Bad Behaviour hurting the name of gun owners.

As they say, the most dangerous part of the car is the nut behind the wheel. Same applies to guns. We do not need to outlaw guns, just restrict ownership to those who hunt or have a legitimate need for one.

 

Define "legitimate" need for one. For me, my desire and my right to own one is "legitimate need"

 

Whilst attempting an understanding of the american right to bear arms and the previous posters obvious passion maybe a national mindset change is required. Using the previous mention of cars a driving lisence is a privilege and not a right - you have a theory part and a practical part culminating in a test in your proficency. If you pass then disregard the laws of the land then you have the privilege withdrawn. Maybe thinking along these lines would aid in weeding out the irresponsible over the years.
Although I appreciate policing this in rural areas would be a nightmare.
Just my thoughts. Im not after a row or trying to inflame passions

 

Many states do require a hunter safety class to be attended before issuing the first hunting license to someone. I would have no problem with every gun owner being required to pass something like an NRA firearms safety class, before getting the first gun. Where I get nervous is allowing ownership based on the vague term "need" There are current Olympic level shooters that are having problems training for their events because of the restrictive laws of their country. In other countries farmers/ranchers aren't allowed a gun.

In countries that have strict gun control the rates of "hot" home burglaries (burglaries where the residents are home at the time of the crime) often run 3-4 times higher than here in the states. Why? Because the criminals have no fear of the people inside defending themselves.

What should we do about bad gun behavior? IMHO, much more severe punishments are needed for all gun crimes. If we can have minimum sentencing guidlines that lock people up for yours for dealing drugs, why not the same for gun crimes?

 

I am at least partially supportive of some sort of "license test", along the same lines as a vehicle license test (widely accessible, not prohibitively expensive/restrictive, not exclusive to job types/social status, etc.). I have seen and heard, first hand, some pretty scary people enter a gun store with the ability to walk out less than an hour later, fully equipped. By scary, I mean uneducated scary. As in, it would be a miracle if they didn't accidentally injure/kill somebody within the first few days of owning a firearm. If operating a motor vehicle presents enough risk to people that minimum qualifications are required to legally operate one, why not a firearm?

OTOH, I understand that this could be seen as a slippery slope and would require very careful legislation to keep it from getting out of control. Not terribly optimistic on the last part, though.

 

The only comment I can make is, I've lived in the southern US all my 50+ years of life, and pretty much every sign I've ever seen out on a little-traveled country road has looked more or less like that one as far back as I can remember. Not quite as bad as that one usually, but if like most road signs it is left up for years or decades, then after a while it accumulates a fair number of perforations. Those bullet holes don't seem to have had enough time to rust so I would guess they are new (or it's a non-ferrous sign).

Also, it has been a problem for decades that some people in large cities go out and fire guns into the air on July 4th or New Years Day, with the resulting rain of bullets across the city. More roof leaks than you know are caused by bullet impacts. I remember seeing a photo of the spent bullets found on the roofs of large buildings with flat roofs - it was an amazing and varied collection - and that was back in 1980. Wiki article about "celebratory gunfire": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire

Certainly both are reckless and dangerous practices, but it's not a new phenomenon and has been going on for probably as long as there have been guns. As the saying goes, you can't outlaw stupidity.

Still, good advice to all to act responsibly with weapons. The bad behavior of a few individuals is all that it takes to get the privileges of everyone taken away.

 

Every time some idiot takes people hostage....every time someone shoots a gas station clerk for some cigarettes... every time someone's involved in a shootout with police...
Every time this happens, gun owners get a bad name...

 

Yes, but MOST of those weapons used in crime are either stolen or otherwise illegal.

 

this has been going on forever.

there is no cure.

i have some ground about a hundred miles from anything resembling an urban area.
all of my fence reflectors have been harvested.
any padlocks i've used have been stalked and killed.

this has all been done by locals.

you don't just happen on this place.

usually when whoever has been doing it grows up or goes to jail,the damage stops.
then someone feels the urge to fill void and it begins again.

 

I'm not offering a solution and it's closing the door after the horse has bolted. Yours is a circular argument, illegal firearms were once legal, controlling legally owned firearms could make illegally owned firearms harder to obtain if there were no legal guns there would be no illegal guns.

If you think about it somewhere nearly all gun crimes are the result of irresponsible legal gun ownership.
They either
1) Commit the crime themselves.
2) Did not take sufficient care of the weapon to allow it to be stolen.
3) Directly or indirectly supply it to the criminal.

 

HUH? Stolen means taken without your permission. Blaming the victim isn't the answer. That's no different than those who say nobody needs guns for self defense, they just need to do a better job hiding from the criminals. Criminals commit crimes because they are criminals, not because you have too much stuff. You can give away everything except the clothes on your back and a criminal is going to still going to take that if you cannot defend yourself from him. Similarly, gun crimes and irresponsible gun use exist because bad and stupid people exist, not because guns exist.

 

I think a lot of it has to do with a lack of consequences for bad behaviour which our society seems to be endorsing lately. In the past, people that did wrong knew it was wrong, tried to avoid getting caught, and paid the price if they were caught. Now, people have been raised to be self indulgent and everything that goes wrong in their lives always seems to be somebody else's fault. Many of the You Tube videos are prime examples. People are doing things impulsively for their own enjoyment and don't seem to see anything wrong with it. And rather than trying not to get caught, they are plainly seen in the videos and post it for all the world to see. And the few times that the authorities do take action, the aprehended individuals continue to think they did nothing wrong and seek to put the blame elsewhere. Unfortunately, all too often somewhere along the line they'll find sombody to buy their sob story and get off anyway which only encourages them to do it again.

 

There could be some truth in the above post. I'm not advocating the death penalty but........ It wasn't that long ago in our past that you could be hung for stealing a loaf of bread.
I'm going to make an educated guess here but I'm assuming the tree hugging liberals that say
That they were misguided youths trying to express themselves by shooting up a ( insert farm building )and therefore society's fault and not there's are the same people who keep trying to tweak and repeal your gun laws

 

Hang on your want to own a gun to protect yourself but you don't think you should take responsibility for keeping that gun out of the hands of people who would use it to hurt others? If you are responsible enough to be trusted with something as dangerous as a firearm then you should be responsible enough to take reasonable steps to keep it safe. In most countries to own a gun you have to demonstrate that you have somewhere secure to keep it and losing the firearm means your right to keep them is reviewed. It's not the same as a DVD player cash or jewellery it's more like dangerous chemicals or explosives.

 

jon-

you were talking about shooting up the countryside, not crime in general. unless i misunderstood.

crime IS up. for us locally it's drugs and unemployment in whatever order you want to assign it.

almost everything is illegal and our jails and prisons are overflowing.

as a population, we seem to think everyone will pull themselves up and be productive. it should be obvious that is not going to happen.

i suspect that until there are good jobs, not just jobs, and people are willing to spend their tax dollars on education and opportunity instead of prisons nothing much is going to change.

but as far as shooting up the countryside goes, there are signs in our county that haven't been replaced since the fifties. they consist of rusty steel, a couple of bolts and a post. oh yeah...and holes.

 

Vinny, Do you own a car?

Lets say your car is stolen and the criminal who stole your car is pulled over by a cop. The criminal decides he does not want to go to jail, so he runs from the police.
Your car is going over 90 mph and it hits a minivan with a nun and 6 deaf orphins in it. Every one inside the mini-van dies on the scene.

You caused seven people to die, because YOU did not take the proper steps needed to insure that your car was not stolen. There for YOU killed seven human beings.

I do advocate that fire arms are stored in a safe, btw.

 

In only a small way it would be my fault. I contributed to it in so much as if they had not stolen my car it couldn't have happened. I could have avoided it I would feel bad about it. I doubt anyone would be able to steal any of my cars. That said, whilst inherently dangerous, it's not such an obvious link as the gun.

 

When I lived in a house, there was a bunch of sporting goods stored in my garage. Balls, bats, hockey sticks....etc So, if someone broke into my garage and stole a bat and beat someone with it, I share in the blame? What about someone strangled to death with the clothesline stolen from my backyard? The knife from my kitchen counter? I keep my guns in a safe or on my hip because it is the responsible things to do, and a smart protection for some of my more valuable possessions, still they can be stolen and there misuse would be no more my fault than if someone were to taken a broken bottle out of your trash and cut someones throat with it.