Well, she’s learning how to shoot, so you’re not that much like her. Please I seriously don’t you have her mad dog-whispering skills.
Yeah, not much of a thrill for me.
Not surprising, no, but I wasn’t really expecting any particular answer, and so wasn’t in a position to be surprised. I know it’s GD, so I’m supposed to have been making some sort of point, but in this case, I was just curious about the thinking behind the position, specifically whether or not those who were arguing that it was irresponsible not to learn gun safety felt that the irresponsibility was large enough to obligate one to forgo gun ownership (or, as Bobotheoptimist reminds us, continuance of the relationship) in the face of an obdurate partner.
My opinion is that with reasonable precautions, it can be safe to own a gun even in a household where one or more adults are not trained in gun safety, and that ensuring that those reasonable precautions are taken is the responsibility of the person who brought the gun into the house.
Interesting question. I’d like to hear the responses to that. I think break-up will outweigh selling the guns.
Because its in your house. Voluntarily remaining ignorant of anything in your house that is dangerous in any way is, imo, idiotic.
You’re not absolved of responsibility just because its not yours. If you don’t want that responsibility, then the gun needs a new home. But if you’re ok with the gun being in your home, you have to be willing to learn the basics.
If there were rat poison in the house, wouldn’t it be smart for everyone in the house to know how to safely handle it, just in case?
Yes. But knowing not to touch it is all the handling anybody needs to know. If you are concerned about protecting little children or stupid adults from guns that other stupid adults left lying around, all you have to know is not to point the barrel at anyone and not to touch it anywhere near the trigger or any other moveable parts, so that you can move it to somewhere secure. And everybody who has watched television knows all this without training.
The notion that everybody needs to know how to manipulate a gun for the sake of manipulating it is baseless. It’s got nothing to do with safety.
(Oh, and the “Yes” was not to “But if you’re ok with the gun being in your home, you have to be willing to learn the basics.” That’s simply incorrect.)
Why? We’ve already established that your home can remain safe(r) without learning how to operate the gun. What is the obsession with learning how to operate it as opposed to keeping it out of or removing it from potential trouble areas?
If the owner/enthusiast takes it out of the safe, it is in his control unless HE’S careless. If he IS careless, picking up the gun and putting it back in the safe, putting it out in the car or somewhere else out of the reach of others is all that needs to be done.
No, it’s not unreasonable at all. It’s not unreasonable for everybody to be responsible for everything that they do, either. Yet people make mistakes, or we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
I’m not ducking the question, as it were, by saying that things become crises in unpredictable ways, and whether you’re responsible for it or not it is never a bad thing to be able to deal with it yourself rather than depending upon others to do it for you.
You’ve established that you wish to believe this. But believe it or not, not everyone situation is identical to yours.
Right. And in order to move it to a safe place, this gun is going to have to be picked up and verified empty, and if not, emptied(followed by a severe beat down for whoever left a loaded, untended gun loose in the house). Thats it. Theres no need to learn how to shoot, strip, clean, or anything else. Just how to safely pick it up, check to see if it is loaded, and how to unload it. Thats 15 minutes, tops.
Unless you are implying its perfectly fine for someone completely ignorant about guns to touch it at all?
That’s just wrong. I don’t have to verify it empty. I always assume a gun is loaded. That’s step One of gun safety! I don’t need to verify anything. I move the gun out of the vicinity and I’m done.
Yes, I’d advise people who don’t know how to pick up a gun safely to just leave it alone. You don’t need to know anything other than the fact it’s a GUN to do that.
In fact, you always have the option of NOT touching it at all. You can lock the door to separate it from children. You can call the police and tell them you’ve found a runaway gun in your home and would they please come over and help you secure it. You can tell the moronic gun owner to put his gun in the safe or wherever.
My legal standing comes from power of attorney rights, not posession. My liability is not the same as my right to sue.
Community of property laws are initially predicated on the notion that people lose their individual identities in a marriage. I call that archaic.
You’re not married, are you?
Yes
I’ve been at the scene of more than one shooting, with conflicting eyewitness reports at that. Care to guess how many times I’ve had a residue check? Real life is not CSI.
Even if you were a lawyer, you’re not one in my country.
Nope.
Nope
Depends. In my country, the licence owner has the legal liability for their weapons. Period. This leaves aside the issue of unlicenced weapons, which is a crime where blame could spread around, and would be a hesaid/shesaid issue, as I acknowledged.
Nope. Like most people of my generation and younger, I’m married with a pre-nuptual contract. A very thourough one.
It is here
Maybe in community of property areas…
A prenup is pretty standard here.
Once again, nope. I don’t need a licence to shoot a friend’s weapon at a range, just to own one.
Yes. It is the owner’s responsibility to ensure their weapon is safe. This doesn’t mean, in your convoluted hypothetical, that the wife won’t also be charged. But the owner would definitely be charged.
Again, you’re not married, are you? That’s incredibly naive.
Sure, but that consensus could very well be “Sure, get a gun, as long as I never have to deal with the thing”.
Did you read my post about the dog crap?
There’s ignoring your spouse’s feelings, and then there’s subsuming your individual identity in some amorphous entity. Fortunately, “excluded middle” is a logical fallacy. My wife and I are both adults, and can have our own stuff. The law agrees with me.
Nope, just someone who generally thinks like I do about big issue stugf like guns and the like.
Of course I have a “veto” power, I can always leave. I wouldn’t over something like guns, because, like I said, I quite like guns.
Not the gun. That’s the licence holder’s responsibility primarily. By law.
Certainly they’re the same. Touching the gun is certainly more risky than not touching it. Minimal interaction means less opportunity for mistakes. You may want the rest of the world to be as enthusiastic about guns as you, but not everyone wants the responsibility of intimate interaction with a weapon. I know I don’t. And if there’s a way to lessen the chance of making a mistake in a risky situation, I’m gonna go for it.
Kalhoun:
Well, I spent three hours last night, looking for gun safety studies on the web. I couldn’t find much, and I blame my weak Google-fu.
I caught a wiff (other web page referencing another) of studies done by the National Saftey Council, but there is nothing available on their website that I could uncover.
I found references to stuff done by the U.S. Department of Justice, but they don’t have any studies available on their website, other than studies that discuss that showed that most of child/gun accidents were the result of poor gun access control, which is not at issue here.
However, on the DoJ website, I did find a policy “wish list” statement, that appears to have been written around 2001, and it reads:
http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/opd/Strategy.htm
So, my ideas aren’t new, nor are they solely the domain of a feverish mind. Take it for what it’s worth. 
MrDibble:
I think your mistaken about me being a throwback to the 50’s, in regards to marriage. I do not wish to risk derailing this thread, however.
Since I am unable to support my assertions about gun safety (studies), I feel I will have to yield the floor.
Take it easy, everyone!
Good lord… Ok, I give up. Every situation is exactly like yours and you are entirely right that ignoring things is the best way to make them go bye-bye.
Nowhere do they suggest disinterested people learn how to use a gun. Safety does NOT equal operation.
Nobody’s ignoring anything, but thanks for playing!
You have yet to prove your stand that operation is safer than non-operation with regard to guns. The household situation can be anything you want it to be, but the fact remains, not handling the gun, or handling it minimally in an emergency, is safer than taking a chance that a nervous, upset, scared, person who has no interest in guns is going to handle it properly. Your advice is right on for people who handle guns. It is dangerous for those who don’t.
Well I felt BrandonR was being rather … ingenious … in his description of guns as a simple machine and his implication that guns are essential for self-defence and belong in society, so I thought I’d use his phraseology.
But there is **no pressure group ** I know of in the UK that wants to bring back the use of any guns for self-defence; there is **no request by the police that they all be armed ** and the legislation for banning handguns shot :eek: through when there was the Dunblane School shooting.
Do you foresee any change in UK gun policy?
Or even any discussion of it?
It’s a done deal.
Not all societies perhaps, but societies where the right to owning a gun is guaranteed in the country’s legal charters. Guns are machines. You provide an input, they provide an output. Sure, maybe their intention of forcefully stopping people is a bit devious, but a gun is as safe as a lollipop in the right, sane-minded hands.
Personally, I want to be in charge of protecting my own life and I’d never live in a society where you were forced to delegate the single most important responsibility to a third party. Seems to be working just fine for me now! 
The intention of a gun is to kill its target. It’s what we call a “weapon” - and to try and pussyfoot around that fact is about as “devious” as we need to get, I think.
And, as safe as a lollypop? Congratulations, you have proven than your position is divorced from reality. Given the rather low bar you set of “sane-minded”, it’s quite clear that people, being human, can make mistakes. Of course, it’s very hard to accidentally kill somebody with a lollipop. Can you honestly say that about a gun?
Nobody in the thread wants to take your guns away from you, unless you’re one of those sane-minded people who tends to create that “gun unattended on a table in a room with children” scenario that we’ve been talking about.
This thread is about whether there’s any reason whatsoever for a person who, through their own personal choice (which is as valid as yours) will have a maximum necessary interaction with guns consisting of moving them to another room, whether such a person needs to learn how to safely manipulate the weapon, even to the degree of unloading it.
I remain unconvinced that the gun needs to be unloaded or otherwise mechanically manipulated in any way to safely move a short distance. This can be accomplished by only touching the grip and the barrel, with nothing even coming near the trigger.