I’ve only skimmed the thread, but I’m pretty sure the question hasn’t been addressed.
Scylla are either or both of your parents still living? If so, have you considered asking for advice from that quarter?
Not only would they be able to offer perspective and context to the incident from your childhood, as grandparents, they’re somawhat interested parties.
… and shortly thereafter…
[quote]
At least 341,000 guns are stolen from private residences every year… (snip) Every year. [italics in original]
[quote]
So which is it?
By my calculator, and using your figures, 341,000 over five years, 60% of which are handguns, is 37,680. Still high, sure, but just over a tenth of… well, one of your figures anyway.
In any case, I’d like to see the source of even the original '87 to '92 statistic. In Googling “NCVS” I happened to notice this:
-Seems to me that even 38,000 out of 5.5 million to 24 million is still a pretty small percentage.
More interestingly, it stated this:
-So your wish has been granted. Theft and burglary- presumably including that of the evil and fearsome firearms- has been dropping steadily for twenty to thirty years.
But, since handguns are stolen in, at best, less than one percent of theft and burglary each year (possibly as low as a tenth of a percent) and such thefts have been declining for twenty years or more, we obviously need more security when storing the vile things.
Your previous figures don’t support your claims above at all; there is nothing in the source you cited that gives any information about the storage methods used for the firearms, nothing that indicates what percentage of the firearms were legally owned to begin with, and (rather critically) nothing to indicate how many of the firearms are recovered (ie spend more than a day or two in the hands of criminals). You also still haven’t shown what percentage of the total criminal supply of handguns these thefts provide, which would seem to be rather key to your position. You’ve gotten that 341,000 number, but it doesn’t support all of the stuff you keep trying to use it to support.
(We’ll leave aside the fact that you haven’t shown that any of these stolen handguns were kept for home defense originally and not an old target gun or heirloom sitting almost forgotten in a closet).
As usual, you’re playing word games. The argument is not about ‘locking things up’ it’s about your claim that having a handgun ‘locked up’ but not ‘unloaded and locked securely in a safe’ makes the handgun’s owner culpable if it is stolen. You haven’t attempted to provide even the basics of an argument for why whatever level of secure storage you advocate (still waiting for a full definition without cop-out words, BTW) should be required of everyone.
Any level of security involves trade-offs, and you haven’t provided any argument to show that I should better protect my firearms against theft than I should my (hypothetical) children against kidnapping. Your argument needs to also be clear on why only handguns and not shotguns and rifles need to meet your ‘secure storage’ standard, and on why knives, machetes, and other deadly weapons don’t. You also need to be careful with analogies; if you start ranting about doctors leaving prescription drugs laying around, you’re going to need to explain why its bad for them but OK for a normal person to do so (or tell us that you think codeine needs to be stored in a ‘secure’ safe).
Oh, BTW, you still haven’t explained how unloading a gun makes it harder to steal. That was an amusing assertion on your part.
Oh, BTW, you still haven’t explained why you think you can leave your child sleeping insecurely without being culpable for any crime committed against them.
Oh, BTW… I’ll mention more of your oversights when you get around to just answering the basics.
None of the three quotes you provided contain something equivalent to the definition of safe storage you posted here; in fact, although you quoted a large block of text in the first two neither one gives any sort of definition of what you mean by “safe storage”, they just contain your usual assertion that gun owners are irresponsible for not practicing whatever you mean by the phrase. The third one provides only that guns need to be ‘locked up’, not ‘locked unloaded in a secure safe’ - hardly the same thing. One rather key difference is that ‘locked up’ doesn’t include ‘unloaded’, which was in your second definition. Also note that since the inside of my house and car are locked up pretty much all the time, but you have claimed that neither one of those meet your definition of secure storage, so your earlier definition cannot possibly be considered complete.
Also, I don’t consider the dialogue ‘mutually respectful’ when you’re calling people accomplices to murder for not meeting some vague standard that you still haven’t fully defined, especially when that group might include me.
You’re the one insisting that people are irresponsible if they don’t meet your definition of “secure”, it’s your responsibility to provide a definition. While I’m not suprised by your behaviour, it’s really getting absurd at this point.
What about the same level of security that you’d be comfortable letting your children spend the night in? If you’re not willing to secure your children at least as well as you insist that I secure my firearms, then you’re an accomplice to any crime committed against them. What about the same level of security you’d use for ‘illegal if not under prescription drugs’ like codeine (which is usually ‘the top is on the bottle’ for me)?
I routinely leave my car (which was $20k new) parked in the driveway and my keys inside the house on a nail by the front door. By the standard you’ve listed above, that would seem to indicate that leaving a gun sitting around right outside the front door is OK, and the handgun wind chimes joked about in the other thread would be fine as long as they were secured by a basic lock.
You still haven’t addressed your contradiction.
These 341,000 stolen guns - I’m assuming they are only a small percentage of the total number of burglaries and home invasions, correct? How can burglary be both so common as to mandate “secure storage”, yet so rare that preparing to defend your home and family against an intruder is inane paranoia?
Uh, Doc, “annually” means every year.
Ribo, the FBI has over two million outstanding reports. So seems like few recovered.
Joe, sorry, but when I hear people wanting to protect family as a reason to accept the risk of leaving a gun loaded and unlocked, I presumed that someone was talking about protecting against someone coming in and killing them or theirs. You want to protect your TV?
Interesting. Ribo cares so little about his car being stolen that he leaves it unlocked with the keys hanging out. But he needs a gun to protect his stuff? Try locking your door instead.
It’s pretty clear at this point that you can’t back up your claims even by argument, much less by citing numbers. It’s not really suprising, but it is disappointing. I guess I’ll stick the list of questions you’ve failed to answer into a text file and cut and paste it next time you start one of your rants in a gun-related thread.
Most of the planet doesn’t have telepathy, and so is unable to determine whether the person breaking into their house is there merely to steal valuables or to hurt them. Plus, you still haven’t cited a single instance of a gun kept “unlocked” in someone’s bedroom for home defense being stolen, so your protestations are really hollow. Maybe you can quote a completely irrelevant stat as a cite!
Take a remedial reading course at your local community college and get back to us.
This seems to have degenerated into a thread about gun control.
Anyways, back to the original question:
I also grew up on a farm. We had about 30 acres of land. We raised chickens and pigs; we hunted deer, squirrel, rabbit and other small game. My father owned close to 20 guns. He had all sorts of handguns, shotguns, rifles. He made sure none of the handguns worked. They were there for display only. He had probably 6 or 7 rifles and shotguns. These were the guns that actually worked. The ammo was kept in a locked drawer in the cabinet in my parent’s bedroom. Me and my brother knew where the key was.
I was taught to use the .22 when I was 12 or so. We raised chickens and we had a lot of problems with possums, skunks, and foxes. We’d occasionally have to go out with the .22 and shoot whatever was hiding in the chicken coop. Sometimes it’d be my Mom and Dad, and sometimes it’d be Mom and I.
When I was 14 I got to go with my Mom deer hunting. She’d take her .30-06 and we’d go sit in a tree and freeze our asses off. My dad also hunted deer. He had his own .30-06. Later, I learned to fire the .30-06 and even went deer hunting once.
When I was 16, one of my cousins came over and decided he wanted to see my dad’s guns. The first thing he reached for? The handguns in the display cabinet. He took my dad’s keychain and started going through each key, trying to open the lock. My brother walked in and stopped him. But if he hadn’t, he still wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. He would have had to unlock my parents bedroom door, then the cabinet, then the ammo drawer, then he’d have to lift it, (a .30-06 is heavy!) and load it.
My parents taught me and my brother gun safety. We were taught to never never point a gun at somebody, not even toys! They had confidence in us. The people you really have to worry about are the morons who come into your home.
I would say get rid of the handguns. They’re lighter than the rifles. Easier for a child to pick up, load and fire. Or at least make sure they can’t be fired. Keep the .22s and .30-06s locked up seperately from their ammo. If you live on a farm, you will occasionally need these. I’ve never understood the need for a handgun. What are the chances you’ll ever need it? And a rifle will disable a man just as easily as a handgun. And if you run out of ammo, you can always beat the guy to death.
As for locks and stuff; I was a pretty clever kid, if I may say so, and I probably would have figured out how it worked pretty quickly. But then, I was the only one who knew how to program the VCR, so maybe I’m not so special after all.
Sorry, clarification: He would have had to find all those keys first, which were NOT on my dad’s keychain. Not impossible to do, but a lot harder.
Degenerated into name calling is more like it.
More point by point, although it tends to get repititious.
Doc, sorry, but less overall theft does not mean less handgun theft, per se. Please support that claim.
Ribo, word games? I think not. Although I will modify upon reflection. If they are securely locked up, I don’t care if they are loaded. Unsecured and loaded is my worst case.
As to locking up my kids for protection from kidnaping: there are not 341,000 child abductions a year. Kidnapped children are not used to murder other children. Your analogy is absurdist.
How can I answer more clearly than “Enough that the casual home break-in won’t be able to get it”? A locked gun safe that is well designed (can’t just be carted off itself easily, or hinges easily removed) would even suffice.
Ribo, just how many people are killed in home invasions a year? Provide me a cite that shows that defensive gun use saves more lives than it takes. I have in the past shown you many cites that show more gun ownership is correlated with more homicides, international comparisons and domestic comparisons. But oh yes all of the medical establishment is in on the conspiricy to take away your guns.
Guns in the hands of criminals are used to kill people. Both gun enthusists and non-gun users should be able to agree that we can do better at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. Unless you feel that the current rates of homicide in the US are just okeydokey with you.
You all make the best arguments possible for gun control laws, because you illustrate how reckless some gun owners feel justified in being. How phobic some are of taking their responsibility seriously.
And I’ve cited proof that the gun supply is not directly related to the homicide rate. Try again…
Well, I’m going to ignore the ridiculous fact that you seem to think that anybody who breaks into my house is entitled to take my things, just because defending possessions is “not worth a human life.” Instead, I’ll just tell you that ANYBODY who enters my home without my permission is automatically a threat to me.
If I were to walk in on an intruder, I wouldn’t stop to ask him questions. He has violated my home, therefore I will assume by default that my (and my family’s) life is in danger, and will respond accordingly. Sorry, Jack, but when there’s an intruder in your home, it’s not the right time to ask him to fill out a survey.
Scylla, I would emphasize to you that I think a gun for home defense is important, but equally important is educating your daughter so that she doesn’t play with it. Believe it or not, age 3 is old enough to know not to play with something and to understand that it’s dangerous. Like I said, my 5 year old stepdaughter knew well what guns were, what they did, and that they are not for kids when I met her, which was just after her third birthday.
My advice is: Don’t overreact.
John,
Your cites again were?
Brazil? Not a developed country, an emerging and struggling economy in dire staits. Not apples to apples.
Your stats on increased gun supply in the US during a time period when homicide rate went down? That was better. Quite good, really. However that time period was also marked by many other demographic changes, less drug traffic, less 15-25 yo males in the population, etc. It is a point in your tally, but some corroberation from some contemporaneous comparisons would make such a case believable. What do those show?
All the studies that I could find, and I cited at least five of them, found across domestic and international comparisons, that higher gun ownership rates correlated with higher homicide rates. (Your point about suicide in Japan was well-made, suicide does seem to correlate more with other cultural factors. Within America, suicide was more likely to be completed with wider household gun availability, but guns are clearly not the most important factor in suicide attempt rates.)
The argument against that was the time-worn medical conspiricy script. The CDC is out to get gun owners just like they are unfairly out to get tobacco makers, and so on. And Kleck’s DGU data.
But Kleck was careful to state that he has no evidence that defensive gun use actually saved any lives, only that some have the impression that it did.
And docs really are only in conspiricy to kill all the lawyers.
BTW, your basis for concluding that 99% of gun owners are responsible is … ?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by DSeid *
So, your magnificent definition that you’ve supposedly given multiple times in the past (despite the small problem of it not actually appearing in your cites) has changed yet again? How can you call people reckless and irresponsible for not doing whatever it is you mean by ‘safe storage’ when you don’t even know what you mean by safe storage?
Children are avictimized in their homes. Both parents and non-parents should be able to agree that we can do better at keeping kids safe from criminals. Unless you feel that the current rates of child victimization in the US are just okeydokey with you.
Any level of security involves trade-offs, and you haven’t provided any argument to show that I should better protect my firearms against theft than I should my (hypothetical) children against kidnapping. Your argument needs to also be clear on why only handguns and not shotguns and rifles need to meet your ‘secure storage’ standard, and on why knives, machetes, and other deadly weapons don’t. You also need to be careful with analogies; if you start ranting about doctors leaving prescription drugs laying around, you’re going to need to explain why its bad for them but OK for a normal person to do so (or tell us that you think codeine needs to be stored in a ‘secure’ safe).
Look familiar? It’s what I told you last time.
Well, I’ll wait until you manage to use the same definition for two posts running.
I’m not going to play the game where you refuse to back up your assertions and keep asking me irrelevant questions.
Not until you back up the assertions that you’ve made in this thread; as I said above, I’m not going to find cites for random statements just because you ask me to.
Correlation is not causation, as you’ve been told before and will probably conveniently forget next time you’re ranting and failing to support your assertions. Also, in the thread where you posted your cites, numerous people pointed out the wide variety of flaws in your reasoning, but of course you chose that moment to ‘become tired’ of the thread and leave.
Any level of security involves trade-offs, and you haven’t provided any argument to show that I should better protect my firearms against theft than I should my (hypothetical) children against kidnapping. Your argument needs to also be clear on why only handguns and not shotguns and rifles need to meet your ‘secure storage’ standard, and on why knives, machetes, and other deadly weapons don’t. You also need to be careful with analogies; if you start ranting about doctors leaving prescription drugs laying around, you’re going to need to explain why its bad for them but OK for a normal person to do so (or tell us that you think codeine needs to be stored in a ‘secure’ safe).
And we’re right back to you making the same claims you haven’t supported throughout the whole thread. How pathetic.
Some people will engage in a debate and provide some figures and arguments. I respect these people even when I disagree with them. John for a nonexclusive example. Others will whine that another poster hasn’t answered his cite demand to his satisfaction and provide no data of his own. These people I have no respect for.
Some gun owners, perhaps most (although it is hard to tell from this thread) are responsible folk. Some feel that they could leave a loaded gun in reach of a three year old and think that it is okay because they’ve educated their child; that they can leave a loaded gun on the seat of their car and it isn’t their fault if some punk breaks the window and takes it and kills someone with it, they had locked the car door.
“Any level of security involves trade-offs.” Exactly right. You have claimed that a loaded unsecured gun in house provides security but you have failed to provide evidence of such. You believe that any risk to society from that loaded gun is not your fault or responsibility and that a unlocked gun is no more likely to be stolen than a locked gun. I have yet to see any evidence that a loaded unlocked gun in a house saves lives (and yes I have read Kleck). The evidence that exists that wide gun ownership increases rahter than decreases security is as strong as is possible short of a prospective study in matched and isolated populations and providing data that has neve been collected by any agency. The gun homicide rate in this country is high enough that avoiding some inconvienences to gun enthusiasts and gun dealers is not worth the trade-off. I appreciate the comments by some that they have been inconvienced enough, and would think that a uniform federal policy might be less cumbersome and more effective than the crazy quilt mix of state and federal laws. If you want to argue for locking up your kids then provide the data that kidnappings out of homes happens often enough to warrant the trade-offs. I’m willing to accept trade-offs. I drive every day, for example. But then I wear my seatbelt too. I lower the risks when it reasonable to do so.
And BTW I do think that codeine and other med should be stored sealed and out of reach of kids. Preferably in a locked cabinet or med box. And if meds were routinely stolen out of houses I’d favor locking them up every time in a safe.
Is that the study that concludes a higher correlation between living alone or renting and being murdered? Hmmmm…
I haven’t made that claim in this thread, jump over and ressurect an old thread if you want to rehash something I’ve argued about in the past. You are simply trying to dodge away from providing support for your own claims, since the issue of whether having a “loaded unsecured gun” provides benefit to someone is completely irrelevant to whether the various assertions you continually make and repeat but don’t support are true or not.
Though its a cut-and-paste from my first post, I’ll ask again - when are you going to come up with a cite for that claim of yours about the source of guns used in crimes (this isn’t the first time you’ve been asked)? Are you just going to keep repeating it but call it a ‘guess’ from now on? Continuing to repeat an obviously false claim that you’ve been called on before is just wrong.
When you posted your cite, I pointed out the problems with it and the fact that it doesn’t support your claims about the source of guns used in crimes, so it doesn’t qualify. I (and I’m sure some other poeple) are still waiting for a cite.
I haven’t made any claims about ‘unsecured’ by your definition because you haven’t provided a definition of what you mean by ‘secured’. Well, OK, you provided one a while back (“locked up”), then changed it a bit (“locked unloaded in a secure safe”), then when asked for clarification changed it (removing the “unloaded” condition), and you’ve also listed different standards (like 'how you would secure something worth $20,000). I’m not going to attempt to engage in a debate with you about ‘unsecured’ guns unless you are willing to tell me what you mean by ‘unsecured’ and stick with that definition; at one point, you said that ‘unsecured’ just meant not locked up, but later added the requirements that it be unloaded and in a ‘secure’ safe, then retracted the loaded part.
Your whole position is that gun owners are irresponsible if they don’t practice ‘secure storage’, but at first you refused to tell anyone what, if anything, you meant by the term for a long time, then proceeded to change the definition at your convenience. How is someone supposed to debate with whether ‘secure storage’ should be required if you won’t even tell us what ‘secure storage’ is?
Outright lies, as I’ve come to expect from you. I’m not really suprised that you’ve decided to drop down to outright lies instead of insinuation, context-dropping, and word games (like replacing ‘not meeting the conditions unloaded and stored in a secure safe’ with ‘unlocked’), but it is disappointing to see. If what you posted above are not simply lies, then provide direct quotes from me supporting the assertions. And just to give you a heads up, questioning your position does not mean that I take the position you attrributed to me above, and pointing out that your cite does not support your claims does not either.
That’s because it’s irrelevant to whether your claims are true, and I’m not interested in going off on a sidetrack where you will keep asking me for cites for random things that pop into your head.
Cite, please, you’ve never provided evidence of that before. And remember that you need cites showing causation and not correlation to support your claim above. When you had this and other problems with the cites you provided in the past, you declared that you were tired and left the thread, but convenient tiredness does not make your cites correct. And if you mere correlation indicates causation, then you should be advocating removing great masses of gun laws, since murder rates in the US are far higher in areas with strict gun control than in other areas.
Yet another declaration from Dseid without support - what level would not be high enough to warrant these ‘inconveniences’? What about the current rate is ‘high enough’ to warrant whatever you mean by ‘secure storage’ - is it just your feelings, or can you provide some shred of an argument?
Also, and really more importantly, what exactly is your evidence that your current proposal would do any good whatsoever? Simply saying ‘X is bad, therefore we must do Y even though we have no evidence that Y will reduce X’ is not an argument.
What is ‘often enough to warrant the trade-offs’? How many children must be kidnapped, raped, and murdered before you’re willing to do anything about it? I find it shocking that parents are so unwilling to accept responsibility for protecting their kids, if your child is ever abducted, you are just as guilty as the theif!
What is ‘routinely’ - if I find a cite showing that there are 200,000 or so incidences of prescription medication stolen from houses every year, will that warrant subjecting them to the same standards you advocate for handgun storage? And why does the number of incidents per year affect whether someone is responsible for something?