Guns and the art of victim blaming

[Jarhyn]

You don't know what's going to happen. Cooperate with the perp and give xir the loot, sure. But you don't know. Some dudes want to eliminate any witnesses. Some are psychos. When it's your life, you might think differently.

It's been my life before, and the other scenarios are equally IRRELEVANT, because they are rare cases.

So it's always the scenario you experienced? All others irrelevant? Ah, no.

Straw man, and your scenarios are IRRELEVANT because if it's a psycho, you are already in a falling problem: they have a gun on you and I you draw, will have a bullet IN you. And further IRRELEVANT because their rarity in the face of all the situations where responding with force will turn a possible shooting into a definite one. And further IRRELEVANT because gun control in the first place, what we are asking for, would dramatically reduce gun involvement in both robberies and in mass attacks.

 

[Gun Nut]

1. Gun crime victims are not to blame.

gun ownership is a choice... a choice that once made, demands responsibility... it is not for everyone.

2. Many gun advocates are more motivated by the desire to kill a bad guy rather than a desire to keep people safe.

I've heard of those types... I've never met one... I have met literally thousands (in classes, gun clubs, professionally) personal defenders focused on keeping themselves and others safe. If they had a problem with killing a bad guy, then they would not be there. but as for motivation... I'd say you can more easily find an actual flat earther than someone who has bothered to actually get a permit for concealed carry that "just wants to kill bad guys".. what is that from, some war movie or something?

3. Gun owners are ultimately largely responsible for the bad guys becoming armed in the first place.

OK, hold the fuck up... that is ass-backwards. First of all, it is the Supreme Court that decided to chop one sentence in the Constitution into two separate sentences...the "rights of THE PEOPLE may not be infringed"... That was the second half of the bit about a Militia. "the people" are the people that make up the Militia. Want to own a gun? Join a Militia .. or as we say in modern times, the Police Force.
Well, that toothpaste is way out of the tube.. and we have both good guys and bad guys with guns... as of forever ago.
So, here we are... every kind of person potentially has a gun.. BUT who is it that is tipping the scales of "good versus bad" in the direction of the bad? Not the "gun owners", but those that wish to create thoughtless gun control laws that serve not to add safety and assurance, but to limit the capabilities of law abiding gun owners while having absolutely no effect on the activities of non-law-abiding gun owners.
responsible gun owners want only responsible, lawful, and reliable people owning guns. any and all laws here on out should, no - MUST, be entirely focused on keeping any kind of gun at all out of the hands of dangerous people.
I hear "if there were no guns..." all the time from the most ignorant people about guns. "If there were no atheists..." (we wouldn't have to worry about this or that... we would be able to do this or that)... well, Atheists are around the cities, so they say. and our laws say they have rights... we're over that too.

 

[Trausti]

So it's always the scenario you experienced? All others irrelevant? Ah, no.

Straw man, and your scenarios are IRRELEVANT because if it's a psycho, you are already in a falling problem: they have a gun on you and I you draw, will have a bullet IN you. And further IRRELEVANT because their rarity in the face of all the situations where responding with force will turn a possible shooting into a definite one. And further IRRELEVANT because gun control in the first place, what we are asking for, would dramatically reduce gun involvement in both robberies and in mass attacks.

That explains the low gun homicide in Brazil.

 

[Jarhyn]

So it's always the scenario you experienced? All others irrelevant? Ah, no.

Straw man, and your scenarios are IRRELEVANT because if it's a psycho, you are already in a falling problem: they have a gun on you and I you draw, will have a bullet IN you. And further IRRELEVANT because their rarity in the face of all the situations where responding with force will turn a possible shooting into a definite one. And further IRRELEVANT because gun control in the first place, what we are asking for, would dramatically reduce gun involvement in both robberies and in mass attacks.

That explains the low gun homicide in Brazil.

IRRELEVANT. The US is not a country rife with corruption, where the rule of law only extends as far as a person's ability to bribe. It is IRRELEVANT because while Brazil has gun control laws, they lack gun control ENFORCEMENT

 

[Artemus]

Your wife was very brave and heroic. You don't need a gun to do the right thing. I am especially impressed with her thought to give a particularly traceable item to the thief. That was awesome. That he had a list of items he wanted may mean he will discard that item, exactly because he knew what he wanted for just that reason... sounds like a somewhat sophisticated plan that had a pending buyer for particular items. All the more reason to not have acted in resistance. I'm assuming they were opioids, mostly... but if it were like heart medication and such, I would be very interested to know that... tells a completely different story, right?

Thank you for the reasonable response, It was a narcotic with a very particular formulation...I don't know (or understand!) the specifics. They had bought it for a patient who had discontinued the prescription so there wasn't even a concern about him missing a dose.

There are only two courses of immediate action for the personal defender, and whichever you take defines how everything else will follow...
You either are unnoticed, and you immediately disable the threat, if safe (does not sound like that would have been safe if he was 'covering' her the whole time). OR, you comply, and "wait your turn". That sounds like what I would have done if I happened to have been in the store as a bystander and gone unnoticed. "my turn" would have come up when he started for the door... and only because he was steeling drugs that could harm others. If he just took cash, "going for the door" would be the end of it... let him go and let the cops get him later.

The police officer I spoke with told me that if an off-duty, out of uniform but armed had entered the store that he/she would have simply become a very well trained witness. That spoke volumes.

Your fear of what "gun nuts" (like myself) would say is based on internet outrage by uneducated people that don't know the difference between a magazine and a clip, or think an AR-15 is an Assault Rifle because it says AR right there in the name... and those that say "I'd bust out my .45 and just blast the sonnabitch" are just as bad... and full of shit.

It was also based on what gun nuts told both her and me IRL.

If your story ended with, "and then he proceeded to shoot everyone in the store and my wife is in the hospital right now", how would your post have been different?

No different at all. The problem is that it is so easy to get guns legally that it is also easy to get guns illegally. Once that happens the only rational thing to do is what minimizes the risks to everyone involved. Which is to cooperate and let the police do their job.

But that is all fantasy... didn't happen that way.. wasn't there to really assess anything.

Thank you for recognzing that.

 

[Gun Nut]

And yet multiple gun owners demanded to know, both of me and of her at the pharmacy, why she didn't use a gun to stop the gunman.

The answer was clear in your post. Because there was no opportune time. She instead attempted to use a clever tactic to help the police possibly catch him later. Did you say that to them? How did they respond? Note, I don't at all care what a random gun owner thinks... I only care what concealed carry permit owners say to you about that. Are any of those involved in the armchair quarterbacking you experienced? Or are you just talking to individuals with no training that happen to have the .22 rifle they got as a kid sitting in the closet?

Please tell me, how do "bad guys" get their guns if not ultimately from "good guys"?

What's the point of asking that? The bad guy drug dealers ultimately got their drugs from your good guy wife. What are you trying to say here?
She was a hero... yet she put a death sentence in the hands of drug addicts by providing the drugs to the illegal sellers of those drugs. How many overdoses will happen because of her? These are TERRIBLE questions. Let's leave the duped, assaulted, or otherwise taken advantage of out of this.

 

[Jarhyn]

And yet multiple gun owners demanded to know, both of me and of her at the pharmacy, why she didn't use a gun to stop the gunman.

The answer was clear in your post. Because there was no opportune time. She instead attempted to use a clever tactic to help the police possibly catch him later. Did you say that to them? How did they respond? Note, I don't at all care what a random gun owner thinks... I only care what concealed carry permit owners say to you about that. Are any of those involved in the armchair quarterbacking you experienced? Or are you just talking to individuals with no training that happen to have the .22 rifle they got as a kid sitting in the closet?

Please tell me, how do "bad guys" get their guns if not ultimately from "good guys"?

What's the point of asking that? The bad guy drug dealers ultimately got their drugs from your good guy wife. What are you trying to say here?
She was a hero... yet she put a death sentence in the hands of drug addicts by providing the drugs to the illegal sellers of those drugs. How many overdoses will happen because of her? These are TERRIBLE questions. Let's leave the duped, assaulted, or otherwise taken advantage of out of this.

See, Jason was just in here trying to argue that people who support and carry guns in public weren't all cowboys looking to start a shooting fight, yet what is it you suggest in "taking your turn" that is anything but a cavalier cowboy attitude about killing someone?

At least the drugs she released were pure and well marked, and bought by willing and consenting buyers who the same people calling for gun control are calling for drug law reform, also to reduce such thefts.

 

[Artemus]

The gun-right advocate who wouldn't say how many guns he had recognized that not only was he not safer owning guns, it in fact made him a target for crime and that people like him were the ones who were arming the bad guys in the first place!

This is a very very good point that I don't think I have ever seen before.

As for your wife - yes... she absolutely is a hero! - but I am so sorry that she had to go through that. I hope that she is taking good care of herself in the aftermath, and is not feeling any PTSD.

I left out a couple of the best details:

1. The couple who broke up the robbery by yelling in the drive-through window? She filled their prescription while waiting for the police to arrive.

2. A couple months afterward she told me she had had a terrible nightmare. Fearing PTSD I asked her what it was about. "You were traveling and daughter 1 had to be at dance and daughter 2 had to be a soccer and twin brother had to be at orchestra at the same time and the van wouldn't start ..." I burst out laughing and to explain "You were the victim of a violent crime and your nightmares are about getting our grown children who haven't even lived here for nearly a decade to their events. That is rather amusing."

The woman has nerves of steel but the parenting PTSD will break anyone!

 

[RavenSky]

I left out a couple of the best details:

1. The couple who broke up the robbery by yelling in the drive-through window? She filled their prescription while waiting for the police to arrive.

2. A couple months afterward she told me she had had a terrible nightmare. Fearing PTSD I asked her what it was about. "You were traveling and daughter 1 had to be at dance and daughter 2 had to be a soccer and twin brother had to be at orchestra at the same time and the van wouldn't start ..." I burst out laughing and to explain "You were the victim of a violent crime and your nightmares are about getting our grown children who haven't even lived here for nearly a decade to their events. That is rather amusing."

The woman has nerves of steel but the parenting PTSD will break anyone!

I've never met your wife, but I think I just fell in love with her

 

[Gun Nut]

You gun will not help you if you are under threat as a hostage and it is still in your holster, and even Gun Nut's idiocy about 'waiting his turn' is foolish because it makes a corpse and a murder scene of a pharmacy, and all the additional trauma that entails... not to mention turning a robbery into a murder scene.

It's not my "idiocy", it is the terminology used by personal defense instructors and is a common phrase in the industry. I didn't make it up, I was taught it. Also, I take your point about turning the pharmacy into a mess... however, it is difficult to fully accept when accurately rephrased as "it would have been too inconvenient and messy for the store owner to have prevented thousands of opiod overdoes events and not funded criminal groups". If it were a candy store, or even a bank, then sure, of course... you don't shoot someone that is no longer a threat as they are walking out the door. If it were something dangerous, like a bunch of knives that you were even a little sure were going to be used to hurt other people, or drugs that you are fucking positive were going to be used to hurt people, then that is different.
I had this one class where the instructor was discussing the law regarding stand your ground (As applied in my home state), and he pointed out how someone breaking into your house was not legal grounds to shoot them, but once they commit a crime inside the house, it is. He proceeded to point out that "loitering" is a crime... so the second they are standing in your house "loitering", they can be shot. Someone in the class (not me) asked if they picked up your TV and started for the door, at what point is it stealing and when can deadly force be used... to which the instructor replied, "anyone in this class that is interested in shooting someone for stealing their TV can leave right now. You are piece of shit, so get the fuck out". That is literally what he said. He was teaching us the law, and the responsibility to be better than "technically legal".

 

[Jarhyn]

You gun will not help you if you are under threat as a hostage and it is still in your holster, and even Gun Nut's idiocy about 'waiting his turn' is foolish because it makes a corpse and a murder scene of a pharmacy, and all the additional trauma that entails... not to mention turning a robbery into a murder scene.

It's not my "idiocy", it is the terminology used by personal defense instructors and is a common phrase in the industry. I didn't make it up, I was taught it. Also, I take your point about turning the pharmacy into a mess... however, it is difficult to fully accept when accurately rephrased as "it would have been too inconvenient and messy for the store owner to have prevented thousands of opiod overdoes events and not funded criminal groups". If it were a candy store, or even a bank, then sure, of course... you don't shoot someone that is no longer a threat as they are walking out the door. If it were something dangerous, like a bunch of knives that you were even a little sure were going to be used to hurt other people, or drugs that you are fucking positive were going to be used to hurt people, then that is different.
I had this one class where the instructor was discussing the law regarding stand your ground (As applied in my home state), and he pointed out how someone breaking into your house was not legal grounds to shoot them, but once they commit a crime inside the house, it is. He proceeded to point out that "loitering" is a crime... so the second they are standing in your house "loitering", they can be shot. Someone in the class (not me) asked if they picked up your TV and started for the door, at what point is it stealing and when can deadly force be used... to which the instructor replied, "anyone in this class that is interested in shooting someone for stealing their TV can leave right now. You are piece of shit, so get the fuck out". That is literally what he said. He was teaching us the law, and the responsibility to be better than "technically legal".

I've already answered with a policy response that makes the particulars o the incident (the drug angle) a non-starter. People are buying opioids of their own free will. We can improve education so that their consent is MORE informed, but that is their choice, and we are not helping them by criminalizing rather than legalizing the drugs and educating their consumers, or providing access to antagonists for OD prevention. These are problems not well answered by shooting death corpses; they are better answered by other changes in policy.

Edit: maybe someone with a pharmacist for a wife would be qualified in answering some questions about how THEY think the problems surrounding drug theft can be addressed...

 

[Gun Nut]

The answer was clear in your post. Because there was no opportune time. She instead attempted to use a clever tactic to help the police possibly catch him later. Did you say that to them? How did they respond? Note, I don't at all care what a random gun owner thinks... I only care what concealed carry permit owners say to you about that. Are any of those involved in the armchair quarterbacking you experienced? Or are you just talking to individuals with no training that happen to have the .22 rifle they got as a kid sitting in the closet?


What's the point of asking that? The bad guy drug dealers ultimately got their drugs from your good guy wife. What are you trying to say here?
She was a hero... yet she put a death sentence in the hands of drug addicts by providing the drugs to the illegal sellers of those drugs. How many overdoses will happen because of her? These are TERRIBLE questions. Let's leave the duped, assaulted, or otherwise taken advantage of out of this.

See, Jason was just in here trying to argue that people who support and carry guns in public weren't all cowboys looking to start a shooting fight, yet what is it you suggest in "taking your turn" that is anything but a cavalier cowboy attitude about killing someone?

At least the drugs she released were pure and well marked, and bought by willing and consenting buyers who the same people calling for gun control are calling for drug law reform, also to reduce such thefts.

You misunderstand. The person stealing the drugs are not asking their buyers for a prescription. Who do you suppose are buying the stolen drugs? Don't be ignorant and respond "maybe they were for him".. they weren't. He had a list. That means he was personally unfamiliar and was simply filling an order. of those addicts that are buying the drugs, how many will die because of the availability of all they can get their hands on?

"waiting your turn" is neither cavalier (by definition, it is exactly the opposite... it is WAITING... not ACTING in a cavalier way.), nor about killing someone else. It is about not getting yourself or someone else killed. Yes, the threat may get killed... maybe don't commit crimes with guns where you threaten to shoot someone and you won't get shot yourself, m'k?

 

[Gun Nut]

You gun will not help you if you are under threat as a hostage and it is still in your holster, and even Gun Nut's idiocy about 'waiting his turn' is foolish because it makes a corpse and a murder scene of a pharmacy, and all the additional trauma that entails... not to mention turning a robbery into a murder scene.

It's not my "idiocy", it is the terminology used by personal defense instructors and is a common phrase in the industry. I didn't make it up, I was taught it. Also, I take your point about turning the pharmacy into a mess... however, it is difficult to fully accept when accurately rephrased as "it would have been too inconvenient and messy for the store owner to have prevented thousands of opiod overdoes events and not funded criminal groups". If it were a candy store, or even a bank, then sure, of course... you don't shoot someone that is no longer a threat as they are walking out the door. If it were something dangerous, like a bunch of knives that you were even a little sure were going to be used to hurt other people, or drugs that you are fucking positive were going to be used to hurt people, then that is different.
I had this one class where the instructor was discussing the law regarding stand your ground (As applied in my home state), and he pointed out how someone breaking into your house was not legal grounds to shoot them, but once they commit a crime inside the house, it is. He proceeded to point out that "loitering" is a crime... so the second they are standing in your house "loitering", they can be shot. Someone in the class (not me) asked if they picked up your TV and started for the door, at what point is it stealing and when can deadly force be used... to which the instructor replied, "anyone in this class that is interested in shooting someone for stealing their TV can leave right now. You are piece of shit, so get the fuck out". That is literally what he said. He was teaching us the law, and the responsibility to be better than "technically legal".

I've already answered with a policy response that makes the particulars o the incident (the drug angle) a non-starter. People are buying opioids of their own free will. We can improve education so that their consent is MORE informed, but that is their choice, and we are not helping them by criminalizing rather than legalizing the drugs and educating their consumers, or providing access to antagonists for OD prevention. These are problems not well answered by shooting death corpses; they are better answered by other changes in policy.

Edit: maybe someone with a pharmacist for a wife would be qualified in answering some questions about how THEY think the problems surrounding drug theft can be addressed...

I am making no criticism of the pharmaceutical services industry. I have my opinion, but it does not belong in this thread. I merely point out the difference between a pharmacy and a candy store, in terms of the consequence of letting a thief get away, given a choice... which means IF there was an opportunity to stop it.

 

[Artemus]

And yet multiple gun owners demanded to know, both of me and of her at the pharmacy, why she didn't use a gun to stop the gunman.

The answer was clear in your post. Because there was no opportune time. She instead attempted to use a clever tactic to help the police possibly catch him later. Did you say that to them? How did they respond? Note, I don't at all care what a random gun owner thinks... I only care what concealed carry permit owners say to you about that. Are any of those involved in the armchair quarterbacking you experienced? Or are you just talking to individuals with no training that happen to have the .22 rifle they got as a kid sitting in the closet?

The answer was clear in the DEA brochure and every law-enforcement statement ever released ong before I made my post. And these strong 2nd amendment rights, NRA member, "responsible" gun owners were still demanding to know why she let the robber get away with narcotics.

What's the point of asking that? The bad guy drug dealers ultimately got their drugs from your good guy wife. What are you trying to say here?
She was a hero... yet she put a death sentence in the hands of drug addicts by providing the drugs to the illegal sellers of those drugs. How many overdoses will happen because of her? These are TERRIBLE questions. Let's leave the duped, assaulted, or otherwise taken advantage of out of this.

Actually it is your analogy that is terrible. Four critical differences that you should acknowledge:

1. Unlike the gun owners we encountered, she is the first to admit that the drugs she legally has (temporarily) in her possession do not make her safer, but in fact make her a target for crime,

2. These drugs are very heavily controlled. You cannot go to a "narcotics show" and buy oxycontin with no check whatsoever,

3. No one has ever taken stolen narcotics into a convenience or liquor store and said "Give me all the cash in the safe or I'll throw these pills at you,

4. If these drugs were not available under very carefully supervised and controlled circumstances then millions of people would needless suffer. Not so if guns were not available with essentially no control and supervison whatsoever.

She and I both agree that it has been too easy to get narcotics and the opioid crisis is largely due to that fact. (She has declined to fill numerous prescriptions from "doctor shoppers" and has had prescription forgers arrested, often at elevated risk to herself.) Why is it so difficult to admit that too easily available guns are responsible for gun violence?

 

[Gun Nut]

The police officer I spoke with told me that if an off-duty, out of uniform but armed had entered the store that he/she would have simply become a very well trained witness. That spoke volumes.

Very good point... that is another aspect of training one would receive if interested in learning about personal defense with guns... How to observe and report. Example... next time you go into a 7-11 or Circle-K or whatever you have in your region, look at the door frame on the inside of the store. Can anyone tell me what you would see and what it is for?

Show

a ruler running up along the door frame so witnesses (or the camera) can accurately report someone's height that is leaving the store.

 

[Jarhyn]

The answer was clear in your post. Because there was no opportune time. She instead attempted to use a clever tactic to help the police possibly catch him later. Did you say that to them? How did they respond? Note, I don't at all care what a random gun owner thinks... I only care what concealed carry permit owners say to you about that. Are any of those involved in the armchair quarterbacking you experienced? Or are you just talking to individuals with no training that happen to have the .22 rifle they got as a kid sitting in the closet?


What's the point of asking that? The bad guy drug dealers ultimately got their drugs from your good guy wife. What are you trying to say here?
She was a hero... yet she put a death sentence in the hands of drug addicts by providing the drugs to the illegal sellers of those drugs. How many overdoses will happen because of her? These are TERRIBLE questions. Let's leave the duped, assaulted, or otherwise taken advantage of out of this.

See, Jason was just in here trying to argue that people who support and carry guns in public weren't all cowboys looking to start a shooting fight, yet what is it you suggest in "taking your turn" that is anything but a cavalier cowboy attitude about killing someone?

At least the drugs she released were pure and well marked, and bought by willing and consenting buyers who the same people calling for gun control are calling for drug law reform, also to reduce such thefts.

You misunderstand. The person stealing the drugs are not asking their buyers for a prescription. Who do you suppose are buying the stolen drugs? Don't be ignorant and respond "maybe they were for him".. they weren't. He had a list. That means he was personally unfamiliar and was simply filling an order. of those addicts that are buying the drugs, how many will die because of the availability of all they can get their hands on?

"waiting your turn" is neither cavalier (by definition, it is exactly the opposite... it is WAITING... not ACTING in a cavalier way.), nor about killing someone else. It is about not getting yourself or someone else killed. Yes, the threat may get killed... maybe don't commit crimes with guns where you threaten to shoot someone and you won't get shot yourself, m'k?

No, I don't misunderstand. I don't CARE if the buyer has a prescription or not. The most likely scenario is that they were, at some point, on a prescription, and that's how they got addicted in the first place. I don't care though. I care that they understand that for the high they seek, there is a high chance of death, and that they have other options for self-fulfillment involving treatment and psychological help.

I've sold illegal drugs before, myself. I may sell them again, some day, if things keep getting shittier for me financially. I most certainly USE illegal drugs, and while I try to source them from non-violent organizations, that isn't always a guarantee. I'm not going to be swayed by your insistence that he stole drugs that are 'dangerous'. I don't care because the buyers already know they are dangerous, and seek to use them anyway. Dealer's gotta eat and pay the rent like anyone else.

I don't think that someone committing a crime wherein they do not shoot anyone justifies them being shot. The only time I see it as OK to shoot someone, is that they have already shot someone, with the 'good guy with a gun' as an active witness. It is cavalier to shoot someone to death who you do not need to hoot. It is cavalier to act as judge, jury, and executioner for a crime that doesn't even warrant a death sentence anywhere outside the Philippines.

Edit: no, on second thought it ISNT cavalier. It is CRAVEN.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

As an outsider to the USA, I just have to say, something about your society is severely fucked up when you have to have conversations like this. I feel like a space alien looking in on you, and I'm only one border away.

 

[Gun Nut]

The answer was clear in the DEA brochure and every law-enforcement statement ever released ong before I made my post. And these strong 2nd amendment rights, NRA member, "responsible" gun owners were still demanding to know why she let the robber get away with narcotics.

What's the point of asking that? The bad guy drug dealers ultimately got their drugs from your good guy wife. What are you trying to say here?
She was a hero... yet she put a death sentence in the hands of drug addicts by providing the drugs to the illegal sellers of those drugs. How many overdoses will happen because of her? These are TERRIBLE questions. Let's leave the duped, assaulted, or otherwise taken advantage of out of this.

Actually it is your analogy that is terrible. Four critical differences that you should acknowledge:

1. Unlike the gun owners we encountered, she is the first to admit that the drugs she legally has (temporarily) in her possession do not make her safer, but in fact make her a target for crime,

2. These drugs are very heavily controlled. You cannot go to a "narcotics show" and buy oxycontin with no check whatsoever,

3. No one has ever taken stolen narcotics into a convenience or liquor store and said "Give me all the cash in the safe or I'll throw these pills at you,

4. If these drugs were not available under very carefully supervised and controlled circumstances then millions of people would needless suffer. Not so if guns were not available with essentially no control and supervison whatsoever.

She and I both agree that it has been too easy to get narcotics and the opioid crisis is largely due to that fact. (She has declined to fill numerous prescriptions from "doctor shoppers" and has had prescription forgers arrested, often at elevated risk to herself.) Why is it so difficult to admit that too easily available guns are responsible for gun violence?

I'm not really understanding the analogy between guns and pills... again, I am not criticizing nor making an equivalence between prescription drugs (which are misused by some) and guns (which are misused by some). I'm more of a "give up your cars, then" kind of guy. That's where I argue equivalence... but I digress... what I really want to point out, from:

Why is it so difficult to admit that too easily available guns are responsible for gun violence?

It is not difficult to admit... I have said exactly the same... It is the entire basis of how I believe gun laws should be based... keeping guns out of the wrong people's hands. I've said that all over the place here (this site - all my gun related posts).

 

[Jarhyn]

I'm not really understanding the analogy between guns and pills... again, I am not criticizing nor making an equivalence between prescription drugs (which are misused by some) and guns (which are misused by some). I'm more of a "give up your cars, then" kind of guy. That's where I argue equivalence... but I digress... what I really want to point out, from:

Why is it so difficult to admit that too easily available guns are responsible for gun violence?

It is not difficult to admit... I have said exactly the same... It is the entire basis of how I believe gun laws should be based... keeping guns out of the wrong people's hands. I've said that all over the place here (this site - all my gun related posts).

I guess we differ primarily in the fact that I identify "the wrong people's hands" as "anyone who may resort to their use in a fit of passion, fear, or rage, when not using it would not result in death", which means "most any human being's hands, in most any situation likely to arise in public or private".

I think that the correct response is to require people who own guns, by whatever method YOU may use to make such a determination, to keep said guns in a locked mechanism that requires an hour or so after requesting a gun to gain access to it, where said owners must put forward some bond or liability insurance against its misuse or theft, and that they should see some manner of legal consequence, and that the person be well trained in the handling, cleaning, use, and maintenance of the firearm, and that the firearms held are not belonging to any class describable as "designed or shaped in such a way to provide specific utility in an assault or human confrontation", to include rifles with pistol grips, large magazines, combat rail systems, and most semi-automatic handguns.

Edit: and please don't give me any garbage memes about "pistol grips and rails don't makes a rifle more dangerous to people". I was a soldier. I practiced with my rifle, understanding the utility of the shapes of it. I know damn well what makes a rifle better for people-killing, and what doesn't make it better at deer and squirrel killing.

 

[James Brown]

It is the entire basis of how I believe gun laws should be based... keeping guns out of the wrong people's hands.

I agree with this position completely.

The problem then becomes: A) Who decides who is and is not one of the 'wrong people'? and B) How do we keep the 'wrong people' from having guns?