Washinton "ceasefire" blames guns for childs deaths refuses to let NRA teach gun safety in schools

Seattle Post unintelligibe ^ | Tuesday, February 18, 2003 | Heidi Yewman

[Gunsmith]

What the communist cease fire fail to inform you is that the NRA has a great program called "Eddie Eagle" which teaches kids not to handle guns. They do not want children to know about safe gun handling,that would put them out of biz! They would rather have un informed snoops calling the cops because you have a shotgun and your children know how to use it

[Gunsmith]

Today's play-date checklist: Is there a gun in the house?

By HEIDI YEWMAN GUN CONTROL ADVOCATE

Last Friday Matthew Randall, 13, pleaded guilty in Clark County Juvenile Court to first-degree manslaughter for shooting his 10-year-old sister, Emilee. It is, as Vancouver Police Chief Brian Martinek said, a "tragedy beyond tragedies" that has forever changed many lives.

So who's next?

Tragedies like this will happen again -- and again. Millions of guns are in our homes and neighborhoods, often loaded and frequently unlocked.

A recent study commissioned by Washington Ceasefire found that although 71 percent of people thought it was a good idea to ask whether there's a gun in the homes where their kids play, 79 percent never do.

That's a recipe for disaster, as Levi Allen found out. He's the 12-year-old who was in the Randall house when Emilee died Jan. 13.

The facts are just awful. Emilee was shot with her father's loaded and unlocked 9mm semiautomatic pistol, which had been on the dresser in Craig and Marilee Randall's bedroom. The parents weren't home. There was also a shotgun in the bedroom closet and another gun under a mattress.

The Randall home isn't the only fully armed American household. Around 40 percent of homes with children have guns. Of those homes, the guns are loaded and unlocked in almost half. Look at the 10 houses or apartments next to yours. Statistically, two of them contain a loaded, unlocked gun. When your kids play at a friend's house, do you know for sure whether guns are present?

I respect the Second Amendment, but I'm also partial to the Fourth Amendment, the one that states people have a right to be secure in their persons.

As parents, we ask all kinds of questions about playmates and playdates. "What rating is the movie they'll be watching?" "Will they be wearing seat belts at all times in the car?" "What adults will be present?"

It's a sad sign of the times that those questions must also include, "Is there a gun in your home?" And if there is, "Is it locked and unloaded?"

Emilee Randall makes me think of Carole Price, a woman with the saddest eyes I've ever seen. Price lost her 13-year-old son, John, in 1998 in similar circumstances. I heard her speak once and she said something about asking friends and neighbors whether they have guns before letting your children visit there, something that's seared on my brain: "Do not feel that it is a difficult question because I will tell you personally it's a lot more difficult to pick out your child's casket and headstone."

There were 11 guns in the house where John Price died. In the bedroom where Emilee Randall died, there were two other weapons. A friend of mine once asked a relative whether he had any guns in his house where her children were sleeping over; he had 19.

As Matthew Randall spends tomorrow -- his 14th birthday -- in a cell and his parents suffer through hell, Levi Allen's parents can kiss him goodnight and thank God that he quite literally dodged a bullet on Jan. 13. But there will be other parents who may be frantically performing CPR on a dying child because this will happen again.

My heart breaks for Craig and Marilee Randall, for everyone involved with this tragedy -- and especially for a 10-year-old girl who will never attend her prom, graduate or marry.

Ask whether there's a gun before you let your children play at other homes.

Please -- your child could be next.

Heidi Yewman is vice president of the Clark County chapter of the Million Mom March. For information on Washington CeaseFire's ASK (Asking Saves Kids) program, go to www.washingtonceasefire.org

[goldstategop]

Heidi Yewman and the gun banner ilk like her never stress the importance of personal responsibility. Sure there are people who are careless with guns and tragedies happen around them and then again there are people who know the rewards of gun ownership and store and use them responsibly and teach their children how to behave around guns. Yewman seems to think banning guns will keep death at bay even though we're all going to die one day. Life has enough hardships that now we're informed we need to be deprived for our good from the means to protect ourselves and our loved ones. Its one more obstacle to the enjoyment of life every American can do without and our message to Yewman and her cohorts in the anti-gun movement is: "Keep your hands off our guns!!!"

[Highest Authority]

The anti-gun crowd will never learn! WARNING: although S&W is no longer directly owned by Brits, and they no longer keep data on buyers, they do (as per Mass. law) make "ballistic fingerprints" and file them with the serial number! The battle is NOT over!!!!!!!

[riverrunner]

A 13 year old should know very well not to point a gun at some one esle. I do not consider pointing a gun at some one else and pulling the trigger accident. As with all anit's they go far to blameing the gun and not hte person using it.

[FrankR]

I used to cringe when an elder started telling "how it was" in the "good old days", but now that I'm well past 50, I not only find my self doing the same thing, but also understand why they did it to me. Growing up, everybody over age 13-14, had a gun. Usually it was a shotgun, or a .22 rifle, but they had a gun, nevertheless. The difference was, it never crossed our minds to shoot another person. These guns were for squirrel/rabbit hunting, or plinking tin cans down at the dump. Our fathers, or some grown up, usually gave us the basics of gun safety, and we listened. I can't remember an instance of any child getting shot playing with a gun...or of any child shooting another child. Maybe - as has been said a thousand times - we should quit focusing on the gun, and start finding out why Junior has the tendency and desire to shoot someone. I could be the TV, or video games...or maybe just the lack of basic principles about the value and sanctity of life. I am a firm believer the reason war - except the Civil War - has never stained our soil, and we have not been invaded, is that the population is known to be armed. Every rag-tag nation knows that even if they did manage to overcome the government and the military, they would still have to take on the citizens. That's why the founders gave us the rights to bear arms, to protect ourselves from a tyrannical government - foreign or domestic. All those anti-gun wusses and anti-war protesters out there will be running to us for protection should the worse ever happen. They are only brave, when they are perfectly safe.

[broadsword]

I hope no one gets too mad reading this crap. It's not even worth the emotion. That artical was pure unadultrated propaganda. There was no logic or argument at all, only emotional apeal.I guess you really can't expect much more from the MMM, or any other anti-gun group. This artical would never really convince any one of any thing, only further brain wash the anti-freedom sheeple.

My favoret is the "I respect the second amendment, but..." statement. Most meople don't relize that in this context the "but" nagates every thing that procceded it. This statment is just as logical as "I'm as stright as an arrow, but I only have sex with other men."

Also in that statment notice how she tries to convince us that the second amendment and the fourth amendment somehow contradict each other.

Taring this one apart is like shooting fish in a barrel

[CtBigPat]

OK-we have teenagers who are a few years away from being able to drive a car but DON'T Know how to safely handle a gun!?! First Grade: Always assume a gun is loaded, don't point it anything you don't want to shoot, keep your finger off the trigger until you'r ready shoot and if you find a gun tell an adult. Also no matter how tough you think you are you are not tougher than a steel blade or a lead bullet. WHATS THE PROBLEM!

[Mulder]

bang

[Rytwyng]

Every rag-tag nation knows that even if they did manage to overcome the government and the military, they would still have to take on the citizens.

"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass" -- Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Japanese Fleet Commander, 1941.

[supercat]

Although S&W is no longer directly owned by Brits, and they no longer keep data on buyers, they do (as per Mass. law) make "ballistic fingerprints" and file them with the serial number!

So? That doesn't provide any means of tracking a gun to a particular person that the feds don't already have; S&W probably thinks it's cheaper and easier to get the useless ballistic samples for all guns than it is to only do it for those to be sold in Maryland.