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Showing posts with label Gun Competency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gun Competency. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 03, 2014

He Who Dies With the Most Toys in His Cold, Dead Hands Wins

The death of an instructor at a Nevada shooting range at the hands of a nine-year-old girl is the perfect example of what the Gun Cult is all about.

It's not about protecting our Second Amendment rights, or defending ourselves from a tyrannical government. It's about the toys.

When Barack Obama was elected president the Gun Cult ran around shrilly screaming that Obama was going to take their guns away from them, like nine-year-old girls afraid their parents were taking away their Barbies.

Guns are weapons. Tools of particular trades: hunting, policing, national defense. It is sheer folly that this poor girl's parents, the instructor, the shooting range owner and the state legislature allows and encourages children to play with fully automatic weapons as if they were toys.

It's clear that many in the Gun Cult think of guns as toys from the way they leave them lying around their houses where children can get them. Or the way they think it's perfectly safe to take them into public places, where they can fall out of their purses and pockets and shoot themselves and others. Or the way they show them off to each other at parties where everyone is drinking.

Would these parents have placed a jackhammer in this girl's hands? Would they let her use an electric drill that was too heavy for her to properly control? Or operate a table saw? Or light birthday candles with a propane torch? Maybe. But probably not, because those tools aren't fun.

In a culture where hunting is common, you can argue that responsible children should be taught how to properly handle weapons at an early age to instill the proper respect and care for weapons. To that end my dad gave my 11-year-old nephew my grandfather's ancient bolt-action .22 caliber rifle. It's a long weapon with minimal recoil.

If the nine-year-old girl in Nevada had been using such a rifle, that instructor would almost certainly be alive today. Even if she couldn't handle the weapon's kick, she couldn't accidentally get a second shot off.

But her parents wanted their spindly nine-year-old to fire a fully automatic Uzi because it's fun!

The Gun Cult rejects reasonable gun laws not because they're protecting their rights, but because the Government is a bunch of big meanies who want to take away their fun.

Monday, July 14, 2014

No Thanks, Gun Humpers























Not only that but I think I speak for many Americans when I say that these idiots are the last fucking people I want "defending my rights." I'd rather have them defend against early onset diabetes and seriously consider salads.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

The Best Quote On Guns In Human History

From an answer on Quora...

There is little doubt that armed teachers could have possibly saved lives in the Newtown shooting. 

There is also little doubt in my mind that widespread arming of teachers would at some point result in an accidental shooting of a child, access to a firearm by a child, and a tragic deliberate shooting of an innocent adult due to a misunderstanding or overreaction.

The fundamental problem with most positions on firearm legislation is that they are myopic. The average gun advocate is a responsible, law abiding person with legitimate and justifiable arguments for people like them to possess firearms, and they are no danger to themselves or others. Yet they fail to understand that not everyone is like them. Not everyone can handle the responsibility of a firearm. When the law supports their right to bear arms, it also supports the rights of almost every other citizen to bear arms; many of whom are not responsible enough to do so safely.

As a former soldier I have been trained in the use of a number of firearms from pistols to machine guns. I teach my son and daughter to use an archery bow, and I impress upon them the gravity and responsibility of wielding a deadly weapon. I owned a hunting rifle and later a hunting shotgun, which were surrendered in the Australian buyback following the Port Arthur massacre. There are times, especially in the dead of night, when I wonder how I would defend my family against an armed intruder and I miss having that shotgun - after all, criminals still have access to guns in this country. But I understand that for me to have the right to own firearms for home defence, my neighbour and millions of my fellow citizens must also have that right. I know that most of those people have not had my training and do not have my respect for weapons, and on balance I feel safer with them not having them. And that's just the stable, law abiding ones. 

On balance, I feel that arming teachers would cause more harm, when viewed on a national scale, than good. Rather than a knee jerk reaction to militarise schools, I believe that the US would be better served by reviewing firearm laws to make the ownership of guns a revokable privilege rather than a universal right; by putting in place restrictions on automatic firearms and large capacity magazines; by verifying the character, mental state and training of gun purchasers; by licensing guns to owners and making unlicensed transfers a felony; by improving their mental health services and by ending the glorification of gun violence and perpetrators in the news media.

Well balanced...thoughtful...intelligent...and, most importantly, highly illustrative of the complexities of the gun issue.

Thursday, February 06, 2014

Friday, January 24, 2014

Responsible Gun Owner?

Florida man mistakenly shoots himself during road rage incident

According to the Orlando Sentinel, the man said he had been driving toward Orlando on Interstate-4 when another driver allegedly flashed a weapon after the two had some type of altercation. To protect himself, the man brandished his own handgun, causing it to discharge into his leg.

I thought that good guys with guns saved the day and were very careful with their firearms.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Good Words

Now that a 4-year-old has shot and killed another 4-year-old in Detroit, we’re going to again talk about gun control, with predictably the same results. To me, two things are true: (1) Gun advocates who want no registration and management of gun ownership are in fact afraid of their government, and (2) we as a nation have a competency problem when it comes to managing gun ownership. 

Every gun advocate argument I’ve heard that is against better management (not restriction) of gun ownership boils down to the individual or group being afraid any government control will lead to removal of their constitutional right. Until we solve that problem, gun control will only be a dream. Yet when a 4-year-old has access to a loaded rifle that is improperly stored or when a troubled high school student has access to military-grade weapons without military-grade training, oversight or certifications, we have proved ourselves unable to manage gun ownership. Identify the real problems, and perhaps we can together come up with real solutions. (Letter of the Day, Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Gun competency...indeed. Meanwhile, in responsible gun owner land..

Americans who accidentally shot themselves recently: A 31-year-old man, showing off his high-powered rifle to friends, shot off part of his face, Waterville, Maine (November). A 22-year-old woman, handing her brand-new assault rifle to her husband, shot herself (fatally) in the head, Federal Heights, Colo. (May). Two police chiefs shot themselves (Medina, Ohio, in April and Washington, N.H., in June). A 66-year-old firearms instructor, Winona, Minn., shot his finger while explaining to his wife that it was impossible to pull the trigger while the gun is holstered (April). Awkward Wounds: A Columbia, Mo., man shot in the "posterior" while removing his gun from his back pocket (May); a 23-year-old man, Charleston, W.Va., shot in the groin while holstering his weapon (August); a 43-year-old driver, Norfolk, Va., shot in the groin while waving his gun at bystanders who objected to his speeding (August). Waterville: [Morning Sentinel (Waterville), 11-8-2013] Federal: [KMGH-TV (Denver), 5-16-2013] Medina: [Medina Gazette, 4-18-2013] Washington: [WMUR-TV (Manchester), 6-3-2013] Winona: [Winona Daily News, 4-30-2013] Columbia: [KMIZ-TV (Columbia), 5-30-2013] Charleston: [Charleston Daily Mail, 8-28-2013] Norfolk: [WTKR-TV (Norfolk), 8-7-2013]