Are owning a gun a bad thing?

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I have to say listening to pantera and owning a gun goes hand in hand.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbtSMa7NS8Y[/youtube]

So, evidently you feel it is sarcastic to suggest that perhaps can opening is not on your mind when you are fondling your lethal tools. You seem to indicate mayhem was not your objective. So what is? I pointed out that the lady from Congress would not have been able to protect herself even if she had had a bazooka in her handbag. What the hell use is a gun if you are not continuously on the lookout for targets?

Both an AD and an ND occur when you unintentionally fire a weapon, the only difference is the degree of culpability due to the exact circumstances. An AD might be you dropped a rifle and it went off, where an ND is more like you pulled the trigger on your handgun to drop the hammer and forgot there was a round in the chamber, it's a legal distinction. What happened with Cheney was a hunting accident caused by shooter error, he meant to fire the gun, so the appropriate charge if one were to be filed would be negligent assault. Hunting accidents aren't that uncommon, but they are exactly that, accidents. It's a known risk of the sport, assumed by anyone who chooses to participate. Before you jump all over me, I'm aware that the occasional non-hunter dies as the result of hunting mishaps, but that actually is statistically rare if no less tragic when it does occur.



One example with no link? Surely you can do better than that, after all it is you who is trying to argue that my carrying a gun endangers others by risking a public accidental discharge. I can link multiple studies showing that legal concealed carriers not only are much more law abiding and safe than the the average citizen, but prevent thousands of violent crimes a year through direct intervention. Unless you've got evidence of a whole lot of public ADs, I think you might have to change tack on this one.

Or, since the whole idea of theft is to acquire things with less effort than it would take legitimately, thieves would avoid a target that carries a known and considerable risk.

isnt that just what you did a couple of posts above? saying what if a gunman went into a grandmothers house?

I am in favour of gun rights. As a left-libertarian i believe "democracy" as it is currently constituted should be overthrown by syndicalist unions as was achieved in Catalonia in the 1930's. If i was an american i would also be concerned at the vast arsenals built up by members of the Social Darwinist Right whilst i myself was unarmed. By all means conquer the right via the spread of ideas but we need to bear arms in case other courses of action become necessary.

@Dox47

The legal standing that I am bound by when I handle a weapon is that, in ALL circumstances in which the rifle discharges without authorization or through negligence are crimes. I see no problem with this view, if you want to handle the weapon then accept responsibility for it.

I also see no point in carrying it around, the training that I received in weapons was of the highest standard and even people with such training still have NDs. Having been shot at through negligence by people with high level training, I just cannot see the justification for allowing citizens to carry weapons in public, its just too dangerous in my view.

From what I have read of criminal activity not all thieves are particularly bright..

You could actually cut your post down to this, since most of the important points are covered in this one sentence. I'd add difficult to conceal to the list, since even a machine pistol is rather awkward to carry on one's person and most violent crime is spontaneous. Having handled and shot a fair number of machine guns over the years, one certainly wouldn't be my weapon of choice were I contemplating committing a crime. In the States the expense alone is staggering, even a cheap stamped sheet metal MAC10 starts north of $3000, and the storage requirements imposed on legal owners by the ATF make them unlikely to end up on the street.

well maybe you should become one. since you are so smart! omg. break into my home and i'll blow your ass away!!

[tangent]Yep, there's every reason to pick a gun other than a Desert Eagle for criminal purposes. I wouldn't go any higher than a .45 ACP for pistols or .357 Magnum for revolvers if I was a crook.[/tangent]

@ 91: Being highly trained =/= Applying what you've been taught responsibly. If you follow the golden rules of safety, that should guarantee that no accidental discharge will occur. Finger off the trigger means keep your finger completely outside the trigger guard, not keeping your finger ever so slightly out of the reach of the trigger. And if you don't point your gun at anything you don't intend to destroy, then you don't have to worry about the bullet killing anyone should an accidental discharge occur.

I appreciate your estimate of my intellect but this does not seem to be a discussion at very high level.

oh really. too dumb for yah? too bad! guess what!
i'm too dumb for you in a country you dont even live in!

howzit brah

Your opinion is not born out by the statistics, a simple google search for the stats on concealed carry permits revoked due to firearms involved offenses will demonstrate this rather conclusively. Florida, for example, has a revocation rate of less than 1% for permit holders violating firearms laws, which would include ADs and NDs.

http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/cw_monthly.html

If you want to try "CCW holders are more likely to commit violent crime in general" rather than just randomly firing off shots by accident, I can debunk that one just as conclusively.

Incidentally, when I was going to gunsmithing school with a bunch of ex military guys and doing maintenance work for a professional tactical firearms instructor on the side, the general consensus was that the safest shooters are: (most careful to most careless)

Competition shooters (unsafe conduct = lifetime ban + civil/criminal liability)
Legally armed civilians (unsafe conduct = severe criminal/civil liability)
Military members (unsafe conduct = getting yelled at, possibility of military trial)
Police officers (unsafe conduct = suspension, maybe getting fired)

Out of all of those groups, the police shoot by far the most innocent people (at least on our own soil), yet no one ever proposes disarming them or downgrading their arsenals, and their union will fight to the death if anyone ever tires to hold them accountable when they do misuse their weapons. Also, think about the frequency with which the police and military member handle their weapons in public vs CCW holders who must keep their weapons concealed at all times, guns in holsters do not just go off by themselves after all.

I support gun ownership for hunting and self-defense, and family protection. I don't condone them being used for anything else.

You have a problem with target shooting?