At my range, there is a rule: no targets that look like people. Not event the generic “bad guy”. Definitely not political targets. I suspect that includes donkeys and elephants.
This is in “red” Arizona.
Well, if you’re done shaking your head like a chicken, then you can move on, right?
There are / were three main shooting areas that were inexpensive (and shooting is already an expensive sport, so this was where I went prior to COVID).
The first was a completely free range that has now been closed for years, and is probably verging on a Superfund site (exaggerating, but it was super trashed) with zero formal supervision. It was on National Forest land, and people were supposed to pick up after yourselves, but few did. Thus, people could and did shoot at anything, including old appliances, fruit, and blatant political targets, not even the ‘deniable’ ones I mentioned earlier.
The second was Dragonman, which had formal range safety that was… unequally applied historically. The joke is that the owner would hire some homeless guy for a meal and a beer to stand around, and while it is likely a joke, it was certainly believable. At the times I went there (ending before the Obama years) the owner, a reactionary old coot, did absolutely sell paper cut outs of donkeys, and Bin Ladin targets. And there were no real restrictions on the paper targets your brought. I have no idea what it’s like these days, but I see nothing in their web-based range rules that explicitly ban such things.
The last was the new ‘public’ range, associated with one of the local military bases, which opened a few years prior to COVID, and had it’s discount days for morning shifts, which I went to twice… and it was very organized, and yes, I didn’t see any identifiable ‘enemy’ targets there - but then you just had to see the NRA tags on clothing/bags, the ‘cold dead fingers’ quotes, the “Gun control is a tight grouping” or other equally obvious group signaling.
So I think my point stands, although you are absolutely correct, the type of signaling allowed certainly changes with regard to TPO (Time, Place, Occasion).
Feel free to keep attacking me, rather than acknowledging your error.
But, yes, I will move on. It’s pointless trying to discuss a topic with somebody who pivots as much as you have in this thread.
< waves > Bye, then. I’ll send you a nice fruit basket.
( I’m gonna Miss Her…! )
Back on the grim topic. The mother is the murderer here. Falls under the heading, “If I can’t have them (the children), no one can.”
That’s not just a typo.
Anyway, even if we start again with guns instead of people, there is no data that indicates that most guns used at a firing range will be used to kill someone, or even used in a crime for that matter. There are almost 400 million guns in the U.S. (I don’t know what percentage are handguns). At the current rate of gun deaths, if we assume no more guns will ever be manufactured or imported, it would take 8,000 years for them all to be used in deaths. Of course, I don’t know how many of them are used at ranges. But in the absence of data I would bet that most gun owners who go to ranges are more responsible and have lower rates of crime than people who don’t.
Yeah… no. Where do criminals get guns except from totally irresponsible ‘Legal but Stupid’ gun owners who never ever take 2 seconds to secure them?
Do they break into gun stores like Schwarzenegger in ‘Commando’?
Do they get shipped in by Putin to ‘Drug Gangs’? ( isn’t that a well-used movie script? )
Do they magically appear via magic wands? < Accio Sig-Saurus! >
At our range we have a company that comes by as needed to mine the lead out of the backstops. We get paid depending on the amount recovered.
Is it perfect, no, but better than nothing.
Show me the data.
I was wondering the same thing myself.
From a 2016 study of incarcerated prisoners:
An estimated 287,400 prisoners had possessed a firearm during their offense. Among these, more than half (56%) had either stolen it (6%), found it at the scene of the crime (7%), or obtained it off the street or from the underground market (43%). Most of the remainder (25%) had obtained it from a family member or friend, or as a gift. Seven percent had purchased it under their own name from a licensed firearm dealer.
From a PBS article:
An expert on crime gun patterns, ATF agent Jay Wachtel says that most guns used in crimes are not stolen out of private gun owners’ homes and cars. “Stolen guns account for only about 10% to 15% of guns used in crimes,” Wachtel said. Because when they want guns they want them immediately the wait is usually too long for a weapon to be stolen and find its way to a criminal.
And from FOX News:
A 2019 survey conducted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) found that some 43 percent of criminals had bought their firearms on the black market, 6 percent acquired them via theft, and 10 percent made a retail purchase – 0.8 percent purchased a weapon from a gun show.
So while the numbers vary depending on the source, it appears that theft of firearms from legal gun owners is low on the list of how criminals obtain their guns.
So “only” 6-56% of guns used in crimes are stolen.
Seems like those three articles can decide what’s what. BTW, that first link doesn’t work for me.
All I know is, it is super fucking easy to buy a gun around me with no background check required. No need to steal. But if you are in a stealing mood, people don’t lock their shit up so you have that opportunity as well.
I guess that all adds up to: It’s really easy to get a gun no matter who you are. No money, no problem. Money but a felony on your record, no problem. It is a fucking trivial thing to do.
No argument there. The issue on the table is whether guns used at shooting ranges end up being used in murders.
I was responding to the post by @Railer13 . Guns are fucking easy to get. Stupidly trivial. And the 2nd Amendment fucks don’t care. It’s a feature, not a bug. I don’t care about your issue on the table.
They seem to be saying that guns obtained on the black market don’t count as stolen guns.
Where do they think the guns on the black market come from? Walmart?
Sorry about that. Try this:
No argument from me. But according to those studies, most guns used in homicides are not stolen by the offender, which is the point I was making.
Nobody said anything different. The post that you responded to is not attempting to show that it’s hard to get guns. It’s showing data to refute a claim that all guns used at a shooting range will eventually be used to kill people. That is simply not backed up by any data. That’s also much different than saying “many guns used to kill people were at some point used at a shooting range.”
Are we seeing the same things? This is what I was responding to:
Edit to add: Looks like @Railer13 might’ve caused the confusion. Doesn’t matter to me in a stupid gun news thread.
Take your positive gun thoughts to the positive gun news thread. Yay! Most guns will never be used to murder someone!1!
Fuck that noise.
No, @CookingWithGas and I were responding to an earlier claim about guns used in a shooting range. Neither of us are making any positive noise about guns.
I’ll happily drop out of the discussion.
But where do those guns ‘magically’ come from? Trace all of them back to P.O.Sale.
Guess What? ( as if you didn’t know )