Man Taking Selfies With Gun Fatally Shoots Himself

[rjsquirrel]

CONCRETE, Wash. (AP) — A 43-year-old man has died after authorities say he accidentally shot himself in the face while taking selfies.

The Skagit Valley Herald reports the man and his girlfriend were photographing themselves with the weapon. ...

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/sheriff-man-with-selfies-fatally-shoots-himself

We clearly have a problem with too many cell phones in the USA!

LOL. #GunFail

[avebury]

1. Stupid is as stupid does. nt

[MillennialDem]

80. Stupid is as stupid dies

[Orrex]

2. If he'd only been armed, he could have defended himself

Thanks, Obama.

[BeyondGeography]

3. Somehow, he made it to 43

[VOX]

24. Haha

Nice one!

[beevul]

4. Universal firearms education could prevent these things. N/T

[gratuitous]

12. An annual two week course on gun safety seems in order

For every firearm a person wants to own, two weeks of rigorous training in the proper handling of that particular firearm each year, in a secure environment, at the owner's sole expense, would seem necessary to avoid these kinds of tragedies. If a person has to pay, say, a couple of thousand dollars a year and travel each year to a certified training facility, that person might just handle his or her firearms more responsibly. That would be in total compliance with that whole "well-regulated" right to keep and bear arms, wouldn't it?

[Marengo]

18. Would you support subsidizing your proposed training requirement for low income people?

Many, if not most, working class folks can't spare a couple thousand a year.

[Person 2713]

53. Multiple gum purchases aren't cheap either

[Straw Man]

61. Depends.

Multiple gum purchases aren't cheap either

Beech-Nut or Juicy Fruit?

[AngryAmish]

75. Damn gummint snatching our gums!

[Straw Man]

20. Necessary?

For every firearm a person wants to own, two weeks of rigorous training in the proper handling of that particular firearm each year, in a secure environment, at the owner's sole expense, would seem necessary to avoid these kinds of tragedies.

Two weeks for every firearm? Exactly how hard do you think it is to handle firearms safely? I'll give you a hint: not very. You can learn everything you need to know about safe handling of firearms in an afternoon.

Here's the short course:

1) Don't point the effing gun at anybody unless you are defending your life.
2) Unless you are on the firing range or defending your life, keep your effing finger off the effing trigger.
3) Never pull the trigger unless you know where your bullet is going to land.

From there we will proceed to how to unload the various types of firearms. No actual shooting is necessary.

Remember that some people are untrainable, due not to aptitude, but to attitude. These are people who text while driving, etc.

If a person has to pay, say, a couple of thousand dollars a year and travel each year to a certified training facility, that person might just handle his or her firearms more responsibly. That would be in total compliance with that whole "well-regulated" right to keep and bear arms, wouldn't it?

No, actually it wouldn't. It would be more of a deliberate obstacle, created to prevent the exercise of a right. You know: like poll taxes and literacy tests.

[Ed Suspicious]

51. When I took my gun safety course the first rule was to never

point a gun at anyone. Period. It sucks that the gun toting assholes of today had to ad the qualifier.

That was thirty years ago when attitudes about guns seemed a little more sane.

[Straw Man]

60. So ...

... you would not point a gun at someone to save your own life?

[Ed Suspicious]

63. I wouldn't have one unless i were out hunting.

[Straw Man]

68. That doesn't answer the question.

If your life was threatened when you were out hunting, would you point your gun at someone?

[Ghost in the Machine]

87. You forgot the most important one of all... TREAT *EVERY* FIREARM AS IF IT WERE LOADED!

Even if you unloaded it yourself, double check, then triple check it, and NEVER take someone else's word that "it's not loaded"... again, check for yourself, double check, then triple check! Keep the bolt/slide/action open if you can.

A little off topic, but I, personally, have NEVER bought the BS story of "the gun went off when I was cleaning it". When I clean MY guns, the magazines are removed, the actions are locked open and there is no round in the chamber. How the hell else do you get the cleaning rod all the way through the barrel???

Peace,

Ghost

[beevul]

57. I was thinking more along the lines of a week long course in the 12th grade.

For every firearm a person wants to own, two weeks of rigorous training in the proper handling of that particular firearm each year, in a secure environment, at the owner's sole expense, would seem necessary to avoid these kinds of tragedies.

I was thinking more along the lines of a week long course in the 12th grade. Universal. Just because someone doesn't own a gun doesn't mean they'll never encounter one.

That would be in total compliance with that whole "well-regulated" right to keep and bear arms, wouldn't it?

I'd lose the 'well regulated' nonsense, unless you prefer actually allowing real and true weapons of war, which the militia was intended to possess as individual citizens.

[gratuitous]

58. My position is . . .

What we're doing about firearms in our society is clearly not working. People are wantonly killing themselves and others, "accidentally" maiming relatives and neighbors, and demonstrating lethal stupidity in the care and handling of firearms. We have the legal framework to institute reasonable regulation of the manufacture and possession of firearms, and to hold accountable people who misuse them (criminally and financially).

When someone says that we shouldn't do anything, I hear a selfish person who values having a firearm above the lives of others, and that's just fucked up.

[beevul]

59. Pretty much the same as most anti-gun folks.

What we're doing about firearms in our society is clearly not working.

That statement is based, of course, on the premise that its the firearms which are the problem. They aren't, and its provable.

People are wantonly killing themselves and others, "accidentally" maiming relatives and neighbors, and demonstrating lethal stupidity in the care and handling of firearms.

Less than 1 percent of gun owners and less than 1 percent of the guns in America are involved in this.

We have the legal framework to institute reasonable regulation of the manufacture and possession of firearms, and to hold accountable people who misuse them (criminally and financially).

I'm all for holding accountable those who misuse them criminally, however, it isn't clear what you mean by misusing them "financially". I also doubt that what you have in mind is 'reasonable' since things associated with that word seldom are.

When someone says that we shouldn't do anything, I hear a selfish person who values having a firearm above the lives of others, and that's just fucked up.

I haven't EVER heard someone say "we shouldn't do anything", but I've seen a lot of claims and/or inference that someone did.

[Straw Man]

62. Your position is based on what, exactly?

Gun injuries and deaths have been steadily declining for several decades now.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/10/21/gun-homicides-steady-after-decline-in-90s-suicide-rate-edges-up/

When someone says that we shouldn't do anything, I hear a selfish person who values having a firearm above the lives of others, and that's just fucked up.

There's vast difference between not doing anything and not doing what you want. Consider that deeply before you go calling other people selfish.

And while you're at it, tell me how my having a firearm caused this man to shoot himself.

[tabasco]

70. False.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jun/16/facebook-posts/viral-meme-says-gun-homicides-are-down-49-percent-/


Even your own links states that gun homicides have been stagnant since the 90s. And the big decrease in the early 90s was due to the end of a surge of gun violence in the 80s due to crack cocaine, not some overall trend.

[Straw Man]

74. Dueling stats.

In 1993, there were seven homicides by firearm for every 100,000 Americans, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By 2013, that figure had fallen by nearly half, to 3.6 — a total of 11,208 firearm homicides. The number of victims of crimes involving guns that did not result in death (such as robberies) declined even more precipitously, from 725 per 100,000 people in 1993 to 175 in 2013.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/03/weve-had-a-massive-decline-in-gun-violence-in-the-united-states-heres-why/

Rate Of U.S. Gun Violence Has Fallen Since 1993, Study Says

"Compared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49 percent lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation's population grew," according to the Pew study. "The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm—assaults, robberies and sex crimes—was 75 percent lower in 2011 than in 1993."

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/05/07/181998015/rate-of-u-s-gun-violence-has-fallen-since-1993-study-says

Your turn.

[tabasco]

77. Nope. Same stats. Same numbers. Just a lot of intentional misinterpretation, distortion and lying.

FACT: The number of gun deaths in the U.S. has not "steadily declined for several decades" as you claimed. The rate of U.S. gun deaths has remained stagnant for the past two decades, and the number of gun deaths in the U.S. is increasing.

More importantly, by making this mistake, the meme misunderstands the overall trend lines of gun homicides. Gun homicides didn’t decline 49 percent over the last 12 years -- rather, they declined precipitously over six years in the 1990s, then have remained basically stagnant for the past decade or so. Why is this important? Because the decline, to a large degree, has to do with a specific reason -- the end of the crack epidemic. The decline in gun homicides in the 1990s "was largely a reversal of an upward trend that occurred in the mid-to-late 1980s," said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University. "There would not have been much of a downturn were it not for the surge. This up-and-down change was primarily in cities and among offenders under age 25, and indeed have much to do with crack markets and gang activity."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jun/16/facebook-posts/viral-meme-says-gun-homicides-are-down-49-percent-/

You claimed that gun deaths have "fallen steadily over several decades." In fact, the number of gun deaths in the U.S. is INCREASING.



Gun Violence Rates



Let's look at the U.S. GUN DEATH RATE.

Not "steadily decreasing for several decades" as you claimed, but unchanged for the past two decades.

If you want to look at MASS SHOOTINGS, we have a problem that is growing at an alarming rate.





SHAME on you and all the dishonest people twisting numbers to make this graph look ACCEPTABLE!

[Straw Man]

79. Right -- I should have said "homicides," not deaths overall.

Rates are cut in almost in half.

SHAME on you and all the dishonest people twisting numbers to make this graph look ACCEPTABLE!

You can stow your shamefinger; no number of deaths is "acceptable." Tell me how you're going to bring it to zero. Then you get to climb on your moral high-horse.

You zoom in on the time frame that suits your contention and then accuse me of "twisting"? The irony is rich.

[tabasco]

82. The graph you posted shows a gun homicide rate stagnant since 1998.

Not "steadily declining for several decades" as you claimed. And no, the number/rate has not decreased since 2010, where your graph stops.

U.S. Gun Homicide Rate

Rate of Gun Homicide per 100,000 People

In the United States, the annual rate of firearm homicide per 100,000 population is

2014: 3.4320
2013: 3.54
2012: 3.7020 4
2011: 3.5520 21
2010: 3.5920 23 31
2009: 3.7520 26 23 31
2008: 4.01
2007: 4.19
2006: 4.29
2005: 4.18
2004: 3.97
2003: 4.11
2002: 4.1120 32 31
2001: 3.98
2000: 3.8420
1999: 3.8820 27
1998: 3.3727
1993: 7.0733

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states

You and the NRA continue to selectively choose data from the height of the crack epidemic to show how much gun crime has fallen. In fact, the rate of gun crime and gun homicides have remained steady and have not decreased since 1998. NEWSFLASH: That was TWO DECADES AGO.

As far as how we fix it, let's look at what the other developed nations on Earth are doing to keep their number so low and TRY THAT!

[Straw Man]

84. Any way you slice it ...

The graph you posted shows a gun homicide rate stagnant since 1998.

Not "steadily declining for several decades" as you claimed. And no, the number/rate has not decreased since 2010, where your graph stops.

... the rate is half what it was in 1993. Are you attributing that to gun control?

As far as how we fix it, let's look at what the other developed nations on Earth are doing to keep their number so low and TRY THAT!

Whom should we emulate? I hear a lot from gun controllers about the "UK model." How about the Czech Republic? They have a lower homicide rate than the UK but are far more "liberal" in regard to firearms. Switzerland? Sweden? They all seem to more successful and keeping the murders down. Or is it only gun murders that attract your concern?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

[tabasco]

86. You got caught lying and now you're obfuscating. Typical.

As I have provided multiple sources and explained, the high rates of the early 90s were anomalous due to the crack cocaine epidemic. Of course, the peak year is the selective factor always chirped by NRA parrots. The fact is that the U.S. gun crime rate has not decreased in two decades, gun deaths are increasing, and all the NRA chirping about "1993" doesn't change that fact. You seem to lack the moral courage to accept the truth, so I'm done wasting my time with you.

[Straw Man]

88. Fling insults and flee. Typical.

As I have provided multiple sources and explained, the high rates of the early 90s were anomalous due to the crack cocaine epidemic.

"Anomalous" because it does not fit with the way you would like to frame the argument. If the end of the crack epidemic was the cause in the drop of firearms deaths, what does that say about the efficacy of gun control?

The fact is that the U.S. gun crime rate has not decreased in two decades, gun deaths are increasing, and all the NRA chirping about "1993" doesn't change that fact.

Two decades ago it was 1996. Both fatal and non-fatal gun crime rates are lower now than they were then. How can you claim that the gun crime rate "has not decreased in two decades"? And you accuse me of lying and obfuscating?

Gun homicide dropped precipitously after '93 and then leveled off. Non-fatal gun crime continued to fall into the new millennium and then rose slightly. Levels are still far lower than they were twenty years ago.

You seem to lack the moral courage to accept the truth, so I'm done wasting my time with you.

The truth? Puh-leeze. Spare us the pious cant. You have no unique claim to either truth or the moral high ground.

[TipTok]

72. Could have saved yourself some typing...

... And just said poll tax for guns.

Much shorter, same idea and just as illegal on its face.

[w4rma]

5. Hopefully he didn't procreate, first. (nt)

[Crunchy Frog]

14. Well at any rate, he won't be doing it again.

[saturnsring]

6. thankfully he took himself before he accidently shot someone or as the media would put it

before "it went off accidently while he was holding it "and killed a kid

[Marengo]

85. "Thankfully"? You are actually thankful the man is dead?

[Nye Bevan]

7. Just like you shouldn't answer the telephone while ironing clothes with a hot iron.

Selfie rule #1: never take a selfie with a smartphone in one hand and a gun in the other.

BTW the hot iron thing really happened:

http://www.odditycentral.com/funny/man-answers-iron-instead-of-phone-burns-half-his-face.html

[Orrex]

10. Sounds like a case of being pressed to answer.

[freebrew]

8. IQ test for gun ownership?

Would prevent 100s if not 1000s of deaths in the US each year.

Darwin Award candidate.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

22. An IQ test for cell phone ownership would be good, too. nt

[freebrew]

56. ^^So True...

maybe why I don't have one...

[Zorro]

9. But it was a most awesome shot!

[KamaAina]

11. And the Darwin goes to...

[Crunchy Frog]

13. Give that man a Darwin prize.

This one has really earned it.

[Jitter65]

15. Nice picture. nt

[awoke_in_2003]

16. I would say that you can't fix stupid

but apparently you can.

[Adrahil]

17. Note to idiots: clear the fucking chamber.

And don't point the fucking gun at your own, or anyone else's face, unless you intend to use it.

Fuckwit....

[GGJohn]

43. Advocating for the deaths of fellow humans?

Are you sure you're on the right site?
I thought only repukes did that? So, what does that tell us? Hmmmm.

[Eleanors38]

69. Well, it is GD...

where such questions are answered by 4-3 "humanitarian" votes.

[GGJohn]

19. Hmmm, have to post your gun stories here now, I wonder why.

[Darb]

29. Nice job.

Get in there and show your colors.

Red.

[GGJohn]

30. Back from vacation?

How long?

[Darb]

31. I knew you couldn't resist.

The playbook says "Stay Away" from gun idiots shooting themselves or others accidentally. But I knew I could lure you in. You are gonna get points deducted.

[GGJohn]

32. Ah yes, still with the comedy gold, you just can't resist can you.

[Darb]

33. Check this out:

Doesn't mean shit does it?

Unless of course you get points for smilies. Do you red?

[Darb]

35. You pulled that one before I could crush it.

Did your associates warn you about the dead give-away?

Anyhoo, gotta run. Stay vigilant, the humpers are shooting themselves, each other, and innocent bystanders all day, every day. Somebody has got to do it, defend the indefensible.

[GGJohn]

37. Crush it?

Do you often have these delusions of grandeur?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

21. "Click" ... wait, that didn't sound like my phone's camera ... nt

[malaise]

23. Darwin strikes

No tears here

[VOX]

25. Thinning the herd...

Um...*semi*-automatically

[ileus]

26. Why would any "man" take a selfie?

[Vinca]

27. If only all the gun nuts would take up photography . . .

[madokie]

28. hey

look at it this way
one less idiot with a cellphone to worry with

I really meant gunz ACTUALLY

[RobinA]

36. When I Read This

headline I'm like, There's a gun that takes pictures?

[leftyladyfrommo]

38. Good guys with guns

Are killing themselves off at an alarming rate.

[leftyladyfrommo]

41. Too often they take out kids.

Or their kids find a gun and shoot themselves or their siblings.

[rjsquirrel]

42. Oh I know

I got in trouble on a gun nutter thread for suggesting any parent whose kid gets a gun and injures self or others needs to have their kids taken from them.

[leftyladyfrommo]

44. You know kids will just keep looking

Until they find the hidden stuff. It's just the way they are.

Guns should be locked in a secure gun safe or kept off the property.

[rjsquirrel]

45. You and I know that

There are people on du even who are proud to let their kids play with guns.

[GGJohn]

47. Oh really?

Put up a link to your claim.

[leftyladyfrommo]

49. I don't know about DU

but those guys are out there.

Sarah Palin was one. There was a picture of a gun on a table with a toddler walking around. And she said, "that's how we roll. "

Amazing!

[GGJohn]

50. Yes, there are some out there in the real world,

but rjsquirrel specifically said DU members.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

81. "Sarah Palin , "that's how we roll. "

Plus the palins are using drugs and alcohol, and own AR 15's!

[leftyladyfrommo]

48. There also people who love dangerous dogs.

They think they makes them look macho. Strutting down the street with them.

Until that dog kills a kid. Then they lose everything they have and end up in jail for a couple of years and have to live with the guilt for the rest of their lives.

Hindsight is a bitch.

[TipTok]

67. You say play...

I suspect you mean 'use under supervision'...

I think you would be hard pressed to find many folks who let their kids juggle their 9mms.

[GGJohn]

54. This is a lie,

you were blocked from the RKBA group for this post.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1172188449#post3

[In_The_Wind]

46. Truly brilliant.

[roody]

52. One less Trump voter.

[Brickbat]

55. Wait, what's so funny?

There appears to be a hilarious joke here. Could someone explain it to me?

[PonyUp]

64. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. n/t

[fullautohotdog]

65. I still think...

hunter safety courses should be mandatory in schools. Just like intelligent (i.e. not "abstinence only&quot sex ed.

[Crunchy Frog]

76. I'll agree to that...

as soon as people are born with guns attached to their bodies. I'm guessing genetic engineering will eventually lead to that, given our society's fixation on firearms.

[bluedigger]

66. Alot of people die every year taking selfies.

We should probably require some sort of training and licencing for such a dangerous activity.

[ileus]

71. poor sandy....can't reply to her own thread. LOL

[robhalf4369]

73. Darwin award nominee right there

Some people just don't have any common sense.

[Binkie The Clown]

78. Another effort by mother nature to cull stupid from the species. n/t

[Ligyron]

83. That IS the problem with autoloaders

Drop the clip and there is still around in the chamber. People unfamiliar with them shoot themselves or others all the time.

watched a guy shoot himself in the foot one time. Really hurt too.