And like I said upthread, in Alaska you simply need to have a gun, and you can carry concealed. I can’t think of any possible weaker threshold. Is that what we really want?
@awcntdb #1305:
Absolutely false, when said focus on a particular personal risk has negative consequences for wider society.
Well, unless selfishness* is a virtue, I suppose.
- And often misplaced selfishness, given that humans have a tendency to misunderstand what actually is risky or not.
I would say that someone who believes their family to be in danger, yet will not take steps to protect them because of a"wider risk to society", either doesn’t truly believe their family is in danger, or doesn’t have any children. Most of us do not live in places where we feel threatened, but some people certainly do.
Reminds me of a friends aunt we visited in a bad area in Oakland, lived with just her teenage son. So insistant that she wouldn’t have a weapon. When we asked her what she’d do if armed gangs broke in and threatened her son’s life, she answered that at least she’d be proud that she didn’t have a gun.
There are idiots on both sides of the gun debate.
I repeat: If you have a gun in your house, it is more likely to be used against a resident of said house than against an intruder.
If your primary purpose for having a gun in your house is to protect your family from danger, then by having a gun in your house you have failed.
@dfbdfb One such story can be found by searching “Beaver County bride shoots niece.” Man and woman get married. At reception they drink too much. Niece insists on being designated driver. Man keeps handgun in glovebox for protection. Bride reaches for it, kills niece. Bride is sentenced to 16-32 months in jail for involuntary manslaughter. Niece’s mother is angry at lenient sentence. One dead, an entire family wrecked. So much for “protection.”
I guess the moral of that story is don’t have your guns around particularly idiotic and drunk family members. Don’t ever have them where someone else (particularly a drunk moron) can get ahold of it.
And don’t have guns around if you have someone who lives in your home who might kill you. Or better yet, don’t have someone living in your home who might kill you.
Just because the lowest common denominator might be an idiot, doesn’t mean everybody else has the same odds of getting shot.
Considering that one of the more common uses of guns within one’s home is suicide, wouldn’t that mean…
This would mean not having any children living in your home. That’s fairly restrictive.
@dfbdfb brings up the issue of suicide. I think this is particularly important because in this case, the gun owner could be the danger. Even if the gun is securely stored, its owner can get to it.
So I wonder if the statistics you guys are quoting where a gun is more likely to be used against the resident of the house than against an intruder, includes suicide. Because that certainly changes the statistical situation entirely. It is misleading to not reveal that, if that is correct, as it’s not like everyone who committed suicide with a gun would not have done it otherwise. Though I do think easy access to a gun may make it easier for someone to carry out a suicide, it would be pretty hard to determine how many people would have still killed themselves.
A statement like this, “If you have a gun in your house, it is more likely to be used against a resident of said house than against an intruder,” certainly doesn’t sound like it includes suicide, it implies that someone would use it against another person.
“This would mean not having any children living in your home. That’s fairly restrictive”
Then again, I think most of us on this forum are hoping that our children will not be living in our home after they graduate! At least not for long.
Hard, but not impossible, and it turns out that the best evidence suggests that availability of a gun increases suicide risk. This is an active area of research. Here’s a survey of the literature:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-ownership-and-use/
If you have a person in your household that you think is at risk for suicide, including yourself, get rid of your guns, or at least make them inaccessible.
I was referring to actual children, not grown offspring, and I wasn’t thinking about the people on this board in particular.
But even those of us with grown offspring have to consider the possibility that they may have children of their own, which (hopefully) will mean that children could visit our homes sometimes. It’s not just residents of a home who can be at risk; visitors can, too.
Often when we read about a tragedy where a child got a hold of a gun, we read that the gun owner was “such a responsible gun owner. It just got left out that one time…”
A lot of people claim to be responsible gun owners. Not all of them are, however, as the accidental shootings reveal.
I wouldn’t be a good candidate to have a hand gun in my home. I’m very conscientious and responsible. Unfortunately, I can be absent minded at times. I get distracted. So no gun for me.
I don’t know how people can really determine if someone is a responsible gun owner or not. If they haven’t had any accidents? When my youngest was a toddler, we left him with my SIL and BIL for a couple of days, as they had volunteered to watch him while we were at a work orientation out of state. We were chatting with them, and walked through their bedroom so they could show us something. My son was tottering around the room, and we noticed a gun on a low bedstand (within his reach). Most certainly loaded. Before that, we would have assumed that they were “responsible gun owners”. Talk about horrified.
I think one has to be incredibly paranoid about it, not tell anyone where it is, don’t have kids unsupervised in the house, make it rather difficult to get to unless you are the owner, and not have anyone who is brainless, suicidal, or drinks too much in the household. Probably far too many restrictions for most, but it seems reasonable to me.
The bottom line is no one has to justify why they would like to own a handgun. It is protected by the 2nd amendment. It is fine to dislike the law/constitution but it is the law. I really think it goes to a viewpoint on how you view guns and what part of the country you are from. My father-in-law just killed a 6 foot rattler with the gun he carries on his person all the time on his property. He is thankful he has the right to own and use a gun. Also, if you look at gun violence in Houston which is one of the largest cities in the country and look at the gun violence in Chicago where there is gun control, you would be amazed by the results. One would think that Chicago would have less gun violence but in fact it has numerous murders per 1000 citizens. I am not finding a direct causation but I am pointing out that this is not a clear cut issue.
To a first approximation, in the US, the way to determine if someone is an irresponsible gun owner is this: do they own a handgun? Most gun owners do not lock their handguns up. If a gun owner leaves their loaded gun unlocked, anywhere, they are an irresponsible gun owner. In one of these gun threads, a gun owner admitted that he leaves his loaded gun in his nightstand. Sorry, person who said that, you are an irresponsible gun owner.
I heard someone cite this earlier today and thought that it must be wrong, but no, sadly, it isn’t.
"The bottom line is no one has to justify why they would like to own a handgun. It is protected by the 2nd amendment. "
That is an incorrect interpretation of Heller. It is a constitutional right, yes, but even Scalia in his majority opinion said the government is entitled to regulation of guns; only regulations that are equivalent to outright prohibition of ownership are unconstitutional (which is what the case was about). So technically the laws requiring permits etc. that require one to “justify” their ownership are not against the law.
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If owners of guns that resulted in “accidental shooting” were to be held to a stricter standard, more gun owners would lock up their guns and be mindful about where their weapons are. This is one area where punishment could serve as a good deterrence to others, IMO.
This assumes the other people in the house are not knowledgeable about firearms.
However, if the other people are knowledgeable, then a “group” gun is works well. In each house, we have one gun in a specific place, where my wife and I and, from age 12, the boys could get it and protect ourselves if needed. My kids have been shooting from young and are comfortable around guns.
Our one range has a kid’s program, and it is cool to see parents and kids shooting on Saturdays and Sundays. Some of the kids are serious marksmen. The parents are great - one military officer spent the time to train my son, age 9 at the time, how to handle his M16. One neat gun, even a 9-year old could handle it, and the blow back is nothing. My son to this day, now age 19, still relishes that personal attention from a marine and the use of his personal gun. He grew a couple inches that day.
I can say one thing - never worry about leaving the kids at home by themselves, as they were not going to rollover for anyone and did not have to worry about waiting 15 minutes for police. Anyway, people are the least of my concern, it was the hundred or so resident black bears on the property that one has to be ready for.
FYI: For those who were hyperventilating earlier about inept DHS employees not being able to catch people who were posting their jihadi sympathies right there on social media…er, oops not on public social media after all. Private communications…yeah, that’s different because a warrant is involved. Cue Emily Littella…never mind.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nyt-reviewing-san-bernardino-reporting-fbi