This could have been prevented if there was a good toddler with a gun.
The toddlers need gun training. If every toddler had a gun, stuff like this wouldn't happen.
The solution is obviously to try toddlers as adults.
Another opportunity to talk to your toddler about good trigger discipline.
"Aim at the head, shoulders, not the toes, not the toes."
Now remember kids, for a jam you put the magazine in, you take the magazine out… in out, in out, shake it all about.
Instructions unclear. I now have strawberry jam in my magazine.
Now now, Timmy… in an active shooter situation you'd be dead, you silly billy.
That's why my new bill would mandate that all babies receive in-womb gun-safety training. New borns are expected to complete a gun-safety test. If they fail, they're shot and killed. We only care about life until birth.
Or if we just had mental health programs for toddlers, we wouldn't have any issues with giving toddlers guns!
Another responsible gun owner!
Sad thing is is that there are probably many responsible gun owners, but its the jackasses that get publicized and drawn into the public eye.
Though, that's how it should be. It just takes one reckless owner to ruin several people's lives. That's an incredibly low margin of error, and people should talk about it.
EVERYONE is a responsible gun owner until they aren’t.
Same with car drivers though, no?
Don’t even start with that bullshit. Cars are necessary and aren’t manufactured for the purpose of killing.
That's fair
And any dumbass who tries to equate the two to justify mass firearm proliferation, just tell them to defend their homes with cars and knives just the same.
Then they'll raise their hands and go, "whoa whoa, hey now…"
Cars are not technically necessary. But we regulate them heavily - through licensing, safety tests, and policing. And your license can be pulled or suspended so that you cannot drive.
Why? Because they are deadly. Just because something isn't created to kill (say… To protect your family? To get you to your job?) doesn't mean it can't kill.
Sadly, we live in a country where freedom and rights are valued more than community and respect.
But as the welcome to nightvale NRA says: "Guns don't kill people. We're all invincible and it's a miracle." (Podcast.)
Do not approach the dog park.
… my phone is always dying so I think I'd like living in a desert otherworld where my phone mysteriously never dies
We have car insurance, but not gun insurance.
https://locktonaffinityoutdoor.com/personal-firearm-liability/
The critical difference is that auto insurance is (usually) required, while firearm insurance is not.
I mean, a part of me would sooner say “yes, they are both needlessly dangerous and costly to society, which is why a society structured around needing and allowing either mass guns or cars is stupid.”
Cars are necessary despite what a bunch of people in Reddit forums think.
The US has more car deaths than anywhere else in the world, by far. Like guns, it’s a real “This is not preventable, says only country where this happens” vibe.
Some cars will always be necessary. The crazy delusional obsession with car dependence that happens literally nowhere else in the world is not necessary.
That's a no to this and the comment you're replying to
I'm not pro-gun, or pro-car, or anything that is a detriment to society. I vote progressively, donate to digital rights groups, and contribute money and code to open source projects. I believe in a better world.
Okay, with that out of the way, I'm looking for an argument I can use against a gun owner to tell them that they should not own a gun.
School shootings and dead kids is somehow not enough to convince them, because of the claim that its a minority of reckless users who are the problem. I am looking for other arguments I can use, and I will question arguments that seem weak or inconsistent to me.
Apologies if the car argument is often used by them, it came to me on the spur of the moment. Clearly it was a bad argument.
I’m looking for an argument I can use against a gun owner to tell them that they should not own a gun.
I don't think there is a universal argument against it that will work with everyone. Find out why they actually want a gun (not what they tell others on the surface) and check if there is a way they can get what they need without it.
If they have a gun because it makes them feel more "manly" then no argument will help, telling them they don't need a gun to be a man could. If they feel insecure and threatened, helping them to find other ways to feel secure and safe again will help. It could be group pressure, it could be anything.
If you can't make them give away the gun, maybe you can make them put it behind a lock, gun and ammunition separated at least. That would keep everyone more save. Sometimes it is all one can do, but it would have hindered this accident to happen.
That puts your original comment into perspective.
I don't think there is an argument that could convince someone who wears their gun like it's a religion. They see that as part of their identity, and you can't change that with simple logic.
I guess I live in the hope that we're all human beings capable of being reasoned with
My only gripe with what you said is that there are legitimately irresponsible drivers and irresponsible gun owners. I don't think there's anything you can say to most Americans who own a gun to get them to not. Guns are so tied to the American image, it's not a tool, or a hobby…it's a fetish, a symbol of belonging to the group.
The car argument isn't a bad one, but saying that everyone is responsible until they're not is a falsehood.
A better way to phrase it might be something along the lines of:
Even responsible drivers can make an error, and a single error, one split second of inattentiveness, can destroy the lives of so many people. Now consider how many people are irresponsible drivers.Even responsible drivers can make an error, and a single error, one split second of inattentiveness, can destroy the lives of so many people. Now consider how many people are irresponsible drivers.
This is a good one to use, my thanks.
You'll have to do it with work. No magic bullet on this one. I own zero firearms but I'm a staunch advocate for 2a and our right to self defense.
A lot of people don't have well thought out reasoning, but it's cultural. I'm not saying they don't think about it so much as they never thought to, because they don't see those problems in their communities. They've been around firearms their whole life. When you go to a farm on a shooting day the old timers find the noobs and gently correct them. Problems get sorted quickly from those group experiences.
So, you have to ask questions to sort out where they stand and to break down their ideas into something more concrete. You have to kinda neutrally get them to put thought into how they came to the ideas they have.
I’m looking for an argument I can use against a gun owner to tell them that they should not own a gu
"No one is going to break into your suburban home, Steve. Quit being such a pussy."
Are cars designed to kill people? Or are they used to kill people in extraordinary circumstances?
There are, mostly in fact. For some rough math, there are 333,287,557 people in the US, about 50% of which own guns for a rough 166,643,778.5 gun owners. There are 60,000 yearly gun deaths including suicides, accidents, and intentional firearm homicides, for a total of 0.036004944523026% of gun owners likely to be irresponsible leading to death in any given year.
Couple notes, this doesn't include illegally owned guns/gun owners in the number (166,643,778.5) of gun owners, because we can't have that number by the nature of it. Most gun crime excluding suicide comes from them though, and so the 60,000 does include them. This also doesn't include people only injured or non injurious irresponsibility or negligent discharge, as often this goes unreported and so far as I can find isn't tracked well likely due to difficulty. That surely does happen as well, like the idiots filming themselves pointing it at the camera (and their own stupid hand). But these figures can at least paint a picture that somewhere around .036% of gun owners/yr are in the "irresponsible" camp, +/- .002% for margin of error.
I do agree, it should be talked about, we can learn from others' mistakes and lessen the frequency. We should also talk about it when people use them correctly in self defense, or training, IDPA, etc, because that is a lot more frequent and we can learn from good examples as well.
Thanks for doing the homework - this was my general feeling too
I think there's a big problem with responsible gun owners defending irresponsible gun owners. Like, there's a knee-jerk reaction when someone says guns are dangerous, even though you're supposed to always act as though they are dangerous.
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Current estimates say there are 475 million guns in the US and around 330 million people. About 1.5 guns per person on average.
You just never hear about the responsible gun owners. ;)
The most responsible gun owner in the world is still armed for violence because they're afraid.
Civilian guns are for pussies.
Says someone who apparently has the privelege to not feel unsafe in their own home…
I used to be like you, never thought I'd own a gun, then, when I moved to the big city, I had an apartment across the street from a row of houses.
The houses were all owned by the same person who rented them out and each one had problems. Arguments, fights, drugs, pitbulls running loose, one person in particular we called "the crazy lady across the street."
One day I'm watching a live news broadcast and I'm like "Oh, shit, it's the crazy lady across the street!" Looked out the window, yup, there's the news van.
It turned out, her ex husband is this asshole:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Weaver_III
So, yeah, I feel better having a gun in the house. Because you can TRY calling 9-1-1 here, but really if you need to defend yourself, you're on your own.
I used to live next to a neighbor who tried to kill me twice. I was poor, in a poor neighborhood, with shitty utilities and actively-hostile police. My home has been broken into, there was violence outside of my house, and my neighbor got arrested for meth.
I just don't live in fear, because I'm not a coward.
Acknowledging you live in a dangerous situation and taking steps to improve your chances if something should happen isn't living in fear. Nor is it cowardly.
Buying a gun as a civilian, for the purposes of defense, is inherently an act of fear. That's inarguable.
Needs to be changed to negligent discharge.
There are no accidents, just negligence.
Unless there is hardware failure, but that's a different story
Sorry… you think letting a toddler get ahold of your loaded gun isn't child endangerment?
They are saying it should be characterized as negligent instead of accidental.
https://www.usacarry.com/accidental-discharge-negligent-discharge/
We’ll start off by saying no, accidental discharges and negligent discharges are not interchangeable and do not mean the same thing. But they both can happen. I’ve seen the term accidental discharge used by the media and firearm owners when they should have used the term negligent discharge.
Let’s take a look at the definitions of both:
- Accidental: happening by chance, unintentionally, or unexpectedly.
- Negligent: failing to take proper care in doing something.
Okay, but she's been charged with child endangerment…
They aren't saying that she shouldn't be charged with child endangerment.
Yeah, but they're not talking about the legal charge. They're talking about the use of the word "accidently" in the title. It's not an accident, it's negligence.
…well regulated…
Since when did USA become so anti freedom?
The toddler is clearly part of a militia, to prevent government oppression.
So he has every right to carry and fire whatever weapon in whichever place and direction he chooses.Meant something different back then.
Evidently. If this is what people call "well-regulated" these days…
Back in the day "well regulated" meant "well armed and equipped".
So, in order to form a proper defense of the country, any able bodied man could be called up (the militia), and it was necessary this body of men be well armed and equipped.
Well, that's the TEXTUAL reason. There's a SUB-TEXTUAL reason as well:
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002107670/historian-uncovers-the-racist-roots-of-the-2nd-amendment
"It was in response to the concerns coming out of the Virginia ratification convention for the Constitution, led by Patrick Henry and George Mason, that a militia that was controlled solely by the federal government would not be there to protect the slave owners from an enslaved uprising. And … James Madison crafted that language in order to mollify the concerns coming out of Virginia and the anti-Federalists, that they would still have full control over their state militias — and those militias were used in order to quell slave revolts. … The Second Amendment really provided the cover, the assurances that Patrick Henry and George Mason needed, that the militias would not be controlled by the federal government, but that they would be controlled by the states and at the beck and call of the states to be able to put down these uprisings."
If you go with that reading, then one could argue that the 2nd amendment doesn't require the allowance of privately owned/held firearms at all, but would be satisfied by state, and/or local governments organizing their own "militias", with arms purchased, stored and controlled in much the same way as our national military does, but managed by said militia organization. In such a reading, banning the private ownership and use of firearms could conceivably be enacted without running afoul of the second amendment.
I'm not saying that I propose this or that I think it's a good idea, just that one could make the case.
That's where the current Supreme Court comes in:
2008: "Private citizens have the right under the Second Amendment to possess an ordinary type of weapon and use it for lawful, historically established situations such as self-defense in a home, even when there is no relationship to a local militia."
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/
2010: "The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment extends the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms to the states, at least for traditional, lawful purposes such as self-defense."
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/561/742/
2016: "The Second Amendment covers all weapons that may be defined as "bearable arms," even if they did not exist when the Bill of Rights was drafted and are not commonly used in warfare."
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/577/14-10078/
2022: "New York's requirement that an applicant for an unrestricted license to “have and carry” a concealed pistol or revolver must prove "a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community” is unconstitutional."
Back in the day “well regulated” meant “well armed and equipped”.
So, in order to form a proper defense of the country, any able bodied man could be called up (the militia), and it was necessary this body of men be well armed and equipped.
You may already know this, but Federalist Paper No. 29 touches on that subject.
"The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.
Federalist 46 as well:
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed46.asp
"a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence."
It's why they push so hard to have that ignored
I think the biggest difference between then and now in that regard isn't the meaning of "well regulated". It's "being necessary to the security of a free State". The expectation at the time was that we wouldn't have a standing professional army to defend the nation in times of war, and we'd have to conscript militias. This was the norm at the time, and the US being a new, and therefore poor, nation, that is what the plan was. However, that isn't the case anymore. The whole second amendment hinges on militias being necessary, and since it isn't its moot.
I'm fine with "gun rights" and ownership of firearms, with reasonable expectations. I think they're fun to use, and they have a purpose. A certain level of training and competency should be required though (training paid by taxes so poor people can also own them), and should include proper storage lessons.
Oh, it's way deeper and messier than that…
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002107670/historian-uncovers-the-racist-roots-of-the-2nd-amendment
"It was in response to the concerns coming out of the Virginia ratification convention for the Constitution, led by Patrick Henry and George Mason, that a militia that was controlled solely by the federal government would not be there to protect the slave owners from an enslaved uprising. And … James Madison crafted that language in order to mollify the concerns coming out of Virginia and the anti-Federalists, that they would still have full control over their state militias — and those militias were used in order to quell slave revolts. … The Second Amendment really provided the cover, the assurances that Patrick Henry and George Mason needed, that the militias would not be controlled by the federal government, but that they would be controlled by the states and at the beck and call of the states to be able to put down these uprisings."
that the 2-year-old boy took her Taurus 9mm firearm from her purse
Right, so the safety was off then, because there's no way that a two-year-old could release the safety on their own. The movies make it look like you just flick it with your finger but seriously that thing does not move without a reasonable around a force.
A Taurus 9mm likely has a trigger pull between 5 and 9 pounds and kiddo did that…
https://www.guns.com/news/reviews/taurus-g2c-best-seller
Of course mom could have modified it to reduce the trigger pull too…
As a victim of a toddler pinch I have no doubt they can pull a trigger.
Many modern pistols don’t have safeties. Either way it shouldn’t have been loose in the purse and not in a holster.
Not a super knowledgeable gun guy, but I think a fairly common example is for the "safety" to be part of the trigger. Safety's traditionally weren't meant to prevent someone from shooting the gun, they were there to prevent the gun from going off if you dropped it.
Any gun made in the last 50 years shouldn't go off if dropped. Physical safeties have always been about preventing human error. Trigger blades don't do anything to prevent this. I get a lot of flack in the gun community for this opinion but Glock doing away with physical safeties made the entire gun world more dangerous.
Tbh not entirely, it could be possible, however unlikely. Honestly imo the bigger issue is off body carry in general is unsafe. Case in point your 2yo can grab it from the purse (and so can anyone else) but it's harder to grab and easier to retain it from a real, good holster, either CCW or active retention (like cop holsters with the button) for open carry (I also generally advise against OC, but whatever.)
You can put a lot more force on any part of a gun if you're not concerned about proper grip and aiming and just use your whole hand.
Of course it was in Waverly. That Walmart is always full of insane people who shouldn't have weapons, but you know they do. Used to pass through on my way to my hometown and refused to stop there after a few incidents with good old boys because I'm a gay dude who had very long hair back then.
I'm not sure any of those things are unique to that particular Walmart.
I live on the other side of the country and this has been my experience with every Walmart I've ever visited.
I've never experienced issues in any other Walmart personally.
I understand, but you've described greater than half of all Walmarts.
I've never personally had issues in any other Walmart.
ohio, the florida of the northeast.
As an Ohioan, I've been calling it "Cold Florida" for years.
GUNS N AMMO FUCK YEA. MURICA #1
This sounds about right for a Taurus owner.
Imagine being able to narrow it down that much when the rest of us go "That sounds right for an American" 🙄
Not a gun person. Is that the Karen gun or something?
Taurus, and this model in particular, is known as a cheap piece of shit probably purchased and carried by someone lacking intellect and sophistication… You know, the type who would have the thing sloshing around unattended in a purse, with no holster.
I thought it was about the Ford Taurus. Lol
Second verse same as the first?
It's no hunnit dolla' problem solva tho.
That boar population is outta control, huh?
"Accidentally."
It's a good thing that Toddler had a gun! Imagine if a gunman had decided to shoot up that Wal Mart! The Toddler could Protect itself!
Kimderguadians!
almost, dude
She gave him the wrong pacifier
How does that shit even happen?
