Anyone who blames the gun and not the person who misuses it violates a basic belief of mine: PEOPLE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS.
understanding what an item is designed to do does not absolve people of responsibility for using it. you just cant talk about something if you aren't aware of what its purpose is. :shrug:
Anyone who blames the gun and not the person who misuses it violates a basic belief of mine: PEOPLE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS.
A weapon can do no harm without a hand to misuse it. Sometimes they are accidentally misused, which can be remedied with knowledge and training. Sometimes they are INTENTIONALLY misused by either an evil or mentally unstable individual. If we take better care of our mentally unstable that will go a long way towards solving that problem, but I'm not sure how we handle evil people using guns for evil acts short of good people with guns fighting back.
So I have decided to take class and learn how to use gun. Probably get a conceal license as well once completed. One thing i want to do is for my kid (9 years old) to learn as well. Is he too young to go to shooting range? I heard that lead poisoning is a big concern for kid at the range. So how likely my kid would be over exposed to lead there?
The first gun I shot was my Dad's Lee Enfield when I was six. Definitely kicked, but was fun. I've a Ruger 10/22 as my go-to target rifle with some modifications. It can reliably hit clays out at 300 yards. With a suppressor and my favorite cci target rounds (barely below sonic speed), barely a click can be heard.OP:
I strongly recommend doing the following:
1) Learning the four rules of firearm safety
2) Learning from an NRA-certified firearms instructor
3) Buying a bolt-action 22LR rifle such as a Savage Mark II. I'd say iron sights are fine to start with. Avoid cheap Chinese-made optics, they WILL eventually beat themselves to death from recoil (even from a 22LR).
4) Have fun shooting holes in paper
Don't be like me and start learning how to shoot with a Mosin Nagant M91/30. 7.62x54R + newb = sore shoulder.
OP:
I strongly recommend doing the following:
1) Learning the four rules of firearm safety
2) Learning from an NRA-certified firearms instructor
3) Buying a bolt-action 22LR rifle such as a Savage Mark II. I'd say iron sights are fine to start with. Avoid cheap Chinese-made optics, they WILL eventually beat themselves to death from recoil (even from a 22LR).
4) Have fun shooting holes in paper
Don't be like me and start learning how to shoot with a Mosin Nagant M91/30. 7.62x54R + newb = sore shoulder.
correct. guns are tools...designed to kill.
A hammer is also a tool, it is designed to hammer a nail, but has many other uses. Some, in fact, also use a hammer to kill people, but it is not designed to do that.
I would not suggest using a gun to hammer a nail. Not because it is dangerous, but because it would be ineffective. That is not what is designed to do. I also would not suggest trying to apply paint with a gun, or prying up some rotten wood with a gun. It's also not good for picking your teeth (a knife does this pretty well, among other things; though caution is advised)
A hammer, however, is also relatively effective at killing a person when properly applied to do so. It can do other things, of course. It is fair to call a a hammer a multi-use tool. Likewise, a knife is a multi-use tool. It can be applied towards many daily uses and, in fact, some knives are very effective at killing.
A gun is not a multi-use tool. It is designed only to kill. If it is not called a weapon (a tool designed for killing), then it would not be called a gun. It would be inaccurate to call a hammer a weapon, because it is not designed to that. Certainly, it can be used as such, but this is not its only use. Likewise, along this line, it would probably be inaccurate to call a knife a weapon. Many are used as weapons, but many are not ever used as such. Plenty of knives are completely ineffective at killing, in fact.
Therefore, a gun is designed and created to be a weapon and it only ever is a weapon, whether or not it rests on your table unused or is administered in the dispensing of home justice against a suspected perp. Suggesting otherwise is silly and stupid.
Whether or not you're shooting paper targets or buffalo or squatters, it is a killing tool first and only. shooting at paper is merely the necessary practice one should engage in for the purpose of the weapon: dispensing death.
I suggest avoiding the game of semantics when it is played so poorly.
And there is no reason to not admit as much. Why wouldn't you? A gun is a weapon is a weapon is a weapon. Stop being afraid of exactly what it is supposed to do. Treat it with respect. Isn't that what the gun folks say? It really does say something about those that are so invested in protecting their weapons that they go so far out of the way to deny that they are, in fact, weapons. Why is this?
Why is one so worried about themselves or their weapons, to live in this denial? I have weapons in my closet at home. I know exactly what they are for.
Guns were invented for one reason only: equality in the use of force.
You liberal assholes are all for equality right?
Gay rights, abortion rights, etc etc, what about the equal natural right for all walks of human life to defend itself, for the old, the weak, the small, the minority, etc?
nice necro bump, especially when you are essentially agreeing with me:
how does one dispense "equality of force"? in your understanding?
A gun equalizes force, is used for proper defense...because it effectively kills. It wasn't designed to hammer nails or wave in the air as a surrender flag, was it?
no.
lol: "you liberal assholes!" You don't know dick about me, son.
This is a rather dangerous view to take into a gun discussion if you are against stronger gun control. You're basically saying that the weapons themselves can't do harm, it's the hands that are holding them that have the potential to be dangerous. Therefore stronger gun control (i.e. separating more guns from more hands) is absolutely needed (obviously in addition to taking better care of our mentally unstable, as you mentioned). Stronger gun control translates to fewer hands on guns, which means fewer chance for them to do harm.
Unless you do want stronger gun control, then what you said makes perfect sense, but what you said afterwards didn't jibe with this, so I'm a little confused.
Since we are gonna necro this thread, let's do this...
I'm in favor of logical gun control, not zero gun control.
Yes, fewer unstable persons should own guns. I have no problem with requiring people to take a gun training class and obtain a cheap license to own guns, just like people currently do to drive an automobile. I'd love to see that training class offered at no cost in high school just like drivers education currently is.
Most people will never abuse a gun, but as long as we insist guns have this strange power to turn an average, law abiding citizen into a crazy killer, we can't really start to address the problem. We will continue to blame the gun and make it hard on everyone to own one, not just those who shouldn't have them. The person is the problem, not the firearm itself.
America is saturated with firearms, and the numbers only increase every year. There is no possible way to get rid of those guns short of starting a civil war. If we accept this, and also accept the fact that only about .003% of the guns in private hands are used to hurt a person each year, then we have to stop trying to take guns away from the 99.997% of people who don't misuse them.
Too many assholes/unstable people have guns. Gun control advocates need to stick to going after those people's guns, not the guns of the overwhelming number of citizens who don't abuse them. Guns would cause zero problems if everyone who used them did so reasonably. This tells me people are the problem. How about taking care of our mentally ill and emotionally compromised folks?
Bad drivers are cited, arrested, and have their driving privileges revoked all the time. We don't try to ban cars to correct their illegal behavior, do we? Why should gun use be controlled any differently? Why when someone kills do we insist on demonizing the tool they used and not the person themselves? Is it somehow unsettling to the human psyche to think the evil might lie in our own hearts and not the inanimate object?
Just for a little bit of a fact check.
Michael Dunn was not convicted for shooting Jordan Davis over loud music. Not at all. He was convicted because he was an idiot in the heat of the moment and continued to shoot at a fleeing vehicle which contained 3 other occupants who never made a threatening move at him at all.
But yes, there are idiots and idiots with guns will always be a problem. Still with the invention of guns, that genie is not going back into the bottle. The better course is to teach people not the be idiots and definitely teach people early in childhood about guns, gun ownership, and gun respect. Otherwise they end up as idiots.
I cannot believe what I'm reading.
A+++
Licensing is something that is generally rejected on grounds that it just leads to being more easily able to identify gun owners for confiscation, usually because it just comes up on top of existing laws and more potential bans after the licensing.
But when it comes with the condition of finally admitting guns are not the problem and a guarantee in law and even another amendment forbidding any and all future attempts on bans or bans on classes of guns for the general population, forever, and I'll take it further with undoing existing bans (NFA, even just reopening the registry closed in 1986 would suffice).
And then you go and start mixing guns and gun safety being introduced to public schools where even a poptart shaped like a gun is taboo now, it's something I could totally be behind.
This is what real compromise is. Not just compromising on the extent of yet more restrictions that I never asked for in the first place. Everyone in the USA needs to see this post.
I'm down for a license in exchange for all prior and future gun politics being completely reset and wiped off the table and having the constitutional right to keep and bear arms finally asserted in stone, again, once and for all.
Of course the licensing requirement would have to to be 100% not ripe for abuse to deny arms to arbitrary individuals or groups of people on the whim of whoever happens to be in charge. For licensing to be fair and inline with 2A the stigma of guns=bad guns=crime needs to go away and the qualification and licensing process needs to be as indifferent and non political/non partisan as getting a license for a car.
Well, I'm actually thinking my plan would only work in a perfect world. A world where people didn't use gun control, pro and anti, to scare voters into supporting their political office.
Any registry or licensing program would immediately be abuse by the anti-gunners who will stop at nothing short of complete confiscation. Being the saviors of society by ending private gun ownership earns them a lot of political power. Likewise, anyone proclaiming themselves pro-gun has a built in voter base of "...my cold dead hand!" folks.
Neither side is very reasonable.