You have that wrong. I was having fun with the fact he took my post seriously as I was the OP that I was criticizing. I even made mention of it before you posted.
You seemed to ignore that before this post I quoted, and I am sure you will again.
Liability is usually decided by courts, with juries to deliberate how much at fualt you are. If someone breaks into your home, cracks your gun safe, and then uses it to commit a crime, you would be not more liable than if someone stole your car and used it.
Currently, there is virtually no liability for not properly securing and reporting your guns. If a gun used in a crime is tracked back to you, you can just say it was stolen. If someone steals your gun from your gun safe, how is reporting that punishing the gun owner? It seems you would WANT to report it for insurance claims or even the unlikely event it’s found and returned.
Selling or giving or lending a gun to someone who may then ‘lose’ it or sell it again should at least be reported. If I sell or lend my car to someone, and they have an accident in it, I may end up being held liable unless I have reported the change of ownership to the BMV. If I lend my car to someone without a drivers liscense, I could end up facing criminal charges.
It’s not hoplophobia to ask that the liability to gun ownership be equivalent to that of a car. Well, less than, really, not asking for annual registrations or 4 year license renewals that car ownership entails, or being required to maintain liability insurance on your gun, like you do a car. And to me a car has nearly infinite more utility to me than a gun. I drive a car to work, never used a gun to work.
Dynamite provides no benefits, as it is not used in any construction efforts. We used to use dynamite, but it was considered to be dangerous. It caused lots of accidents and injuries and damage when improperly used, sometimes even when properly used. That’s why it was replaced with better things, more stable and safe and powerful explosives. They are more expensive than dynamite, and harder to manufacture, but we have decided that the extra expense is worth the safety.
Guns haven’t gotten any ‘safer’.
An unknowable number. The question is, is would that number have been reduced by requiring gun owners to properly secure, register, and report transfer of ownership (including theft) of their firearms.
Eh, I saw it as he took a fairly vicious attack at you in a case of mistaken identity, and you responded to that post as though he were on the same side as the gun grabbers. As you were referring to enjoying the knee jerk reaction, and he is the only person that took your bait at all, it seemed a fair conclusion. By the time you caught up on the thread to realize you were on the same side, the edit window had closed. I really can’t parse your response to Bob as ‘playful’.
I actually did not see your next post until after I had posted, and thought about editing or amending, but didn’t really see a point to, as it was either a mea culpa or an attempt to weasel out.
Relevance… still, with no time constraints or confusing events happening, at least one, if not both of you exercised poor target discipline and instead had knee jerk reactions at inappropriate targets, and you want me to think that you walking around with lethal power is somehow going to make society safer.
TL;DR
If everyone carries a gun, even if there is no crime, a car backfire could cause a massacre.
Let me repost these links:
http://www.jewishjournal.com/images/articles/Israelis_with_rifles.jpg
http://img814.imageshack.us/img814/2230/zipuu.jpg
There are lots of car backfires there. Not one massacre due to a car backfire.
That is not what China Guy was proposing. At least thats not what it sounded like. It sounded like he was proposing strict liability where all you had to do was determine the ownership of the gun and any crime committed by that gun would be attributed to you.
What you are talking about is negligence. Negligence is generally cut off by the intervening criminal acts of others. Negligence is the world we live in today.
Perhaps the number is unknowable with pinpoint accuracy but its not ZERO either. Its a large number and one that you shouldn’t ignore.
BTW, I think it is unconstitutional to require people to keep guns in a safe. Heller indicated that gun lock requirements were unconstitutional because it hindered immediate acces to a gun when it was needed.
We do not currently have gun registration at the national level but we do in some states. I’m not opposed to a properly crafted gun registration requirement.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting that we require everyone to carry a gun.
And in order to carry a gun in those places requires higher training and registration than the US. The fact that here it is a right that can only be taken under extreme circumstances, and in Israel it’s a privilege that carries responsibility. A quick google for “car back fire mistaken for gunshot” had a story of a school on lockdown, a high speed chase that ended in the police shooting up the car and people inside, and about half a dozen reports of gunfire that all turned out to be cars backfiring.
I am not saying that every time a car backfires there will be an incident, but that if the overall target discipline that has been demonstrated by pro-gun activists on this board are any indication, it’s something pretty much bound to happen.
It did not sound at all like that was what he was proposing. Maybe I’m putting words in his mouth, but when he says you are on the hook, means that you are answerable. If you have a good reason as to how your gun ended up in the deranged weirdo’s hands, you can certainly use that as a defense. If you properly secured your guns, but the neighbor’s kid is a prodigal safe cracker and gets in and shoots himself, you have done your due dillegence, and that’s a perfectly valid defense.
If your guns are just laying around the house so that anyone can come by and take them for crimes or accidents, you very well should be held criminally liable for anything that happens with them, you have, through negligent actions of your own, allowed potential harm to come to others.
Not ignoring the number, my uncle can vouch for at least 1 of those incidents. Just questioning that the number would be changed by requiring gun owners to perform due diligence.
Guns do not need to be in a safe, they need to be secured. If they are on your person, or within your sight, that’s secure. If they are not being attended, they need to be secured to at least some level of diligence. A desk drawer, or in the couch cushions, or under the bed are not secure places to have an unattended gun. Hiding the gun where “no on will find it”, is not secure.
If you buy a gun safe, and use it properly, you can put your guns in it, and they will be secure. If someone manages to break into it, it’s not your liability. If they get the gun out from the couch cushions, it should be.
Put it this way, if someone hotwires your car and hits someone, that shouldn’t be your fault, if you leave your keys in the ignition, and a kid gets in and hurts himself, it is.
State level registration does no good when you can just go to a state without, and buy your gun there. National registration is the goal, but is fought tooth and nail by gun advocates.
No, but it has been suggested that by not carrying, we are abrogating our right to safety, not the same thing as requiring it by law, but same result, in order to be safe, everyone must carry.
And, perhaps, for those people who cannot afford a quality weapon - gun stamps!
Criminal penalty seems a bit much, but I don’t see any reason why we can’t insist that people carry liability insurance for their firearms. That would, of course, require that the insurance companies have the sort of actuarial data that the NRA is loathe to permit the government to gather, but hey! private enterprise!
How is that relevant to the statement I was responding to:
“If everyone carries a gun, even if there is no crime, a car backfire could cause a massacre.”
The word could is in there. With proper training, registration, and checks, it doesn’t have to, and probably won’t. With no requirement or training needed to own a gun, the chances start going up very quickly.
I can very easily envision a scenario where a car backfires, people pull out their guns to protect themselves from the threat, see other people with guns pointing them around. Once the first nervous, scared, or trigger happy person has a knee jerk reaction and pulls a trigger, it’s going to get out of control fast.
Nearly everyone in Israel has been in military service, and can quickly create and respond to command structures. They have training in accuracy, target choice and discipline to not panic and fire blindly. If you want the requirement to carry a gun in the US to be as high as it is there, that’s fine with me. They are actually much more strict on unregistered gun possession and use than we are. Most of those that I feel should only have to register their guns would be deprived of them under the rules of your cite. For instance try buying a gun in Israel as a Palestinian merchant to protect your shop.
If you want to make a point about gun laws being unnecessary, don’t point to countries with much more restrictive laws as an example of what you want. Find a country with looser laws than the US, and use that to demonstrate what freedoms will arise by relaxing our own almost non-existent laws.
I have no problem with US having mandatory military training of all 18-year-olds for a year or so.
I am making a point about the stupidity of someone saying that just the fact of a lot of guns around in public (and Israel has a lot MORE guns around in public than US does, even with the “more restrictive laws”) would cause some kind of Wild West shootouts.
I really don’t either, and as I am well over that age, and they can’t vote yet, I say go for it. I would say that anyone who has gone through military training should more or less be granted a firearms license for the guns they are trained on. (I say more or less because there will be many, especially with mandatory training being all inclusive, who still can’t be trusted to operate a lethal weapon in public, due to mental stability or criminal tendencies.)
And it would be stupid to say that. If you could find someone that says that, you would have a good argument. I however used the word could, a conditional modifier, indicating that should certain circumstances arise, it is a potential outcome, rather than would, (as you reinterpreted), which indicates a certainty. Our loose gun laws increase the chances dramatically of mistaken identity or friendly fire issues.
There becomes a tipping point, once a certain percentage of the public is carrying a firearm, that not doing so becomes a safety issue. My safety has moved from dependence on the social contract and authority to protect or avenge harm to my person (an imperfect defense, to be sure) to dependence on a bunch of strangers walking around with guns, with no authority or responsibility to protect me (a non-existent defense). I would then need to get a gun of my own, otherwise, my safety has been abrogated. If I think someone is going to shoot me, I’m going to shoot them first, as that is the only defense a gun gives me, to kill before being killed. I am fully willing to admit that I may make a mistake, and shoot someone who was not threatening me, but unintentionally creating that perception. Cops shoot unarmed people because they created a perception of threat all the time, I doubt my judgement would be all that much better in the heat of a situation. I could also get shot down by accidentally giving someone else the impression that I was threatening him.
How is a gun useful against a mugger if they have a gun pointed at you, and can easily kill you before you even get your hand to your gun. Knowing that you are armed only means the mugger is more likely to escalate the violence before you have a chance to defend. The only way to be safe would be to shoot anyone approaching even slightly suspiciously (and those who aren’t acting suspicious especially, because that’s how a good mugger would try to act). If I were mugged by someone with a gun, I would do exactly the same thing whether or not I had a gun; without making any sudden moves, I would hand over my wallet. Well, except, if I had a gun, they would probably take that too, they’d be better armed, and I’d be out far more than the cash I carry in my wallet. Against a mass shooter, I think that in the confusion, there would be many more injuries due to confused shooting than the original attacker. Even after the shooting ends, it could be difficult to figure out who actually started it, they could even possibly survive and not be suspected if everyone has guns and few of them are registered (it could have even just been a car backfiring). Rape, well, honestly, it’s certainly a horrible enough experience that I would not in any way begrudge a woman carrying to defend herself, but I’m not sure that it would play out favorably in most cases, especially if the assaulter has a gun. Self defense classes, and simply being careful to not get into dangerous situations go a lot further to prevent rape than guns.
If most people don’t have guns, criminals will assume their victim does not. This may make them easy prey, but also means that the criminal does not need to threaten mortal injury to assure compliance. Most muggings take place with a knife, or simply by being physically imposing to the victim, so a gun would actually be an effective deterrent. Once enough people have guns that the criminals adjust their violence accordingly, guns will no longer be an effective deterrent or defense.
The only common successful use of a gun in self defense is defending your home. In that case, you have many advantages of terrain and a clear cut assaulter, even then there are plenty of cases of shooting unexpected visitors or family. In any case, you don’t need to carry in public in order to defend your home.
I do not see any way that having more guns in the hands of more people with the little to no restrictions and training that exist in the US to make society safer, but rather we would see more accidents and incidents of preemptive self defense. You want to create registries and background checks and mandatory training for gun owners like Israel, I am absolutely for that, even if (and kind of especially if) it promotes gun ownership.
There certainly are those who are for taking all guns, but most of us just wish to see fewer gun deaths in the paper every day, and would like to have a reasonable debate on how best to accomplish that. Making some level of requirement before allowing people to walk around with deadly weapons in public, and possibly limiting the amount of damage a single person can do with one is really all most of us are asking for.
TL;DR
Took all that to explain the last TL;DR, that calls for a smiley. :eek:
snipped the rest of it…
You have the wrong perception of what an armed society looks like. Maybe it’s because you have seen many “Wild West” movies. They were wrong. See this. Or this. Or this.
Again, I give you the example of Israel. True, all the people that you see everywhere carrying automatic (note, automatic) weapons served in the IDF. But guess what - serving in the IDF does not magically make you a law-abiding citizen. Every criminal in Israel has done so. And they have weapons (some of them illegal). Yet crime levels in Israel are low (way lower than in the US), even if you include terrorism as crime.
I have not actually seen a wild west film in a decade or more, so, no, not what I was thinking, unless Maverick counts, I watched that a few months ago.
I have seen examples of armed societies. Not only Israel but Switzerland comes to mind with nearly 50% gun ownership. But what they have that we don’t is effective restrictions on who cannot be trusted with guns, and training and military discipline for those that can. They are trained to work together to identify and subdue threats even as ad hoc units. Serving in the IDF doesn’t magically make you law abiding, but the training certainly reduces the number of accidental and friendly fire deaths and injuries.
I am sure that if something were to go down outside this bar the girls with automatic weapons would respond with their training to counter the threat effectively, and it would be a sight to see. Something happening outside this bar may not be as effectively dealt with.
The US does not have these provisions and training to obtain a firearm and carry it in public. If the US did, then most of the fight over guns would be over, as that’s really all the majority of us want. If training and licensing lowers gun deaths, then the few on the fringes who actually do want to take all guns will no longer have any political traction.
So, yeah, example of Israel as a guide for our gun laws is quite a bit more restrictive and onerous than I would generally propose, but it certainly could be a goal to work towards.
You know, they have daily flights to Israel. I hear it’s almost as nice as New Zealand.
I may be wrong and China Guy can clarify but the proposal (as i understand it) is a common one. There are a couple of proposals that pop up from time to time that sound good from 50,000 feet but are horrible upon closer inspection.
Strict liability for gun ownership is one of them (mandatory liability isnurance that covers the cirminal acts of others is another one).
I would also point out that Heller ruled that a gun lock requirement was unconstitutional.
What if someone steals your poorly secured gun and kills someone with it? Are you guilty of murder? Can the family sue you for wrongful death? In torts the criminal acts of others generally cuts off causation even in the case of strict liability, some hoplophobes would extend crimnial liability to gun owners whose stolen guns were used in crimes.
I support national licensing and registration but the notion that state level registration is invalid because people will skirt the law is bad analysis. ANY registration requirement is going to require the compliance of law abiding gun owners. Noone is going to go house to house to spot check whether you have registrered all your guns. The same is true of state level registration. The people who are going to skirt their state gun registration laws are not going to suddenly decide that they have to obey federal gun registration laws.
The point (or hope) behind registration is that you will be able to register the vast majority of guns and be able to keep track of enough of the guns to reduce the flow of guns into criminal hands.
Can’t we just make it a class in high school like driver’s ed or does my kid have to do a tour in Syria or Iran when he turns 18?
You mean violent crime, right? My mother seems to think that there are a lot of pick pockets (or at least a lot of signs warning about pickpockets, I think she got a cramp from holding her purse too tight) and is pretty sure the cabbies are all thieves. :eek:;)
They have very little political traction as it is. With that said I think a LOT of gun owners think it would be a good idea if everyone were better trained with guns. We’ve all seen idiots getting kicked out of the gun range because they can’t follow simple gun safety etiquette.
Heh. I never had any thought of editing or amending my post like you did. I was having some fun with someone who took my post about the OP(ME) seriously.
As far as a car backfiring causing a massacre…let me know how many times that has happened. When you are done with that, let me know how many crimes have been prevented with guns, and the amount of times that shooters were stopped by people with guns that weren’t police/military.
I am willing to bet that car backfires causing massacres are not as high in volume.
They also have different demographics.
Yes yes. Israel has guns and is law-abiding. Switzerland has guns and is law abiding. Japan doesn’t have guns and is law-abiding.
I’m beginning to think “demographics” is some sort of euphemism for troublesome minorities or something.
You know what the American demographic is? Terrified of background checks they may very well not pass.
Demographics…An inconvenient truth.
Annnnddd … Out it comes. Well-spotted, levdrakon.