Suffocations – 1,200
I looked through pages and pages of
this document to find out about the horror of accidental
shooting deaths. I also looked in supplemental material
associated with the report.
I could find nothing.
One has to assume that they are so few
and far between that they are statistically irrelevant.
Yet this is not what we are led to
believe by the gun-control fanatics who continue to promote
trigger locks as a "safety" measure.
Just last month, for instance,
the U.S. Congress approved a bill that
would require licensed gun dealers to supply a trigger-lock
device with every handgun sold in America.
I had imagined that an act of Congress
of this kind would have been precipitated by thousands of
accidental shooting deaths in any given year. This does not
appear to be the case. In fact, if the latest detailed report of
the National Safety Council is any indication, there are
virtually no accidental shooting deaths taking place. There is
no mention of them in the report. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
That's great news. You would think it
would be cause for celebration.
So why the continuing, unrelenting
pressure to promote trigger locks – which will certainly result
in the deaths of many innocent people who are unable to defend
themselves because of a trigger lock? Why are those who buy
firearms for protection now paying extra for trigger locks that
could, if used, counteract the very purpose for which the weapon
was obtained?
About 1 million Americans use a firearm
to defend themselves from criminals every year. They don't
necessarily discharge the gun. But they at least brandish one to
fend off attack. Hundreds of thousands of times a year,
law-abiding citizens fire guns at bad guys in the defense of
their lives and property.
Trigger locks deter the kind of quick
response needed to use those firearms effectively in such
situations. You won't catch me using one.
But, slowly, inevitably, national,
state and local policies are pushing us closer to mandatory
trigger locks.
Imagine the day we actually have a
universal trigger lock law in place.
Let's assume just 1 percent of the 1
million people who use firearms every year to defend themselves
are unable to deactivate the lock in time and die as a result.
That's 10,000 deaths.
Let's assume the number of accidental
gun deaths right now is somewhere between 100 on the low side
and 1,000 on the very high side.
Why would we want to trade 100 or 1,000
lives for 10,000?
It seems to me that's what the
trigger-lock fanatics want.
In fact, it could be a lot worse. I
would dare say that the more widespread trigger-lock use
becomes, the higher the death toll of innocent people.
Trigger locks don't save lives. They
take them.
That's why we should not be encouraging
their use. We should be discouraging them – except in rare
circumstances. There are appropriate uses for them –
particularly with firearms not maintained for use in
self-defense.
But since the overwhelming number of
handguns are purchased for precisely this reason, trigger locks
make no sense.
