Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

There's a gun in about one in three houses. A lot are probably stored away in the attic or locked up or similar. There is roughly one gun for each person, total, though.

 Matthew wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Matthew wrote:
I live in Sweden, so guns aren't a problem, but if I lived in the US, I'd feel safer if no one had guns except for criminals, instead of everyone having one.

Maybe it's a translation issue...

You'd feel safer as long as it was only the criminals who had guns?

Mhm. A competent police force protects me better than having a gun in every single house.
I'd rather have people steal my things than to have my future children die in a school shooting.

And I'd rather have prohibition of alcohol rather than have my kids killed by a drunk driver(roughly equal or greater death statistitics as guns when discussing murder)

 DarkLink wrote:

...no gak. Because the kids find the gun and play with them, not hand them over to their teachers. Hence my comment that you should teach your kids to safely handle any firearms rather than play with them.

Okay, so you claimed you've never met a kid that would play with a gun as if a kid like that doesn't exist and the when presented with the fact that they do, you brush it off like it's common knowledge. Besides, you. An teach a kid everything about gun safety and at the end of the day, they are still kids and prone to do stupid stuff.

As for "all the time", if you're concerned with unsafe behaviors hurting your children, you should be more worried about car accidents, drinking household chemicals, drowning in a swimming pool, or one of any number of things off a very long list of preventable causes of death that kills more kids than firearm ownership does. Pools alone kill something like a hundred kids for every kid accidentally killed or injured by a firearm.

I don't know who this "you" is that you are addressing because I never said anything other than the fact that kids kill or injure themselves and others because of access to unsecured firearms. But since you asked, I'm not at all worried about my children hurting themselves with my firearms because I keep them properly secured in my home, though your list of false equivalence was a nice touch.

Moral of the story, there's no reason to be concerned about owning a gun with kids in the home, but you should still be responsible and either lock them up or teach the kids to safely handle the firearm, preferably both.

Thanks mate. Again, if you are addressing me with your recap of the "moral of the story," you can save it.

I know you're new around here, but don't start jumping down people's throat other over dumb gak. We all like to play nice in the OT.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:

...no gak. Because the kids find the gun and play with them, not hand them over to their teachers. Hence my comment that you should teach your kids to safely handle any firearms rather than play with them.

Okay, so you claimed you've never met a kid that would play with a gun as if a kid like that doesn't exist and the when presented with the fact that they do, you brush it off like it's common knowledge. Besides, you. An teach a kid everything about gun safety and at the end of the day, they are still kids and prone to do stupid stuff.

Emphasis mine. You might want to reread DarkLink's first post in this thread, because I'm pretty sure he never said the bit that I've bolded. In fact, he said the exact opposite on page one. That misunderstanding might be part of the argument you two seem to be having for no reason.

 Hordini wrote:

Emphasis mine. You might want to reread DarkLink's first post in this thread, because I'm pretty sure he never said the bit that I've bolded. In fact, he said the exact opposite on page one. That misunderstanding might be part of the argument you two seem to be having for no reason.

No, I read exactly what he wrote.

He added some ridiculous qualifier (everything after the "unless" in his statement) which was absolutely asinine. Normal kids get injured by unsecured firearms, not just some mythical kid that fits in his description.

I'm not arguing with him, he actually made me laugh. He took my statement of fact as an opportunity to rant about how I should be more concerned about my kids getting hurt by other things in my house and blah blah blah. It's no big deal, he's new around here so he's going to jump in with all guns blazing (pun intended!).

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

Emphasis mine. You might want to reread DarkLink's first post in this thread, because I'm pretty sure he never said the bit that I've bolded. In fact, he said the exact opposite on page one. That misunderstanding might be part of the argument you two seem to be having for no reason.

No, I read exactly what he wrote.

He added some ridiculous qualifier (everything after the "unless" in his statement) which was absolutely asinine. Normal kids get injured by unsecured firearms, not just some mythical kid that fits in his description.

I'm not arguing with him, he actually made me laugh. He took my statement of fact as an opportunity to rant about how I should be more concerned about my kids getting hurt by other things in my house and blah blah blah. It's no big deal, he's new around here so he's going to jump in with all guns blazing (pun intended!).

Wasn't that his point though? That most kids would mess with an unsecured firearm given the chance, especially when lacking any kind of firearms safety training (and even then they still might)?

In any case, not a huge deal. Carry on!

 Hordini wrote:
Wasn't that his point though? That most kids would mess with an unsecured firearm given the chance, especially when lacking any kind of firearms safety training (and even then they still might)?

In any case, not a huge deal. Carry on!

That was the point I am making, his point was that only "an idealistic wannabe hippie that read about how guns are bad on some blog" (lolwut?) kid would play with a gun, because those kids are "stupid." No kid he's ever met would do that though, only this special kind of kid that exists somewhere in his imagination. Of course, he went on to make a counterargument to point that I didn't make for whatever reason (he did the same thing to someone else in another thread to, so there's that), which made me chuckle.

But yes, not a huge deal... and at the end of the day, the best protection from a child accidentally injuring themselves or others with a firearm is to keep it secured. No matter how much you teach any child about safe handling of a firearm (equally important as proper and secure storage), they are still children. As the parent of some, and a former child myself, I recognize that they are still capable of stupid things, despite the best intentions of a parent.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
Wasn't that his point though? That most kids would mess with an unsecured firearm given the chance, especially when lacking any kind of firearms safety training (and even then they still might)?

In any case, not a huge deal. Carry on!

That was the point I am making, his point was that only "an idealistic wannabe hippie that read about how guns are bad on some blog" (lolwut?) kid would play with a gun, because those kids are "stupid." No kid he's ever met would do that though, only this special kind of kid that exists somewhere in his imagination. Of course, he went on to make a counterargument to point that I didn't make for whatever reason (he did the same thing to someone else in another thread to, so there's that), which made me chuckle.

But yes, not a huge deal... and at the end of the day, the best protection from a child accidentally injuring themselves or others with a firearm is to keep it secured. No matter how much you teach any child about safe handling of a firearm (equally important as proper and secure storage), they are still children. As the parent of some, and a former child myself, I recognize that they are still capable of stupid things, despite the best intentions of a parent.

No, he said only an idealistic wanna be hippie wouldn't play with a gun. That's the part I thought you were misreading, and it seems like you still are. Here's his exact quote:

I don't think I've ever met a kid that wouldn't be like 'sweet, a gun to play with'. Unless they're an idealistic wannabe hippie that read about how guns are bad on some blog, but those kids are stupid anyways.

Emphasis mine. Unless I'm missing something I think he's agreeing with you. That is, he's saying he hasn't met a kid that wouldn't play with a gun given the chance, except for some kind of theoretical hippie child.

Still not a big deal, not trying to be overly pedantic, just trying to clear up the misunderstanding as I'm pretty sure we agree with each other (Secure firearms properly, teach children gun safety).

Fair enough, I'll admit when I misread something, which it appears I did.

My opinion on the counterargument/rant to nothing I said still stands though.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Fair enough, I'll admit when I misread something, which it appears I did.

My opinion on the counterargument/rant to nothing I said still stands though.

Fair enough!

 DarkLink wrote:


Oh, yeah, I forgot, the police here don't know how to use their magic crystal fortune-tellers to predict when and where every crime is going to happen so they can be on-scene and prevent it.

This. Even if we had a competent police force (which I would argue that we do not, in MOST areas), a gun in the holster of some cop a mile away doesn't make me feel safe at all. A gun in MY holster, on the other hand, has saved my life.

What's that saying? When seconds count the police are minutes away.

Yup, and you are actually lucky if they're only minutes away.

In lots of places they could easily be 20-30 minutes or even further away.

 Matthew wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Matthew wrote:
I live in Sweden, so guns aren't a problem, but if I lived in the US, I'd feel safer if no one had guns except for criminals, instead of everyone having one.

Maybe it's a translation issue...

You'd feel safer as long as it was only the criminals who had guns?

Mhm. A competent police force protects me better than having a gun in every single house.
I'd rather have people steal my things than to have my future children die in a school shooting.

This. Thisthisthis.

Didn't Sweden have a Nut Job shoot a bunch of kids on a island there or something?

Edit

Nut Job being no country is free of them implementing a free fire zone any where.

Norway I think it was. Easy to confuse them, I know.

Yes, the far-right anti-islam madman Anders Beiring Breivik.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks

 Hordini wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

Emphasis mine. You might want to reread DarkLink's first post in this thread, because I'm pretty sure he never said the bit that I've bolded. In fact, he said the exact opposite on page one. That misunderstanding might be part of the argument you two seem to be having for no reason.

No, I read exactly what he wrote.

He added some ridiculous qualifier (everything after the "unless" in his statement) which was absolutely asinine. Normal kids get injured by unsecured firearms, not just some mythical kid that fits in his description.

I'm not arguing with him, he actually made me laugh. He took my statement of fact as an opportunity to rant about how I should be more concerned about my kids getting hurt by other things in my house and blah blah blah. It's no big deal, he's new around here so he's going to jump in with all guns blazing (pun intended!).

Wasn't that his point though? That most kids would mess with an unsecured firearm given the chance, especially when lacking any kind of firearms safety training (and even then they still might)?

In any case, not a huge deal. Carry on!

Pretty much exactly what I was trying to say, thanks. If your kid stumbles randomly across a gun, they're probably just going to play with it, which is obviously dangerous. It is still really rare, I only brought up other causes of death to keep it in perspective, but it does happen. Hence why I said the behavior of the kid in the video is unrealistic, and why I said that if you own a gun you should be responsible about storing it. I have no clue what scootypuff was going on about, honestly.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Matthew wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Matthew wrote:
I live in Sweden, so guns aren't a problem, but if I lived in the US, I'd feel safer if no one had guns except for criminals, instead of everyone having one.

Maybe it's a translation issue...

You'd feel safer as long as it was only the criminals who had guns?

Mhm. A competent police force protects me better than having a gun in every single house.
I'd rather have people steal my things than to have my future children die in a school shooting.

This. Thisthisthis.

So, just out of curiosity, what do you suggest to the large number of people in the US who live somewhere it takes police 20-30 minutes or longer to get to?

 DarkLink wrote:

Pretty much exactly what I was trying to say, thanks. If your kid stumbles randomly across a gun, they're probably just going to play with it, which is obviously dangerous. It is still really rare, I only brought up other causes of death to keep it in perspective, but it does happen. Hence why I said the behavior of the kid in the video is unrealistic, and why I said that if you own a gun you should be responsible about storing it. I have no clue what scootypuff was going on about, honestly.

What I was going on about was attributed to a mistake I made, which I admitted to if you scroll up and read it. We are on the same page here, and the only time we weren't was because of my apparent lack of reading skills. What I scoffed at was the argument you attempted to make against nothing I said, which was peppered with the old stand by of "X isn't that bad because Y is also bad" which is a poor argument all the way around. And as far as whether or not children accidentally shooting themselves is rare or not, the data is poorly compiled or altogether absent.

 Hordini wrote:
So, just out of curiosity, what do you suggest to the large number of people in the US who live somewhere it takes police 20-30 minutes or longer to get to?

Yeah, really. My mom is always lecturing me about having guns in the house because she's pretty anti-gun, but she says this when she lives in a major metro area where the can reliably have emergency services at her doorstep in 4-5 minutes. Meanwhile I have no local police coverage at all and have to wait for the county sheriff - I've dialed 911 a few times on emergency calls and 23 minutes is the best response time I've gotten: Detroit-level response times.

In her case, the police will probably there to help, but where I live, the police are just going to be cleaning up whatever happened.

Hey, it's all about competency. If our police were competent, they could cross the 30-40 miles in 10 seconds.

 djones520 wrote:
Hey, it's all about competency. If our police were competent, they could cross the 30-40 miles in 10 seconds.

No, they couldn't. Competence =/= breaking laws of physics.

 Ouze wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
So, just out of curiosity, what do you suggest to the large number of people in the US who live somewhere it takes police 20-30 minutes or longer to get to?

Yeah, really. My mom is always lecturing me about having guns in the house because she's pretty anti-gun, but she says this when she lives in a major metro area where the can reliably have emergency services at her doorstep in 4-5 minutes. Meanwhile I have no local police coverage at all and have to wait for the county sheriff - I've dialed 911 a few times on emergency calls and 23 minutes is the best response time I've gotten: Detroit-level response times.

In her case, the police will probably there to help, but where I live, the police are just going to be cleaning up whatever happened.

I live near two cops. I've rubber rounds for my M4 (AR15) and beanbag rounds in the antique double barrel. Made the trade recently because I'm pretty adamant on not cleaning up blood (both LEO advised me to go that route)

 Ashiraya wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
Hey, it's all about competency. If our police were competent, they could cross the 30-40 miles in 10 seconds.

No, they couldn't. Competence =/= breaking laws of physics.

I agree. I'm still waiting to hear your ideas about what people who live in areas where police response times are 20+ minutes should do though.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:


Ok, So does not only does this kid put his finger over the trigger(Its fake in shooting, but real in the video) but keeps a gun on him in class, with the magazine in it and shows it and shoves it down infront of the teacher.

How does a mother havinng a gun preclude a safe enviroment? I would feel more safe with a gun in my house.

Personally I felt less safe when there was a gun in my house. Made the house more of a target for criminals. I have no training in how to use one and I don't think I'd be able to kill someone. Means it was more likely to be used on me than by me.

Sounds like Darwinism in action. If a parent who owns a gun is stupid enough to not talk about gun safety with their children and not take the child shooting so they can learn about firearms that is Strike One for being an idiot that is too dumb to live.

Strike Two is having a child who has unrestricted access to the Internet and whose parent or parents don't pay enough attention to what their children are doing to prevent such idiotic ideas from getting into their children's head in the first place. Sure dumb ideas get rooted in every kid but good parents are like gardeners, we need to weed that garden frequently to prevent it from getting overrun with stupid.

Strike Three, said parent leaves their firearms where their child, whose head is full of stupid ideas that have not been countered with logic, has easy access to the firearms in the home so the child can commit upwards of a dozen felonies by doing what some other idiots on YouTube told him to do.

The shame is the idiots who did this PSA (Putrid Stupidity Announcement) aren't going to be Darwinized along with the kid and his parents.

My son has our guns in his closet. No trigger locks or other idiotproofing. Why? Well for one we live in South Dakota where there are no laws regarding firearm ownership or storage (we spray for Californians along with other pests).

Secondly I take my son shooting regularly. He has taken hunter safety courses and goes hunting so he understands the deadly nature of firearms and knows the rules of safe handling.

Thirdly his friends who come over have gone shooting with us as well and have been trained in safe handling.

Lastly we pay attention to our child and listen to what he says. When idiot ideas come out of his mouth we challenge them with logic and help him work out why the idea was stupid.

So yeah, I feel safe with my son having access to firearms. Safer actually since I am disabled and at night am attached to a dialysis machine. So if bad people come knocking he will be there to defend me and my wife (who sleeps through just about anything). He's a good shot with his 22 mag rifle so idiots looking for trouble beware of this little house on the prairie.

 skyth wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:


Ok, So does not only does this kid put his finger over the trigger(Its fake in shooting, but real in the video) but keeps a gun on him in class, with the magazine in it and shows it and shoves it down infront of the teacher.

How does a mother havinng a gun preclude a safe enviroment? I would feel more safe with a gun in my house.

Personally I felt less safe when there was a gun in my house. Made the house more of a target for criminals. I have no training in how to use one and I don't think I'd be able to kill someone. Means it was more likely to be used on me than by me.

Did you advertise you had an unsecured gun that no one knew how to use? If not, how did the presence of that gun make your house a target for criminals?

As for being untrained on the use of that gun, couldn't you have gotten training?

If the gun was in a gun safe, even if your house was broken into, how would it have been likely to be used on you? Did you plan on just hanging out while some home invader cut open the safe to retrieve the gun and then use it on you?

 skyth wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:


Ok, So does not only does this kid put his finger over the trigger(Its fake in shooting, but real in the video) but keeps a gun on him in class, with the magazine in it and shows it and shoves it down infront of the teacher.

How does a mother havinng a gun preclude a safe enviroment? I would feel more safe with a gun in my house.

Personally I felt less safe when there was a gun in my house. Made the house more of a target for criminals. I have no training in how to use one and I don't think I'd be able to kill someone. Means it was more likely to be used on me than by me.

That is definitely one of the more "interesting" ways I've heard people justify to themselves that guns are scary...

 skyth wrote:
Personally I felt less safe when there was a gun in my house. Made the house more of a target for criminals. I have no training in how to use one and I don't think I'd be able to kill someone. Means it was more likely to be used on me than by me.

Let me take a moment to counter your points with logic.

Unless you post a sign saying "Unsecured Firearms in home with untrained owner" your home is not at greater risk for criminal invasion. Even if you had the sign up it wouldn't change your risk level as most criminals are idiots who cant read big words like "unsecured".

Why on earth would you have a gun and not go to the range and practice with it? For one it is great fun for the whole family as you can compete at hitting difficult targets. Bragging rights as best shooter are just as good as best wargamer. Unless you live in Communist China you can find classes for gun safety. Game, FIsh and Parks hold inexpensive classes a couple times a year in most states.

You don't need to kill to protect yourself. Most uses of a gun for self defense simply involve brandishing the firearm. Even then if you have to shoot unless you are very good you aren't going for a head shot. Shooting the bad guy will likely result in a wound that will be treated at the ER while he is handcuffed to the operating table. If the criminal dies, well consider it Darwinism in action. Bad guys kill themself by invading homes with guns. You just held the bullet for them.

Unless you hand the bad guy the gun he isn't likely to get it from you. If you have your finger on the trigger and they grab for it and pull it from your grip the gun will go off and they will get shot. Problem solved.