Charles,
As you know, I read that over the weekend. Most tragic and shocking. The perp (the idiot that placed the gun in the sock) is clearly to blame. But you have a point about stupidity and laxity. Oh, I hope that person who placed the gun in the sock is found.

Cue the gun nuts!

Let me guess: Chicago will be at fault, somehow, and not the fucking gun.

It's the socks!

A competently designed firearm would not fire unintentionally. The laws which have been passed to indemnify gun manufacturers from all responsibility for their products have produced the side effect of stalling R&D into safer firearms. There simply is no reason why a child or untrained user should be able to fire a gun simply by picking it up and squeezing the trigger.

Something about this just doesn't smell right to me. Contrary to what most non-gun people think, guns really do not go off when they're dropped. I'm not buying it — somebody pulled the trigger and is trying to deny it now.

@6: and the utterly predictable excuse-making for firearm negligence has begun. yes, the thrift store sorter decided to take advantage of chancing upon a donated gun and kill his co-worker.

Occam's razor and all.

This happened several days ago, and there has been no follow up in local Chicago media. Probably won't be. Hard to track who donated which bag of clothes.

@6: Really? He didn't know what was in there. He dumped it into his hand. It's too much for you to believe that, say, the edge of the sock caught on the trigger?
Also, a quick check suggests that guns in fact CAN discharge when dropped. It's just very unlikely for modern firearms in good repair.
I wouldn't be surprised if the handgun's ballistics signature is a match for a bullet found at a crime scene. Bit of an odd way to dispose of a gun, but not out of the realm of possibility.

"The same people who insist that gun ownership must come with no responsibilities, no safety training, no checks, no sense of heaviness, no nothing."

Paul, can you name one of those people? Because otherwise you're beating on another straw man.

@8,

It's almost like law enforcement would benefit from a database that lets them track down the legal owner of that firearm.

@6 odd, my in-laws were discussing their next trip to Gun Camp (FrontSight in Vegas) last weekend. And they went on and on at length about how Glocks are discouraged, as are holsters with clips. Seems that Glocks are known for going off accidentally. Likewise holsters with clips (to secure the gun) are strictly prohibited as the holster clip can catch the trigger and cause an unintended discharge.

So it is certainly within reason that the gun's trigger did in fact, catch on the sock and cause an accidental discharge. Especially if it was a poor-quality cheap gun.

It's also possible the worked assumed it was a toy, and actually pulled the trigger assuming nothing would happen. A small .22 would appear toy-like to an unsuspecting person.

Guns alone may not kill people, but people with guns kill people. Flooding "the market" (society, the world we live in) with more guns increases the probability that a person will come into contact with a gun. Things like this inevitably happen when people come into contact with guns. The more people come into contact with guns, the more people will be injured or die -- by their own or another's hand. There are too many guns in America.

Who is to blame for this? The same people who insist that gun ownership must come with no responsibilities, no safety training, no checks, no sense of heaviness, no nothing.

Of course, Illinois (and Chicago) actually do require that gun purchasers get registered, submit to background checks (no history of mental illness, not an illegal immigrant, no police objection), and you have to get a special training course to have a concealed carry license for a loaded handgun.

This situation is cased by not following the law as much as a random psycho murdering someone on the street.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in…

Uh huh, or all those guns that somehow migrate north from the gun happy, regulation be damned Red States.

I don't know what's more shocking, that someone left a couple-hundred dollar handgun, with a round chambered, inside a bundle of donated clothes, or that a single .22 round managed to kill a person.
.22s are very low power, just one step above a pellet gun really, and are usually used for target shooting, since they can't really penetrate far into the body of anything much meatier than a bird.

@5 You are delusional thinking that any firearm that is supposed to be safe... is safe because it's supposed to be. There is no debate anymore about firearms in the hands of the non owner. The owner is responsible for the firearm.

@6

The gun should sue for libel!

Hey! How about a class action suit? All 50 million cheap piece of shit .22 pistols in America can sue to protect their sterling reputation as cheap pieces of shit that don't just go off when you drop them.

They don't! They. Just. Don't. Say that enough times and every member of your gun cult will believe it.

Of courses, if they NRA really believed that shit they wouldn't have asked for and gotten a law to protect them from getting sued for making piece of shit guns to sell to the dumbest fuckers in America.

@20,
Yeah, it's not like there's three fairly populous states (CA, NY, MA) in the US that require drop safety test and federal law prohibits importing of junk guns that have mechanisms that can discharge when dropped.
http://www.intertek.com/product-safety-t…

@10: I can. Wayne LaPierre.

@21, you should know by now that these people don't know what the fuck they're talking about when it comes to guns. They make up for it by being hysterical, though.

@21: State regulations regarding firearms don't mean jack. Why? Because if it's legal to own by anyone in any state, it can be transferred to anyone in any other state without any due diligence being done. It's as simple as go to a gun show (because non-licensed dealers don't need to perform background checks), take it back to your home state (because state borders are open borders), and do whatever the hell you want with it (because the gun lobby prevents the use of federal funding for any research on gun ownership or gun violence).
And while federal law DOES ban the importation of low-quality firearms, it does nothing about their DOMESTIC PRODUCTION. In fact, the Consumer Product Safety Act specifically EXEMPTS firearms and ammunition. Only seven states even bother to set safety standards for guns, and of them only three require a drop test.

@23: I do my research, especially when it's regarding a topic I'm not well-educated on. I can't speak for the follower of the Great Old Ones, but I do my research.

@24
"State regulations regarding firearms don't mean jack. Why? Because if it's legal to own by anyone in any state, it can be transferred to anyone in any other state without any due diligence being done."

While buying such a gun in a different state, under different laws, MAY be legal, it is an illegal act to take that gun into a different state where the laws prohibit ownership of such.

Therefore, you've just made the NRA's case that the problem is criminals.

@25: ...the point I just made is that because there is no actual oversight (because state borders are open borders, as they should be) it is impossible for states to actually enforce their laws.
If, hypothetically speaking, murder is illegal, but state law enforcement doesn't have the power/authority to investigate suspects, is the problem criminals or the way the law is written?

@26
No. The point you just made was that criminals break the laws.
Just as the NRA keeps saying.

People who are not criminals do not cross state lines to purchase a gun and illegally smuggle it back into their home state.

@27: That's a flagrant strawman. The point I ACTUALLY made is that the state has no possible way of enforcing their laws on the issue at present.
You still can't explain the facts.

@28
Learn what "straw man" means.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Your example required that a criminal cross state lines to engage in a criminal act.
Which is the point that the NRA keeps making.
Criminals break the laws.

And yes, I have explained that with the examples of Japan and England.

You believe that stalking someone is a rational response when disagreeing with them.
http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives…
"I promise to stop stalking you if you leave The SLOG and never return."

Wow. Three consecutive posts before F.U reprised his martyr act. That must be a record.

Of course he proves yet again that he's incapable of being honest during the interim, but that's who he is. You can't expect a leopard to change his spots, even when they spell "talking point-spouting coward" on one side and "hypocrite" on the other.