Six injured by shotgun blast at Florida shooting range.

Courtesy of WKMG-TV: 

A family of five and another teenager were hurt after an accidental shooting Saturday at an Ocala shooting range, the Marion County Sheriff's Office said. 

It happened at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Forest Road 88 Shooting Range on Northeast 31st Street. 

Deputies said a 21-year-old man was loading an antique shotgun when it accidentally discharged into the concrete floor. 

The shotgun pellets ricocheted and hit six people. Deputies said a family of five were hit -- two men and three children ages 8, 10 and 14. 

A 15-year-old child who is not related to the family was also hit, deputies said.

Gee so many armed people there and not one of their guns kept these people safe?

The NRA keeps talking about guns as if they are magical talismans that keep people free from harm simply by having one on their person.

I guess not.

Shooting ranges linked to lead poisoning. Well THIS explains a lot.

Courtesy of The Seattle Times:  

Thousands of people, including workers, shooters and their family members, have been contaminated at shooting ranges due to poor ventilation and contact with lead-coated surfaces, a Seattle Times investigation has found. 

Those most at risk are employees who work around firearms, unknowingly inhaling lead-tinged dust and fumes as they instruct customers and clean shooting ranges of spent ammunition. Lead exposure can cause an array of health problems — from nausea and fatigue to organ damage, mental impairment and even death. 

Even those who’ve never stepped inside a gun range have become sick. Employees have carried lead residue into their homes on their skin, clothes, shoes and work gear, inadvertently contaminating family members, including children, who are the most vulnerable to lead’s debilitating health effects. 

For the public, shooting firearms is the most common way of getting lead poisoning outside of work, according to national statistics.

"Nausea, fatigue, organ damage, mental impairment, death," damn that exercising of your 2nd Amendment rights can really take a toll on a fella.

Kind of makes you wonder if the lunacy of the pro-gun folks is due to their overwhelming fetish for guns, or simply the result of too much lead in their systems. Or maybe a combination of both.

Well I'll tell you one thing, it certainly puts some of these accidental shootings into perspective.

Kind of hard to control a weapon when you have lost the feeling in your arms and hands.

The 2nd Amendment keeps gun owners so safe that two of them were robbed leaving two different gun ranges.

Courtesy of NBC Philadelphia:

Police are asking for the public's help tracking down the second suspect responsible for robbing gun range customers of at least nine weapons and shooting a 67-year-old man. 

Authorities identified the missing robber as 27-year-old Jeffrey Chandler. 

Officials say Chandler, who stands 5-feet 10-inches tall and weighs about 200 pounds, has numerous tattoos on both arms. The most distinctive tattoo is the word - "Stretch" - located on his right hand, they say. 

Investigators say Chandler fired the shot that wounded one of the victims.

Chandler's female accomplice surrendered to authorities after seeing that her face showed up on video surveillance tapes. However Chandler remains on the run, and is considered now heavily armed and dangerous. 

Besides the 67 year old, they also robbed a second man as he left a second gun range:

They robbed a 68-year-old man at gunpoint outside Yury's at 544 N. Percy St. around 6:40 p.m. June 11, emptying the victim's pockets and taking off with his backpack, which contained two .22 caliber handguns, according to authorities.

So to be clear these two managed to steal nine weapons from two different armed citizens that they can now use to murder or rob anybody whom they choose.

Yep thank goodness that 2nd Amendment exists to keep people safe from crime, right?

P.S. That kind of reminds me of a conversation I had years ago with a local cop who told me that many burglaries were targeted toward homes that were known to have a large number of weapons on the premises, because guns are incredibly easy to sell once stolen.

Which means instead of an arsenal protecting a homeowner from crime, it actually made them a more desirable target.

New Iowa law may allow a child of any age to possess a handgun.

Courtesy of Des Moines Register:

Language allowing children of any age to possess a handgun could be added to one of the final bills up for consideration in Iowa's 2014 legislative session. 

State Rep. Clel Baudler, R-Greenfield, has offered an amendment to the so-called "standings" bill striking wording currently in state law that allows only minors 14 years and older to possess and shoot handguns with adult supervision. 

The change would mean a child of any age could, for example, shoot a pistol or revolver at a shooting range so long as they were supervised by a parent or guardian or a shooting instructor with parental consent. 

A standalone bill with similar language was introduced earlier this year, but failed to advance. The standings bill contains several appropriations – including billions of dollars in funding for K-12 schools – but frequently is the target of numerous amendments on unrelated matters in the final days of the sessions as lawmakers are looking to tie up loose ends and adjourn. 

Baudler's amendment is at least partially inspired by the Gibson family of Johnston. Nathan Gibson has been taking his 8- and 10-year-old daughters to the shooting range and on hunting trips for years, but was turned away earlier this month when the gunsmith alerted him and his 8-year-old of the law. 

Iowa Gun Owners, an advocacy group, has highlighted the Gibson family in an effort to get the law changed.

There is NO way that this can seem like a good idea to any reasonable parent. I mean where is the mother?

I don't have a problem with teaching your children to shoot, but just like learning about where babies some from, there is an appropriate age to start that educational process.

Click the link at the top and take a look at the Des Moines Register video. Then tell me if it doesn't make you gasp just a little.

All I could see as a parent while watching it was at least a hundred and one things that could go wrong. If I were the insurance company covering this shooting range I would make it very clear that there were to be no small children on the premises, or it would be cancelled or the premiums would go through the roof. Law or no law.