[UPDATE]:
Lessons For Gun-Owning Parents is a must-read.
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Last year after another horrible accidental shooting made headlines, someone pointed out that “we don’t want to control your guns. We want YOU to control your guns.” It’s a line I’ve parroted here many times because it’s so true. The fact that we have so many gun accidents, mass shootings, gun crime with stolen weapons, etc. is proof that gun owners cannot control their own guns.
Case in point: this good piece on the absence of responsibility and gun safety from our national conversation on guns. This quote from Ladd Everitt, of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, resonates:
“There’s no reasonability and no discussion about what one’s responsibility should be. It’s long past due to have a serious discussion about the responsibilities that come with these Second Amendment rights.”
I don’t understand why this has been ignored. It’s all “mah rahts!” and full stop. The gun loonz shout over anyone who dares point out that not all gun owners are the most responsible ever, and even the most responsible gun owner has moments of being irresponsible. It’s as if merely owning a gun makes them “one of us” and they don’t need to be accountable for their behavior, ever.
There’s a reason a lot of these gun accidents happen: human nature. So to Winter Haven Police Chief Gary Hester, I have two words for you: wake up:
Winter Haven Police Chief Gary Hester said most gun accidents happen for one reason: human error.
“Firearms aren’t the problem,” he said. “Firearms don’t kill people; people kill people.”
In Ruby Bing’s death, her mother was not handling the pistol in a safe and appropriate manner, Hester said. He said Adele Bing told police she had the weapon as protection, but her misuse of it led to a deadly shooting.
Right, well, what the hell do you expect? A woman thinks her boyfriend is coming to kill her, and she’s not thinking “am I operating my gun safely.” She’s thinking, “holyfuckingshitI’mgonnadie.” The rational mind is not operating in these situations. This is a no-brainer, and the cliche that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is pretty much null and void when you remember in the majority of these situations, people are not in control, the gun is. Put a loaded gun in the hands of a two-year old and what do you expect to happen? The gun is in charge of that situation, not a rational, adult person.
Everitt points out that incidents of negligent gun behavior are not sufficiently prosecuted. I would add that they are not fairly prosecuted, either.
The only way this is going to change is to start prosecuting these incidents of negligence and mandatory liability insurance for gun owners.
Southern Beale 
Beale,
I am with you whole-heartedly. I feel there should be mandatory liability insurance required on each firearm; ideally using a minimum of $1 Million per firearm.
Why do you gunzhaterz hate MurKKKa?
Gunz are just inanimate objects and they can’t go off by themselves, except when some spectacular stupident proves that they can and it’s all a liebrul plot and JESUS and USA!USA!!USA!!!–that’s why!
It’s people like you that have choked off the profits of the oil companies and nu-q-lar power plants and suchlike. MurKKKahaterz be hatin!!
You don’t have to think that gun owners are especially irresponsible in order to realize that a gun is a sufficient responsibility that most of the time most people aren’t really safe with one. What can go wrong? …. 999 lines omitted …. or (1000) something happened but we don’t know what.”
Right. As I say in the post, “even the most responsible gun owner has moments of being irresponsible.”
THANK YOU, SB! This week, at our Knox County ‘Justice Center’ (jail to the uninformed) a deputy sheriff “unintentionally’ caused his gun to go off and managed to injure 3 (three) of his fellow deputies. And these are the folks our Knox County School Board has hired to “police” our public schools. Last night I attended my third vigil, held by “non-partisan” groups here in Knoxville to remember the victims of Sandy Hook….AND to honor the memories of families here in this community who have lost their loved ones to gun violence. Thanks to Ron Ramsey, Todd Curry, Joe Carr and Stacey Campfield among the other Legislature members owned by and scared of the NRA, our State gun control laws are more lax than ever, and Tennessee leads this country of “accidental” gun deaths for this past year.
We must stand up and speak out. We must convince Nashville and Haslam to pass a ‘background check’ law, and tighten up GUN SALES.
NOW.
My mother got a dinky Baretta .22 pistol maybe 20 years ago for “protection.” She couldn’t even pull the slide back to load a round, so she kept on in the chamber. Safety off. Stored the stupid gun in a bed cabinet right behind her head–with the muzzle pointed right at her.
My stepfather took a shotgun away from my insane stepbrother (who walked up and down the property line at his mother’s house waving the thing and threatening people). Put it in his own closet–4 shells (2 .000 buck, 2 1-oz. slugs) in it, safety freaking OFF. All it’d take is a bump of the trigger or that crazy stepbrother rooting around…
When the stepfather developed Alzheimer’s, I confiscated both guns and found them in those conditions. They’re both kept unloaded and locked, now.
Neither of them were very responsible gun owners, but how many stories in just the last YEAR–a YEAR, dammit–have we heard where a kid gets ahold of a gun “stored” just as stupidly as these? You’re right, of course.
I used the linkyloo, it not work.
At the risk of being simplistic.
Folks, those of you who won teh GUNZ, lock them the fuck up. End of lesson*.
* N,B, Having someone in your own home shoot themselves or someone else with one of your weapons will be a massive FAIL.
I remember a time when alcohol related driving incidents were forgiven because – you know – a man’s got a right to drink. Everyone in the chain of ownership and handling of the gun should be held responsible. This is why strict registration of guns should be encouraged. And that certainly fits with “well regulated.”
i’ll say it again. every time a gun is fired accidentally in public, or in a private place that affects a public one, a charge should be filed. no matter is someone is struck or not.
Yes, yes, yes. One is expected to keep one’s dog on a leash . .
But guns is Sake Red. – as the second cmandmnt sez.
I don’t know why this is so hard. No one wants to be on the road in their car without knowing that the others out there should have liability insurance. You having insurance is for my benefit. It’s part of the cost you have to pay for the privilege of driving on our roads. Oh yeah, having a gun is a right, not a privilege. That’s crap.
Voting is a right not a privilege yet I have to show a very specific state-issued ID in order to exercise it. The rightwing is perfectly OK with that.
I found this
Click to access guns.pdf
a while back. It makes sense if you’re looking at the BoR in its entirety.
The 2nd Amendment is the only one, out of ten Amendments in the BoR that has, according to teh gunzloonz, a meaningless first clause in its opening sentence, More to the point it’s the only Amendment that they even talk about, because to them, it’s the only one that matters.
That’s because the gun loonz are chumps doing the bidding of the warmongers. They’re also a fringe and don’t represent the majority of Americans. Go figure.
I don’t even think that they represent the majority of the fringe–although it can prolly be said that while most teabaggists might not be gunzloonz–most gunzloonz are likely teabaggists.
Gun safety and personal accountability should be taught in schools along with driver training and sex ed.