They are the first two purposes listed on the Smith and Wesson website:
Smith & Wesson | Pistols, Revolvers, and Rifles (smith-wesson.com)
The guy hold a pistol on the front page of the Ruger site-Is he hunting for deer?
Ruger® Firearms
What the hell, man. Did I say that? If your gun is stolen, you did something wrong by failing to secure it. Not advertising its existence is merely a way of improving security, not an exonerating factor. How fucking hard is it to keep your guns safe from thieves and toddlers?
Sure, that is arguably two of the 4 reason listed. And yet as I just showed less than 0.01% of guns are used for that what purpose do you think the other 99.99% have each year? The other two listed?
It’s certainly possible I misunderstood your use of can. So you do mean that a poor person must own a vault to own a firearm? You aren’t being clear what are the methods you believe a poor person should use to:
How many of those guns are “safe queens” compared the number of “trailer queen” cars?
No idea. Do you know?
Umm, but do you think it might skew the numbers a little?
That is a bullshit statistic. Half of those four hundred million guns have not even been touched in the past twelve months. They are sitting in a drawer by the bed for “peace of mind” or stored in a safe for when they are needed. When you compare the time that cars spend in use, on the road, to the time that a gun is in hand, ready to use, your comparison falls apart.
It seems much different than how cars are treated. If my car is found after having ran over someone, you could certainly bet that the police will show up asking questions. But unless the state can prove that I did something with that car, I am not liable. Certainly if someone stole my car, I am not liable, nor is Ford. You’ve argued in this thread for near strict liability for any gun owner who has the misfortune of being the victim of a burglary. And as you readily admit, you view this as a nice thing because you cannot get guns outlawed constitutionally.
Back to the OP, gun manufacturers should not be liable for gun deaths because we as a society have chosen to allow legal firearms and therefore someone cannot be responsible when they are manufactured just like guns are manufactured. The attempt to make them liable confuses Strict Products Liability tort law: What Is Strict Product Liability? | LegalMatch.
This doctrine was controversial when adopted, but at least it makes some sense when it involves typical consumer products. If my gasoline can explodes in the garage, it is fair to say (the argument goes) that the manufacturer should bear the cost of the explosion because a safely manufactured gasoline can should not explode. This argument fails when applied to products such as guns, alcohol, or tobacco which have known risks, even when used as directed, but that society has said we will allow them to be legal anyways. Keep in mind, that product defects are still actionable. If a gun barrel blows up in my hand when fired with the right ammunition, I can still sue. But I cannot sue for the regular function of the product.
Trial lawyers won this argument with the tobacco company settlements in the 90’s-00s, and lawmakers rightfully saw that this was improper, so they passed laws which won’t allow courts to do what the people through their elected representatives have chosen not to do with regards to firearms.
I understand that you disagree and would like to outlaw through litigation what is not done constitutionally or at the ballot box. But you cannot fault Taurus for making a gun that puts a hole in something when it is pointed and fired at. Likewise, Jack Daniels makes whiskey knowing for a fact that many people who consume their product will do so as a result of their alcohol addiction or develop an alcohol addiction because of that use. I don’t have the stats, but I think alcoholism is a far larger problem than guns, but I think you would agree it would be silly if the family of an alcoholic could sue Jack Daniels.
It depends. if the primary purpose of a gun is to sit in a safe then it isn’t:
so no that wouldn’t change the numbers at all. It would possibly make
even more wrong though since safe queen isn’t one of the four listed.
So you believe that half of those guns reason for existing isn’t to cause death then? We’re already making progress.
Then why do guns already have safeties not mandated by law?
The reason is that gun buyers want their guns to be reasonably safe. The market has dictated it. Gun sellers have no choice but to provide safeties if they want their guns to sell well. Some guns have multiple safeties, like the 1911 having both a thumb safety and a grip safety, or the Sig P235 having multiple safeties and a safe de-cocking lever.
There are human factors involved here as well. If you make a gun complex to shoot by having all kinds of intricate safety mechanisms you may increase accidental shooting in two ways - one is that people will accidentally fire the gun while trying to manipulate the safety system, and the other is that if people think the gun is safe, they won’t handle it as carefully.
Gun afficionados are very aware of how dangerous their guns are, and treat them accordingly. The fact that so many guns are fired every year with such a low accident rate attests to how careful people are with them.
There are about 12 billion rounds of ammunition sold each year in the U.S. There are roughly 400-500 accidental gun deaths per year. That’s about 24 million rounds fired per accident.
In 2018 there were 438 accidental firearm deaths in the U.S. In comparison, accidental falls killed 38,000. Accidental choking killed 5238. Drowning killed 3852. ‘Mechanical suffocation’ killed 1848. Accidental poisoning killed 65,773.
I could go on. The notion that accidental gun deaths are some kind of public health crisis is purely a product of fear campaigning by the anti-gun lobby.
If you are looking for a safety campaign to save the children, I suggest backyard pools. If you have a child, a backyard pool and a gun, your child is about 100 times more likely to be drowned in the pool than shot by the gun.
And black children are ten times more likely to drown in a pool than are white children. So let’s focus on that first, for social justice.
I think the weapons industry has a long history of making a buck of selling guns to every side in every conflict. You are allowed to imagine that your favorite gun producer is an exception.
What safeties would that be?
Can you offer an argument that is not dishonest?
And this was added without outside pressure(the “mandated by law” bit you added was cute, but not what I originally said)?
Ah! the old fall back, the excluded middle.
You should strive to make everything safe. Pools, cars, booze AND guns.
That’s why there are regulations for how a pool should be installed, cars must comply with enormous lists of safety regulations, their drivers must insure them, Drivers must have a license, they are registered. Booze can only be sold to people over a certain age, not while they are drunk etc. etc. (you should see the EU or OSHA regulations on stepladders)
Yet, somehow, guns should be exempt of all those rules.
I’ve offered a bunch. Would your prefer the bullets argument to the gun argument?
The raison d’etre of firearms is not violence and destruction. as can be seen by the lack of violence and destruction. Anytime you like to withdraw such a wild statement we can move on to productive conversation.
Or at least be the very last thing on earth to be addressed when it comes to safety. There will always be another “But what about that over there?”