^ sigh.
I HOPE criminal charges are filed against this idiot.
Oh no. Of course you don’t :^o
And so do I, and so do a lot of others.
If I intended to belittle or ridicule you, I would not have been subtle and I would not have denied that it was happening. But since your cunning Pinocchio emoji conveys sarcasm without substance, please tell me where I belittled or ridiculed you.
The more pertinent question is, “Who doesn’t?”
Leaving a gun out on the bed is negligent when there are young kids like that in the house. Of course charges should be filed.
Not sure at all the point of such a story on this thread, as this does not represent the many millions upon millions of safe gun owners in the least, just as drunk drivers do not represent the many more millions of drivers who do not drive drunk. And the story also does not represent the criminality of mass shooter that prompted this thread.
Plus the story is no different than leaving oxycontin (or it might have been percoset) out in an open bottle and a toddler eats and ODs with major damage done. Happened in my area not to long ago. Very nice family and all, but negligent. Called a horrible accident, but just as negligent as the gun being left out. Charges are pending.
The father of the 2 yr old was an ex-marine. And he left a loaded glock handgun on his bed. Darwinian theory is sadly in place. His wife was not home. Poor woman.
@jazzymom, that would be horrible. She’d never get over it. I could also see one of her male friends coming over without notice just to mess with her, not knowing about these recent events, and something tragic happening. So yeah, not a good idea.
She used to keep her dog at the house with her, and he has a screeching, screaming bark that makes the hair stand up on your neck. But she has such long days, she felt that he was being neglected and left alone too long, so he’s back home with us. I may insist she take him back next spring. She’ll be a second semester senior, and so hopefully won’t have such a brutal schedule.
And that would give ME a break from the screaming, screeching, hair raising barking. 
@cosmicfish, good food for thought.
The response time when the guy was trying to kick in the door was 6 minutes. She has a panic button on her security system, which sets off a really loud siren and calls police. It also goes off if someone comes in the house while it is set. The neighborhood is considered to be generally very safe, but obviously nothing is absolute.
I think our main challenge here is her perception that she is no longer safe in her home, and the anxiety she is feeling as a result. So your point about finding a solution which will make her FEEL safe is probably a good goal.
Mace seems a no brainer. We will go look at some things this weekend. There are a lot of stores in her town which sell not only guns, but other self protection items. Gun is a no go, so we will look at the other options.
“The father of the 2 yr old was an ex-marine.”
And I bet he thought he was a responsible gun owner. To me, that is the issue. Every gun owner believes they are a responsible one, but the thing is a lot of them are not.
I agree. So how do we distinguish between “responsible” and “irresponsible” gun owners, how do we maximize the proportion of the former, and how do we sanction the latter?
One proposal has been made multiple times in this thread. Require many hours of education, training, exams, insurance and recertification every few years for ALL gun owners, similar to that required to get a drivers license. Even if there is some training required for a concealed carry permit, greater education should be required of all gun owners.
And small request, please don’t parse my post.
That isn’t really a proposal - it is a collection of buzzwords without any kind of measure or focus. What is to be the focus of the education and training, how long will it last, who will provide it, and who will pay for it? What kind of exams and recertification? What is the insurance supposed to cover, to what will the cost be fixed, and who will offer it? What kind of gun deaths and injuries do you hope to stop with these steps? I ask these questions because there is a line between “prudent measures that reasonably restrict a Constitutionally-guaranteed right” and “backdoor effort to make guns illegal for any but the idle rich” and I cannot tell on which side of the line your proposal would fall.
By the way, I don’t expect you to have any answers to these questions, because you have not given any indication of experience or expertise with firearms, and the answers I am seeking require one or both of those things. One of the many problems with this debate is that most of those clamoring for gun legislation lack the background to do more than toss out rough ideas with no idea of their effectiveness. Going back to the analogy of driver’s education, what outcomes would you expect from automobile regulations proposed by people who had never been inside one and had only the barest ideas how they operated, but had seen multiple reports about car crashes in the news?
Also, I note that your plan does not include improved background checks, something with overwhelming support even from gun owners. You appear focused on the educational aspect, but have no gatekeeper stopping dangerous people from getting guns if they can pass a course. Nor does it address transgressions, what kind of demonstrated behaviors could be used as a basis for losing (temporarily or permanently) the right to bear arms. Really, it leaves a lot of things out that are or have circulated in the national debate.
In many cases it is the only way to address an entire post which contains multiple issues or points of contention. Sorry if that is upsetting to you.
Most of my posts are pretty short and do not require dissecting. The reality is no one on the opposite side of this coin from you will say anything here that you will give any reasonable credence to. You will disagree or put them down for their “lack of knowledge.” I didn’t propose any formal “plan”, so your strawman argument is without merit. I simply repeated some general suggestions for how to begin to address gun safety. But it continues to fall on deaf ears. Its a waste of time. Argue all you want. I am done wasting any more time trying to discuss this. You asked a question to which you really did not want an answer, as far as I can tell. You seem to have just wanted some more verbiage to take target practice with. Go shoot at someone elses posts for a change.
And its quite easy to respond with out all that slicing and dicing of posts. Most posters do it just fine.
While not written explicitly, I would give the poster this one. I suspect what the poster was writing is in addition to the initial step that one is allowed to buy a firearm after passing a thorough background check.
In line with your overarching question of efficacy, here is an interesting tidbit - for CCP carriers, there is no difference in how the gun is used between New York, which is the toughest to get a CCP, and any other state where it is easier to get a CCP. There are no differences in accident rates or proper defensive usage.
The multiple forms, training, education, additional classes, and $4000 fee of New York add nothing to increase the safety of the CPP user, as compared to an easier, less cumbersome system used by another state, where it costs maybe $125 and much fewer hours of classes and forms.
Overall, all the states look the same safety-wise re CCP carriers regardless of the system they use to vet CPP carriers. Therefore, this blanket call for more education and training for all gun owners as a way to increase safety is not borne out by the facts, as a maze of unwieldy education and training produces the same results as less unwieldily education and training.
But, let’s get even more raw in the data - states with open carry only requiring a background check have the same rate of accidents as New York. Think about that - open carry does not increase the rate of accidents or gun handling misuse, as compared to places where one cannot open carry, but have a gun in your home. If just having the gun on you and more education and training were the secret sauce in reducing accidents or handling misuse, then open carry states with much less gun education and training should be bad, unsafe places to be - there is no data showing these places are less safe in any respect - but, there is data showing some are more safe with less overall crime and fewer homicides. Go figure.
And it does not take much analytical thinking to understand why this is the case - a criminal is a criminal and education and training be damned is already his mindset; a mentally-ill person is unstable, so education is not even a factor in his actions; and, in general, someone with anger management issues when angered has already jumped the shark so-to-speak in civic behavior, so more gun education and training are irrelevant to stopping this person. That takes care of the uncontrollable elements.
As for accidents, the scientific question is what is the natural rate of accidents that will occur regardless of additional education and training for gun owners? A study across states with differing education and training laws can shed some light on the answer.
Overall, to say that all gun owners need more training and education means than there is data showing that the proposed education and training will solve something specific. Until such data can be produced, I suspect such a call will meet natural resistance. Making something longer, tougher, and more cumbersome does not automatically make it safer.
As a side note - one aspect that could gleam some useful info is driver’s licenses. I have not researched this but if more education and training are the keys to safety, then states where it is harder to get a license (requiring more education and training hours and probationary period) should have lower accident rates. I will take an educated guess though that the accident rates 3 to 6 months after getting a driver’s license are independent of education and training and linked more to age and sex differences.
I’m late to this discussion but I have read most of it.
I wonder about this: The education, training, licensing and insurance that has been proposed would involve many people and many official departments. In other words, many people would be involved in each citizen’s getting a gun. With so many people looking at each individual, perhaps it would be easier to raise red flags regarding someone who is mentally unstable or disinterested in learning the proper ways to handle a gun. And, if red flags can be raised, perhaps the laws could be crafted so that someone who raises those red flags could be prohibited from legally getting access to a gun.
I know, I know – it’s not the good guys we need to worry about.
But I wonder if the education and training would at least remind adults to, for example, keep loaded guns away from children, and if that would reduce the number of incidents when a toddler or young child shoots someone.
Interesting link about a loophole: http://www.thetrace.org/2015/10/domestic-abuse-guns-boyfriend-loophole/
I understand your intent, but it should be pointed out that you just described the current federal background system.
The NRA effectively defeats many proposals because the proposals are just added to the current system, and there are thousands and thousands of examples of how the current system has many holes and cracks in it specifically because it is so large and unwieldily.
For example, the NRA points out, using the feds own data, that the smaller, more pointed background systems of the states used when issuing CCPs essentially eliminate any mentally-ill and unstable people from obtaining guns. So, instead of some stupidly large program with many people, let the states handle the process and take this responsibility.
Why the states? Simple - they have already proved that they can eliminate the mentally-ill and unstable from having guns, while the feds have shown they cannot. No need to reinvent a wheel that works with a larger unproved wheel.
Again, your intent is in the correct place and sounds good.
But, no one has addressed the question of why education and training intensive states, such as New York, have the the same accident rate, as states, such as Wyoming, which have the least education and training standards. Until those who advocate expensive federally sanctioned standardized education and training programs, they need to address why New York et al programs do not work in changing the accident rate, if education and training are the keys.
And this is the problem that policymakers have to deal with - when they are presented this data from actuaries using the states own data, it gets extremely difficult to approve funding for a large program which has not proved to be effective anywhere else.
This is similar to the issue with red light cameras. Sounds logical that they would reduce accident rates, but I am part of an insurance company and the data shows that they are not effective overall and in many cases causes more accidents and increases the rate of serious injury accidents. When additional municipal revenue is not the issue, more localities are taking them out, than putting them in.
Gun accident rate, by 100,000 population, New York: 4.2
Gun accident rate, by 100,000 population, Wyoming, 16.7