guns in the home

For the second time this week, and from completely separate sources, I read that, statistically, a gun is a greater risk to family and friends than it is protection as self-defense.

Ummm, so just how stupid is my brother (and his wife): Two years ago, I didn't know the above statistics, but I did know that a teenage boy who commits suicide is predominately more likely to shoot himself with a gun that he obtains from his own home. For that reason alone, I told Chad and Alisha, I would make sure no gun was in the house while there was a kid in the house. They, in usual "pendidiotic" style, argued that they needed a gun to shoot anyone they thought was trying to break in to their house. I mentioned to them the fact that they live in a development with thousands of houses that all pretty much look the same, so that the risk of a neighbor's late-night visitor knocking on the wrong door was pretty high, and why not just give the burglar what they want--was any material possession worth the risk of injury to your children or of facing murder charges? They insisted that they knew how to handle a gun. A year later, on Father's Day even, they fought and ratcheted each other up until Alisha got out the loaded pistol, Chad wrestled it from her, and the witnessing teenage son screamed for help. Yeah, so I guess they know how to handle a gun.

By the way, the loaded pistol was in a shoebox, well within reach of the climbing three year old.

And, a couple of months ago, a guy living close to here shot a young man who was knocking on the man's door to get help for his car that had broken down in front of the man's house. The kid is dead, and the neighbor's homicide trial is already well underway. The kid was shot in the back, his body falling on the walkway, half-way back to the street.