Only in America: Ammunition Wastage
So America consumes the most oil in the world. They pollute the most in the world. And probably get the most in their super-sized meal for the dollar in the world. So here's this week's round up of silly stories about uneccessary deaths for reasons only obvious to the gun-totting redneck that will appear as "ammo waste" in these financially difficult times.
Story #1:
A 3-year-old California girl accidentally shot and killed her two year old brother after finding a pistol under her parents' bed.
Police said the children's mother was in another part of the apartment when the shooting took place Wednesday, and their father was at work. The boy, who was shot with a .45-calibre semi-automatic handgun, was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
According to the US centres for disease control, American children 14 or younger are nine times more likely to die in a gun accident than children in Britain and 24 other industrialised nations combined. In 2006, at least 32 American children three years old or younger were killed with firearms, according to the agency.
And the NRA wonder why activists want to take their precious guns away after Columbine. Yes, your constitution allows you to bear arms. It's too bad it didn't stipulate that you had to have an IQ high enough to think twice about leaving a loaded gun lying in places accessible to children. A responsible arms bearer never points a weapon at a person, even when unloaded. They also never leave a bullet in the chamber during storage. There's no disimilarity to knife crime statistics; your chances of getting stabbed are higher when you carry a knife yourself. If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword, like they say. Too bad in this case, their toddler paid the price, and his sister will possibly live with that self-inflicted guilt the rest of her life.
Only in America.
Story #2 (news video available):
LENOIR, N.C. -- The Caldwell County Sheriff's Office and state agents are investigating after five people were shot, one fatally, Wednesday night.
The shooting began around 11 p.m. at two homes on Grandin Road near Blue Creek Road in an area called Kings Creek, north of Lenoir.
Officials say it started as an argument when one man’s dog killed his neighbor’s cat. The neighbor then shot the dog, prompting the dog’s owner to shoot his 50-year-old neighbor and the neighbor’s 8-year-old daughter. They are in fair and good condition, respectively.
If there was any headline in the British newspaper that I would pick out instinctively as being American, it would be "Dog kills cat. Cat owner kills dog. Dog owner shoots cat owner and 8-yr old daughter. Cops arrive and kill dog owner." OK, so I can't summarise news into catchy 5-word headlines like the BBC but still, only in America.
Story #3:
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Oklahoma City pharmacist who shot and killed a 16-year-old would-be robber has been charged with first-degree murder.
Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater said Wednesday that 57-year-old Jerome Ersland was justified in shooting Antwun Parker once in the head on May 19. But Prater says Ersland went too far when he shot Parker five more times in the abdomen while Parker lay unconscious on the floor.
Ersland's attorney — Irven Box — says Ersland was protecting himself and two women inside the pharmacy.
Prater showed a security video in which two men burst into the pharmacy and one being shot. Ersland is seen chasing the second man outside before returning, walking past Parker to get a second gun then going back to Parker and opening fire.
Hmm, the headline at first seems like a morally justified albeit controversial killing; a pharmacist shooting some robbers to protect two female customers. The article does not report if the robbers were armed with guns. At least one of them was only 16 years old. Still, we can set aside doubt and sympathy, and assume these two men presented danger and intent to harm their lives, and still it makes my stomach churn when the fate of a kid already shot in the head is confirmed by 5 more 9mm rounds into the abdomen. The 5 bullets that pushed a man across a fine line between hero and zero is enough to push any debate around American gun culture to something that transcends gun control.
Michael Moore once tried to hunt down this answer in his documentary Bowling for Columbine. I believe the answer was, only in America.
Update (30 May 09): In other news, an European uses a swan (yes, a live swan) as a weapon.
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