MMPH Scare Tactics

The Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind has only one deadly enemy: the skeptic. Check out John Stossel’s latest. A sample:

What do you think is more dangerous, a house with a pool or a house with a gun? When, for “20/20,” I asked some kids, all said the house with the gun is more dangerous. I’m sure their parents would agree. Yet a child is 100 times more likely to die in a swimming pool than in a gun accident.

Parents don’t know that partly because the media hate guns and gun accidents make bigger headlines. Ask yourself which incident would be more likely to be covered on TV.

Growing up, the first child I knew that died managed that feat (no feat, really, cos we’ll all do it sometime) in about 3″ of water… No gun in sight. Yeh, yeh, I know: no statistical relevance.

Made me careful (and encouraged me to become competent in) around water, though.

4 Replies to “MMPH Scare Tactics”

  1. Most families that have guns teach kids the rules, and they also keep them up out of reach of a child, and not loaded. The deaths of children by guns you hear about happen because of negligence on the part of the gun owner, or by shootings outside the house.

    My daughter had a house with a pool. Although all her kids swim, she said she’s glad they don’t have one anymore. That way, she doesn’t have to keep other kids out of it.

  2. Unless I have personally JUST THAT VERY INSTANT unloaded it, every gun is “loaded”–whether it is or not, no matter who assures me what state it is in. And as far as I’m concerned, gun locks do NOT work (whether they do or not), nor do safeties (again, whether they do or not). The ONLY gun safety is good habits in the user. Well, that and good aim and knowing when to squeeze the trigger and when not to.

    Gun control is simply proper target aquisition.

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