# Stupid Gun news of the day (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 29, 2013, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729 "2013-01-29T19:01:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 270
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5381 "2015-08-04T16:30:38Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Apparently Great Britain is filled with dangerous ex-carny knife-throwing gangsters. No such thing as an ex-carny. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5382 "2015-08-04T16:33:46Z")
Okay, carnies scare me shitless. Can we ban them? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5383 "2015-08-04T16:37:54Z")
I wish. You seriously think a ban would work on a carny? ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5384 "2015-08-04T17:19:49Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > It’s always nice to be told I oughta be “scared shitless” by people who are too afraid not to have a gun. This. The ruse isn’t terribly clever, but fucking Scumpup is running with it like Hussein Bolt! Know what seems a hell of a lot easier about knives? Cleaning them. I mean, we clean dozens of knives on a weekly basis. Have done for decades. We have never once injured a neighbor or had one accidentally go off and killed ourselves with them. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5385 "2015-08-04T17:48:49Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > This. The ruse isn’t terribly clever, but fucking Scumpup is running with it like Hussein Bolt! Nitpick: \*\*Usain \*\*Bolt. > [@](#): > > Know what seems a hell of a lot easier about knives? Cleaning them. I mean, we clean dozens of knives on a weekly basis. Have done for decades. We have never once injured a neighbor or had one accidentally go off and killed ourselves with them. It’s just that it’s such a blatant attempt to derail the discussion. “Yeah, but what about knives? And swimming pools? And cars? And pointed sticks?” Yes, those are things that pose various dangers, but right now the grownups (and a few dipsticks) are talking about guns. Try to stay focused. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5386 "2015-08-04T18:05:22Z")
[How not to teach gun safety to your kids.](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3183968/Ex-Marine-dad-teaching-daughter-12-gun-safety-accidentally-shoots-arm.html) > [@](#): > > A lesson in gun safety took a dangerous turn on Sunday night when a Florida man teaching his 12-year-old daughter how to use a firearm accidentally shot her in the arm. > > Sgt. Pablo Castaneda, of the Davie Police Department, said the father was showing his daughter how to safely draw a firearm from his pocket when the weapon went off. Something like that in the news pretty much every day, except usually fatally and less ironically. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5387 "2015-08-04T18:14:59Z")
You guys keep sucking eachother’s dicks however long you like. It won’t change 1. You are fearful of weapons. 2. Knives are weapons. 3. In countries with restricted gun access, knives are frequent tools of mayhem. If all your wet dreams of gun banning became real, you’d shortly be here pissing and moaning about knife culture. I own guns and I have a carry permit, but I very seldom carry any more, so you can cram that “afraid to be without a gun” nonsense up your ass along with 20 monkeys on mopeds and the Peking Royal Circus. Mostly I stay involved in gun politics because it amuses me to watch assholes like you tie yourself in knots trying to rationalize what is really nothing but you being fearful of weapons and mistrusting of your fellow man. I usually don’t have a gun on me. I don’t live in fear of those who do. You should try it sometime. All that screeching has to be hard on your throats. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5388 "2015-08-04T18:22:34Z")
Got that poll thing figured out yet? ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5389 "2015-08-04T18:25:39Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > By your same logic, anyone who learns how to drive a car is another potential David Attias. While probabilistically it’s true, the likelihood is so remote. It’s a ludicrous argument. Do you know the number of murders by car there’ve been, ever? Neither do I because I couldn’t find it on the Internet, as if it’s so low that it isn’t worth documenting despite there being twice as many drivers as gun owners. So, speaking of ludicrous, why did you mention David Attias? If gun homocides were as vanishingly low as homocides by car, nobody would be talking about guns and I’d be outside on a beautiful summer day instead of stuck in here because someone on the Internet is wrong. If I end up with a vitamin D deficiency, you’re getting the doctor’s bill, pal. > [@Bullitt](#): > > Knowledge is power. When my nephew learns when a gun is safe and when it is not, if in the future and for example he’s hanging out at a friend’s house and his friend totes out his father’s gun, he will know more than he did if the gun has the potential to be duscharged and harm someone. It’s the difference between ignorance and informed. Almost twice as many people die from severe head injuries every year than from gun shots. If you’re so all responsible and concerned about your nephew’s safety, maybe you should pay more attention to that. But introducing him to deadly weapons instead makes sense if you have another agenda. > [@Bullitt](#): > > Knowledge and responsibility are two different things. I hope you don’t need me to tell you that - it doesn’t sound like you need me to. I’ve seen idiots at the gun range. You tell the range master, and then you leave. I’ve seen good men and trained Marines make a mistake on the gun line. You walk up quickly to him and correct the problem. And then you continue to watch him more closely. I haven’t been clear enough, and that’s my fault, seriously. Just because someone is responsible today doesn’t mean he’ll be responsible tomorrow or next year. Learning to operate a gun safely doesn’t innoculate anyone against mental illness or just murderous rage. And while not every gun owner will experience mental illness or murderous rage, enough of them will that they’ll be a menace to society. The more people with guns, no matter how safe and responsible they think they are _now_, the more people will get murdered. Go ahead and teach your nephew, but don’t think he’s exempt from that happening to him just because he’s family. How much responsibility will you feel if he ends up killing someone? While we’re on the subject of responsibility, I’d like to know where it comes into play when a gun owner goes postal and the “responsible” gun community flatly denies any responsibility for it. “He isn’t one of us because responsible gun owners don’t kill people.” Bernie Madoff would blush at such naked gall. They promote the widespread use of guns so that the country is swimming in them, oppose gun control so that a mouth-breather of questionable ancestry can amass an arsenal of military-style rifles, and, like you, turn others onto guns like they’re performing a valuable public service–but when one of them goes bad, they _ **insist it has nothing to do with them!!** _ I challenge you or anyone else to find the smallest nugget of responsibility in that mountain of moral cowardice. Gun owners are so fucking smarmy with self-congratulation because they haven’t shot up a bunch of school kids–yet. Way to go, boys, that’s some high moral ground you’ve staked out for yourselves. Yet as soon as one of them does disgrace himself, they run for the hills and hide behind the Second Amendment or mommy’s skirt, whatever cover they can find. Until they can man up like, you know, responsible adults, the term “responsible gun owner” is nothing but a chickenshit oxymoron. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5390 "2015-08-04T21:11:10Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Got that poll thing figured out yet? Answer the questions, chickenshit. Shall I repeat them for you so that you know exactly which ones I mean? Honestly answer my questions and I promise I will leave this thread permanently. Surely, even your spirochete-gnawed brain is capable of coming up with answers to questions that simple. …and BTW, your post is a sign that you have nothing to say to in your own defense or to further your position. Why don’t you just go ahead and start fastening on typos or using juvenile username-based insults, too. You are such a jerk-off. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5391 "2015-08-05T02:57:48Z")
Making lists is fun! Here’s mine: 1. You are fearful. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5392 "2015-08-05T03:09:36Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > Where I am, > Allowing an unlicensed driver to use your car is a crime. > > Given the nature of guns, if you are recklessly careless with your gun, and it gets stolen - I feel that “deserves” criminal punishment. Naturally - the “worse” the crime it is used for, the further up the sentencing scale people will be willing to go. Thats different from stealing. ALLOWING an unlicensed driver to drive is a crime? What is the penalty? The penalty for ALLOWING a prohibited person to use your gun is also a crime, punushable by up to TEN YEARS in jail. So how long do you go to jail for allowing an unlicensed driver to drive your car? We are talking about someone STEALING your car and you going to jail for it. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5393 "2015-08-05T03:13:20Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Once again, firearms are _specifically designed to cause damage, injury or death_. Motor vehicles are specifically designed to move people and shit from one place to another. Damage, injury or death resulting from motor vehicle use is predominantly unintentional (though not always) and falls outside the design specification of the device. Stewardship of a device that is designed to harm things and creatures should call for a higher standard than for a transportation device. Once again, that’s a stupid reason. Assume for argument’s sake that both items are equally dangerous, WTF does design have to do with anything? ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5394 "2015-08-05T03:13:35Z")
Alright Esox, okay, you make some good points. But there’s a problem with your argument. Of course one first has to know how to operate guns before they can go bonkers and blow away many innocent victims in a rampage - that is a trite and trivial fact. But are you proposing that all guns be removed from society, such that over time the number of people who know how to handle guns dwindles to near zero? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5395 "2015-08-05T03:16:50Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I hate when my knife accidentally goes off when I’m cleaning it and stabs a toddler in the next room. So now we are only talking about accidents that occur with your stolen gun? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5396 "2015-08-05T03:20:41Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > It is “anti-gun” to suggest that gun owners should be responsible for how their guns get used and to make sure they are properly secured? Whenever I suggest that, I keep hearing “_BAN!_” from the “pro-gun” crowd. How would that be a ban? Or even “anti-gun”? It is anti-gun to suggest that we hold gun owners CRIMINALLY responsible for the crimes of others committed with a gun stolen from the gun owner. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5397 "2015-08-05T03:21:54Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > It’s always nice to be told I oughta be “scared shitless” by people who are too afraid not to have a gun. > > And I’m thrilled by the “gun-banning paradise” of Great Britain. Helluva lot easier to run away from a mugger with a knife than a mugger with a gun. So safety for the strong and the swift and everyone else is SOL? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5398 "2015-08-05T10:04:33Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So now we are only talking about accidents that occur with your stolen gun? No, we’re talking about what a fucking stupid comparison this is. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So safety for the strong and the swift and everyone else is SOL? Yes, that’s exactly what I meant, and not the rather obvious wider point that you can kill lots of people from a long way away with a gun but not with a knife. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5399 "2015-08-05T10:13:38Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > You guys keep sucking eachother’s dicks however long you like. It won’t change > > 1. You are fearful of weapons. No, I’m fearful of idiots with weapons, you idiot. > [@](#): > > 1. Knives are weapons. Correct. “Stopped clocks” and all that. > [@](#): > > 1. In countries with restricted gun access, knives are frequent tools of mayhem. I note the weasel word “frequent”. How “frequent” does it have to be to remotely reach the level of gun crime in the US? > [@](#): > > If all your wet dreams of gun banning became real, you’d shortly be here pissing and moaning about knife culture. Wrong again. I live in the UK these days and your own “pissing and moaning about knife culture” is far more strident than mine. I don’t worry much about people with knives, personally. > [@](#): > > I own guns and I have a carry permit, but I very seldom carry any more, so you can cram that “afraid to be without a gun” nonsense up your ass along with 20 monkeys on mopeds and the Peking Royal Circus. Sure, whatever you need to tell yourself. > [@](#): > > Mostly I stay involved in gun politics because it amuses me to watch assholes like you tie yourself in knots trying to rationalize what is really nothing but you being fearful of weapons and mistrusting of your fellow man. I usually don’t have a gun on me. I don’t live in fear of those who do. You should try it sometime. All that screeching has to be hard on your throats. It amazes me that you typed all that correctly with one hand. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5400 "2015-08-05T15:39:59Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > Knowledge is power. When my nephew learns when a gun is safe and when it is not, if in the future and for example he’s hanging out at a friend’s house and his friend totes out his father’s gun, he will know more than he did if the gun has the potential to be duscharged and harm someone. It’s the difference between ignorance and informed. And again I say, cite? Because upthread we talked about how the NRA’s Eddie Eagle program is completely ineffective at keeping kids safe. That is, it’s no better than just doing nothing. Nearest I can tell from internet searches, your nephew is now no safer than my kids who have probably never seen a gun in real life that wasn’t attached to a police officer’s hip. To be fair, I think this is counter-intuitive, as many things in science are. I was surprised, just a few weeks ago, to learn that DARE had the opposite effect that it was intended to have. I’m sure everyone involved in the DARE program felt like they were doing the right thing and making a difference, just like everyone involved with Eddie Eagle or even you taking your nephew out to learn about guns. It really seems like that should have some effect on reducing gun accidents, but when you actually study it the result is surprising. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729.md?page=269) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729.md?page=271)