A year of Gun Fails

Submitted by gestault on Thu, 04/28/2016 - 6:29pm

As a distraction from the primaries, I am collecting feedback for a project I started late last year. I collected David Waldman's gunFail diaries from 2015, mapped and categorized the incidents, and put it all together in a proof of concept website.

If you feel so inclined, please visit the GunFail Archives, and let me know what you think. I am open to any criticism or suggestions for improvement.

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GunFail

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Comments

Submitted by hecate on Thu, 04/28/2016 - 6:52pm

good for you

That's an immense project, and one worthwhile. You deserve praise.

The Americans are deeply disturbed, with their demented firearm fetish. I had a guy come in this week who wanted us to unsnarl the legal mess he'd created for himself, so he could conceal-carry. Unprompted, he stressed that he was not one of those Americans who believed he should tote a killing machine everywhere he goes; he just needed to carry for certain limited purposes. Well, like, for when? I asked. "Like, if I have to change a tire," he responded. "I would want to conceal-carry then."

No. A person who so lives in fear he feels he cannot change a tire, without carrying a concealed weapon, is a person who does not belong in the same galaxy, as a gun.

And this topic is related to the primaries. For The Hairball, he has brayed that he wants all the white people to bitterly cling to their guns at all times, so they can use them to help him kill the brown people. While neither The Cranky Brooklyn Deli Man, nor The Mad Bomber, have had the courage to state the truth that no American needs a gun, whether civilian, law-enforcement officer, or serial killer in the US military, which should of course be abolished.

Submitted by gestault on Thu, 04/28/2016 - 8:01pm

You're right.

I had forgotten about the Hairball and his concealed carry permit.

Submitted by hecate on Thu, 04/28/2016 - 8:25pm

yeah

He is the complete he-man. He shall personally smite the evildoers. With his bang-bang shoot-shoot metal penis.

Submitted by riverlover on Thu, 04/28/2016 - 7:12pm

I looked, great compilation (and horrifying)

I could see no layer of state gun laws, not that we are not aware of trafficking, etc. Would that level or levels be useful, do you think? States with Concealed Carry, wait times for purchase, verboten buyers, etc. So many other layers, so many exceptions.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Submitted by gestault on Thu, 04/28/2016 - 8:02pm

Great idea. Thanks.

Submitted by WindDancer13 on Thu, 04/28/2016 - 8:07pm

I have also been looking into gun issues.

Some things that I have found include that the number of shootings by children and deaths of children are greatly under reported.

From December 2012 to December 2013, at least 100 children were killed in unintentional shootings — almost two each week, 61 percent higher than federal data reflect. Source: Innocents Lost

Shootings by police are not included in gun death numbers but account for about 1 in 13 gun-related deaths.

The vast majority of gun deaths are by suicides.

...there have been more than 50,000 incidents of gun violence in 2015 [not all are deaths]

...
...but what its numbers do not record — due to government reporting practices — is a massive hole in the data: the nearly 20,000 Americans who end their lives with a gun each year [emphasis added]. Source: 15 Statistics That Tell the Story of Gun Violence This Year

Note: Although fact checkers (and my own research) show that HRC uses misleading gun-related death numbers, she continues to use them. While she likes to reel out statistics, there is no evidence that she understands or cares that each one of those number is an actual human life.

Good work on your part in looking into the numbers. People really need to understand the facts.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

Submitted by gestault on Thu, 04/28/2016 - 8:52pm

There were 165 gun fail child fatalities in 2015

In the GunFail Archives, click on both Child Victim and Fatality. It will show you the 165 child fatalities that made the newspapers in 2015. I consider anyone younger than 18 a child; some sites use lower ages, but I don't believe that losing a 16-year-old is any less tragic than losing an 8-year-old.

Submitted by WindDancer13 on Thu, 04/28/2016 - 9:09pm

That is a huge difference

in only two years. It may be higher than that though as the article that I linked pointed out that these numbers are under reported. As you stated, the numbers you have are only the ones the newspapers have reported.

I believe that the study I linked used age 14 as their cutoff, though the site has an interactive map showing shootings based on 17 and under. The link to that map shows that there have been 77 child shootings thus far in 2016.

I should have noted that the majority of that 100+ in 2013 were related to unlocked/ unsecured guns.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

Submitted by gestault on Thu, 04/28/2016 - 9:21pm

No question that the problem is getting worse

I follow #GunFAIL on twitter and get new gun fail tweets all day. I have thought of adding 2014 and 2016 gun fails to the site as well, but, to be honest, it takes a great deal time and effort, but it would be useful to illustrate the trends.

Submitted by WindDancer13 on Thu, 04/28/2016 - 11:54pm

Maybe the information from this interactive map

can help. It does like you do and adds the back story. #NotAnAccident Index

If the rate of shootings stay steady throughout 2016, we are looking at around 231 child shootings this year. As the vast majority stem from unlocked or unsecured guns, there needs to be an increase in manslaughter charges. Maybe if there were stiffer penalties involved for both deaths and injuries, parents and other gun owners would learn some responsibility. (Yes, I understand the tragedy of them losing a child. It should not get them off the hook for their negligence.)

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

Submitted by gestault on Fri, 04/29/2016 - 5:42am

I show the back story as well.

I just didn't include that section in the screen captures above.

Submitted by Alison Wunderland on Fri, 04/29/2016 - 8:35am

Are some of those categories duplicates, or overlaps?

Because the grand total of the categories is 5535, it they aren't. (An even more vexing problem)

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Submitted by gestault on Fri, 04/29/2016 - 8:59am

Many overlaps

A single event can belong to many categories. The relevant categories for each incident are displayed after the incident summary, for example:

12/28/2015
Bethel, AK

The 4-year-old son of an Alaska State Trooper is dead after he accidentally shot himself with a firearm that he found in his Bethel State Trooper Housing home. Bethel police and medics were called to State Trooper housing at about 6:30 p.m. Monday to reports that a child had been injured. Investigation revealed that William Anderson, age 4, was playing by himself in the family living room when he obtained a privately owned firearm and subsequently suffered a fatal gunshot wound. The boy's father was not at home at the time of the shooting. The handgun was owned by the Anderson family.

Fatality ~ Child Victim ~ Child Shooter ~ Self-Inflicted ~ LEO/Military/Security