Loaded guns + round chambered + safety off =
[Tipton] drove up to the service bay around 9:30 a.m. local time and went to take a duffel bag out of his trunk. There were two guns in the bag and one of them fired, striking Tipton in the stomach.
Guns kill people. Unsafe gun designs boost the body count.
Tipton wasn’t a bad guy, doesn’t seem to have been under the influence, wasn’t playing around with the weapon, and wasn’t even touching the gun. The fact that the gun fired indicates that its design is unsafe for consumer use.
Gun nuts (a category distinct from gun users, gun collectors, etc.) will say that Tipton is to blame, not the gun, for a number of reasons. The idea behind product-safety is that, because “a number of reasons” is a near-constant feature of the environment for consumer products, products need to be designed to make it far more difficult for stupid mistakes and common misfortune to result in harm.
There is a right to bear arms in the Constitution. There is no right to sell excessively dangerous products. Exploit the gap.
Human + gun = high risk of death
The fact that the gun fired indicates it was stowed in a duffel bag with a round chambered and the safety off.
The definition of tragedy, dying by one’s own moronic negligence.
+ safer gun design =
Just think how safe he was from the world up until that gun went off.
Well, I’m sorry his family and friends are grieving for him now. But, as others have noted already, why the hell wasn’t the safety on? Didn’t the gun have a safety mechanism? Shouldn’t the default for guns to be “on” safety mode until the user pushes or clicks it “off?” – I mean, doesn’t that make more sense than these random “accidents?”
Did you know that a gun can’t actually fire unless someone puts a bullet into it?
Apparently this guy didn’t.
LOL (sorry). Yeah, I knew that little tidbit, too. It makes no sense (to me) to put a loaded gun in a dufflebag you’re carrying around – and you’re not an actual LEO who needs it available at a second’s notice. Not loading the damn thing is the best safety mechanism there is. That said, even those guns designed for “blanks” can sometimes be deadly. Actors who’ve used them have been killed by the “blank” cartridge when the gun malfunctions. Remember the dude Jon-Erik Hexum? – That’s how he died, a cartridge was “shot” out of the gun when he was practicing a scene. These things are bandied about as toys in our society.
I believe that moronic negligence very rarely merits a death penalty. I find such a penalty especially objectionable when it occurs with such capriciousness as to sometimes fall on a bystander guilty of nothing but proximity.
I consider it moronic negligence to have 300 guns in our society, every one in the possession of an imperfect human, and not try to make the guns more resistant to accidental discharge.
There’s no reason for anyone other than someone in the military or law enforcement to have a pistol. Period.
The way to make these weapons safer is to melt them down for scrap metal.
Depends on the weapon. Most revolvers, for example, don’t have a safety switch. Alternatively, some safeties one semi-automatics aren’t a selector switch, but a button that need to be depressed (think of the safety cut-off on a power drill, as an example). As a result, it’s not impossible for something to have ended up putting pressure on that button and then having it stick. It’s not something you see happen often, but all manners of mechanical failures do happen in firearms.
This is why it’s important to never take your guns for granted. Handguns should always be in a case, or at the very least, in a covered holster to prevent anything from fouling the mechanisms. And they should always, always, always be kept unloaded until you’re ready to fire.
I still remember Jon-Eric Hexum dying. He was actually playing with a gun loaded with blanks. He put it to his head and pulled the trigger and became an organ donor.
Thank you for that info. Having you around during these discussions is cool. I learn a lot from you about guns. Thank you.
Thank you – yes, now I remember he was sort of just fooling around, but he thought it was safe to do so, I guess? Even with blanks, they still give off quite a bit of pressure, I presume. Yeah, I really liked him, he had that show where he and that kid (I forget here, so …) traveled around, etc. I also had a bit of a crush on him, which, I guess, is why it still sticks in my head. At least others were able to live better lives due to his donations.
Some people prefer it to the other substitutes
Hand guns shouldn’t only be treated with care; it should be remembered they are machines purpose-built for killing people. Why we choose to surround ourselves with them in this country is perplexing, to say the least.
Oh wait, I remember. It’s because we’re going to fight off the gubmint with them - pea shooters versus A-10 Warthogs, AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, and M1 Abrams tanks, in alphabetical murder order.
Yes, there is such a right. But “bear arms” means to perform military service. It does not mean walking around “packing heat.”
There’s a difference. A huge difference. Unfortunately for all of us, Scalia chose to ignore it.
This is an endless source of puzzlement to me. What, in god’s name, are these people so afraid of? And do they not understand that the risks of owning one are many, many times greater than the chances that it will save you somehow?
Stepped out of my garage one recent night, and damn near walked into a very large black bear. I’m thinking of keeping a pointed stick by the door. 
Quite the “originalist,” wasn’t he? Half the words in the Second Amendment are just a flourish, just “filler.” Who knew that the framers were being paid by the word?