Blog: Missoula Notebook
Little Girl Dead: Going to a Gun Show with Dwayne Smail on My Mind
By Sutton R. Stokes, 3-09-08
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| Caption: SIG Sauer P220 45 ACP with hollow-point rounds. Photo by kcdsTM. | |
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Saturday’s paper finally had some details about what happened at the Montana Village Apartments in Evergreen on Wednesday night, when Dwayne Smail says he left his loaded pistol on the bed beside him while he and his girlfriend’s 18-month-old daughter dropped off to sleep. Smail later told police that he woke to find the girl holding the gun, and that it was when he tried to grab it away from her that it fired.
The girl’s mother, who was away from home on Wednesday evening, was quoted as saying that Smail was in the habit of handling the gun around the house. On the local television news last night, the well-coiffed young anchorwoman seemed to be struggling with her emotions as she related that the girl had been known to pick the gun up in the past, and that the mother had repeatedly asked Smail to lock it away.
Smail’s charge is negligent homicide.
After reading this, I folded up the paper, cleared the breakfast dishes, and drove south under overcast skies to Hamilton for the Ravalli County Gun Show. The symmetry was coincidental, as I’d been planning to attend this event for several weeks, but of course the fates of Smail and the little girl referred to as “K.W.” were on my mind as I drove. “Senseless” seems like a good word for the situation, but it’s only a start. “Grotesque” comes to mind next.
This was my first time at a gun show, and I didn’t know what to expect, exactly. I knew that gun shows are something of a flash point in our ongoing national debate about guns. The opportunity to sell guns to each other is important to a lot of gun owners, and gun shows are widely considered to be next on the chopping block when it comes to gun-control policy. If, for example, the federal government were to impose a nationwide three-day waiting period (which it’s not entirely clear the federal government would have authority to do, but still), gun shows would effectively cease to exist, since only sales initiated on Friday morning could be concluded before the weekend were over.
Meanwhile, to the “other side,” the people the gun enthusiasts refer to as “antis” (as in “anti-gun,” or maybe even “anti-freedom,” and of course, as the t-shirts for sale at the gun show advised, “freedom isn’t free”), gun shows are murky and ominous-sounding affairs where, it is assumed, people who somehow couldn’t buy guns otherwise are able to obtain them, not to mention the fact that the events gather concentrations of people who are really into guns, an enthusiasm that is frankly hard for many outsiders to understand.
It’s not hard for me to understand, at least on some levels. I shot for the first time in Coast Guard boot camp and carried a sidearm regularly (and long arms less regularly) when I operated as a boarding officer in the Florida Straits. I found I was passably good at target shooting, which was a thrill for a city kid who hadn’t grown up around guns, but that wasn’t the only attraction. Certain other powerful emotions took hold of me during those early experiences, emotions related to the high-stakes feeling of responsibility and the focused concentration necessary for safe gun handling, as well as the aesthetic pleasure of using one of the last categories of well-made things. Short of fancy sports cars, after all, one is not likely — in our increasingly disposable world — to become intimate with very many other mechanical devices that are machined and assembled and tuned to such precise and narrow specifications. .
So it’s not so hard for me to understand the enthusiasm some people feel for guns. There are some other things in the gun world it is harder for me to understand, however.
I wedged my Toyota Corolla in between two towering SUVs and picked my way through the wet mud of the fairground parking lot to the exhibition hall. Just inside the door was a display of bumper stickers for sale: “Bush is Right”; “Liberalism is a Mental Disease, Call Dr. Rush”; etc. I paid my three dollars to a man dressed as a Western sheriff, complete with badge and a long-barreled revolver in a holster.
The vendors were ranged along tables in about ten rows, stretching away for about a hundred feet toward the back of the hall. In the back, a display of huge metal gun safes marked the edge of the vendors’ area. At 10:30 in the morning, the show was already well-attended. The crowd was overwhelmingly male and tended toward middle age and girth, lots of plaid and fleece stretched over lots of ponderous bellies and wide backs, which made it hard to squeeze through the narrow aisles.
The wares on display varied widely, though in general there was a do-it-yourself garage-sale vibe, assuming you go to the kind of garage sales that sell a jumble of guns and rifles and holsters and memorabilia. Some dealers offered antiques and older used guns, including what one label described as a “Wells Fargo Coach Gun” from the 1800s in 8 gauge (if you don’t know shotguns, that’s huge). There were displays of hunting rifles, newer handguns still in their factory boxes, and lots of gun parts and brass shell casings (for economy-minded people who “reload,” or recycle the casings to construct new usable rounds on their own). The novelty stuff was relatively limited: one table offered military-style weapons, including an Uzi, and there was a massive and high-tech-looking rifle being raffled off at another. But for the most part, the room had the look and feel and smell of a cluttered garage turned inside out, and a lot of the vendors looked like kindly old grandfathers.
Oh, and in case you are wondering, since we are in that part of the country, I only noticed two Nazi-related items, daggers with swastikas on the hilt.
I felt out of place and awkward, and I left after about forty-five minutes.
So what do we do about all the guns, and about incidents like the one Smail seems to have caused on Wednesday night? I’m at something of a loss, or I guess I should say that there doesn’t seem to be a — I’m trying to think of something other to say than “magic bullet,” but I can’t.
I heard on the radio the other day — coincidentally as I was driving along Miller Creek Road, looking for the Forest Service road where a friend of mine goes to sight in his hunting rifles — that Americans buy about a million guns every year. That means the odds are good that, today, someone like Smail is buying the gun with which he will at some point down the line forever change not only his life but the lives of those who love him, and perhaps the lives of some other set of people who love someone else.
The question is whether we have any good way to prevent gun sales to the stupid at the policy level, as opposed to, say, harshly punishing the Smails of the world. If gun sales were to become illegal tomorrow, there would of course quickly be even more of a flourishing illegal market in the things than there is right now (and it’s already pretty flourishing). I’d refer you to, say, the market in illegal drugs, and point out that a lot of people who would like to see a prohibition on gun sales might be open, on the other hand, to a decriminalization of some forms of currently illegal drugs. Of course there are huge distinctions to be made (pot never killed anyone, but handguns — not so much), and I’m not saying that holding the two views makes anyone a hypocrite, but I do think it would be foolish to ignore the apparently powerful desire of vast numbers of people in this country to own guns, and to fail to consider the evidence from the “drug war” that a lot of people are quite willing to disobey laws they consider unjust.
And of course there is that pesky Second Amendment to the Constitution, which I’m afraid I don’t see a way to read in a way that would permit the infringement of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and I say that not only as a confirmed political liberal but as a professional editor. We can argue about the “well-regulated militia” part, I suppose, but, if your objections to a “personal right” reading of this amendment rest on comma placement, I hope you realize that this boils down to essentially not having an argument to make.
One place where I don’t connect well with gun culture has to do with the self-satisfied, black-and-white manner in which some gun enthusiasts view the world. My thoughts on this crystallized recently when I was reading some on-line gun—discussion forums, and I started noticing how many members have in their “signatures” and/or enjoy flinging around in discussions some variation on the Edmund Burke quote “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
I can’t argue with the quote, which is something of a truism, but has it occurred to the guys who paste it into their signature blocks how pleased with themselves it makes them look? What makes me a little squirmy is the implicit claim that the quoter knows for sure he’s one of the “good men,” and further that the nature of both the evil he is combating and the good he is standing for is obvious and self-evident. Personally, I’ve always been less afraid of uncertainty than of people who are sure they have the answers, “conviction” being a characteristic shared pretty universally by the worst people in history.
I suppose that, on the concealed-carry forums, “evil men” might refer to criminal wrongdoers, with the quote being used to express a desire to be prepared to step in and and protect others in situations of acute physical danger — a desire, I’ll confess, that stirs within me. But on the forums devoted to more general gun-related discussions, the implication seems to be more along the lines that the “evil” people are trying to take all the guns away, and that “good” people need to resist. (Or am I missing something here? As always, comments are appreciated.)
Admittedly, we have reached such a dysfunctional point in our political discourse in general that many people think it acceptable to apply terms like “evil” to our fellow citizens (see also the “Liberalism is a mental disease…” bumper sticker mentioned earlier), but I think both sides of the gun debate would do well to take a deep breath and consider their opponents’ nobler impulses. The “antis” are taking steps that they believe will begin to reduce the level of gun violence in America, and the — what? “pros”? — believe that continued, robust access to guns is the only way for citizens to protect themselves in a world that, whether we like it or not or wish it otherwise, is awash in a sea of the things. And I find that I can’t point to entirely fatal flaws in either argument.
Assuming that the facts of the case are as they were presented in Saturday’s paper, though, I hope that people on all sides of this issue can agree on the need to jail someone like Smail for a long, long time.
P.S. Anyone interested in a Missoula chapter of this? Let me know.
For more like this, read the rest of the Missoula Notebook.
Look at childhood poisonings: http://www.usa.safekids.org/tier3_cd_2c.cfm?content_item_id=24611&folder_id=301
"Woulda, coulda, shoulda, but didn't" is why children suffer. Now, should each and every adult who made a stupid mistake be put behind bars? OR is it just firearms that has the attention?
From that website see the injury/death trends: http://www.usa.safekids.org/content_documents/2007_InjuryTrends.doc
Notice that firearm deaths fell from 247 in 1987 to 63 in 2004. Any senseless death or injury, no matter what the cause, is one too many.
Not sure if this answers your question, Craig, but, yes, to make things roughly equivalent, any parent or adult who goes to sleep next to an 18-month-old, having left, say, a sippy cup full of Drano on the bed next to her, should also be put behind bars.
Comment By Sutton, 3-09-08But yes, to give the statistics their due, Steven Levitt says that only about 1 kid dies each year for each 1 million guns, with most of those being intentional homicides. So death by misadventure with firearm turns out to be a pretty unlikely way for a child to die, compared with, for example, swimming pools (although be advised that some people think Levitt is doing something a little funny with the statistics here): http://timlambert.org/2001/07/levittpoolsvsguns/
Comment By Craig Moore, 3-09-08Sutton, what if that parent merely forgoes putting latches on their cabinets where they store medications or household chemicals? Woulda, coulda, shoulda, but didn't.
Comment By Sutton, 3-09-08Craig, so I can make sure I understand where you're coming from, can you just let me know if you are saying that you see some sort of similarity between (1) leaving latches off the medicine cabinet and (2) bedding down with a toddler next to a loaded gun?
Comment By Craig Moore, 3-09-08Sutton, my point is that the instrumentality causing the injury, the type of injury or death, the negligent behavior, and the gender of the negligent party should not matter in deciding who and if a party is prosecuted and the extent of the charges. What about the mother who leaves an open bleach bottle on the floor while she answers the door?
Comment By Xavier, 3-09-08It would be wonderful if gun manufacturers could develop a concentrated personal responsibility drink to place into the case of each firearm they sell. It could even be sold to auto manufacturers, and manufacturers of other items that have the ability to maim or kill.
Of course, if the concentrated personal responsibility drink were inserted into each new gun's case, it would still be up to the purchaser to drink it. Those who drank it would not need it. Those who needed it would never drink it.
In the end, it's all about personal responsibility.
Craig: "[1] the instrumentality causing the injury, [2] the type of injury or death, [3] the negligent behavior, and the [4] gender of the negligent party should not matter in deciding who and if a party is prosecuted and the extent of the charges."
I agree. (Just out of curiosity, was there something in what I wrote that suggested I wouldn't?) Gross negligence is gross negligence; negligent homicide is negligent homicide
(sorry, that got cut off, should finish like this)
and neither I nor -- I would imagine -- the courts care in the slightest about any of the factors you list in deciding how responsible to hold someone.
I inferred from your column that you were tunnel visioned on the shooting without regard to context or the statistics.
Before the courts get a case, a prosecutor, an elected official, makes a decision. Then, an elected judge gets a crack at it. The factors I mentioned very much come into play based on the anger or sympathies of a community and the desires by elected officials to be re-elected. What's the difference between an open bottle of bleach left out by a mother or a loaded gun left out by a man when both cause serious injury or death? Fortunately, the accidental firearm incidences have been substantially reduced.
By the way, I have no sympathy for Dwayne Smail.
The fatal flaw in banning guns to keep us safe is very easy to see.
Violence predates guns by thousands of years. There's no reason to believe it will go away if guns are removed.
Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot the focus is "gun" violence, and not criminal violence in general.
I bet if we removed SUV's from society, we'd also zero out deaths from SUV's. Transportation related deaths most likely wouldn't be reduced much, if at all, but at least we'd be doing something.
Thanks for commenting, Rough Edge. I should have been more specific -- I didn't mean that I didn't see fatal flaws in an argument for "banning guns from society," an argument I don't think anyone sane is actually making, but rather I can hear the sense in certain more minor steps some people are advocating for: improved background checks, waiting periods, preventing people with certain mental illnesses from obtaining guns, that kind of thing. (I know that there are Constitutional arguments against some of these, but that doesn't change how sensible they are for addressing certain problems.)
It's an interesting point you make about gun violence vs. criminal violence in general: I've heard that general violent crime is higher in some countries where there are fewer guns than here, because criminals considering kicking in someone's door in, for example, the UK, don't have to be as concerned about whether the people inside have a gun.
On the other hand, a LOT of people are killed by guns in the U.S. On the other other hand, some say that's because of the drug trade: if drugs were a legitimate business, some of the same things that lead to street shooting today would instead lead to civil court cases.
It is all certainly a very complex issue.
Craig, I see your point better now. Thanks for your input.
Actually, some who use the "evil triumph" quote DO think that those intent on removing guns from society are evil.
There have been several examples of registration being followed closely by confiscation. Almost every example of "compromise" on the gun issue has been gun owners giving up rights, without getting anything in return. And sevral of the most prominant anti-gun folks actually have weapons of their own (and permits to carry them), while considering firearms ownership by "we the people" to be bad. Tends to polarize your thinking a bit.
Of course, there is that aspect of the human mind that looks at yourself as "good", and at those who are radically different as "evil"...
My father earned his wings in the WW1 U.S. Army Air Corps and boasted that he had learned to dismantle and re-assemble his jammed 30-caliber cockpit-mounted machine gun in one minute. Until his death in the mid-1960s he kept two loaded pistols in the drawer of his bedside table, a 38-caliber police revolver and a 22-caliber automatic. He insisted, “A gun is always loaded.” My brothers and I, growing up in the 1920s,’30s and ’40s, would argue with him, pointing out that if one removed all the bullets, then the gun was obviously no longer loaded. His reply was routinely something on the order of, “Nevertheless, a gun is always loaded.” He was unbending on this maxim. While we were instructed in the use of his two pistols and occasionally allowed to fire them in supervised target practice, the drawer wherein they resided was strictly off limits to us. It never occurred to us to remove the pistols from that drawer, nor did we ever even open the drawer to look at them or display them to friends. To this day, my brothers and I have never kept guns in our homes, although all three of us served in the military and were therein trained in weaponry, I learning to handle the M-1 and carbine rifles, the 12-gauge pump shotgun, and the 105mm. howitzer.
D
Someone threw out a quote of 63 deaths of children by firearms in 2004. I completely agree that even one is too many, but if, as you say, a million new guns are purchased in the USA every year and they are coupled with countless millions of firearms already in private hands, then I think 63 out of that many is not that scary a statistic. I wish the odds of child deaths by motor vehicle and swimming pool were so slim.
Comment By phlegmfatale, 3-10-08...and yes, in the case of this type of negligence, the owner of the gun should be held accountable in a court of law.
Comment By Keith Walker, 3-10-08The way I see it, it is up to each individual to balance freedom with responsibility. To some people, a perfect world is a world without guns. I'd rather see a world full of guns with no need to fear the gun or those who bear them.
Comment By Sevesteen, 3-10-08The problem with taking "certain minor steps" is that we keep taking more and more steps. Individually, each minor step might be minor, but taken together make a defacto ban for honest people. Many of these steps say one thing, but the actual result is different.
"Improved background checks"--Is this more accurate detection of existing disqualifies, or is it adding more things that disqualify? Do private sales require a background check?
"Waiting periods" means that someone who gets threatened has to wait out the period unarmed. There's no gun store in my town and the nearby ones have high prices and limited selection. A waiting period might mean I have to make two trips each time I bought yet another gun, even though I've got a carry license and a gun with me. Would private sales be covered? Would private sales be eliminated?
"certain mental illness"--A lifetime ban for a treated mental illness, while an untreated illness is OK? Who decides which illnesses count, and whether an individual has one?
Too many laws add more hoops for the law-abiding, while doing little to nothing to prevent criminal misuse. The NICS check is an example--Thousands of prohibited persons attempt to buy and fail the check, but don't get arrested or apparently investigated. Shouldn't we start enforcing this law before we add more?
Guns are not the danger, it is who is behind them. Cleaning chemicals are not dangerous- they clean germs and batceria. But improperly storing them, and neglecting to teach children their dangers is a problem. A scalpel is not dangerous in the hands of a skilled surgeon, but is deadly in the hands of a sociopath. A baseball bat in the hands of an Oakland A, or your local gangbanger? Neither is a Wal-Mart bag dangerous until a 12yr old punk wraps it round the head of some kid he dislikes.
A handgun is not in and of itself the danger- in this case it is a stupid boyfriend not teaching the kid "No touch!", or taking the steps needed to secure it from reach.
Blaming an object for the actions of a persoon is WRONG. No matter what the object is.
We need more responsibility, and laws(that resrict only the law abiding) making gun ownership more difficult make it harder to create more reponsible owners and idiots. An increase in the number of negligent users increases the perils they bring.
Given your statement above: '"banning guns from society," an argument I don't think anyone sane is actually making", I would like to see your thoughts on the two following quotes.
"If I had 51 votes in the Senate, Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in, I would have done it." Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D) California
"I don't care about crime. I don't care about the constitution. I just want the guns!" Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D) Ohio.
In short, are you suggesting these two Senators, one now deceased, are or were not sane?
@ Sevesteen: Interesting. I guess it's either a constitutionally protected right or it isn't. Your points reminds me how sensitive I am to "incrementalism" on other civil rights, like free speech, or the right to privacy, because I can see how, as the incursions build up, they eventually create the groundwork for the courts to say, "looks like the mood of the country is in favor of giving up this right." It's interesting that I haven't been thinking this way about the Second Amendment. As for the NICS search, I wasn't aware that it's failing so miserably. Yes, adequately enforcing that would be an excellent start. That's basically what I meant by "improved background checks," i.e., keep people who are currently prohibited from gun possession from purchasing guns.
@DDS: No, those don't sound like particularly sane goals.
What happened to the child is terrifying and is one of the main reasons I would not have a gun in my house now.
The scary part is that Dwayne Smail could have theoretically passed every requirement and jumped through every legal hoop created or imagined for gun owners, but still have been too stupid to exercise enough thought to put the gun away.
Unfortunately we do not have good enough projective tests to weed out all the people like Dwayne. The question is, where do you start? Seems like waiting periods and background checks are good starting points. The worst thing we could do is nothing...
I think your ambivalence comes from your liberal mind conflicting with your rational experience with firearms. Most of the flaming anti-gunners are repelled by firearms in any shape or form, as well as the "concept." I mean, here's Rowdy as a case in point. Intimidated by the responsibility? I am repeatedly amazed at the ignorance exhibited. For example, the 1994 ban was sidestepped very nicely by those who understand firearms, you know, the manufacturers.
Then there was Carolyn McCarthy against I think Tucker Carlson last year on the tube. Tucker asks Congresslady McCarthy, so what is a muzzle brake and she responds "its the thing that folds up" or thereabouts. Heck, shouldn't the laws be written by people who understand the concept and purpose?
Finally, a waiting period and background check would have done nothing here.
As for Smail, he is about to learn the concept of "responsibility" -- you know, what libs seem to be afraid of? I hope he gets at least double-digits.
Mr. Stokes,
The issue of gun control is a polarizing one (to say the least) and for the most part, neither side is willing to even consider anything the other side says.
As I've come to understand this issue (and I will say that I am a self described "person of the gun") it really boils down to whether you believe that people cannot generally be trusted to act in a responsible manner and that as many hurdles and checks as needed to limit or deny one's ability to own a firearm need to be put in place (this is the anti's view), or whether you believe that there should be more open access to firearms but the irresponsible, negligent or criminal use of the firearms should be severely punished (the pro's view).
Since the anti's view and the pro's view are fundamentally opposite each other, I see no way these two sides will ever agree.
As for me, I am introducing my children to the gun culture and the safe practices and responsibility that goes along with owning and using firearms (I also gladly introduce anyone else that has a curiosity about firearms). Hopefully, the more people that have experience with firearms and their safe use will ensure our right is never denied (and I'm increasing our numbers one person at a time).
Noted today a Boulder official wants to ban very small, self-sealng plastic bags, used to package drugs or about 1000 other things. The local council is considering it...where does it end?
Comment By Trent -NRA Member, 3-10-08The fact that people do stupid things with guns and get other people killed is incredibly sad. However its no more sad than someone doing something stupid and killing someone with a car or a boat or any number of other implements that can do harm and kill people if used incorrectly. The fault lies squarely upon the person, not with the device used.
As to your problem with many of us considering firearm abolitionists "evil"; You must understand, those who would disarm us would leave us unarmed against the night, leave our family's defenseless to any who would take advantage, rape and destroy them. Moreover they would have us relinquish the very thing that sets us apart from the slaves, our right to match force with those who would force their will upon us. There are many things one could call a person that is set to force such a life upon everyone whether they like it or not, evil is the friendliest term that comes to mind.
@JWScotch: yes that's about as stupid as high schools banning black trenchcoats.
@Trent: I hear you, and I share some of your concerns about exactly those issues. Having trained for a number of years to incude firearms in my personal defense plan, I wouldn't want to have to do without them in a situation of peril for my family.
I guess my response (and what I was trying to get around to in the article) would be that I hope you realize that the people you consider "antis" aren't thinking "I want to leave families defenseless," they are thinking "the gun-control measures I want to take will keep families safer." In other words, there is a similar motivation on both sides, it is just manifesting itself differently. I don't think the term "evil" is warranted except for someone who is CONSCIOUSLY planning to expose you to harm. Does that make any sense? I mean, we all do have to live in the same country, so maybe we need to keep talking and avoid calling names. (Disclaimer: I wasn't saying I found anyone calling "antis" evil in the first place, although you don't have to go far to find examples. Here's a PRO-gun blogger advising his compatriots to chill out: http://thearmedschoolteacher.blogspot.com/2008/02/posted-by-david-codrea-at-his-war-on.html)
Well I tell you what who would you rather be with when we get attacked again, a person who can survive and who owns a firearm or someone too scared to own a gun like a liberal?
Comment By Erin Watkins, 3-10-08I don't think it's any coincidence that this country has the highest murder rate in the world AND the most guns. Most people don't deserve the right 'alluded' to in the constitution(it was just added as a compromise so we could justify our own militias and not scare off any joiners of the new loosely bound confederation). The amendment wasn't written so people could go get handguns and uzi's to hide under their pillows.
Comment By Wulfgar, 3-10-08Brian Atkinson writes:
"The issue of gun control is a polarizing one (to say the least) and for the most part, neither side is willing to even consider anything the other side says."
Dave Skinner writes:
I think your ambivalence comes from your liberal mind conflicting with your rational experience with firearms. Most of the flaming anti-gunners are repelled by firearms in any shape or form, as well as the "concept."
It appears one side is already committed to the idea that the other side is 'mental'. You're right, Brian, there is no rational discussion of this issue, because one side is obviously already mental. Guess which one ...
Bigbear: "Well I tell you what who would you rather be with when we get attacked again, a person who can survive and who owns a firearm or someone too scared to own a gun like a liberal?"
Trent: "You must understand, those who would disarm us would leave us unarmed against the night, leave our family's defenseless to any who would take advantage, rape and destroy them. Moreover they would have us relinquish the very thing that sets us apart from the slaves, our right to match force with those who would force their will upon us."
@Erin Watkins: you are right, at least about guns under pillows. As my copy of Rementer and Eimer's Essential Guide to Handguns advises on p. 109, "You do not want to be sleeping with a handgun under your pillow. There is really no good reason to do so... If you nail or screw a holster to a bedpost or the rear of a headboard, you will still have ready access to your handgun."
Comment By Craig Moore, 3-10-08Erin Watkins states: "I don't think it's any coincidence that this country has the highest murder rate in the world AND the most guns."
Nope. not even close. See: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Map-world-murder-rate.svg
and
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:International_homicide_rates_2002.jpg
The NICS system does keep prohibited people from buying from a gun dealer, and in that sense is working OK if not perfectly. It would work better if prohibited people trying to buy resulted in investigation and if appropriate, arrest.
I'm fairly dubious about the facts as presented. Accidental gun deaths of children under 4 are extremely rare--20 per year in 2000. The gun is described as a Ruger 9mm "that doesn't have a safety". That almost certainly would refer to a double-action-only handgun, which in turn means that it would have a trigger pull far too long and heavy for a toddler to operate. It will be very interesting to see whether the forensics matches up with the story of the...slime who was responsible for this. Another article said that one of the slime's prior convictions was "partner assault", which would seem to fall under the federal "Lautenberg Amendment" prohibiting gun possession by anyone who has been convicted of a domestic violence charge, regardless of what the charge is called under state law.
well, sutton did his best to characterize the gun show and its attendees according to the preset expectations he has allowed himself be to be conditioned for....
he had to "wedge his corolla (what no prius?) between towering suv's" and could barely squeeze down the aisles between "plaid and fleece stretched over ponderous middle-aged bellies", poor thing!
he was sure he'd see a throng of dwayne smails grabbing up armfuls of guns to plant like easter eggs where every little kiddie could find one...
but instead, there's just a bunch of guys who, like him, just needed a new mag for their beretta or something...except that they, unlike him, don't think that they alone are uniquely endowed with the intelligence to properly handle serious responsibility...
so, sutton, i know it's not what you started out to do, but your little article has personified exactly what is wrong with what you call the "antis"; they're only anti my constitutional rights and those of the guys at that gun show...but they, now they need continued "robust access to guns to protect themselves"...
i can see that you are conflicted, and so would many others be who have been fed the preconceived notions of the elites of the world, if they would venture out as you did and be honest with themselves.
yes, sutton, there really is a black-and-white, good-and-evil picture here, and i think we can both agree which group the stupid piece of s--- subject of your article is...and what really is necessary for his ilk to triumph is for good men to do nothing...and sutton, i can tell, you really are a good man...do something!
In my sixth grade class, Johnny and his pals were always disrupting the lessons. Miss Gordon’s response was “Since the class can’t be quiet we’ll use recess to finish the chapter.” Or “The class can’t stay seated so the essay will be 500 words instead of 250”. At an after-school meeting between the boys in the class and Johnny, he was introduced to the consequences of his actions. The misbehavior was almost eliminated. If Miss Gordon had focused the punishment on the Johnny instead of spreading the blame among all the students, our actions would never have been needed.
As adults, such vigilante action is not an option. We are a nation of laws. The innocent should not suffer for the sins of the guilty. Yet that is what the pro-gun control crowd advocates.
You will find through out the gun toting public the same line of thought: “You are responsible for your actions”, “Enforce the laws we have instead of passing more that only the law abiding will obey”. Our rights to LEGAL gun ownership can be stripped by one conviction. One mindless, constitutional vague law could remove the rights we now enjoy as gun owners. As a group we have seen it happen before and act accordingly by overzealously defending our right to gun ownership.
You portrayed the gun show patrons negatively as overweight, unfashionable men and then separated them from your side by noting they were conservative leaning. Didn’t want to offend fat and frumpy liberals did you? An examination of gun owners will show a cross section of Americana. Even many of those who trumpet gun control own guns. The obese, dull-witted, yokel that sports a plumber’s crack beneath his camo wife beater t-shirt and answers to “Bubba” illustrates gunnies as much as the skinny, dopey eyed, drop-out, decked out in tie dye and sandals whose vocabulary consists of “Ya know” and “duh” represent the anti's. If you lose you biased eye you’ll see we’re like you. We just happen to own guns.
@Bugspray & jtc: touche on the stereotyped imagery of the gun show. I probably could have tried harder with that, although I'd be curious if anyone else who's reading would agree with my take that there were a lot of big guys there. I could care less about the relative fashionableness of fleece or plaid; I was actually wearing BOTH myself. As for the range of gun owners, no doubt: but remember, we were in Ravalli County, Montana. Not too many of the "the skinny, dopey eyed, drop-out, decked out in tie dye and sandals" there.
But, jtc, I can't let you get away with claiming that I think that I am "uniquely endowed with the intelligence to properly handle serious responsibility..." Where did you get that in what I wrote? Similarly, to claim I was saying I'm "only anti [your] constitutional rights and those of the guys at that gun show...now [I] need continued "robust access to guns to protect [myself]"... is a misreading on your part, and it's not what I think at all.
But I appreciate your kind words at the end there. What is it you want me to "do"?
@sevesteen: I wondered about the "no safety"/double-action only thing, too. (Anyone out there know if Ruger even makes a gun that fits this description?) I also wondered if what the paper called his "misdemeanor assaults" (on Saturday, they weren't calling them domestic related) should have made him a prohibited person. Anyone know some more specifics on this kind of thing?
Comment By Craig Moore, 3-10-08Sutton, although I didn't comment on it previously, I found your reflection on the personal characteristics of some of the show attendees as gratuitous, arrogant, bigoted, condescending, and completely unnecessary. It had the ring of the suggestion that "those people" need to be watched.
Comment By Sevesteen, 3-10-08Ruger makes versions of many of its autos in DAO without safety, and the decocker versions are available with and without safety in certain models. I suppose it is possible that this slime was stupid enough to have a decocker-only version and leave it lying around cocked.
For the non-gun-nut readers: DAO is Double Action Only, meaning every trigger pull has to cock the hammer as well as release it, so every shot has a fairly heavy trigger pull. Since the gun is not cocked unless the trigger is pulled, a separate mechanical safety is not required. Decocker means that the gun usually has a light single action trigger, but has a lever that will decock the gun, so the first shot will be the heavier double action trigger pull. If these guns have a round chambered but will not be fired immediately, they should be either decocked and/or put on safe. Many decocker guns do not have a manual safety.
Sevesteen, 'decocker' is a safety, unless you're an idiot like Smails who sets it up for bypass. To report that "the gun had no safety" is inaccurate and poor police work if that was their conclusion. Ruger does not make a 9mm without a safety.
Comment By Trent, 3-11-08-Sutton,
I understand what you are saying and agree that many gun banners want to do said banning and confiscation to make society a safer place. I would argue that many of our gun grabbing politicians couldn't care less about the safety of the populace and use anti-gun rhetoric just to get elected or with actual tyrannical aims.
In any event, the goal is very nearly irrelevant, the result would still be that I could not defend my self and my family as well / at all depending upon the accompanying legislation.
You know the old saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" an evil act is an evil act the intentions not withstanding.
As for reasonable gun control... I don't think it exists. I'm a big fan of the idea of rolling back all gun control legislation to prior 1934 status. Of course I'm a big fan of rolling a lot of our laws and legislation back to pre 1934 status.
I just wanted to comment that I am impressed at the level of civility that has been maintained here.
@Craig: Wow, Craig. Well, next time, don't hold back. I can take it. I actually had to go back and reread what I wrote to compare it to what you said. You get all of that from these words?
• "The crowd was overwhelmingly male and tended toward middle age and girth, lots of plaid and fleece stretched over lots of ponderous bellies and wide backs, which made it hard to squeeze through the narrow aisles."
• "a lot of the vendors looked like kindly old grandfathers."
Maybe I should have elaborated that, when I said I felt out of place and awkward, it was because I don't know that much about guns and couldn't interact much with anyone. I think you're overreacting, but I'm sorry if I came off that way. It was not my intention.
@Wulfgar: I see your point, but, in the manuals and books I've looked at, it seems like they do make some sort of technical distinction between "safetys" and "decocking levers." For instance, in boot camp, we were told specifically not to call the decocking levers on our Beretta M92s a safety. But you're right, as far as the lay public is concerned, they might not see the distinction.
Wulfgar,
In this context, a safety would be understood as a manually operated control that prevents the gun from firing when in the on position, rather than the internal safety features that nearly all modern guns have. I'm not personally familiar with Ruger 9mm autos so I looked it up before I made my last post to verify that the variations I mentioned were available.
Even if inaccurate, this may not be bad reporting--The "no safety" comment appears to come from the moron himself rather than by examining the gun.
None of this really matters--It isn't OK to leave a loaded gun within reach of a toddler regardless of design, and it isn't likely that a toddler would have been likely to operate a gun being operated properly (even if stored improperly), either DAO, on safe or decocked. Even in the unlikely event his version of the story is accurate, his actions are beyond negligence and well into willful misconduct.
Sutton, I got the impression from your words describing the attendees in context of your article. Referring to someone's physical appearance when it has no relevance is rather tricky.
By the way, I have never seen anyone sell Nazi emblems at a show which featured the American flag. The two are incompatible in the same building, the same city, the same county, the same state, the same country, or the same planet. Just my opinion.
Erin wrote:
"The amendment wasn't written so people could go get handguns and uzi's to hide under their pillows."
Actually, handguns and Uzis are among the protected types of firearms, where your average hunting guns are NOT.
A strict interpretation of the Miller decision would conclude that the only weapons that are preserved against "infringement" by the Federal government are weapons as are used by the military: assault rifles, handguns, submachine guns, machine guns, etc. "Every terrible weapon of war". Although an argument COULD be made that any weapon (or class of weapon) that had been used at any time was protected, since militias have been known to show up with all manner of weapons...
And the Amendment was added because the folks writing the document had just come through a War of Independence, which was sparked (in part) by an attempt to confiscate privately owned arms.
You might want to study a bit more history
@Craig: well, relevance is in the eye of the beholder, and describing what things look/feel/smell like is what writers do. (This was a personal essay, not a piece of news reporting.) As for the swastikas, I agree that the two are incompatible (except in the sense that, in America, people are free to believe whatever they want). But they were there.
Comment By Sutton, 3-11-08@Trent: thanks for the comments. I think you make good points about the "road to hell," etc. As I mentioned earlier, that kind of thing is also the problem with things like obscenity/decency codes, which in turn convince judges that people don't care that much about free speech, etc. I guess a lot of us people who are coming from a more "lukewarm" starting point on 2nd Amendment stuff feel like that right is more off by itself, since it doesn't feel as vital to a free society, etc. But I guess that's more of a coincidence of recent history. And I guess I wouldn't want to try to go down south and tell blacks who defended themselves against lynch mobs with their guns that it's not "vital." So it's getting easier for me to see your side of the discussion.
Comment By Sutton, 3-11-08Interesting thoughts on the issue of guns from Sam Smith of the Progressive Review, who is about as far from a right-winger as you can get:
Why progressives should stop pushing for more gun control laws
-- There are already thousands of them, too many of which don't work. Every ineffective law brings government into disrepute.
-- Prohibition of something that large numbers of citizens want always fail, witness the war on the drugs. It merely increases the value of the prohibited item and changes the distributors from honest people to crooks.
-- Gun control laws are highly divisive to no good end. Since they don't work well, why get everyone so mad about them? Progressives should instead start finding issues that make people happy.
-- Treating gun laws as a national issue exacerbates cultural conflict, such as those between rural and urban, east and west, wealthy and not so well off. Telling rural Westerners to get rid of their guns is like telling an urban blacks to stop reading African-American books.
-- There is no evidence that members of the NRA murder people at a higher rate than non-members. It is insulting to gun owners to speak as though they did.
-- The push for gun restrictions and prohibition is interwoven with the drive to restrict other citizen liberties and erode democracy. Progressives once opposed such moves, but in recent years have been no-shows. Progressives need to became civil libertarians again.
-- America no longer has a strong, reliable democracy. It has been deeply corrupted and is being brutally manipulated. We are also losing our major defense against tyranny: the spirit and will of the people. An armed citizenry is a reasonable back-up plan.
-- People who drive around cities in four-wheel drive SUVs shouldn't lecture others on what safety precautions they should take.
-- The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government. I didn't say that. Thomas Jefferson did. (Ed Note - Bill says that this is not true - See: Bogus Quotes)
-- Progressives should stop treating average Americans as though they were alien creatures. Progressives haven't just lost elections because of their issues but because of their attitudes as well.
Here's his topic page on gun issues: http://prorev.com/guns.htm
Royal Stokes;
My father taught us pretty much the same way yours taught you. Although your Dad was a bit older than mine for mine was in WWII. He always told us this:
#1 A loaded gun never killed anybody, They always thought it was empty. #2 You never point a gun at ANYTHING unless you intend to shoot and kill it. #3 You treat EVERY gun like it's loaded.
You form these types of habits, and safety follows suit.
et. al
Education goes a long way. Trouble is too many people out there think they already know.
It is a terrible thing that happened to the little girl, and Yes he should spend some time behind bars. But, He also has the REST of his life to live with the what if's.
As soon as you tell some child, or anyone actually, no don't touch that, you've done the first step in bringing curiosity above doing what you asked.
You need to educate.
Blaming the gun or the manufacturer makes as much sense as blaming the Car manufacturer for making a car too comfortable that you fell asleep driving and killed somebody because of it.
Hundreds of kids are harmed and/or killed by sex offenders, so are they going to try and outlaw SEX? I don't think so.
As to a solution; EDUCATION. It won't cure them all but it will slow the spread.
"We do not have reason to believe the child had the weapon in her hands at the time of her death," Flathead County Detective Cmdr. Jeanne Landis said, referring to Korbyn Eva May Williams.
So far this is going as I expected--Not a toddler tragically getting a gun, an adult pulling the trigger that killed the toddler.
I see a danger to over-reaction to the Dwayne Smail incident. I would imagine that many of the people in rural areas might not hear much of the local gun-related news coming out of the big cities. Most of the mundane reports of burglaries and back alley murders do not make national news but there are lessons to draw from them. For example, the District of Columbia, which is close enough for me to pick up radio reports of politicians and pundits hand wringing about crime running rampant, has a handgun and rifle ban that is now being challenged. If the Supreme Court judges that the citizens of DC have no applicable 2nd Amendment rights because guns in private hands are not regulated enough to function as militia, it will pretty much lock in the crime rate in DC. It will also be permission for other cities to follow suit. There are consequences to this. Cities that vote to ban guns (because of the likes of Dwayne Smail), need to also consider what life will be like after law-abiding citizens no longer have them.
In DC, the burglars know (1) there are no guns in the homes of the law abiding (except possibly for unloaded, disassembled shotguns) (2) there is plenty of fear and mistrust to call the police for protection, and (3) there is plenty of tolerance for crime, and (4) the jails are pretty full [http://archive.gao.gov/f0102/150574.pdf]. Those who don’t believe that gun bans are a slippery slope into urban decay should drive into DC during rush hour. They will notice the flow is almost entirely one way. The commuters from the suburbs do not have enough tolerance for that level of crime and disorder to live and vote in the city. Many of the city residents get disgusted and vote one last time with their feet. What is left is a city with more tolerance for crime and a more liberal attitude in dealing with it. It is locked in its own folly, a pit surrounded by a very slippery slope.
Sutton’s essay on the arguments and his links about the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment were fascinating. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of laws such as the DC gun ban, it may very well be based on their judgement of the original intent of the writers. Maybe guns in private hands are not sufficiently regulated to justify the right on that basis. As a conservative, I hope this will not be the decision, but I would have to accept this as a consequence of having a court that uses a sensible methodology for interpreting laws rather than making them. If this happens, then short of a Giulianian [http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/rwg/html/bio.html] police state, a re-write of the 2nd Amendment may be the cost effective way to keep cities from becoming and remaining the safest place for criminals to work.
Sutton, this is the first time I've read one of your articles, and I thought you did a nice job (BTW, I live in Ravalli county and I wasn't offended).
In particular though, I want to thank you for responding to the comments in such a thoughtful and polite way. That's actually quite rare. Congratulations and keep it up.
I'm a gun owner, reloader, and own several guns, have owned them since the 70s. I'm trying too figure out what this lunk head was doing leaving the gun out in the open next too him and the child while sleeping. I could not go to sleep in that situation, the gun gets put up in a safe place, then I sleep, Punish the dunce, not me.
This article was printed from www.newwest.net at the following URL: http://www.newwest.net/city/article/little_girl_dead_going_to_the_gun_show_with_dwayne_smail_on_my_mind/C8/L8/