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We can do a lot to fix stupid. First and foremost, educate and regularly remind people about the extreme danger that's involved in having a firearm that is not secured. They need to maintain a high degree of awareness -- at ALL times.
That may well have prevented this absurd tragedy at the Idaho Walmart.
Another thing that people need to be regularly and forcefully reminded about: What you are wearing can cause your gun to go off. Here are several instances of people getting their jackets caught up with a gun, causing it to go off and shoot someone.
I would add that people need to be frequently reminded to secure their firearms at home, especially when children live there or are visiting. We had the whole clan over at Christmas and all my guns went into the safe, as they do whenever little ones might be around.
Your posts are among the best in this thread and I commend you for hanging there in an attempt to get the gun-rights absolutists to see some reason.
But you're dreaming if you really think you're ever going to fix stupid....especially if you include human emotional fallibility and weakness in the definition. It's not gonna happen - ever. These needless tragedies will continue to ruin lives until you do the one and only one thing that will stop them. Get the guns that most need like they need a huge tree falling on their house out of their hands.
Ah, the armed citizen, the guarantee of our freedom.
A candidate for the Darwin Award there--but no, she already reproduced. Well, the kid won't be having siblings.
The woman did not have her side arm properly stored. That is in a holster with a snap in a separate zipped compartment. She paid with her life. but does not take away from people who carry firearms in a save legal matter.
Let face it some Walmart's are better than others? I would carry if I was not comfortable with the clientele. Or go to a more "safer Walmart in a better area?
There's no heightened scrutiny. I'm concerned about all conduct that imposes an unreasonable risk of harm to others. But I don't see people clamoring for the right to drive recklessly.
Who's clamoring for the Right to carry a gun recklessly? Safety is always a big topic in any gun forum or thread.
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Here's where your theory breaks down. People who carry loaded, unsecured firearms are bringing a hazard into the public sphere and insisting that they not be regulated or required to follow strict safety guidelines.
They are? Can you provide an example? When I went to the Sheriffs Department to get background checked and fingerprinted for my CCW, I was handed a book over a hundred pages long on just how regulated I was about to be and the safety guidelines I was about to have to follow, and in fact that book is enough to scare some people in to not carrying at all even if they do go through with the application.
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Nobody else is doing such a thing. Drunk and incompetent drivers are heavily policed, imprisoned, fined and removed from the roads. They are required to carry insurance and can denied a license if they don't have it. They are required to attend driver safety courses and perform community services. Repeat offenders lose their licenses permanently. They are the subject of ongoing campaigns to increase public awareness and responsibility.
And everything you just said is true of concealed carriers as well, with the exception of carrying insurance, and even though it may not be required, many people voluntarily carry insurance through special programs set up for that kind of thing. As for the campaign against drunk drivers, as I said earlier, I'd really like to see prominant gun groups more actively campaign for safe storage and carry practices. Not campaign for laws, but just sponsor ads and educational programs and such, which is something they already do to an extent.
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Originally Posted by arjay57
A more vigorous effort to promote and enforce gun safety would go a long way toward building confidence among non-gun people.
I very much doubt that. You're never going to change the more hardcore people with an anti-gun ideology that isn't based on logic or rationality. Take the NRA for example. They are the foremost authority on guns and gun safety programs in the world. They have numerous programs dedicated to the safe handling of guns, and have done more to promote gun safety than any other group, yet the anti-gun people still do their best to attack them and make them out to be nothing more than a shady group of lobbyists financed by the gun industry who don't care about anything but lining their own pockets, and nothing could be farther from the truth.
If anything, it might be cherry picking to claim these disasters don't happen.
First, no one is claiming they don't happen. Second, out of the 11.5 million people with carry permits, ( and that isn't even including the people who carry in states where a permit isn't required ).... how many incidents have there been?
If anything, these types of occurences aere a statistical anomaly.
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Most people simply don't worry about the boogeyman getting them at the local Walmart. My mama lived over eight decades and not once was she afraid to go the store without a gun. Same with my daddy, a young country boy who went into Normandy in the face of withering gunfire.
I'm not "afraid" to go to the store without a gun, it's called being prepared.
Do you carry a spare tire with you? Why are you so afraid to go out in to the world unprepared for a flat?
Do you have smoke alarms in your home? I'd wager house fires are pretty rare, yet you are afraid to live without an alarm?
I'm just following your reasoning to it's logical end.
Truth is, nobody is "afraid" to go somewhere without a gun. That's just something you tell yourself in order to create a perception of superiority.
Your posts are among the best in this thread and I commend you for hanging there in an attempt to get the gun-rights absolutists to see some reason.
But you're dreaming if you really think you're ever going to fix stupid....especially if you include human emotional fallibility and weakness in the definition. It's not gonna happen - ever. These needless tragedies will continue to ruin lives until you do the one and only one thing that will stop them. Get the guns that most need like they need a huge tree falling on their house out of their hands.
"nobody wants to take your guns, we just want a few common sense measures put in place"
Thanks for nipping that repeated meme in the bud. Nobody, including yourself, ever really believed it anyway.
I'm not "afraid" to go to the store without a gun, it's called being prepared.
Prepared for what, WhipperSnapper?
Here's the diff, of course, between a loaded firearm and my spare tire or smoke alarm. First of all, they can't kill or injure anybody. Even if they could, I'm not bringing them into the public sphere where my misjudgment or misuse has the potential to cause instant death or grievous injury.
"nobody wants to take your guns, we just want a few common sense measures put in place"
Thanks for nipping that repeated meme in the bud. Nobody, including yourself, ever really believed it anyway.
At least you're honest, I'll give you that much.
Nor have I ever said it. So your beef is with those who do.
You may be the smartest and safest person on earth. But the threat to public safety posed by the thousands - if not the millions - of careless, reckless, and dangerously ill with guns cannot be tolerated in a civil society. We must get guns out of our culture. And we will make no valid claim to be civilized men until we do.
Here's the diff, of course, between a loaded firearm and my spare tire or smoke alarm. First of all, they can't kill or injure anybody. Even if they could, I'm not bringing them into the public sphere where my misjudgment or misuse has the potential to cause instant death or grievous injury.
How does bringing a secured, hip holstered, and concealed firearm in public put anyone at risk? Concealed carry means you don't handle it or show it. No one knows you have it.
The only time anyone sees it is if your life is in imminent danger.
Do you know how many times you are in close proximity to a concealed handgun on any given day? With more than 11million licensees, in America, joule say more than you know.
Here's the diff, of course, between a loaded firearm and my spare tire or smoke alarm. First of all, they can't kill or injure anybody. Even if they could, I'm not bringing them into the public sphere where my misjudgment or misuse has the potential to cause instant death or grievous injury.
Being prepared is subjective...
Do you have car insurance? If so, why?
Do you have house/renters insurance? If so, why?
Do you have a fire extinguisher? If so, why
Do you have a spare tire? If so, why?
What you think is or is not, is not always right....just because you don't agree with it....that's the problem with people such as you...
And as for your excuse....you have them, so they won't kill you....
Deaths per capita is apparently too difficult for you to comprehend.
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Or go to a more "safer Walmart in a better area?
