Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Opuscula

Ending epidemic
Of children killing
Children by “accident”

ACCORDING TO AN UNRELIABLE source (tv “news”), about 3,000 — three THOUSAND — children are injured or killed each year in the U.S. by firearms.

Some of these children were murdered; they were in the wrong place at the wrong time or they had something someone wanted — a gold chain, a pair of expen$ive sneakers, or they angered someone who had access to a gun.

The death of a 13 year-old girl, allegedly at the hands of her brother and his friends, was the latest local victim.

According to tv “news” reports, the boys found and were “playing with” a gun. The report failed to mention the type weapon — pistol, rifle, shotgun, etc. — or the caliber/gauge.

How the boys got the weapon is the question now before both law enforcement and the dead girl’s parents.

Florida law is specific — and to the point — regarding firearm storage.

    790.174

    Safe storage of firearms required.

     (1) A person who stores or leaves, on a premise under his or her control, a loaded firearm, as defined in s. 790.001, and who knows or reasonably should know that a minor is likely to gain access to the firearm without the lawful permission of the minor’s parent or the person having charge of the minor, or without the supervision required by law, shall keep the firearm in a securely locked box or container or in a location which a reasonable person would believe to be secure or shall secure it with a trigger lock, except when the person is carrying the firearm on his or her body or within such close proximity thereto that he or she can retrieve and use it as easily and quickly as if he or she carried it on his or her body.

     (2) It is a misdemeanor of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083, if a person violates subsection (1) by failing to store or leave a firearm in the required manner and as a result thereof a minor gains access to the firearm, without the lawful permission of the minor’s parent or the person having charge of the minor, and possesses or exhibits it, without the supervision required by law:

     (a) In a public place; or

     (b) In a rude, careless, angry, or threatening manner in violation of s. 790.10.

    This subsection does not apply if the minor obtains the firearm as a result of an unlawful entry by any person.

    (3) As used in this act, the term “minor” means any person under the age of 16. (Emphasis added.)

When my grandchildren moved within frequent visiting distance, and — to be honest — at my daughter’s urging, I bought a small gun safe. I have seen my two-year-old grandsons climb and grab things they ought not touch. Putting the weapon “high and out-of-sight” may have sounded like a solution before I saw the boys in action, but I now realize it was foolish.

So I bought a gun safe with an electronic combination lock.

It’s relatively small — only 0.26 ft3, but it’s big enough to hold my revolver and #1 son’s police issue semi-auto with room to spare for ammo and passports and other “stuff.” It cost less than $60. I could have bought a smaller version — 0.12 ft3 — for a tad more than $45, both from a local retailer. There are less expensive gun safes for handguns — the place where I bought my safe offers a “1-Gun Key Lock Portable Handgun Safe” for less than $20.

Gun safes for rifles and shotguns are another matter and can range in cost from around $200 for a simple key-lock safe to several thousands for sophisticated, almost burglar proof electronic lock multiple gun safes.

Let’s consider that someone owns a rifle or shotgun — or several rifles and shotguns — but can’t/won’t afford a long gun gun safe.

Trigger locks are an option and can be found for less than $6 — some even come packaged three locks that share the same key. There are trigger locks for most guns.

While Florida law allows leaving an UNLOADED firearm where a minor can get to it, common sense tells us that if there’s a gun, there more than likely is ammunition for that gun someplace nearby. Unloaded guns kill more people accidently than “loaded” guns, so Florida’s law has a gaping loophole.

What to do? Simple: Lock up the ammunition. Preferably secured by a combination lock. Move the ammunition to a location far from the gun.

THE PROBLEM

An unloaded gun is about useless during a “home invasion.” A loaded gun is dangerous with minors in the house.

SOLUTION OPTION

Keep a loaded weapon in a gun safe with a combination lock in the bedroom — this assumes that a burglar will conveniently break in while you are in the bedroom. Combo locks eliminate the need to search for, and insert a key into the lock … in the dark.

When the children are old enough teach them gun safety and to shoot. This scrivener fired his first gun –- a single-shot .22 rifle — at age 6, and under strict supervision.

A QUESTION

Why do so many children shoot others “accidently”?

Blame it on movies on tv, on videos, etc.

Kids see people get shot and, even if they die, in the next movie the actor — real or cartoon — is alive to fight again. In “war” movies, the good guys always win; the bad guys die. That’s not the case in real life.

We are a people who have no concept of how that piece of meat got to the supermarket — no idea what goes on at an abattoir — we have become a people removed from the realities of violent death.

Somehow — and I offer no suggestions on “how,” — we must be made to realize that death is final; there is no tomorrow for the victim.



PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Opuscula

How not to write
A How not to write
Article on the WWW

Just followed a link from Advisen FPN, an excellent source for Enterprise Risk Management practitioners, and continued to a link from the first article to another titled 11 Silly Words in Your Twitter Profile That Make You Look Like a Complete Tool

I don’t tweet, nor do I have a Facebook account or any other “social media” interest. (I am a LinkedIn dropout.)

IN ANY EVENT, the author of the article, Gene Marks, president of The Marks Group, opened his 11-word list thusly:

    1. “Sherpa.”

    I had to look this word up to find out what it means and I’m pretty sure it means “a guide on mushrooms.” Sorry, you are not a “guide.” You are not a visionary. You’re just a dude on mushrooms. And you’re as blind as the rest of us. Sherpa is a word that Bono would probably use in a conversation. So here’s some very valuable advice: in order to avoid looking like a complete and utter tool, don’t ever use a word in your Twitter profile that Bono would use in a conversation.

I don’t know if the “Bono” he referenced refers to Paul David Hewson, a/k/a Bono of U2 fame, or the late Salvatore Phillip "Sonny" Bono of Sonny & Cher fame.

Being a former newspaper reporter and editor, and having read a few articles on Mount Everest, which the Sherpas climb, I suspected that Mark’s crack that a Sherpa is “a guide on mushrooms” was less than accurate. Where, I wondered, did he “look up” the definition of Sherpa? (Read on to learn where this scrivener found the real definitions for Sherpa.)

Do mushrooms – psychedelic or otherwise — even grow on Mount Everest?

Having an Edward Bear curiosity, I did a web search for “Sherpa.” The search immediately provided a fair sampling of Sherpa definitions:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherpa_people; www.dictionary.com/browse/sherpa; https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Sherpa; www.cnn.com/2015/11/11/health/sherpas-superhuman-mountaineers/; and even one for Sherpa garments

But none for Sherpas as guides on, or even for, mushrooms. Perhaps Marks was thinking of psychedelic mushrooms; something that, it seems to be, would be counter-productive for mountain climbing


Mark’s flippancy in his first list entry ended my reading; I killed the page at this point.

He MAY have had some good points about looking the fool on Twitter, but his attempt at being humorous on a blog fell flat. Perhaps had I been consuming “shrooms” I might have viewed his words differently.

The bottom lines are

    First: know your audience; that’s impossible writing for the web.

    Second: Unless you are a famous comedian, don’t try to be funny on a not funny subject. I consider making a fool of myself very UNfunny.

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.