It could also be argued that this is another death caused not only by a firearm, but by the gun lunatic fetish culture that makes a firearm something to show off to other people as a fetish object of power. This is all part of the same old, same old, tired monolog from the gun loons:
"I'm safe, trust me! I know what I'm doing! LOOK, I'm exercising my 2nd Amendment Rights! No, really, I know what I'm doing! Hey, why don't you trust me? I don't have a fetish relationship with my gun. It just makes me more powerful so I can shoot bad guys, but don't worry, I will only use my power for good, and to kill goblins and bad guys! Whoooo hoo look at me with my gun! NO NO, it's ok, I'm HIGHLY trained, and I only do things that are safe, and I'm in complete control of my firearm at all times, no really! Why don't you trust me? I KNOW what I'm doing, I DO! I DO!..... ~ BANG!"
Yup, I bet he was perfectly safe with guns and never harmed another innocent person.......right up until he blew his brains out to impress someone in a bar.
How many gun deaths are we up to now for the first week of 2012? How many FEWER per capita deaths are there in other countries without so many guns and stricter regulation , in contrast? We'll have to wait for those numbersto be counted.
From MSNBC.com and the news services:
Cops: Navy SEAL accidentally shoots self in head
By msnbc.com staff and news servicesSAN DIEGO -- A 22-year-old Navy SEAL was on life support Friday after he accidentally shot himself in the head while showing off a pistol to a woman he met at a bar, police said.
San Diego Police Officer Frank Cali told U-T San Diego officers were called to a home in Pacific Beach about 2 a.m. Thursday on a report that a man had shot himself in the head while playing with a gun.
Cali says the man was showing guns to a woman he'd met earlier at a bar and put a pistol he believed was unloaded to his head. Cali says he then pulled the trigger.
A Navy spokesman confirmed to U-T San Diego that the sailor had completed SEAL training last week and was assigned to a West Coast-based team.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the shooting, a Navy spokesman told the San Diego newspaper.
Commodore Collin P. Green, commander of Naval Special Warfare Group One, released a statement saying, “On behalf of the entire Naval Special Warfare community, we are deeply saddened by this unfortunate incident and extend both our hearts and prayers to our teammate’s family during this very difficult time.”
This post includes reporting from msnbc.com staff and The Associated Press.
This was a terrible incident, but this was avoidable, and the simplest way it could have been avoided was by the victim being less cocky about his skills and assumptions about safety. Those of us who oppose the prevalence of guns and gun violence do so because these are tragic, and preventable, and because neither firearms nor the violence tha results from them makes ANY of us more free, or safer.