Another day's "tragic accidents"

[seamusTX]

I agree that the term assault weapon was probably chosen for the criminal overtones of the word assault.

However, the word assault was originally a military term. An assault of a military target could be morally defensible (as in the D-Day assault, which began 65 years ago today) or not.

The term assault rifle comes from the German Sturmgewehr, which was an automatic carbine along the lines of the AK-47 or M-14. In this capacity, assault rifle has a legitimate meaning.

You can search for these terms on the web. Millions of words have been written about them and widely plagiarized.

- Jim

[WildBill]

The whole concept of the use of the word "assault" to refer to guns is to give the connotation that these guns are only used in the commission of a crime, or to impart a passive criminal intent to the owners of such guns. Your pappy's Remington 700 is a hunting rifle, your gandma's S&W .38 is a self-defense gun, but your AR15 clearly makes you a potential criminal because it's an "assault rifle".

I think it goes further than that. I have always thought that term "assault" was in the context of a military assault rather than assault and battery. Most, if not all, of these "assault weapons" have a military heritage that were designed for superior firepower, in magazine capacity, bullet velocity and firing speed. Government agencies including law enforcement, the military, border patrol, ATF, and the FBI don't want to be outgunned by enemy soldiers, criminals, terrorists or anyone else. So, only government agencies should be allowed to have "assault weapons." That's my two cents.

[mr.72]

excellent points.

Of course we all know the whole point of the 2nd Amendment is to allow that regular citizens are not outgunned by the government.

[seamusTX]

i agree that that was the purpose of the 2nd amendment. Unfortunately, it has not been true since 1935.

I missed this case, which also happend last weekend:

EDMONDSON, AR - A Mid-South grandmother could face jail time after her 6 year-old grandson was shot and seriously injured with her gun. Investigators in Crittenden County, Arkansas say the little boy's 9 year-old brother pulled the trigger.

The shooting happened Sunday, May 31, 2009 in the tiny town of Edmondson, Arkansas about 30 miles outside Memphis. Three days later, on Wednesday, the Crittenden County Sheriff's Department arrested 60 year-old Fannie Waterford and charged her with child endangerment, a class D Felony charge....

The little boy had surgery at Lebonheur and is expected to make a full recovery. Investigators say his older brother will not face any charges.

The weapon was a .22 rifle.

http://www.myeyewitnessnews.com/news/lo ... 1jMwA.cspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- Jim

[A-R]

Well, I am not offended, but I am a cop, not a lawyer. I do understand what you mean by the meanings of words, and I agree that in many cases, it is very important to be precise. Some of my pet peeves include the improper use of terms that do have specific meanings (I really hate hearing about houses being robbed).

And I can understand how this could grate on someone's nerves if they believe the two terms are so different as for one to be incorrect. I do not agree that the two terms are so different, because negligent assigns blame but it clearly also says there was no intent. Maybe because of my background, but I think most people do not connote a lack of blame with the term accident. Too many people will apologize after saying something was an accident for this to be true. Anyone who has been driving for more than the past ten years also understands that all accidents are still caused by negligence.

But even if I am wrong (and I am somewhat surprised that the two thesaurus entries did not include each other based on how far out they usually get), there is also another factor to consider.

Communication is the key. In a courtroom, I would never say a house was robbed, I would use the proper term burglarized. But we are not in a forum that requires precise terms. Here, communication is complete when both the reader and the poster understand the concept being transmitted. And we all do understand this, no matter which term is used. So, if we both understand what is being said, why insist on the proper term so much? In a class room situation, definitely do so. In a courtroom, do so. But when friends are just talking,we all misuse terms or have different terms for the same thing. As long as we understand each other, we can just let the term stand.

Fair enough, Steve. Seems we're close enough to just agree to disagree on the minor details. And you're right that we all know what we mean when we say "accidental discharge". I'm just a former copy editor with a fetish for precise language (and a strong desire to instill proper gun safety thought processes)

And now that I know you're a cop and not a lawyer, my respect for you just went up exponentially

(tongue in cheek, of course, and no offense intended to Charles and other lawyers on the forum - I come from a family of lawyers)

[A-R]

If someone hits another person over the head with a rock, isn't that an assault weapon?

Getting quite off-topic for this particular thread... I don't know the history of the term "assault weapon" or "assault rifle" but I can only assume that it is applied to distinguish weapons that are not either intended for hunting or target use. I am curious to know exactly what the history is, however. However, the term "assault" is in fact a technical, legal term used to describe a criminal act. So it is quite incorrect to refer to what I would call defensive arms as "assault weapons".

You are right, Jim. if I assault you using a rock, then the rock is in fact my assault weapon. If I assault you using a 30/30 lever gun, then my trusty Marlin may become an "assault rifle". But if you go hunting hogs with an AK-47 then that is a "hunting rifle" and if I like to shoot targets with my Ruger LCP then that teeny gun becomes a "target pistol".

The whole concept of the use of the word "assault" to refer to guns is to give the connotation that these guns are only used in the commission of a crime, or to impart a passive criminal intent to the owners of such guns. Your pappy's Remington 700 is a hunting rifle, your gandma's S&W .38 is a self-defense gun, but your AR15 clearly makes you a potential criminal because it's an "assault rifle".

Well said - especially the part about "assault" only being used to connote criminal or aggressive intent of these weapons.

[A-R]

At the risk of offending folks, I think the people who feel the need to correct other folks on terms like negligent discharge or 9mm clip are mostly just trying to demonstrate a superiority.
An M16/ AR15 is a gun despite what your drill sergeant claims.
You are no less of a person if you fill Glock clip with 17 rounds.
I buy my WWW bullets at Wallyworld.
Shooting your mattress accidental discharge.
Redefining words to fit political correctness is just as nasty as Orwellian newspeak or leftist PC.
Even our rebellion against calling EBR "assault weapons" I think is a little silly, The initial design of an AR15 was as an assault weapon, it seems as though the leftist have backed us into a corner and made us defensive about owning such a gun. I don't care what the Brady's or the leftist think. and I don't see why we should let them dictate the language. Maybe if we could get the public to accept that assault weapons aren't so bad, we can get them to accept the notion that automatics aren't so bad either.

At any rate I don't see why we should modify our language to make others more comfortable with our words.

Liberty, no offense taken on my part. But my goals have nothing to do with "superiority" and certainly nothing to do with political correctness. As I stated earlier, I am a former copy editor with a fetish for precise language. But more importantly my own personal goal in using term "negligent" instead of "accidental" is simply to connote that there is (almost) always some fault, blame or human error when a gun goes bang unintentionally. I think this is an important mindset for gun owners to retain as it forces us to think about safety and be more careful ... e.g. "this gun will not fire unless I make it fire"

Being precise with language does not necessarily have to also carry the baggage of ulterior motives such as political correctness. For me, it is simply a strongly imbedded desire to say exactly what I mean. For the most part, I don't care what the Brady bunch thinks either - until their incorrect use of words starts to reflect badly on me or gun owners as a whole - at which point I will resist their use of incorrect language to paint gun owners in an unearned unfavorable light.

[Liberty]

Liberty, no offense taken on my part. But my goals have nothing to do with "superiority" and certainly nothing to do with political correctness. As I stated earlier, I am a former copy editor with a fetish for precise language. But more importantly my own personal goal in using term "negligent" instead of "accidental" is simply to connote that there is (almost) always some fault, blame or human error when a gun goes bang unintentionally. I think this is an important mindset for gun owners to retain as it forces us to think about safety and be more careful ... e.g. "this gun will not fire unless I make it fire"

Being precise with language does not necessarily have to also carry the baggage of ulterior motives such as political correctness. For me, it is simply a strongly imbedded desire to say exactly what I mean. For the most part, I don't care what the Brady bunch thinks either - until their incorrect use of words starts to reflect badly on me or gun owners as a whole - at which point I will resist their use of incorrect language to paint gun owners in an unearned unfavorable light.

I wasn't really reffering to your posts, or anything said in this thread but rather when folks on forums make a big deal out of the terminology, such as when a newby posts about clips and such. Discussions and input that we are having on this thread have no such overtones and is pretty interesting.

There are various levels of accidents, and sometimes reasonable people who are normally pretty careful have accidents, while almost all accidents have a certain level of negligence involved once, using the term negligent puts an accusatory tone to the post. I would like to learn from such incidents rather than point fingers. Those who have been involved with accident prevention and investigation understand this. I have seen here how some will jump on an AD and I wonder how many people here wouldn't explain the events that happened if they had one. Would we be denied learning from this experience?

[Gheist]

I just pulled out every dictionary we have here and several online ones.

Every definition I found states in one way or another that Accidents usually can be prevented.

"2 a: an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignoranc"

"It implies a generally negative probabilistic outcome which may have been avoided or prevented had circumstances leading up to the accident been recognized, and acted upon, prior to its occurrence."

The terms accident and negligence are not mutually exclusive. Just because it is and accident doesn't mean it is not negligence.

Yes I think each of these circumstances were preventable and probably negligent.

[DoubleJ]

I am in the medical field and have worked in a nursing department in a hospital. Both nursing cases you cite are negligent by your own definition. The nurse or nurses aide failed to check on the fall risk patient and they also failed to check the ID of the patient they gave the wrong meds. Also, failing to ensure the gun was empty is the cause of both of those scenarios.

Both nursing failures could be pursued legally and so could the discharge of the weapon. The one in which a hole in your mattress was the result a charge of discharging a weapon within city limits could be filed. I think this is correct. Anyone?

intent. that's the difference.

[Gyrogearhead]

If the hole was in my mattress I'd do like Geraldene and claim "The Devil made me do it!!"

[seamusTX]

This is for a two-day period earlier this week:

Fairfax, Virginia, Tuesday -- A 23-year-old man was fatally shot in "a home." (The story is unclear about whose home it was.)

Police are treating the incident as an accident pending further investigation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... =sec-metro" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

East Point, Georgia, Wednesday -- A 14-year-old boy fatally shot a 12-year-old friend with a shotgun in the older boy's home. His family was outside.

Police are treating the incident as an accident.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/ ... _shot.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Buffalo, New York, Wednesday -- A retired corrections officer accidentally shot himself in the thigh at a shooting range when he holstered his pistol with the safety off.

He was treated and released.

http://www.buffalonews.com/437/story/722447.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Jacksonville, North Carolina, Wednesday -- A 21-year-old Marine was arrested and charged with murder after he shot a friend. The two men were reportedly playing a game that involved pointing a handgun at each other.

North Carolina law states that a person does not have to intend the consequences of their actions to be accountable for them. N.C. General Statute 14-17 states that the "commission of an inherently dangerous act in a reckless and wanton manner" constitutes a required element of malice needed to charge an individual with murder.

http://www.jdnews.com/news/wednesday-65 ... night.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- Jim