Are you serious? In your world, the only way a gun owner can be safe is to not own one. I suspect that makes you lean a little anti-gun.
What YOU consider responsibility and accountability is made out of unobtainium. And the whole world is fresh out.
Fear Itself You said you are not anti-gun. Do you own any guns? And if you did, how would you store them?
And if you say ‘Responsibly’ well, :rolleyes:
If you are going to argue both sides of this conversation, I will just wait on the sidelines until one of you concedes.
Perhaps you should read your own posts. You said you where not anti-gun. I simply asked how you would store guns. To you, gun safes don’t seem to be enough.
If you believe I contradicted myself, or was unclear, please show me where. I will gladly remedy it.
You are being ridiculous. You are the one declaring absolutes. Someone could have an underground bunker with 5 checkpoints with security guards and retinal scan at every door, with a 6 ton safe that’s anchored to the core of the earth with 12 layers of security, and if an Ocean’s 11 style scheme of misfits managed to break into the place and take the guns, the owner is responsible for what they do.
Is there any other crime of negligence that is remotely treated this way? That no matter what the circumstances, no matter how reasonable the precautions, no matter how the person responds to the incident - they’re guilty of whatever someone else does?
You’re trying to present yourself as a voice of reason battling against the true believers. You are not. Your participation in this thread is extreme, uncompromising, and quite frankly nuts.
OK, let’s say you are right. Can you suggest a less extreme approach that imposes any kind of accountability for “responsible gun ownership”? Or are you of the opinion expressed by others that gun theft is just one of those things, shit happens, call the cops, oh well?
Generally, negligence is evaluated by examining the circumstances and what’s reasonable for a person to do. If someone stores their guns in a sturdy safe, it’s pretty ridiculous to blame them in the rare instance they’re stolen. By creating a strict liability situation where there’s nothing a gun owner could potentially do to be considered responsible, so the only choice to avoid potentially being an accessory to crimes committed with your gun is to not own one. It’s not surprising people in this thread are guessing that’s your ultimate goal.
The other issue at play here is that if we disassemble the guns into 5 pieces and store them in 5 different safes, they become useless for their most important purpose - self defense. Guns being less accessible works both ways - thieves have a harder time getting to them, but the owner has a harder time getting to them quickly if needed. Is that a worthwhile tradeoff? That’s for the particular person to decide depending on their circumstances.
I’ve never done anything irresponsible with my guns. I’ve never threatened anyone, or committed any crimes. I’ve never violated any safety rules or put anyone in danger. There’s no one that comes in my house who isn’t familiar with guns and would mishandle them. I’m pretty much a completely responsible owner. And yet I wouldn’t meet your definition of responsible, because I store my guns in a way that makes them usable if I ever need them. I don’t have them scattered about the house in the open, of course - they’re somewhat hidden - but if someone were to throughly search my place in a robbery they’d probably be found. Well, that sucks. I hope it doesn’t happen and I take other obvious precautious like locking my door. But in the unlikely event they get stolen and used, there’s no way any reasonable person would call me a murderer or accessory to murder. There’s no reasonable case that I’m not a responsible gun owner.
Keep guns away from children and cats with thumbs.
Lock your house.
Done.
Yeah, that’s pretty much what i expected. Your position is no less extreme than mine.
So where do you draw the line? What is an irresponsible gun owner, and does government have a duty to enforce accountability for it?
From what I got from your posts, a gun safe is not enough. What would you recommend?
I don’t know. What’s the general legal standard for negligence in regards to having dangerous things stolen?
People should store their guns in a way that’s approrpriate for their situation. Keep them away from children and other people who aren’t responsible with guns, take reasonable precautious towards preventing theft as far as they can, etc.
Essentially, a gun owner should have to do something negligent (leaving guns randomly in the open, not taking reasonable precautions like locking their house, that sort of thing) in order to be guilty. Otherwise you’re looking to punish someone for being the victim of the crime. Believe it or not, the thieves that break into your house, steal your gun, then go off and do armed robbery with it are the bad guys here.
Are you suggesting the government should inspect gun owner’s homes to ensure responsible gun storage? Strict liabilty avoids that intrusion, and only punishes those that actually result in guns entering the criminal market. I would entertain your suggestions to encourage safer, more responsible gun storage, but if you are going to cling to “lock your door-done”, I guess we have nothing to discuss. That is not responsible gun ownership.
I’m not saying they aren’t. But those who facilitate the the theft of hundreds of thousands of guns a year through unsecure storage bear some responsibilty, don’t you think? Should there be any accountability, any at all? Or is it all on the honor system?
If your standard is “no matter what the circumstances, if your guns are stolen, you are responsible”, then no. I think that’s a greater injustice than the status quo.
But I’d be open to the idea of the prosecution making a specific case that a person acted negligently in a way that resulted in criminals getting ahold of guns.
Where are you getting the hundreds of thousands a year number?
Government statistics quoted in a PBS *Frontline *story:
Like leaving it on the lawn. Front seat of a car in view. Porch swing. I would be OK with that. That is negligent.
Slightly more recent data:
Maybe my google-fu skilz are weak, but search results only pull this 10yr old data.
In other words, gun theft is most likely where there are guns.
If you are going to argue culpability for anything other than the most lax of circumstances, I think we have to come to some sort of agreement upon what is “b : failing to exercise the care expected of a reasonably prudent person in like circumstances”
FearItself, do you have any ideas?
How did you interpret anything I said to suggest that the government should inspect gun owner’s homes? I simply asked why YOU would blame a gun owner if guns were stolen out of a safe.
You don’t believe in strict liability, you believe in absolute liability. I believe that if someone uses a gun illegally, they are at fault.
And yes, locking your home to prevent theft removes all culpability of anything that gets stolen.