We’ve all read the story, and it was a really sad case. A woman was shopping in Wal Mart in Idaho, when her son reached into her purpose-designed carry purse, got hold of her gun and fatally shot her.
I haven’t commented on that story because my commentary is VERY simple. #1. I’m so sorry for the family, and #2 there really is no such thing as safe off-body carry. Now you can carry in a device like a fanny pack or a purse just as safely as on the belt, but these devices MUST be carried like an on-body holster at ALL TIMES.
Fun story, my wife got her NRA Basic Pistol safety class from a friend of mine who works for the Second Amendment Sisters. After the class she was all excited to talk about the things she learned. I mentioned to her that her instructor carries ALL the time. She said “Really? I didn’t see it?”, I responded “Did she have a purse on her?” Then she mentioned that she had noticed that the purse NEVER left her shoulder the whole class, which she did find a bit odd.
Now I found this article through Joan Peterson’s twitter. I don’t know what Joan was thinking, but really it’s a solid article.
Rutledge’s death raises questions about America’s obsession with guns. First of all, it should be noted that one of the most sought after changes in gun laws, would not have prevented this particular gun death. Rutledge was a concealed carry permit holder. She passed the background check with flying colors.
Secondly, we should dismiss the notion that simply by taking gun safety classes, we create responsible gun owners. Veronica Rutledge had extensive training and had passed the required gun safety courses.
It is also important to recognize that Rutledge was not unintelligent. She was the valedictorian of her high school class. She worked as a nuclear research scientist at the Idaho National Laboratory.
Rutledge didn’t die because we don’t have enough gun laws. She also didn’t die because she was a fearful, “bitter clinger”. One of her friends even acknowledges that Idaho has a low crime rate. She adds that Veronica carried her loaded gun not out of fear, but “because she was raised around guns”.
Really I think the bigger issue that eluded the author was that guns are a very mature technology, and shooting is very established, but CARRY is still relatively new to most Americans, and some of the more advanced means of carry are quite new. It really hasn’t been THAT long that purpose-built purses for concealed carry have been around in common use, so the idea that you can’t treat this purse like the purse you’ve ALWAYS had is still a fairly novel concept.
The solution is more training, and more talk of concealed carry as popular culture.
It is this comfort around guns that killed Veronica Rutledge. The attitude of gun advocates who carry guns each day has become so nonchalant and lackadaisical that it invites tragedy. The Rutledge family by all accounts is a loving, caring family who would protect their kids. Veronica Rutledge probably strapped her child into a car seat to drive him to Walmart. She probably kept hazardous chemicals and choking hazards out of reach of her child. But surrounded by the gun culture in Idaho, she failed to take reasonable precautions to keep her loaded gun away from that child.
I mostly agree with this. While I don’t think people who should carry SHOULDN’T be comfortable with the gun, but I see carrying in a similar fashion to driving a car. You don’t need to be gripping the wheel with white knuckles, but you always need to be aware of the car and the dangers it represents. Even that isn’t a fair analogy, as a car poses a MUCH more significant danger than a holstered firearm, but since we all drive, it’s a good thinking point.
Still I’m not here to talk about reasonable responses to this tragic event:
Every day as parents, we make rational choices regarding our family’s safety: we buckle our children’s seatbelts, make them wear bicycle helmets, and teach them to look both ways before crossing the street. But when it comes to gun safety, many parents do not take the same logical approach.
Many parents bring a gun into the home legally with no intent of doing harm. Many think they’re doing their family a service by offering protection. Yet these guns cause the majority of gun deaths and injuries. Tragedies could be avoided if parents would only take simple steps to ensure that these guns are not accessible to their children. If we don’t start doing something about children’s access to guns, not only are these tragedies likely to continue, so will the hundreds of suicides and unintentional shootings that take place in homes across the country each year.
A gun in the home is a significant risk factor for homicide, suicide, and unintentional shootings, according to the Brady Center’s recent report “The Truth About Kids and Guns,” which shows that one out of three homes with children has guns, many left unlocked or loaded.
Now of course what they mean by “Do Something” they aren’t speaking the same language as I am. I’m talking better training and information on the risks of carry to keep simple mistakes like this from happening. The “Progressives” just want MORE LAWS, which is total crap.
Still let’s look at this article where they talk about the real numbers of the risks:
According to federal data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an average of 62 children aged 14 and under died each year in unintentional shootings between 2007 and 2011.
…There are studies that support the undercount, though they differ on the degree to which the figures are unreported. A 2013 New York Times investigation found that accidental shootings occurred roughly twice as often as the records indicate.
So 62 accidental deaths in 4 years. That’s 15.5 deaths per year! That’s a ROUNDING ERROR, not a real danger when you consider the population of this country and the number of people who own guns and have kids. Even if you take the New York Time’s speculation into effect that’s only 31 deaths per year. It’s sad, it’s tragic, but it’s also not a big problem:
Brady’s report states that in Idaho, the estimated percent of loaded and unlocked household firearms among adults with a child under 18 is 5.2 percent. The report adds that in Idaho, the estimated number of children (0-17) living with unlocked and loaded firearms is 17,030.
So IDAHO alone has an estimation by the antis 17,030 children who are “At Risk”, but the number of fatal shootings is only in the double digits. That really tells the whole story!
So be safe out there, but don’t be fearful, just have respect for the firearm because they ARE dangerous, but so are most aspects of life.
