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The Guardian reports that the woman who was accidentally shot dead by her two-year-old son in an Idaho Walmart is described by those who knew her as a gun lover, a motivated academic and a successful nuclear research scientist who worked for Battelle’s Idaho National Laboratory and wrote several papers there including one on using glass ceramic to store nuclear waste (PDF). Rutledge was raised in north-east Idaho and always excelled at school, former high school classmate Kathleen Phelps said, recalling her as “extremely smart. … valedictorian of our class, very motivated and the smartest person I know. … Getting good grades was always very important to her.”
Veronica Rutledge and her husband loved everything about guns. They practiced at shooting ranges. They hunted. And both of them, relatives and friends say, had permits to carry concealed firearms. “They are painting Veronica as irresponsible, and that is not the case,” says Terry Rutledge, her husband’s father. “… I brought my son up around guns, and he has extensive experience shooting it. And Veronica had had hand gun classes; they’re both licensed to carry, and this wasn’t just some purse she had thrown her gun into.” Many locals don't discern anything odd with a 29-year-old woman carrying a loaded gun into a Wal-Mart during the holiday season. “It’s pretty common around here,” says Stu Miller. “A lot of people carry loaded guns.” More than 85,000 people, 7 percent of Idaho's population, are licensed to carry concealed weapons (PDF), “In Idaho, we don’t have to worry about a lot of crime and things like that,” says Sheri Sandow. “And to see someone with a gun isn’t bizarre. [Veronica] wasn’t carrying a gun because she felt unsafe. She was carrying a gun because she was raised around guns. This was just a horrible accident.”
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03 2015, @01:34AM
> So yeah I would probably feel safer there with a gun if I lived there.
You should consider the fact that gun suicides outnumber gun homicides nearly 2-to-1. [vocativ.com] It is easy to say, "I would never get that depressed" but (a) mental disease is not voluntary and (b) it is even more difficult to be sure of the mental health of the people we live with.
Also, the violent crime rate is way, way, way down over the last 20 years. [chicagotribune.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by n1 on Saturday January 03 2015, @02:01AM
No arguments at all, especially about depression. It has affected me and several members of my family, if I had easy access to guns a few years ago I probably would have taken the 'easy way out'.
The statistics say violent crime is down, I don't have an opinion on it really. The crime fearing population say those statistics are lies and manipulated, I put this down to the media fear mongers. Additionally, the government of the day also has a strong incentive to make sure those figures head downward during their term in office.
Also I would like to put emphasis on the "feel" part of my statement, being safer is almost irrelevant to ones own perception. Same as with the above violent crime statistics, there being much lower rates of violent crime than there was 20 years ago does not stop large numbers of people being more scared now than they were then.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tftp on Saturday January 03 2015, @02:54AM
Don't know how it is in other countries, but the US Constitution does not task the Government with protecting citizens from self-inflicted harm. It would be incompatible with the notion of personal freedom. Part of that freedom is the freedom of exit on your own terms.
It all depends on how you count. Many assaults are not reported, as it is obvious to everyone involved that the guilty won't be found; and even if found, there won't be enough evidence to convict. I can agree that mafia with their Tommy guns is history, and that was time of violent crimes. But those were crimes against other mafia groups, not against an innocent citizen. Now we have bored teenagers who entertain themselves with knocking you out - and that directly impacts, so to say, the innocent citizen. Numerically the count of dead bodies may be lower, but the count of broken bones and cerebral contusions and humiliation is growing. Note also that for each pedestrian assaulted we have 1,000 pedestrians that are in fear of becoming a victim.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03 2015, @04:32AM
> US Constitution does not task the Government with protecting citizens from self-inflicted harm.
How is that relevant to the question of whether or not it is a good idea to keep a gun in the house?
> Now we have bored teenagers who entertain themselves with knocking you out
A couple of incidents that may or may not have a lot more context to them is statistical noise shouldn't be very compelling.
I recently read an article postulating that conservatives value mythos (stories) while liberals value logos (facts) and that's why neither finds the other group sensible. While nothing about people is ever 100% I see your post as an excellent example of that principle - in your mind anecdotal stories about kids playing the "knockout game" are more credible than 30+ years of reasonably consistent collection of nationwide crime statistics.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Saturday January 03 2015, @04:58AM
Stories about crime that is unfolding here and now and that you can see with your own eyes are always more pertinent than 30+ years of statistical data that is interpreted for you by people unknown by, for example, averaging crime across densely populated inner cities and large, lightly populated rural properties. Even if statisticians tell you that the street in front of your house is perfectly safe, on average, you should be wary if a bunch of very suspicious people are gathering up there right now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03 2015, @05:20AM
And how many cases of teenagers "playing the knock-out game" have you witnessed with your own eyes?
Oh yeah, none.
In fact, your entire knowledge of it is through an interpretation by people unknown.
I find your mis-characterization oddly satisfying, proof that facts indeed do not matter to your narrative, just story-telling.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by tftp on Saturday January 03 2015, @05:40AM
Why none? Far more than that. And you can witness them too, on YouTube, in CCTV and personal records, and draw your own conclusions. Perhaps the trend will eventually fade, but so far "the game" is "played." It's easy to identify - it's an unprovoked, often unexpected assault that has no other purpose. Such signature - an attack just to prove your prowess - has not been seen since Japanese warriors ceased to test their new swords on live people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03 2015, @05:52AM
> And you can witness them too, on YouTube, in CCTV and personal records,
What's a "personal record?"
And how do you know the videos on youtube aren't "interpreted by people unknown?" That they aren't staged? All I found was fakes and local news segments long on hype and low on analysis.
Its oddly satisfying that your scepticism is reserved for people who are part of a system of accountability as imperfect as it may be, but not for random anons posting to youtube.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday January 03 2015, @06:52PM
Perhaps I should have been clearer. I meant privately performed video recording, as opposed to CCTV that is usually operated by businesses and governments.
I take what I see for what I see. If I see an assault, I think it is an assault - not a staged performance. Especially in CCTV records, where "the actors" would have no way to know what is recorded and how to get to it. Combine it with words of witnesses and with police reports, and the picture becomes pretty consistent. It is certainly more believable than a country-wide practical joke that includes the actors, the victims, the doctors, the police, and the media.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday January 03 2015, @07:53AM
Tell about those statistics to Christopher Lane [abc.net.au]
Maybe you don't believe it was about "playing a game"? Well? [abc.net.au]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04 2015, @01:00PM
(1) Shooting people isn't part of the "knockout game."
(2) Why is that anecdote more meaningful than the anecdote about this woman?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday January 04 2015, @10:35PM
Anecdote [wikipedia.org] - an anecdote is a short and amusing but serious account, which may depict a real/fake incident or character.
(I fail to see where's the "amusing" bit in the two cases, to consider them a proper Wikipedia anecdote)
anecdote [merriam-webster.com] - a brief account of something interesting that happened especially to one personally
(well, at least the two stories qualify as "interesting". But, whatever floats your boat, if you prefer statistics to real life incidents which may tell you something)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03 2015, @04:44AM
the count of dead bodies may be lower, but the count of broken bones and cerebral contusions and humiliation is growing.
Those crimes stats aren't just for murders. They are about all forms of violent crime, rates of assault are down even more than the murder rate.
(Score: 1) by DNied on Saturday January 03 2015, @04:24PM
And that's why the US Government never declared any silly "War on drugs". Hmm...
(Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday January 03 2015, @05:25PM
whenever i see somebody who's pro-gun but anti-drug, i always use their exact same, word-for-word pro-gun arguments back to them as pro-drug arguments. its fun to watch them quickly tear apart their own points as to why guns should be legal. they never, ever have a justification as to why guns should be ok but not drugs, except for bullshit like, "oh well that's different", meaning it always boils down to the bullshit, "guns are ok because I say so".
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday January 03 2015, @08:31PM
I would have set up street kiosks with heroin-loaded syringes. Anyone who hears a short lecture about suicide by drugs and signs on a dotted line will be given a dose for free. Darwin will take care of the rest.
Elsewhere on SN I also proposed setting up a secure area (a city block, or a small town) for use of drugs. Anyone can come in, but he can leave only after the drugs' effect wears off. Drugs are available inside, along with modern "opium houses" for their use.
The modern society is obsessed with value of human life - but that is valid only if the human in question also values his own life and life of others. If he does not - well, humans are nowhere close to extinction. The society will probably manage without drug users. Treatment has to be offered, of course. But the decision has to belong to the person in question. We may lose a few geniuses this way, but the society will be far healthier.
(Score: 1) by DNied on Sunday January 04 2015, @09:38AM
That's almost all kind of fine and dandy, but - back to the point - my counterexample was meant to show you how "not being tasked by the constitution" and "being against personal freedom" are two factors that never prevented the US gov't from doing things.
Sooo... You probably can't use those factors as convincing arguments for why the gov't never restricted weapons. There must be something else...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04 2015, @01:02PM
Its a version of the no true scotsman fallacy.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Sunday January 04 2015, @04:55PM
Yes, there is. It's called physical inability, so far, to violate 2A without massive repercussions. Not to say that they aren't trying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03 2015, @04:50AM
> Also I would like to put emphasis on the "feel" part of my statement, being safer is almost irrelevant to ones own perception.
That's true, but it is not a good way to make decisions. The same mechanism is behind all kinds of other bad decisions like anti-vaxxers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03 2015, @02:04AM
suicides are irrelevant; if someone wants to kill themselves they will use whatever tool is available
the drop in violent crime stats likely correlates more closely with the increase in police powers and government overreach, and are probably fudged in any case
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03 2015, @04:37AM
> suicides are irrelevant; if someone wants to kill themselves they will use whatever tool is available
No, that has been proven to be a false characterization. They may indeed try to kill themselves, but literally all other forms of suicide take much more preparation and are much less final. A gunshot is one and done. Pills, hanging, co2 suffocation, jumping off a building, suicide-by-cop, they all have higher survival rates and give the person more opportunity to change their mind.
They've also found that suicide survivors tend not to try again in for at least the following six months. If it were a case of being determined to kill themselves, that would not be true.
(Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Saturday January 03 2015, @02:18AM
Leaving the gun stuff aside, I'd like to point out that not all people who kill themselves are depressed. Many are making a logical choice based on medical issues, pain, or expected loss of faculties.
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 2) by fnj on Saturday January 03 2015, @03:49AM
These particular individuals ending their lives due to medical issues are not actually "killing themselves". They are choosing the manner and time of their death, which is altogether different. And by extension, choosing not to undergo loss of faculties is much the same. A life which has descended into profound dementia is not really a life at all. I'm not talking about when you forget where your car keys are. I'm talking about you don't have the faintest idea who that person is who says they are your spouse or child.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Magic Oddball on Saturday January 03 2015, @06:46PM
That's the case if their disorder/disease is terminal and they're entering the end-stage where medicine's ability to alleviate suffering tends to fail.
The problem is, that's very rarely the case for suicidal people with serious medical problems. Speaking both from a lot of research and experience**, the vast majority of cases involve a person with traits like these:
-- disability that is likely permanent
-- frequently disabling pain levels that are undertreated
-- currently or recently being abused
-- social isolation
-- very poor with no reason to think it will improve
-- feelings of guilt for needing assistance
Unfortunately, 'normal' people see a major medical condition, and assume it's automatically "logical" to be suicidal -- but when the same patient doesn't have those other factors in place, the depression invariably either is absent or becomes fully treatable. It makes sense, too: if you remove the "disability" line, all of the others are well-known factors for depression in anybody.
If you stop and think about it, it's really saying something that out of all the countries that have considered legalizing euthanasia, none of them had the support of their country's disability rights movement. With very rare exceptions, the people in favor of it have invariably been healthy individuals that assume living with serious medical conditions (including dementia) is a living nightmare, when the people that are actually in that situation (like me) rarely become depressed without the same external causes that affect 'normal' people.
As a side note about dementia: the vast majority of them continue enjoying life and doing as much as they can as long as they're living somewhere that they're well cared-for. A lot of our impression of dementia/Alzheimer's is based on what it looks like when the person has been 'warehoused' in a nursing home with little-to-no interaction aside from family visiting. It's the family that 'suffers' from watching the person change as their memory & cognitive abilities fade; committing suicide when they have their full faculties, though, would mean dying long before the 'good times' would end and traumatizing the hell out of their loved ones anyway.
**I'm the sort of person you likely figure should be "logically" suicidal: internal defects galore [wikipedia.org], a herniated brain [wikipedia.org], and oldschool autism. None of that made me suicidal; what did was suddenly finding myself in constant intolerable body/head pain that were undertreated, social isolation, and being convinced I was a worthless burden on others by my then-boyfriend. Once I got on an antidepressant, dumped his ass, and was given proper pain management, I was OK again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03 2015, @08:28PM
> individuals ending their lives... are not actually "killing themselves"
???
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03 2015, @04:41AM
Sure, but that's in the noise. Especially with gunshots. Most people who kevorkian do it with pills because they've spent a long time coming to the decision and then planning it out and aren't so selfish as not to care about the trauma suffered by the people who find their body.