In the run-up to the Newtown anniversary, the gun-banners are reveling in the opportunity to display their assumed moral superiority in their struggle to stay relevant. Expect to see sympathetic stories like the following across the major media outlets:
http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_24690216/oakland-after-his-sons-fatal-accident-man-fights
It's a tragedy that Mr. Dix's son was shot and killed by a friend who was playing with a pistol he thought was unloaded. But, it's also a logical fallacy to think that a loaded chamber indicator would have changed the killer's behavior. If the killer wasn't taught the NRA's gun safety rules, or didn't apply them, then it's extremely doubtful that a small flip-up or chamber cut-out would have changed the outcome of this tragic event.
Even without the requirement for loaded chamber indicators, magazine disconnects, and all the other "common sense safety features" the gun banners would like to impose on free America, accidental gun deaths are at historic lows. According to the very source the article quotes to justify Mr. Dix's quest, the Centers for Disease Control, unintentional firearm deaths are at all-time lows:
Also, interestingly, I can't get the "1,900 children […] accidentally killed with a firearm" from their claimed source. Even if I generously define a child as anyone from birth to 19 years old, I only get 1,515:
If you apply a more typical age range for what we consider "children," from birth to 14 years old, the number falls to 619 over the eight-year period. Each and every one of them tragic, but a small fraction in comparison with car accidents (21,085) or drowning (7,425). (I'm still waiting for the sympathetic stories calling for the bans on allowing children to travel by car, or live in houses with swimming pools.)
The gun-banners lie all the time—never trust a number from the gun-banners! I thought that major media was supposed to be better than simple bloggers because of the "layers and layers" of editorial oversight, but apparently they can't even be bothered to fact-check some simple data that's freely available via the Internet.
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