<p>If we believed in gun safety, we at least would enact laws that held adults liable if they fail to store guns safely.
Less than 20 states have these laws.
[Soldier</a> dad charged in 4 year old’s shooting death | abc11.com](<a href=“http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=9328427]Soldier”>http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=9328427)</p>
<p>Here is questionable behavior with a knife.</p>
<p>[Woman</a> that falsely accused Duke lacrosse players of rape found guilty of murder | FOX Sports on MSN](<a href=“FOX Sports News, Scores, Schedules, Odds, Shows, Streams & Videos | FOX Sports”>FOX Sports News, Scores, Schedules, Odds, Shows, Streams & Videos | FOX Sports)</p>
<p>Who didnt see that coming?</p>
<p>I think owning guns is a cultural phenomenon that depends on whether you were exposed to guns in your formative years. If you grew up with guns, it is more likely you will become a gun owner as an adult and even use them recreationally. It is probably why it is such an emotional issue for this segment of the population. </p>
<p>Many people in middle America probably feel the so-called urban elite want to continue enacting gun control laws until their guns are outlawed altogether. Until there is more trust on both sides, I don’t see any resolution of this issue.</p>
<p>3bm103, my weapons are always loaded and in a fingerprint accessible safe. For someone to break into my home, they have to ignore the security cameras, motion lights, ADT signs, and get through my security screen doors, then get through my deadbolt lock while my alarm is going off, and enter my home. Within 1 second of putting my finger on the electronic fingerprint scan, the door opens and I have access to my weapon.</p>
<p>Sounds like something out of a movie! I am curious…do you live in a high-crime area?</p>
<p>My suburban neighborhood is very safe and quiet. We have deers, coyotes and other wildlife that we see daily. But the city occasionally has home invasions that seem to occur in cycles. From time to time affecting affluent neighborhoods too.</p>
<p>Goldenpooch, you are absolutely correct about the regional differences concerning gun ownership. I grew up in the liberal NE and opposed guns throughout my life. I moved to the Midwest and thought these gun owners were lunatics. However, through the years I realized that my views on guns disregarded recreational and self defense usage. Over time, I found myself at odds with my liberal friends as it regarded to the second ammendment. I completely understand both sides of the debate having been on both sides.</p>
<p>That’s interesting. My dad always owned guns, and hunted, and I’ve never been either opposed to or in favor of guns in general. I just think that most people who are fanatical about their need to own one are foolish, and that gun ownership is probably largely inversely proportionate to mental suitability for same. That is, I think that the mental states which lead to bad outcomes involved with gun ownership - accidental shootings, suicides, harm to family, friends, neighbors and innocents, etc. - probably have a positive correlation with the mental state which leads people to want to own a gun.</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that no one should own a gun - hunters, cops, jewelry and convenience store operators are some obvious exceptions which come to mind - but most parents who bring guns into their homes are demonstrating a risk assessment which I find unimpressive.</p>
<p>Kluge, your assessment of most people who own guns would not go down well in rural America and in many other places where gun ownership is a way of life as old as the country. I suspect these people are familiar with your views and others like you, and that is the reason why they don’t want to compromise with people who view them in a such a demeaning way.</p>
<p>I grew up in Africa and my Dad hunted - not a huge amount, but we did get tired of chicken, goat or camel as the three choices. I’m in the northeast now and feel no need to have a gun, though there have been a few break-ins in our neighborhood. I know two people who have a gun in the house, though one of them has no bullets and probably doesn’t work. The other is a retired police officer.</p>
<p>Kluge and mathmom, I shared both of your sentiments for the first half of my life. You would be shocked at the gun owners of rural America. At the large gun shows in town, you will find a long entrance line (200+ deep) of men and women carrying their rifles, assault rifles and handguns in plain sight. I don’t think the rest of America truly understand how weapons are regarded culturally in these regions and why the GZ case resonated with these gun owners. These folks may appear to be crazy from the perspectives of gun control advocates, but I have learned that they are not crazy.</p>
<p>I’ve told my friends in the NE and California to drop their stereotypes and learn about the culture of these gun rights advocates. I am not trying to convert any of them, but to help them formulate an appropriate discussion and find solutions to our culture of violence. Telling a gun rights advocate that they don’t need a gun won’t accomplish anything. But engaging them in solutions to keep guns out of the hands of criminals will get their participation in something constructive.</p>
<p>I currently live in a state where the vast majority of people own guns, and very young teens regularly get them for christmas or birthday presents. It is not the culture I was raised in, so I observe closely. IMO gun ownership by responsible and prudent adults can be an effective and sometimes necessary means of self-defense. Whether GZ falls into this category is questionable after recent developments. But putting a gun in the hands of any adolescent seems to me to be lunacy. There is too much emotional turmoil during those years. Children of this age are just too unpredictable (friends and relatives of Philip Chism described him as a “storybook kid”). </p>
<p>As for me, I am just sticking to my canister of bear spray!</p>
<p>An excellent example of the cultural divide between the coastal urbanites and the people between the two coasts is the recall of two Colorado state representatives who voted for gun control legislation. Both candidates were resoundingly defeated despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars Mayor Bloomberg poured into the races. I am sure this didn’t play too well in these districts, a NYC mayor trying to force his version of gun control down their throats.</p>
<p>Everybody hates Zimmerman cause they don’t like guns. He didn’t do anything wrong and even saved some people that were trapped in a burning car. He got pulled over for speeding and that was it. The only people who don’t like guns live in cities and have gang and drug problems but most people use guns to hunt and shoot targets.</p>
<p>It is interesting how anti-gun folks pick on those people at gun shows and whatnot while nobody says anything about the hoodlums and thugs. Hmmm.</p>
<p>Kollegekid1, I will give you a different perspective. Many people of color hated GZ because he profiled a teenager who wasn’t committing a crime. In court, the profiling and subsequent shooting was justified by vilifying TM based upon his past. Many people of color identified personally with racial profiling. In addition, some believed that TM had every right to stand his ground and defend himself when he was confronted by a stranger who was following him around. Pretend that TM was a woman walking home alone at night and discovered a car following her home. She would probably be terrified when the driver stepped out to confront her. Unfortunately, GZ lived to tell his side of the story and TM’s side will never be heard. This only became an issue of gun control when GZ was released as a result of Florida’s self defense laws.</p>
<p>But now we have the opportunity to be critical of GZ’s behavior after he was released. He should be equally vilified for his present behavior as TM was vilified for his past. His guns should be taken away.</p>
<p>TM’s past did not come into the trial. At all. None of it.</p>
<p>And a woman likely would not have gone back and punched GZ in the nose. She would have gone into her home and locked the door. I agree with the rest of this, though.</p>
<p>I find the “culture” argument interesting. I didn’t identify any particular segment or region of the nation in my comments, and noted that gun ownership is reasonable for some people - including those who hunt. Yet respondents have keyed in on regional stereotypes - rural folk from the middle of the country vs. the effete snobs on the coasts - as being particularly relevant to the discussion. The thing is, there are very few people in America who are actually living that “life as old as the country” - less than 16% of the people in the country, per the Census Bureau.</p>
<p>So let’s be real, folks: we’re not talking about the Jones family who have lived on the old farmstead for the past 200 years when we’re talking about gun owners in America. We’re talking about people who live in urban and suburban areas - and, yes, most of them are within 200 miles of the Atlantic or Pacific (40% of Americans live in a county which is on one coast one or the other.) </p>
<p>
So who is doing the stereotyping here? Why are folks insisting that this is not a matter of rational analysis of risk and benefit, but “culture?” I should just view this as being is similar to folks who kill women out of “honor” for disgracing the family if they’re raped - a “cultural” thing that I should simply get more in tune with? - Oh, I know, that’s offensive, correct? Because that’s not “our” culture, but some “other peoples” culture, correct?</p>
<p>
I might once have gone along with this approach, but here’s the thing: it doesn’t actually work. And it won’t work because the problem is that people who don’t really need guns (rationally) nonetheless really, really believe that they need a gun. And that really is the problem. “Engaging them” in a way that in fact ratifies their irrational belief simply reinforces their belief system - just the same as “engaging” a guy who throws kerosene on his daughter because she has “shamed the family” won’t work, either.</p>
<p>I understand that an entire belief system has grown up to justify irrational gun ownership and “circle the wagons” against any look at gun ownership that would threaten the profits of the folks who pay the NRA handsomely to fight anything which would lessen gun sales in America. “They’re all just elitists from the coasts.” “They hate the Second Amendment.” “You need to be afraid.” “Only you can protect yourself, and only with a gun.”</p>
<p>Powerful memes. Failing to confront the fundamental, underlying premise behind the majority of new gun purchases in America - and they’re not being sold to rural rabbit hunters - means failing to be honest. And that approach will fail. </p>
<p>Goldenpooches - the Colorado vote (a 20% turnout and a 350 vote margin of victory for the gun lovers) is simply evidence that motivated voters turn out in off-year elections. Nobody questions the fact that gun nuts are obsessive, single issue voters, while most everyone else is simply not motivated by the issue. Polls indicate that a majority of Coloradans in fact support the laws that got the individual lawmakers ousted.</p>
<p>Kluge, if the country was so unified in favor of gun control laws, they wouldn’t be defeated (even by many Democrats) every time they’re brought up in Congress for a vote. If you couldn’t pass legislation after the CT school shooting, you know that politicians are scared to death of the political consequences. No way the NRA has this much influence if there isn’t a whole lot of people who support the organization.</p>
<p>Trust me, I support reasonable gun control laws although I sometimes wonder about their efficacy. I suppose if there were no (or very few) guns in America, there would have to be much less gun violence, but there is no way we are going to put that genie back in the bottle.</p>
<p>There is a gun culture in many parts of America and although it is incomprehensible to many, it is not going away anytime soon. I really believe if these people truly thought gun control advocates were not going to take away their guns, they might be willing to compromise in ways unimaginable to you.</p>