The NRA now pushes guns on people like drug dealers push heroin.
Since the massacre at Columbine, I've feared for my children at school. After the Virginia Tech massacre, I feared for my son when he went to college. My daughter - no, make that my lovely and precious daughter - is seventeen and a senior in high school and I still feel afraid for her. Tonight she's out on a double date with her boyfriend, and with her best friend and her boyfriend. They're going bowling, and I know this isn't rational, but I'm worried about her going there, being out in public, exposed to the whims of my fellow armed citizens.
However, my fear is not entirely irrational. Because, if we have learned anything, it is that no place in our country is safe from gun violence. Not a church or a temple. Not a shopping mall or a supermarket parking lot. Not a movie theater and probably not a bowling alley. For many Americans, not even walking down the street is safe. This is the country we have allowed to come into existence. This is our America in 2012. Like a bad movie it just keeps repeating itself.
Many of us have allowed our love of guns to trump our good common sense. Many others, out of fear for their political careers, or an unwillingness to speak up and rock the boat, or maybe just sheer indifference, allowed the National Rifle Association, an organization once primarily dedicated to promoting gun safety for hunters, to become a political monster in our midst. A monster that kills without any remorse for its victims.
The NRA now pushes guns on people like drug dealers push heroin. They tell us that more guns in more places is the solution to our national problem with deadly gun violence. They, with their allies at the Koch brothers funded conservative political organization, ALEC, have seen to it that laws have been passed that promote gun use, such as the "Stand Your Ground" laws. The same type of law such as the one in in Florida, which has been shown to reduce the number of cases prosecutors bring for homicide and resulted in defendants going free in 70% of the cases where that law was raised as a defense.
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the rest:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/12/14/201537/19
= new reply since forum marked as read
But the greatest danger to teens is unintentional injury.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db37.htm
