Yeah, I’m more than a little peeved about the smug, Do Not Challenge Me, You Stupid Peons attitude. I don’t have to know a thing about guns to tell you that we don’t need them. Anything that is designed strictly to kill something else has no value in modern society, so fuck you very much.

I haven’t touched a gun in ten years, but we always had a couple of family “shooting irons” when I was growing up.  Whenever we went to Maine, Dad would get the family single-shot bolt-action .22 rifle from whichever relative had it, and we’d spend a day shooting empty cans in a sand pit.  Dad was adamant about range safety and instilled a healthy respect for guns in us. A few years back, I’d go trap shooting at least once a year.  I don’t even know who’s got the family rifle these days.  The little interest I had in shooting has completely evaporated.

One myth the gunhuggers seem to love is that the rifle is their personal line of defense against government intrusion. Sure. Ask the folks at Ruby Ridge, Waco, etc. Ask the folks of MOVE. The Constitution is that line of defense (and wither personal rights under the drug war, etc?).  The ACLU would do’em more good than the NRA.

My dad is a genuine gun nut with a huge arsenal. I remember studying the large revolver he had slung across the headboard in a holster when I was a toddler taking my afternoon nap in my parents’ bed.

It’s a wonder none of us accidentally blew our heads off, though I did swallow a bullet once when I was three and had to be taken to the hospital and x-rayed. Then I had to poop in a bucket for a few days until my poor mom could confirm that I passed it. I was exempted from spanking while carrying the ordnance, so it was all good.

My dad did teach us to shoot when we were children. I don’t think it made us “respect” guns any more than anyone else. Luckily none of us ever went off our nut and decided to settle scores with a gun—we would have had a huge selection to choose from.

When my own kid was born, I informed my dad that she would never spend a night under his roof without my constant supervision unless he got a gun safe and locked all the guns up, at least when she was visiting. He did!

All we need to know about guns is that - single shot, semi and fully automatic, assault or otherwise—is that sane, responsible parents don’t want them anywhere near our children.

And our children are everywhere, so you can draw your own conclusions.  Find some new toys, people.  Your misconstrued right to “bear arms” does not trump my right to safety and the pursuit of happiness.

Sweet Small-Bore Jesus on a ramrod, Betty! I’m sweating bullets just reading about it!

Your dad really should have been the one panning for lead, but there’s little justice in the world.

I don’t care at all about types of weapons—I want full liability for gun owners and assoicated family members when a gun is present in the household. Any injury or death caused by the gun should result in a death sentence for the owner—regardless of the circumstances of the shooting.  So that guy who let his three year old nephew shoot himself in the head? Death penalty. Some guy who forgets where he left his gun, or lets it get stolen out of his car, or drops it in his kid’s school auditorium? (that last one actually happened here). Full liability. And full liability insurance—if you can get it.

The problem we are having is not just too many guns, and not just guns in the hands of lunatics, it is the fact that gun owners as a whole have zero liability for what goes wrong when they lose control of their own faculties, or lose control of their guns.  The party of personal responsibility my ass. This is all about the total lack of responsibility that gun owners assume for their compatriots in the land of the paranoid lunatic.

aimai

I would commute the death sentence to life imprisonment (in a cell wallpapered with photographs of the victims), but aside from that one adjustment, I’m with you 100%, Aimai.

Actually, the insurance angle might be an excellent solution to this entire fucking mess, since an insurance requirement wouldn’t seem like an outright ban but could have the same effect. Plus, such a requirement could actually get legs since you’d have a corporate sector that could profit from it, an advantage straight-up good governance measures don’t always have.

Anyone with a gun should be required to carry full liability insurance, and the rates should reflect the actuarial risks involved, i.e., parents would pay a helluva lot more, etc.

The insurance idea is one of the best. We wouldn’t have to get regulations passed through Congress because the insurance companies would lay down the rules.

I think that you should have insurance for each weapon in your possession along with a permit.  It is just like registering your car.  In my state, you can’t register a car without proof of insurance.  No insurance, no permit, no gun.

Tax ammunition - a lot.  Otherwise im with aimai on the liability insurance. No home safe for the collection, no insurance.

My childhood WRT guns is a cross between B4’s and Betty’s (my dad’s still a crazy(ier) winger, but at least he’s not a gun collector), and like B4 I shot plenty as a kid but lost interest as an adult.  As a kid, the main interest in the damned things was the aura of danger around them; I suspect that adult fetishists transmute that into an aura of power. 

Whatever the source of interest/desire, there is no reason in the world for a private citizen to own an assault weapon.  I suspect the best chance for getting to that point involves the liability insurance angle; I have it for my profession, and I see no reason why my handful of dental instruments requires it but walking around with a weapon that can kill dozens in mere minutes doesn’t.