Probably because more people die in swimming pool accidents than in firearms accidents each year? And so you would be more open to lawsuits, presumably? Why do you think?
Ok. That’s what I figured DragonAsh was getting at.
What sorts of gun violations are you thinking of? How would you enforce them? I assume you aren’t talking about a ‘gun violation’ being an accidental death or murder, since we have laws for those things (and law suits for the former), so what did you have in mind? How would it work?
I have 9 actually. First, it’s a number of power. One for my wife, one for each kid and 2 for the dogs. Then I have 2 for myself so I can fire one in each hand, tilted sideways.
Actually, I have zero if this was aimed at me. I’m pro-choice after all…
I typically have 3-4 guns in my bedroom, depending on the time of day, but no, the possible use cases I envision do not center on “in case an intruder gets ahold of one, and [I am] going to need to duel or standoff with him”
To the question above: All gun violations under the laws current at the time. Why couldn’t a violation be associated with a murder or accidental death?
Do you have a cite the for swimming pools statistic?
Well, because I don’t see an insurance company raising your rates because you were murdered or something like that. Not sure about the suicide angle, but I doubt that’s going to be easy to pin on guns exclusively from insurance companies. This is why I asked you for details.
Sure. You can do your own search if you don’t like these cites. This one is from 2010 and just answers the question, but this one has the stats on pools:
Accidental gun deaths in the US range (depending on which categories you put into that category) from less than a thousand to around 1500 and varies from year to year. I’ll let you look that one up, since it’s a total slog with all of the Google hits wanting to talk about everything except the question you are asking. Or, just click on the first link if you like.
But the absolute number of deaths doesn’t tell us much unless we know how common the activity in question is. Swimming is an incredibly common and wide-spread activity for entire families across all age groups for much of the year across pretty much the entire United States. And even though statistically speaking it’s an incredibly safe activity, many states still have strict liability laws that means the home owner can be liable for people injured in the home pool…even if the person was trespassing at the time.
Home owners with a pool may pay $600-800 more per year for home insurance for that reason. My home security system lowers my home insurance. I don’t recall ever being asked if I had a gun in the house or not.
I don’t recall ever being asked about a gun either (would be moot as I don’t own any), but my guess is that you pay more for insurance because it’s more likely that someone else will be injured or killed in your pool (and thus sue you) than it is for someone visiting will be killed accidentally by a gun. If you have a better explanation I’m all ears…that was merely my guess.
As for relative use, well, again, we are talking about something like 10 million residential pools verse hundreds of millions of guns. In addition, not sure where you live, but in many places I’ve lived pools are a very seasonal use thing…late spring to early fall. Though some places I’ve lived they are year round, though frankly, no one is using a pool in southern Arizona during June to September much unless they enjoy swimming in bath water. However you parse it, though, less people are killed in accidental gun incidents each year than in pools, which is probably why you have to pay more for home insurance. I will concede that another reason is that there isn’t any real record of who has what guns, so would be hard for them to ding you for homeowners if they didn’t know you had guns and you didn’t volunteer that fact. One of the things I mentioned in my OP was registration, which perhaps would have an impact on that.
I don’t really understand what’s “optimistic” about this, but it’s probably not terribly important. I just don’t hold out much hope that if a burglar manages to creep stealthily into my bedroom and steal one of my firearms out of the pistol safe I have there, that I would then manage to be able to remove another gun from the safe and “duel” him. If he manages to do all that, he’ll probably just shoot me rather than wait for me to arm myself and pace off for a duel.
I suspect far more mundane self defense scenarios are more likely. The reason there are 3-4 is that happens to be where my pistol safe is located, and it’s a relatively convenient and secure place to store them.
Umm, no one, that’s an odd question. I didn’t ask if he should be held responsible, I asked how I would tell that he is one of the irresponsible gun owners.
Because, as a gun owner, and a contributor to gun culture, and a defender of the people’s right to have unfettered access to guns, you are n part responsible for incidents like this occurring.
Why should I, as a non-gun owner, have to pay when one of your gun owning colleagues harms me or mine? I get no benefit out of having guns in my environment, I only get the liability. Why do you refuse to share in the liability that you create?
There are externalities to your actions that are being paid for by society, and you are just looking to be a free rider.
Nah, I did not make that mistake. But, a cop should supposedly have more training and experience with firearms than a civilian. If someone with more training and firearms than your average civilian cannot be trusted to handle his firearms safely, then why should I expect your random average civilian to do so?
Ah, the age old argument. “You don’t know enough about guns to be allowed to have a position on them.”
If I came and took all your guns, who would get them back for you?
Really? I’ve never been in an accident, haven’t had a ticket in well over a decade, yet, when I changed my primary residence, that changed my premiums, when I change my place of work, that changes my premiums, when I change the number of people in my household, that changes my premiums.
Your comment reflects a profound ignorance on how insurance works and is tabulated actuarially.
Quite sure. Not sure what your wiki link is supposed to reference there. The only thing I can think of is that you are saying I need to go out and get uninsured firearm owner insurance, to cover me in case someone shoots me who cannot pay for my treatment?
If there even is such a thing, why should I have to get insurance to cover liability created by the actions of other people?
And they also have problems paying for innocent bystanders of those drive bys.
Take the most liberal state you can think of. Now take a look at their national guard. Their national guard has much more in common with the national guard of other states than it does with the average denizen of their own state.
I’m not saying you can’t win because we have all the guns but you can’t out gun the pro-gun side of the argument. This means you have to have convincing arguments and so far a lot of arguments seem to be deeply rooted in ignorance.
Guns are an unnecessary evil. Most countries don’t have murder rates as high as ours and most countries have far more severe gun rules. Having a bunch of guns is simply a sign that the owner is a crazy coward. Have one gun, maybe 6 shots available, for home protection, a bolt action rifle for hunting, a shotgun for hunting, housed at the local armory where you go with your license to hunt something during that season…etc. etc. Common sense. the vast majority of people should not have guns. The second amendment never was intended to produce the obscene situation we have today. You know I’m right.
Actually, no…I don’t know you are right. You make a personal value judgment then you expect everyone else to make the same call. This is exactly the same logic used by the prohibitionists…they said that alcohol is an unnecessary evil. The US shouldn’t allow it because it causes a lot of death, breaks up families and hurts women. It’s common sense. The vast majority of people shouldn’t drink and the government should ensure that they don’t.
Problem is, most citizens don’t agree with that judgment. Same goes for personal ownership of guns in the US. Most Americans don’t actually give a flying fuck what other countries do or don’t do. I don’t really care, personally, what Europeans do or don’t do, or what Japanese do or don’t do…that’s their business. If I wanted to live in their society I’d move to their country and accept their own collective decisions on the various stuff that will or won’t kill their citizens. My WAG is they don’t care if Americans think there are things they do that they shouldn’t either, nor do they want to move here…or if they do, they probably are already trying to become Americans so they can live the dream.
No. I would assume that after a horrific event that attitudes temporarily change (just like right now there is a bi-partisan law being proposed to get rid of those bump stock thingies), but eventually, it will flatten back out and go back towards the mean over time. So, I’m unsure of what such a bump would actually mean unless it turns into a long-term trend.
The attitude of most Americans (or most people in other countries) concerning what people in other countries think of what they do and how they do it, however, I’m going to guess is pretty steady, though that’s purely anecdotal…I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a poll saying ‘what do you think about other countries thinking you and your country are barbarians’ or something along similar lines, so just basing that on my own and my circle of friends thoughts on that.
Is there any societal benefit to someone owning 50 guns?
These people want to use the schools, roads, everything else, including many govt entitlement programs, and they’re hording guns, for when they disagree with the rest of us about some right they were told they had, by Alex jones or someone. It doesn’t sound like a good situation, to be supported by thoughtful people.
Maybe society will decide that hording guns is basically a dead end, dangerous occupation. What are you going to do shoot us?
I think you’re burying the lede here. There have been some very high profile flip flops on this issue. They didn’t say “I’m iffy now,” they said “I was wrong. I am going forward on this knowledge with a different attitude.”
That’s a value judgment again. Is there a social benefit to someone owning 50 bottles of wine…or 500…or 5000? Is there a social benefit to someone such as myself owning, say, 20 boxes of fine cigars and maybe 20-30 bottles of high-end tequila along with a similar number of single malt scotch? No idea. There is no value to you, perhaps, if you don’t like cigars, tequila or scotch I suppose.
Who are ‘these people’? Seems like a very small number of nuts, especially if they are listening to Alex Jones.
No, I would probably hit you over the head with an empty tequila bottle…no need to waste the good stuff. Not because society might decide that but just because you seem bound and determined to strawman me by asking me stupid questions about shooting ‘us’ as well as assuming you know the answers I’m going to say or what my stance is on, well, anything.
To answer your non-question, society might decide that down the road ordinary citizens shouldn’t be allowed guns, or should be allowed some arbitrary number only, or be allowed only black powder guns or only single shot guns, or be allowed only paint guns or whatever. Myself, I’d fight against it (in the political and protest sense, not actually hitting you on the head with a tequila bottle), but if the majority of my fellow citizens decided that’s what they want then, well, that’s what democracy is about.
Well - that’s my point. Is having a pool more dangerous than having a gun in the house? The available evidence seems to suggest that having a gun in the house increases the risk of any person in the home dying from a homicide compared to homes without guns. Yet as I noted, I don’t recall ever being asked if I owned a gun in the home, either for my home insurance or life insurance. For my home insurance, I was asked about home security systems.
America clearly incurs costs to maintain its gun culture - both in terms of horrific body counts (killed and injured) plus additional healthcare costs and such - but it seems (to some of us at least) that gun owners do not pay their share to cover any of these costs.
Other than, you know, being far more likely to have you or one of your family members be killed by one of those guns.
