Former Central Michigan and Indy Colts HB Zurlon Tipton deceased
http://www.indystar.com/story/sports/nfl/colts/2016/06/28/ex-colts-rb-z…
What a shame. I hope this doesn't start a political discussion about gun safety, but it probably will. This is just an unfortunate tragic accident above all else. Someone earlier in another thread said deaths come in threes... While Tipton certainly didn't have the impact Buddy Ryan or Pat Summitt did, he's still an athletic figure in a public light.
You tell me why he thinks its a political issue then UM Proud."I THINK HE MEANT"
Doesn't make this any less tragic, but what makes it worse is that this could've been avoided.
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...Keep them empty in a locked case.
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THIS time would be a good time for a poll on who likes that shade of maize?
Hated so much, yet so many other things are a greater threat to life. F cancer, f cigarettes, f reckless behavior that leads to the loss of life...
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Yes, because hating those things are mutually exclusive.
Aren't people fighting everything on this list?
People normally don't like death.
There is an organization or a group fighting almost all of these things. Or trying to make them safer. Does that mean something is less important because it doesn't happen as much?
So I should care less about diabetes because more people are affected by cancer?
Why shouldn't I care about EVERYTHING on this list?
This is so stupid to try to prove a point, I wish I could slap you for posting it.
And for the record, this has nothing to do with gun control...I don't know enough about it to have an opinion. But for someone to put up some meaningless chart to justify one bad thing over another bad thing is absolutely asinine.
So we shouldn't care about war because people don't die as much from war, lol. Got it. I'll tell that to the grieving mothers I know.
Death is death. Just because it happens less doesn't mean it's any less important.
FYI that chart is from data from England.
I suspect the US chart looks similar since there are a large number of health-related deaths, but figured you would like to understand given (1) the UK's strict gun laws, and (2) the audience of this blog primarly being US-based.
They are loyal beasts.
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to fix the transmission issue that killed that actor a week ago? I'd also be curious to know what gun it was he had. Many semiautos these days have safety mechanisms in them that make accidental discharges quite difficult unless you accidentally pull the trigger yourself and even then, with a double action trigger, that is still not easy to do by accident.
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If you own a gun and practice shooting and cleaning the weapon, the rules become ingrained. Gun rules are not hard to understand or remember. The problem is that there are some who do not have any common sense and do not obey the rules. While I read the article, it still doesn't explain how the gun went off. Was it a gun malfunction or did he actually pull the trigger by accident or even on purpose? We don't know because we have no idea what he was thinking at the time.
RIP to this young man and thoughts and prayers to his family.
I was a cop for 30 years and have seen incidents like this too often. I just want to repsond to a few comments made in relation to this topic.
Firstly with regard to training. Many gun owners have very little training with most having the bare minimum required by statute to obtain a firearm. Responsible firearms training goes beyond an initial Firearms Safety Course. Responsible firearms training is ongoing and requires practice. We carried semis with one round in the chamber and no safety on our pistol and yet "accidental discharges" were very rare. It's my belief that this was because we received extensive and ongoing training in firearms safety, manipulation, marksmanship and combat style shooting. This repeated practice and manipulation creates muscle memory which makes safe handling and shooting instinctive.
Secondly (probably because of the training) is that resposnible gun owners do not have nonchalant attitudes towards guns. Responsible gun owners know that guns kill. Responsible gun owners don't leave their guns in a purse on the table, or in a bag in the glove box or any place that kids can get to them.
Thirdly, just a few general points:
Guns don't just go off. They require an action whether deliberate or accidental.
If you carry a semi, keep the safety on and do not keep a round chambered. If you practice as suggested, chambering and taking the safety off takes less than two seconds.
Stay Safe
And don't forget internal safety features as Glock uses with their safety trigger. Double action triggers have to be pulled all the way to be fired and have a heavier pull. And not sure if noted, Tipton was arrested for firing a gun back in December. So this guy really didn't have any regard for gun safety at all.
Guns don't kill people, people kill people. I get that argument. But the same thing can be said about cars. And people get their licenses suspended for reckless usage or even just unpaid parking tickets. I'm not exactly sure where I fall on the whole gun issue, but why is it that the ability to carry guns can't be suspended when you do stuff like that? Is it a legal issue or is the problem that the legal system is not enforcing laws already on the books?
Owning a car is not a constitutional right. But being able to defend yourself and bare arms is. That's the 2nd Amendement.
There are tons of laws and regulations governing who can and can not own a gun. Some states, like CA are very strict and make you take a test and prove you know how to safely handle a gun at time of purchase.
And if you show you are reckless with a gun, then you'll be convicted and not be able to legally purchase a gun.
But let's look at cars. Cars are inherintely more dangerous than guns. People drive on suspended licesnes all the time as well.
You can't cure stupid. And this guy was stupid. He has a history of being stupid with guns as he was arrested in Dec for shooting a gun. He didn't deserve to die but his stupidity with guns put him in a greater position to harm himself and others. Thankfully he didn't hurt anyone else.
As for enforcing the laws. Don't get me started but yes, the laws are selectively enforced and not just for guns. If you want to know the grand hypcrocisy of it all, do some research on FAST AND FURIOUS in regards to guns (not the movie :P)
...who has purchased multiple firearms in this state, I assure you that the test to obtain a Firearms Safety Certificate here is so elementary as to be meaningless. Testing on under what circumstances a convict can obtain a firearm, or how old you need to be to purchase a handgun does virtually nothing to evaluate someones ability to safely carry and operate a firearm. The hands on demonstration is less than a minute, and I've seen individuals with no idea what they are doing be coached through it by someone behind the counter and walk out the door with the weapon.
There are laws governing this. The issue is enforcement of them.
And it will most likely try to erradicate all guns sooner rather than later.
Given the results of DC v. Heller that would be an extremely uphill legal battle.
Not that I put it past California...
"Cars are inherintely more dangerous than guns."
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I have zero interest in debating this on here, or getting into the nuances of the right to bear arms, and it is going to crossover into politics, but you might want to rethink that statement.
Motor vehicle traffic deaths
- Number of deaths: 33,804
- Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.7
All firearm deaths
- Number of deaths: 33,636
- Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.6
Taking in account ~2/3 of the firearm deaths are self inflicted (suicide), cars are more deadly to other people than guns.
But hey, don't let facts get in the way of your emotions.
As I said I don't want to debate this on here. We're never going to agree and it's going to cross over into politics.
The fact that you looked at total numbers to compare the two is mind-blowingly naive. The fact that you failed to account for volume or usage is mind-blowingly naive. The fact that you suggested that a weapon, whose sole purpose is to shoot a projectile intended to harm or damage a thing, is "inherently" more dangerous than a vehicle, whose intended purpose is transportation is mind-blowingly naive (and suggests you don't really understand the fact that something being "inherent" entails it being a permanent chracteristic, rather than say, a negative side effect... like an accident).
But, hey, don't let facts get in the way of your emotions.
...that your chances of dying by firearm are much higher if you own one.
I'm not leading a crusade to end gun ownership. I think from the initial facts this death was more about being responsible with gun ownership than it was about trying to restrict purcahses of a gun, or other proposed restricts (assault rifle ban, etc.). People in this thread have pointed that out (and I've agreed).
I just really dislike the use of statistics or the horribly simple analogies drawn between weapons and other forms of death in an attempt to justify it. There are better, stronger arguments to support gun ownership that are more based on logic and not skewing data.
If you want to have a rational conversation about gun control (I don't on here) and you suppport gun ownership start by acknowledging that there are issues with deaths associated with it instead of trying to marginalize it, you'll get a lot further if the other person wants to have that logical conversation.
Start with "cars are inherently more dangerous than guns" and you're not going to fare well. If you want to restate that statistic correctly, state "more people died in motor vehicle accidents (in 2013*) than in deaths by firearms."
*The data presented was for 2013, but I believe generally the number for motor vehicle accidents is higher on average.
There are 253,000,000 cars on the road in the US. There are more than 300,000,000 million guns in the country. Taking out suicides by gun, the data still points that cars are more inherently dangerous than gun. Once you get into a car and start driving, that car is a danger to anyone including yourself. But if you walk around with a gun on your side, that gun's chance of doing anyone harm is 0% as it is not being operated. We'll agree to disagree on this.
Oh, more people died due to fists, feet than guns. I'd argue appendages are more inherently dangerous than guns.
Similar to your holster comparison, if a car is sitting your garage, the chance of it doing harm is 0% as its not being operated.
I'll take your numbers for what they are - I'm not researching them because it's not really my point. Your argument essentially boils down to "cars are used more, therefore they cause more deaths." That is based on the statistically likelihood of an accident multiple by the amount of usage.
The amount of usage of cars on a regular basis vastly exceeds how much guns are used on a regular basis. That leads to a total number of vehicle fatalities that are higher than firearms fatalities. We don't disagree on that. We disagree on the significance of what that total number means. To me, it's nearly meaningless because I'm aware of the large volume of people driving (for longer periods of time too) on a daily basis compared to those using their firearms.
But here's the best part about all of that it is that it doesn't matter. We can make cars safer too! It's not as if saying "we should make cars safer" means that we can't make anything else safer. The same goes for guns.
You're right - we're not going to agree. You view "inherently dangerous" as what causes the total number of deaths regardless of volume, usage, or purpose. I look at what is the purpose of something along with the other data. Guns are meant to do damage. Cars have a negative effect of doing damage when accidents occur. Put another way - if you use a gun as intended, it SHOULD do damage. If you use a car as intended it SHOULD NOT do damage. You may not agree, but you need to factor that in when you're assessing the "inherent danger" of something. Because otherwise you get odd conclusions that suggest that nuclear weapons are "inherently less dangerous" than cars. After all, they've killed less people.
As for what is inherently more dangerous, well, the next time that our military raid a building with a Ford Fusion I'll let you know.
That people using cars number in the millions at any given time. Cars are used way more frequently than guns. At any given time, millions of cars are on the road. Are guns being used as often? No. Most guns are sitting collecting dust in a safe or holstered or somewhere and are not being used. Again, cars are more inherently dangerous than guns for the primary reason that they are used more often and for longer periods of time than guns. But again, don't let facts get in the way of your emotions on this subject.
If you look at all the different court cases over the years, there have been decisions handed down by the Supreme Court going back to the 1800s that have gone in both directions. And this will continue to be argued in courts.
Agress with you!
Yeah, sad story - but it sounds like he was not practicing safe gun ownership.
And he had a history of unsafe use of a gun. This was bound to happen.
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