One thing implied by anti-gunners is that guns are inherently dangerous. That could be said for say older black powder guns, especially in the days when they were used in conjunction with fireplaces and candlelight, or early cartridge guns where the idea of a drop safety had not yet come into the mix. Still modern guns simply don’t “Just Go Off”, and like many other things that carry a certain degree of risk, like power tools, kitchen knives, and automobiles, they are inherently SAFE if properly handled.
Some things do “Just Go off”:
A veterinarian and co-founder of Hope Elephants, which cares for retired circus elephants, was killed when one of the animals stepped on him, police said in ruling his death an accident.
Knox county sheriff’s office deputies said they found James Laurita, 56, unresponsive in the barn at the foundation in Hope, about 87 miles (140km) north-east of Portland in Maine.
Laurita appeared to have fallen before one of the foundation’s two elephants apparently stepped on him, police said, citing a medical examiner’s report.
Elephants are VERY dangerous. That really goes double when you think of this:
“The elephant was not aggressive in any way. It was clearly an accident,” said Mark Belserene, administrator for the state medical examiner’s office, who added that the official cause of death was “asphyxiation and multiple fractures caused by compression of the chest”.
I remember reading a study on Great White sharks, and it was discovered that it was very plausible that many of the killings by sharks weren’t actually true “Attacks”. When a large animal like a shark or an elephant attacks the trauma is SEVERE, and when it is on something considerably smaller than them like a person or a prey species (in the case of sharks, as elephants are herbivores) the attack is almost instantly fatal. Most shark attack victims don’t die from a powerful attack, but tend to bleed out from a missing limb or massive bleeding. The study showed that great white sharks were naturally inquisitive to strange objects in the water, and rather than the powerful strikes they might do on seals or large fish, for strange objects, they tended to do less powerful exploratory bites just to see what the object is.
Now that has little difference for the person being “explored” or accidentally stepped on as the damage will still often be worse than you can survive from, but it really does show an inherent danger.
And all are not a “Gun Death”.
H/T Whipped Cream Difficulties
