Episodes such as you described @Von Jones are some of the several reasons I never allowed toy guns in my house. I feel they foster a casual attitude toward firearms. When you use them to practice, it should seem a bit scary, and when you shoot and kill something, particularly a large animal, you realize what a powerful tool they are. Just as children shouldn't be around a table saw unsupervised, they shouldn't be around firearms without supervision and instruction. I have no problem with anyone who doesn't feel comfortable not having firearms around the house.
@Don Alaska I think I understand your last sentence but to clarify I don't feel comfortable having a gun around the house.
Don't want to answer for Don Alaska but I think this is how posts that aren't copied & pasted intact are misunderstood. The last line Quote " I have no problem with anyone who doesn't feel comfortable not having firearms around the house." Quote "I think I understand your last sentence but to clarify [ I don't feel comfortable having a gun around the house ] Editing what was written completely changes what was written.
@Bob Kirk Guess I don't get the distinction between your interpretation of the two quotes you contributed. In the first one it is the being considered, while in the second it is the gun..... Frank
I have never owned any kind of firearm. When it comes to guns no matter the kind I have no problem with ownership & use by responsible people. Out of curiosity I looked up homicides by guns. Found that the FBI compiles a list of homicide deaths from guns to poison. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u....17/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-11.xls No surprise guns of all kinds lead the statistics. The info in this article kind of did. http://www.bu.edu/articles/2019/state-gun-laws-that-reduce-gun-deaths/ This is only one paragraph. ******************************************* Which part of your findings are particularly striking to you? Tight regulation of who has access to firearms, rather than the type of firearms that are allowed, differentiates states with the lowest rates of homicides. What surprised us the most was that in states that enacted a combination of universal background-check laws, laws prohibiting the sale of guns to people with violent misdemeanors, and concealed carry permit laws, the homicide rates were 35 percent lower than in states with none of those three kinds of laws. The practice of keeping guns out of the hands of people who are at the greatest risk for violence—based on a history of violence—appears to be the most closely associated with decreased rates of firearm homicide. With that kind of finding I guess what surprises me is why laws aren't uniform across America.
@Bob Kirk I see most of the "Gun Culture" problem as being masked by a single fact: as of at least 30 years ago, when counts were done, there were 40,000+ laws on the books in the U.S. pertaining to firearms. No representative of the Legal Profession could even be expected to be aware of 5% of them. Since then, I wonder how many more have been added. The laws were shown in many cases to overlap, as well as being ambiguous among those aimed at similar goals. Frank
The editing One is clear that there is no problem with anyone NOT having firearms around the house. The edited version asks for clarity for [ I don't feel comfortable having a gun around the house ] the original isn't about Don. It's Don saying Not having a problem with anyone else. Editing the content changed the original input. Maybe asking Don why he has no problem with anyone else having a firearm around the house was the intent. It just didn't come out like that.
The last sentence by Don Alaska copied & pasted Quote "I have no problem with anyone who doesn't feel comfortable not having firearms around the house." You wanted that clarified but didn't copy & paste but wrote this. Quote "@Don Alaska I think I understand your last sentence but to clarify I don't feel comfortable having a gun around the house." I read his last statement as him being comfortable with anyone that keeps a firearm around the house as OK with him. I read your post wanting him to clarify as him not feeling comfortable having a gun around the house. As I started with I don't want to answer for Don Alaska but since there was a lag in response I questioned your editing or taking a sentence out of context. That is what forums are for, the exchange of thought between participants. Explaining that your post was a statement I understand now you don't feel comfortable having a gun around the house.
Don't feel bad, @Von Jones. This thread is confusing to me. As for feeling comfortable with a gun in your home, I don't know anyone who supports guns rights who would suggest that everyone have a gun in their home, although there may be some, particularly when memes from Israel or Switzerland come up. Suggestions that crime in America gets worse every year are agenda and media-driven. While there are certainly places in the country that are dangerous, it doesn't make sense to suggest that these places would be made safer if only we took the guns away from those who aren't committing the crimes. The chief job of police departments is to investigate crimes after they are committed, not to prevent them from being committed. When it comes to keeping someone safe from violent crime, the police are likely to be there in time to draw a chalk line around your body, but unlikely to be there in time to keep you safe. Safety is achieved in three ways. One, if you are wealthy enough to be able to afford to do so, you can buy all sorts of security devices for your home and hire an armed guard to accompany you when you are out of the house. Those of us who aren't so rich can do the best we can to secure our homes, including having a weapon within reach, and carry a gun when we are out of the house, if we feel the need to. Banning guns allows only the wealthy to be able to afford a level of security, because many of the very people who would remove my right to protect myself are themselves protected by armed guards. The third way of achieving a level of safety is to move to a place where violent crime is not so common but, there too, the wealthy have an advantage. The agenda that I have spoken of so often includes pushing regular people into cities, while the rural places are being taken up by those with money. This is done in a number of ways, including taxes, driving prices up, making driving more expensive, the shutting down of rural health care facilities, and policies that are making it more difficult for regular people to earn a living in a rural area. But this thread is about guns, with some suggesting that it makes sense to give up liberty for a sense of security, and others pointing out that this sense of security is unreal, and that our governments don't even try to keep us safe. Although we have given much of this up over the years, as our liberties have been eroded, the United States was founded on a principle that included personal liberty and states rights over federal dominance, this ideal has not yet been eliminated. Not only am I well aware that government cannot keep me safe, but I don't want the government to be responsible for my safety when this comes at the expense of my liberty to provide for myself. I fear a dictatorial government far more than a criminal who might accost me on the street or in my home. While a criminal might take something from me, the government will take everything. If the SHTF, the first and most dangerous enemy of the people will the members of the local police department, followed by whatever remnants of government remain. I don't want them to be the only ones who are armed.
I'm not being rude when I say this to you but I wasn't asking for clarification from @Don Alaska I was clarifying that 'I' don't feel comfortable having a gun around the house. As I said before I didn't take anything out of context but I feel that you thought I did. I believe that is a misunderstanding on your part.
You shouldn't. There's nothing wrong with not feeling comfortable with a gun in the house. Although a gun is about as likely to reach out on its own and shoot you as a knife would be to reach out of the knife drawer and stab you, someone who isn't comfortable with guns probably shouldn't have guns. As I mentioned somewhere here, I had a handgun while I was raising my son but he never knew I had a gun until he was twenty and I was packing up to move to Texas.
@Von Jones reminds me of my grandmother. A sweet lady who dearly hated my grandfather’s guns hanging around but could wield a cast iron skillet or her chicken ax so well that no one in their right mind would dare try to go against her even with a gun.