Every gun owner thinks they’re a responsible gun owner.
Loaded gun in a car door pocket? I don’t think these people considered themselves responsible gun owners.
No, I think they did. That’s the problem.
They probably considered themselves responsible parents as well.
The point is what people claim to be and what people are, are different things.
What they claim and what they believe.
It’s terrifyingly common where i live, though people who do it think it’s common sense self-protection.
Here’s a story for you. I’ve only really held a gun once, at a camp riflery range (very small calibers). I still end up doing a fair amount of gun research for understanding gun debates / safety practices, research for fiction where characters have to talk about guns, etc.
I have had to correct other Reddit users that are gun owners, about the workings of basic single-action revolvers, in a very deep/long thread. I briefly doubted myself and checked my own sources, and yes, I was correct and the gun owner was persisting off the idea I was wrong. I’m sure there’s some responsible owners out there, but the fact there are so many bull-headed idiots about their guns, who still say they’re responsible, should scare anyone.
The specific topic, if you’re interested, was on the situation where an old-style revolver is loaded and cocked by an inexperienced user, who then wants to safely decock/unload the gun without firing it (at that point, the cylinder is locked so basic approaches won’t work). Feel free to look it up - the approach needed there is pretty damn stupid.
I don’t handle guns, I just like westerns and play too many video games:
Don’t you have to hold the hammer while you pull the trigger to decock it? The trigger unlocks it, but because you’re holding the hammer it doesn’t strike the shell?
So in order to safely disarm you have to pull the trigger, which sure sounds like an accident waiting to happen.
Exactly right. It’s possible there are some newer revolver models that have fixed that quirk of design, but that’s been true of all the ones I looked up YouTube videos on.
Yeah, modern ones have a decocker to fix that problem. I’ve never looked up how they work exactly. I do know that some revolvers also have a little piece that comes up to block the hammer from striking.
The historic design is certainly unsafe, but in those days, guns were rare and expensive enough that if you had one, you were already going to be trained on it. (Also, compared to a semi-auto pistol slide spring, revolver hammer springs are surprisingly weak. The only time I’ve had to do it, in a safety class, I was using so much force to hold the hammer up, I didn’t realize I had to let off to let it down.)
I had a girlfriends father insist on taking the whole family to the gun range as a “fun day out thing”. Not my thing, but why say no to new experience? Besides her dad had always openly carried so it was clearly something HE was into, so being invited to family time with him felt like a kindness
But oh joy, was I thankful that a gun instructor was there, literally everything her dad said was corrected. From hand placement, to how to load to how to stand. The guy nearly kicked dad off the range at one point for having a loaded gun facing his kid.
Thankfully I never had to suffer his company since we broke up later, but it was a very eye opening experince. Being INTO guns definitely does not correlate with safe usage.
These people also left their 2 year old in the car by himself while they shopped.
These people are fucking morons, gun or no gun.
Agreed. There are plenty of morons among the gun owners who consider themselves responsible gun owners.
I wonder what percentage actually are.
Whatever it is, it’s probably at least 25% less than the NRA claim.
Sure, sure, but not every gun owner leaves their gun loaded and unsecured in a car with their unsupervised young child.
And yet these ones did. And considered themselves responsible the entire time.
I guarantee you they don’t think that way now.
I actually know someone something similar happened to and even years later half the house was basically a shrine to the kid.
Yup. But until that toddler’s corpse was found, they considered themselves to be responsible gun owners.
And gun nuts counted them as responsible by default until that instant as well.
I’m not. Safety ALWAYS OFF now fuck off I’ve got shit to do.
The gun hatting equivalent of both sides 😂🤣🤣🤣
82M owners. The numbers aren’t in your favor.
Assuming you mean the US:
The highest number of gun violence deaths of any developed country 😂🤣🤣🤣
The highest number of children killed as well 😂🤣🤣🤣
The number one killer of children being guns 😂🤣🤣🤣
Yeah, the numbers are definitely NOT in our favor 🤦
How does any of that relate to most gun owners being responsible people? Folks really suck with trying to ignore the absolute numbers and try to use relative comparisons to serve as justification.
The VAST majority of gun owners are responsible and never experience anything like this. Using parents who left their toddler in the car buying fireworks at night is an absurd representation of your average gun owner. Gun owners like this are the exception and the numbers aren’t hard, you’re talking about less than a hundredth of the percent of the population.
Most people are responsible drivers. Doesn’t change that we enforce speed limits.
Most people are responsible drivers.
While this may be true, it’s still safe to drive as though everyone is a dangerous stupid lunatic. Not everyone lets you know by owning an Altima.
I completely agree. Thank you for agreeing on the responsibility. Can you find a single statement in this thread where I state anything about the laws or enforcement? My point is simple and limited and you and this entire thread have thrown the entire gun debate team at me.
Gun violence should be reduced, national consistent laws should be put in place, background checks should be consistent and thorough.
Most gun owners are responsible.
These are not mutually exclusive ideas.
Yeah sure I agree with all that. Frankly, and saying this as a former rural Appalachian Republican who owned firearms, I think we should go the UK route and effectively ban them altogether. I think I can make a compelling argument that they (a) do not make people safer, (b) do not defend against tyranny, and therefore (c) yield an overall net-negative to society. To me the crux of the issue isn’t the “responsible” gun-owners, but rather the ones who do fall through the cracks; for there are enough of them who have a serious impact of our nation’s bottom-line.
