[barmar]

mikeh, on 2013-May-02, 10:49, said:

Maybe I am out to lunch on this but isn't the very idea of using pink to market to girls a form of sexism?

I knew someone would say that.

If you only sold pink guns to girls, that would be sexism. Each girl (and boy) should have the right to buy what they want. But if girls tend to prefer pink, it would be bad business not to sell them. It would also be sexist, because it would be making it harder for girls to get what they like, if done intentionally (there could be other reasons, such as not having the resources to make so many different types of guns).

[diana_eva]

mikeh, on 2013-May-02, 10:49, said:

Maybe I am out to lunch on this but isn't the very idea of using pink to market to girls a form of sexism?

Yes, it's very common. It's a less odious but still integral part of a culture that has 3 and 4 year old girls entering pageants in which they are wearing makeup, heels and so on.

Anyway, the company is not marketing to little children: it is marketing to the parents of little children, and it is no better, morally, than marketing cigarettes or whisky for consumption by infants.

I can't express an informed opinion on parents buying guns or companies selling guns for children as this is simply unheard of around here. I'm pretty sure there are hundreds of habits here that would seem equally criminal and dangerous for an American.

About using pink to market to girls, before I had my twin girls I was determined to never make my girls wear pink or influence them into becoming little barbies. But as they grew up they strongly loved pink and dolls and fashion, without being exposed to such clothes or practices in the family. I came to accept that little girls just love pink even if we do not encourage them to it at all (and even if we tried to talk them out of it ).

[jjbrr]

Also, someone else wrote this better than I could.

Parents giving their offspring the tools to eliminate themselves is some sort of expert meta-natural selection, right? This should be given some sort of advanced level 2 Darwin Award nomination, though admittedly there is no humor to be had from it.

[dwar0123]

jjbrr, on 2013-May-02, 11:11, said:

Also, someone else wrote this better than I could.

Parents giving their offspring the tools to eliminate themselves is some sort of expert meta-natural selection, right? This should be given some sort of advanced level 2 Darwin Award nomination, though admittedly there is no humor to be had from it.

So rather than removing yourself from the gene pool, you effectively accomplish the same thing by causing your children to remove themselves?

The coward's Darwin reward.

[barmar]

From http://www.childrens...-about-guns.pdf

Quote

A gun in the home increases the risk of homicide, suicide, and accidental death.
Contrary to what many people believe, having a gun in your home doesn’t make you safer but
instead endangers you and your loved ones. A gun in the home makes the likelihood of homicide
three times higher,
suicide three to five times higher,
and accidental death four times higher.
For every time a gun in the home injures or kills in self-defense, there are 11 completed and
attempted gun suicides, seven criminal assaults and homicides with a gun, and four unintentional
shooting deaths or injuries.

You could say that many of these are due to stupid practices by the gun owners (the paragraph after the above says that 40% of gun-owning homes with children store the guns unlocked). But that stupidity isn't going to change, so ignoring it is just putting on blinders (see the "Dividing Line" thread). You don't make laws based on how you would like people to behave, you have to make laws that reflect how people actually behave.

If you have a swimming pool in your backyard, and it's not surrounded by a high enough fence, or the gate isn't properly secured, you can be found guilty of negligent manslaughter (or something like that, IANAL) if a child wanders in and drowns. We have laws regarding swimming pools because we recognize the danger, and know from tragic history that people will not always take their own initiative to make them safe. Surely guns deserve more scrutiny.

The framers may indeed have intended the 2nd Amendment the way blackshoe describes it. But they lived in a very different society. Many part of the Constitution have withstood the test of time, so they were quite wise. But we've made a few dozen amendments since then -- they didn't get everything right. As someone else posted, nothing in the Constitution is sacred, they're all subject to review. Whatever justification they had for at two centuries ago, they mostly don't apply in the 21st century.

[ArtK78]

Any argument in favor of the parents' right to purchase a gun for their five-year old son or in favor of the gun company specifically marketing guns for young children is just abhorrent. I don't want to hear anything about the parents' rights or the company's rights. What about the little girl's rights?

This nonsense has got to come to an end.

This result is about as foreseeable as the dropping of a hammer on to a normal pane of glass resulting in the shattering of the pane of glass.

[kenberg]

diana_eva, on 2013-May-02, 11:10, said:

I can't express an informed opinion on parents buying guns or companies selling guns for children as this is simply unheard of around here. I'm pretty sure there are hundreds of habits here that would seem equally criminal and dangerous for an American.

About using pink to market to girls, before I had my twin girls I was determined to never make my girls wear pink or influence them into becoming little barbies. But as they grew up they strongly loved pink and dolls and fashion, without being exposed to such clothes or practices in the family. I came to accept that little girls just love pink even if we do not encourage them to it at all (and even if we tried to talk them out of it ).

When my first granddaughter had her first birthday (a while back, she is not a junior in college) I bought her a ball and a doll. The ball sat in a corner, the doll got much attention. Going further back to when her mother, aka my daughter, was very young. I was a grad student, money was very tight, and most of her dresses were made at home. When she was about three,, I took her out and bought her a pretty dress from a store. I think she still remembers the dress. In the other direction, when my grandson, now a math nerd in middle school, was three or four he could spot a truck, and especially any truck that was moving dirt or engaging in any other construction activity, from blocks away.

I am very much in favor of kids being introduced to varied activities without getting worked up whether the activity is traditionally male or female. But some of these preferences seem to be hardwired.


But nothing is all one way. My younger daughter was the acknowledged top snake catcher in the neighborhood, much better than any of the boys. And she was absolutely fearless on roller coasters. Much better than her father.

[PassedOut]

barmar, on 2013-May-02, 11:02, said:

If you only sold pink guns to girls, that would be sexism. Each girl (and boy) should have the right to buy what they want. But if girls tend to prefer pink, it would be bad business not to sell them.

I remember my maternal grandmother being horrified that my mom dressed her girls in pink and her boys in blue, feeling that this was the precise opposite of the "correct" assignments. My mom, of course, considered her mom to be old-fashioned in that respect (and in others).

I found a lot of links on this subject in this vein: Have Pink and Blue Always Been Considered Gender-Specific Colors?

Quote

There is evidence that this practice was not always common or always done throughout much of Europe or America. There are pictures of numerous male babies wearing pink jumpers in the Victorian and Edwardian era. In fact, many suggest that the colors at one time were reversed, with pink being considered more masculine. It is certainly true that blue, especially dark blue was associated with the Virgin Mary in Christian Europe. Painters often mixed lapis lazuli into paints to depict what was considered the most sacred feminine icon.

Most people who study the matter attribute the pink and blue gender assignment to the 1950s, which featured a virtual color explosion, not only in clothing, but also in things like appliances and furniture. Dressing children in colors to specifically denote gender suggested the rising middle class and above. In other words, people who could afford to make the gender assignment did so, since many infants appear somewhat asexual when first born.

Interesting how easily and quickly children absorb what the culture prescribes for them. My sons did the same.

[blackshoe]

jjbrr, on 2013-May-02, 10:21, said:

What a disgusting article. The parents absolutely should be held responsible for the murder of their 2 year old daughter.

IANAL, but I don't think what happened was murder. Negligent homicide, probably.

[blackshoe]

Trinidad, on 2013-May-02, 10:45, said:

You are kidding right?

Nope.

[dwar0123]

blackshoe, on 2013-May-02, 16:17, said:

IANAL, but I don't think what happened was murder. Negligent homicide, probably.

Did a google search for legal definition of murder

First result
http://legal-diction...nary.com/Murder

"The unlawful killing of another human being without justification or excuse."

Intent is not required. Reading more of the definition supports this interpretation.

Negligent homicide can be murder, though probably not in this case tbh.

[barmar]

PassedOut, on 2013-May-02, 16:02, said:

Interesting how easily and quickly children absorb what the culture prescribes for them. My sons did the same.

While colors may be influenced heavily by style and culture, things like playing with dolls versus trucks are probably more innate. In almost all human cultures, throughout history, women have primarily taken care of the children; in hunter-gatherer societies, men were and are the hunters, women the gatherers.

[y66]

ArtK78, on 2013-May-02, 11:32, said:

I don't want to hear anything about the parents' rights or the company's rights. What about the little girl's rights?

Good question.

[ArtK78]

dwar0123, on 2013-May-02, 16:35, said:

Did a google search for legal definition of murder

First result
http://legal-diction...nary.com/Murder

"The unlawful killing of another human being without justification or excuse."

Intent is not required. Reading more of the definition supports this interpretation.

Negligent homicide can be murder, though probably not in this case tbh.

I don't know where you get your information (other than the source cited), but murder, as far as I know, is the intentional (as opposed to accidental or unintentional) unlawful killing of another human being without justification or excuse. Intent is an absolute requirement for a charge of murder.

From Wikipedia:

Quote

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide (such asmanslaughter).

"Malice aforethought" (otherwise known as premeditation) would turn a killing (however otherwise classified) into a murder. And any premeditation, no matter how brief, is equivalent to intent.

[barmar]

ArtK78, on 2013-May-02, 22:16, said:

I don't know where you get your information (other than the source cited), but murder, as far as I know, is the intentional (as opposed to accidental or unintentional) unlawful killing of another human being without justification or excuse. Intent is an absolute requirement for a charge of murder.

Despite the name, it's not actually a dictionary used by the legal profession. It's just a category of the freedictionary.com web site, which also has medical and financial sections; it just means that this is the section that contains words relevant to legal issues.

Quote

"Malice aforethought" (otherwise known as premeditation) would turn a killing (however otherwise classified) into a murder. And any premeditation, no matter how brief, is equivalent to intent.

If you actually read the article he linked to (it's more like a small encyclopedia entry, not a dictionary definition), it goes into details like this, but explains that it's not so cut and dry, and many jurisdictions have refined it (e.g. California has the notion of "implied malice"). And here's an example they give that may be relevant to this thread:

Quote

A person who unintentionally causes the death of another person also may be charged with murder under the depraved-heart theory. Depraved-heart murder refers to a killing that results from gross negligence. For example, suppose that a man is practicing shooting his gun in his backyard, located in a suburban area. If the man accidentally shoots and kills someone, he can be charged with murder under the depraved-heart theory, if gross Negligence is proven.

In Turner v. State, 796 So. 2d 998 (Miss. 2001), the defendant, Jimmy Ray Turner, was convicted of the murder of his wife. The couple had contemplated Divorce, but had apparently reconciled. After their reconciliation, they went together to the defendant's parents' house to return a borrowed shotgun. As they walked to the parents' house, the defendant, who testified that he did not think the shotgun was loaded, demonstrated to his wife how he carried the gun with his fingers on the trigger and walked with his arms swinging. His wife stopped suddenly, bumping into the defendant. The shotgun fired, killing the wife. Although the defendant was not charged with premeditated murder, he was indicted and convicted of depraved-heart murder due to his gross negligence in handling the shotgun.

I suspect that the extra level of indirection through the 5-year-old child may protect the parents in this case from being charged similarly. But they should still be liable for something serious, I think. The consequences of letting a 5-year-old play with a gun are not unpredictable.

[ArtK78]

The California law that you cite and the Mississippi case are anomalies.Typically, laws like California's "implied malice" law are reactions to a case in which a terrible crime cannot get the penalty that the populace believes it warrants because the law will not permit it.

While I am not familiar with California's "implied malice" law, and it is not even within my area of expertise, just from your presentation of it it sounds like a stupid law.

[blackshoe]

ArtK78, on 2013-May-03, 11:41, said:

it sounds like a stupid law.

There's a lot of that going around.

[billw55]

This is bizarre. We have laws prohibiting the direct marketing of alcohol and tobacco to minors. But not guns? Gosh.

Obvious gross negligence by the parents. To me this is on par with the fundies who kill their kids with faith healing (a.k.a. refusing to get medical help). Those parents are charged criminally - these ones should be too.

[Vampyr]

billw55, on 2013-May-03, 14:59, said:

Those parents are charged criminally - these ones should be too.

I am curious about what charge/sentence the boy will be given.

[dwar0123]

Vampyr, on 2013-May-03, 16:40, said:

I am curious about what charge/sentence the boy will be given.

I am curious, do you ask because you think he should be, or do you ask because you think we as a country would charge him?