All to many statements where people copy some misleading statistics, or, some professor who has received a five star rating then to regurgitate it and spew it onto the world whilst posing it as their own thoughts, oh my, no wonder why this planet is so messed up. Whats next? Merck manual? I digress.
heh? guns are not violent. only if you use them in a violent way and in that case anything could be violent.
I'd love to own, and shoot a gun, say at a firing range, for sport ( not killing animals, doesnt blow my horn), but if i had kids, i'd let the gun club look after my guns for me.
If you are not able to keep your gun safe at home with your kids and teach them about the guns and not to touch them and when they are older, teach them how to safely handle them, you shouldnt own any guns at all. Owning a gun requires responsibility and that also means you need to make sure everyone in the house knows how to handle a gun safely. There are too may accidents involving guns. They are caused by lack of knowledge and safety.
There's nothing amateurish about wanting to protect your children. Unless you never tell your family the guns are there at all, they'll always pose a risk - kids are resourceful, curious and not as well-educated as you in gun safety. Account for the unforseen. (read: expect the unexpected) When everyone's happy and equal, gun safety is enough to make the whole family safe. Immediately after a heated row over illegitimacy or a child's sexuality, gun safety training isn't enough to guarantee a safe household. Even the most responsible and knowledgeable gun owners can make mistakes. One darwin award was a distinguished and very safety-conscious gentleman with a huge gun collection who attempted to demonstrate the purpose and ease of safety catches to his wife by pulling the trigger against his own head - needless to say, he got it wrong and shot himself. You may well be extremely confident and skilled, and take huge safety precautions, but if you think all that makes you immune to error and accident you're a fool.
obviously the man the the huge collection was not very knowledgeable about guns as the first thing you learn about safeties is that they are not to be relied on. infact the safety on my target rifle simply does not work at all. i never ever use safeties on a gun. If i dont want the gun to shoot, i open the action as then its impossible for the gun to fire if I pull the trigger. accidents do happen and even the best of us can make mistakes, but if you've been trained there is absolutely no excuse. all gun accidents can be prevented. whether it's from not cleaning it properly, not realizing the gun is loaded or trusting the safety on the gun. it can all be avoided. If you have a gun in the house you need to teach your kids to behave and listen and not get into things they arent supposed to. it should be locked away anyways so when they are too young to understand that, they wont be getting into it anyways. When they are old enough that they are able to get a key (which should be in a place out of reach of children) then they are old enough to understand that a gun is not a toy. it is simply irresponsible of the gun owner to own a gun and to not teach their family gun safety. if you wanna store you gun at a club and they allow it (its not allowed here in Canada) then so be it, but your should still teach your kids gun safety. if your family cannot be 100% trusted at all times with having a gun in the house then you shouldnt own a gun. if you cannot trust your kids to leave your guns alone and worry they might shoot someone or whatever then you need to raise your kids better. unless everyone in the household can be trusted with the responsibility of a gun then there shouldnt be a gun in the house.
So what you're saying is that i'm stupid and irresponsible for leaving my guns at the shooting range even though i have no other legal reason to be shooting them at home. I'd just rather take that risk away from my house, i'd teach the kids the responsibility of gun use AT the shooting range, not at home. talledega, do you have kids? Did you ever go against stuff your mother or father may have told you not to do? Unfortunately its just the case with most kids, curiosity killed the cat and all that. Tbh i think everyone in this thread is vying for the same thing, so its really pointless arguing, own a gun: be responsible, or dont have one.
Right. So this guncollector get written off as "stupid", and that makes guns safe again? I don't think it's irresponsible at all to keep guns away from your children. Kids can be raised perfectly, but they will always push the edges. Dangerous == exciting. Forbidden == interesting. Kids will be kids. If you tell a kid not to touch the kettle because he will burn himself, he will probably learn through blisters. By training your kids in proper gun use, you are basically putting responsibility for safety in their hands. As a parent, it is your task to bear responsibility in the fields that a kid cannot.
you all keep bringing up that us has biggest gun problem, i dont totally disagree with that but when you see the statistics they are all coming from large cities that have major gang problems. The semi rural town where i live is in Kentucky which to some is the redneck captial of the US. Ive hunted since i was 14 (18 now) and ive had access to guns since then. My parents support gun ownership as do i. Everyone that i know owns at least one gun and you know what in the past 10 years there has been 1 murder and a suicide, A man killed his wife with a knife and then yes shot himself. What im getting at is that taking a weapon away from someone isnt going to stop someone from killing, they will find another way to. And just because you own a gun doesnt make you some crazy idiot that shoots up everything around them. You have to be educated around them and know they are a privlige to have and not to take advantage of them.
Only if they want to kill someone really badly. There is planning involved: getting close to your victim and then doing them in before they can defend themselves or escape. To kill someone up close is hard. By the time you've worked out the obstacles, you may have cooled down enough to decide it isn't worth it. The problem is that guns are such good tools for killing. It's what they're made for, after all. You don't need to want someone dead for very long, or very badly. You don't need to plan much. There is no cooling down period. You just aim and pull the trigger. No, but why else would you have one? You may live in Redneck, Alabama, in which case owning a gun is like owning an axe and a pick-up: essential tools for living in a rural environment. You may shoot guns for sport, in which case it's like owning a pair of skies. But I wager that the vast majority of people own a gun for "self-defense". Hang on --against who? Oh, yeah, right: gun-wielding criminals, the crazy idiots with guns that you mentioned. I'm sorry, but the people who buy into the notion of gun-wielding crazies most of all are gun-carrying civilians, not those who are in favour of gun control.
i own a gun to hunt, only reason it ever comes out of the case is to go hunting or to sight it in. My fathers pistol stays in a safe place so that we only know where it is. Most everyone around me that i know of owns a gun to hunt some of the elderly dont own any guns at all and quite a few dont because they do not hunt. Doctors dont want my father to eat beef or any other red meat except deer because of his heart attack so we hunt deer to eat each year. Now if you go about 50 miles to the north or 60 to the east to largest cities around me and yes there are some gun problems because of all the gangs and bs that goes on but usually it isnt that simple to walk around the corner to buy a gun unless its from some thug.
Not saying it is stupid and irresponsible to leave guns at shooting range. I think it's stupid and irresponsible to own a gun and not teach everyone that lives in your home gun safety. I didnt say where you need to teach gun safety. Home or the gun range is fine. I learned it at the gun range as I went through the gun safety course. Here where I live it's not legal to store personal guns at the gun range. That's not an option. Whether someone does store their gun at a range instead of the house it shouldnt be because they dont feel safe with having guns in their homes around their kids. If they teach their kids to respect guns and all that and store them safely their shouldnt ever be a problem. I dont have kids but, if I ever do I wont ever be afraid of my kids getting into the guns as I will teach them to respect the guns and I will store them safely. And yes, I did do things I wasn't supposed to do. But I never got into the guns as they were locked up and I didnt know where the key was. Though I dont think I was ever told not to get into the guns. I never saw when I was very little. Only once I was like 8 - 10 years old did I see our guns. The guncollector was stupid as he beleived a safety on a gun is something to be relied upon. He obviously wasn't very knowledgable in gun safety. That is someone who shouldn't own a gun. It's not irresponsible to keep guns away from kids. That's why you have a locked gun cabinet to store them in and the ammo in a seperate locked cabinet. But as I said. Keeping your own gun out of your house because you dont trust your kids shows you shouldn't own one and should teach your kids better. All I'm saying is, if you own a gun, its your responsibility to make sure everyone in the household learns how to handle a gun safely and that they are not toys. It is also the responsibility of the owner to store them and the ammo safely. Storing your gun at a gun range or somewhere out of your house should not be because you dont trust your family. Nexxo, not to nitpick but it's not just as simple as pulling a trigger. Heres steps comparing stabbing someone with a knife and shooting them with a handgun (stored properly). Knife Go to kitchen Pick up knife Go to victim Stab them Handgun Get keys for gun cabinet and ammo cabinet Unlock gun cabinet and take out gun Unlock ammo cabinet and take out ammo Load the gun with ammo Cock the gun Go to victim Aim and fire Killing someone with a gun that is stored properly is a longer process. But your correct that it is easier to kill someone with a gun. But you have plenty of time to rethink the situation while getting the gun and ammo.
If everyone who owned guns thought like you, it'd be much less of a problem, I grant you. But they don't; they're not sensible, or smart. They don't raise their kids as well, they don't all undergo anger management, they don't all have good impulse control. They aren't all capable of installing the amount of security you do. The ground lies thus: you say, people should only have guns if they're responsible, and that if this were enforced, legal guns would be fine. I agree. But you can't force people to be sensible or good. You can't make people do the right things or take the correct precautions. If guns are legal, they're available to short-tempered racist rednecks just as much as they're available to you. You can't legally discriminate, you have to just hand them out to anyone who isn't a criminal and/or schizo and pray the damage isn't too bad. That is why I oppose legal guns. It's not because I doubt your aptitude in safe ownership. It's because not everybody is as good at it as you.
Blaming an inanimate object is of pretty poor judgment I think. The boy pulled the trigger and the parents raised him. He was obviously upset enough to kill his parents over something so simple as a game... But my point is.. he was the one who shot the gun. I seriously hope this doesn't erupt into a gun control argument either on bit-tech or in rl. It serves no good to take guns away from honest people who want to protect their family. Dishonest people (ie: "bad guys") will still get a gun if they want one and they'll do what they plan on doing regardless. Gun control really only affects the honest people, and not in any positive way. I should at least throw my two cents in about the "US gun problem". I don't think we have a gun problem; I think we have a respect problem. Too many people run around and confuse respect and fear. Gangs want respect from neighborhood people so they get some guns and go whacko with em. A kid feels disrespected at school so he takes a gun to school so he will get respected. The police are too aggressive because they want respect. It's not a gun problem, it's not a violence problem.. it's a lack of understanding and a lack of respect problem that we have in the US. Sorry if this got a bit off topic.
In reality, those who are most likely to shoot someone are not the most responsible gun owners. So the list is more like: Knife Go to kitchen Pick up knife Go to victim Get close enough to victim to stab them Stab them, while overcoming their resistance Handgun Take already loaded gun from car glove compartment/bedside drawer/holster/handbag Aim gun at victim from a safe distance Pull trigger
+ the trashy rednecks: 1. Gets upset 2. Grabs gun which is shoved in the back of his/her pants/down his croutch/shoved in her boot. 3. Pulls trigger, and bullet impacts either roof/victim/floor/foot, depending on how drunk and/or high redneck was. OK, so that was a cheeky stereotype, but hey, it's xmas Seriously though, there are many gun owners that say they need a gun for protection or self defence, and keeping the gun & bullets in locked separate locations would not go with these people's idea of self defence. They want the gun easily accessible in any emergency situation, which would mean either one loaded gun within reach 24/7, or a few loaded guns stashed away in easily accessible locations!
It's sad but true. Some people unfortunately keep it right beside their bed, some in plain view right on the nightstand. My resolve (when I do finally purchase a gun) would be to keep it near but hidden. Secret compartment type stuff. I'm not sure how I'll keep it safely hidden when I have children. But they will definitely be coming to a shooting range with me every so often. I still think that the gun being hidden isn't nearly as important as teaching my (hypothetical) children respect.
You just said that it's sad how some people keep thier guns in plain view, and then you say that keeping it hidden isn't as important as teaching them respect... so once you've taught them that using who knows what methods, you can just leave the gun in plain view? or in a not so secret location? If i haven't assumed correctly, and you aren't one of the "sad but true", feel free to edit.
No, I still think it's important to keep it in a safe location.. I just think above all else, teaching people respect will solve problems like these more than hiding the gun better would. For instance.. A child who respected his parents wouldn't have shot them, or killed them, or become violent at all because their game was taken away. On the other hand.. you can have a perfectly hidden gun that is safe from the reach of that child.. but if he has no respect for his parents.. he'll get violent anyway, he just doesn't have a gun to kill them with.
