is spectacularly low.