You Can Bet They Won’t Advertise This as Widely as the 80-Year-Old Grandmother Who Shot a Burglar
A man in Michigan apparently knew so little about gun safety that he somehow let his eight-year-old son walk off unsupervised with a handgun.
The unsurprising tragedy: the eight-year-old shot his 6-year-old sister in the abdomen. She is now in critical condition.
The twist: the father and owner of the weapon is an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
This causes me to question something I had always taken for granted. I had always heard and had never questioned the claim that, whatever the NRA’s stance is on gun control or legally-mandated safety training, the NRA’s own gun safety standards are top-notch. Now, of course, this one guy does not represent all of the NRA, and he might well be a well-qualified gun safety instructor; for all we know, a different adult left the weapon out in the open.
Still, it makes me wonder: are the NRA safety standards as high as they are supposed to be? Or are they just as shoddy as the NRA’s logical standards when it comes to debating various gun facts?
Oh, their standards are quite good. They’re common sense, of course- never leave a gun loaded, always keep it pointed in a safe direction, keep it unaccessable to unauthorized people (like kids)…
The problem isn’t the standards. The problem is the people who don’t follow them.
Look at it this way. The United States military has excellent standards to safeguard nuclear bombs. They accidentally loaded one onto an aircraft and flew it halfway across the nation a month or three ago.
Problem wasn’t the standards; the problem was the people in the process. Same thing with this moron and the gun.