When I read this Facebook post by my friend Karen, I wanted to share it to start a dialogue on gun safety.  While short it is on point.  Terrorists with guns and, criminals with guns, are nothing compared to the dangers of people that are not concerned enough with  the safe use of their personal guns. The links I found on legally owned gun injuries included many that highlighted the incredible number of non homicides caused by guns. The major reason for these injuries and deaths,  people just “messing around”.  These injuries include blindness, loss of limb, the need for major surgeries (colostomy bags are not fun), and those still alive but needing medical care for life.

  Also the numbers of guns stolen is far higher than I had imagined.  Those guns will not be traceable and gun owners need to be held accountable for not securing their personal weapons.  One gun safety site online suggests gun owners NOT put bumper stickers showing support for the NRA or weapons on their vehicles as it alerts robbers you have guns in the home. This encourages robbers, just the opposite of what gun owners often claim to believe.

Putting a gun in the underwear drawer (this is oddly popular among gun owners I know) is not a “safe place”.  A steel gun cabinet that is locked is a safe place.  A wall safe is a “safe place”.  Just making things a little harder for a burglar is one simple way to help ensure fewer gun deaths and disabilities.  While we address terrorists with guns and mentally ill people with guns, we also need to address gun owner safety. Kitty

By Karen Locke

I support sensible gun control. I have plenty of friends who like and own guns; I’m a gun owner myself. My husband will probably acquire a good hunting rifle when he next gets a deer tag for his preferred area of California. Guns are tools; sometimes they’re tools for recreation, and sometimes tools for protection.

None of the people I know who I trust with guns believe they make you 10 feet tall and invincible (that’s a paraphrase of a Heinlein quote).

reach for the hand cream, kill your spouse!

Some of the people I know who I do not trust with guns DO believe they make you 10 feet tall and invincible. They scare the heck out of me.

the say my husband and I sleep, and throw in the pets….this is just a tragedy waiting to happen

But I guess what troubles me most about the civilian (non-cop-related) “accidental” shootings that are ubiquitous in our country are that soooo many gun owners are damned lazy about gun safety. If we could something to change about how our culture embraces guns, my top three choices would be safety, safety, and safety. Kids wouldn’t have accidental access to guns. People wouldn’t tote shoot-ready guns about while doing anything other than aiming at a target. People who like to drink a lot would lock their guns up before imbibing. Etc.

Those that complain they would not have fast access to their guns, there are wonderful gun safes out there.  This one opens to your finger prints, others open to a simple code or even voice command! Yet online people complain “These are too expensive!” Also when you leave your home, lock these in your big steel gun safe or in a safety deposit box if you are going on a long trip. One of the most sought after items by a burglar, your gun.  

I don’t see this as a partisan issue. It really is a health issue; we have a plague of accidental shootings in this country. Surely we’re better than that. Lives are being damaged and lost. And it seems like no big deal. That makes me very sad.

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Editors note here:  From the linked article above….

“Those 259 justifiable homicides also pale compared with, in the same year, 8,342 criminal homicides using guns, 20,666 suicides with guns, and 548 fatal unintentional shootings, according to the FBI’s Supplemental Homicide Report. The ratio for 2012, per the Violence Policy Center, was one justifiable killing for every 32 murders, suicides or accidental deaths (the ratio increases to 38-1 over the five-year period ending in 2012). That’s a heavy price to pay.”