Required Viewing for NRA Members

[BoSoxGal]

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/vide ... full-film/

Anyone who can watch this and still object to reasonable gun control is simply heartless.

[Burning Petard]

Sure. But just what do you propose, as 'reasonable' that would have made these shootings not happen, if such 'reasonable' regulations had been in place before these events had happened. Trouble is, there are lots of existing regulations already in place but are not enforced.

Was it legal for any adult to carry a loaded rifle into a public school in Newtown? Delaware is an 'open carry' state. But I cannot 'openly carry' a firearm into a courthouse or a school, among other places. Reasonable gun laws must also have a reasonable expectation of enforcement, not just as an add-on charge when something bad happens.

For me as a NRA member for more that 50 years, I hate what the NRA has become.

[dales]

[BoSoxGal]

We could start with the proposed controls and limitations that are supported by 90% of Americans but which the NRA-controlled Congress rejected; we could also remove the prohibitions on federal funding to study gun violence as the public health issue that it is.

I would also suggest uniform legislation to be adopted by all states that holds gun owners criminally negligent, with harsh penalties (real prison time) for any violence caused by their unsecured firearms. Maybe that would have given Nancy Lanza the motivation to lock up her guns & ammo and hide the keys from her seriously mentally ill son - maybe not, as she was clearly in deep denial about the severity of his condition, but it would be effective in preventing hundreds of deaths of children every year who shoot themselves or their friends/siblings with unattended/unsecured guns.

[oldr_n_wsr]

As snailgate pointed out.
The key word is "reasonable".
Plenty of laws, little enforcement.

We could start with the proposed controls and limitations that are supported by 90% of Americans.....

I doubt any proposal gets 90% support. Is that the same 90% who don't understand guns or even how they work?
The same people who think that "semi-automatic"=fully automatic? That the "AR" in AR-15 means Assault Rifle?
Color me jaded.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Require all gun owners to have insurance, just as we do with cars. We don't care if you wreck your own vehicle: we just want you to have insurance in the very unlikely event that you wreck mine. The insurance company will give low risk owners a better rate, just as it does with my car if I take reasonable and prudent steps such as locking it in my garage every night, taking a defensive driving course etc.

[rubato]

Require all gun owners to have insurance, just as we do with cars. We don't care if you wreck your own vehicle: we just want you to have insurance in the very unlikely event that you wreck mine. The insurance company will give low risk owners a better rate, just as it does with my car if I take reasonable and prudent steps such as locking it in my garage every night, taking a defensive driving course etc.

I agree with ex-KA. In, fact I have been saying the same for years. We should have strict financial accountability for all harm caused by firearms. The shooting sports community ought to pay 100% of the costs which guns cause to society.

yrs,
rubato

[Guinevere]

Murder-suicide in a San Bernadino elementary school today. JFC. But hey, its cool, kids, guns, no problems.

[dales]

I agree with ex-KA. In, fact I have been saying the same for years. We should have strict financial accountability for all harm caused by firearms. The shooting sports criminal thug community ought to pay 100% of the costs which guns cause to society.

yrs,
rubato

FIFY

[rubato]

Thugs and the people who arm them:


https://www.thetrace.org/2016/09/stolen ... s-atlanta/

Guns Are Stolen in America Up to Once Every Minute. Owners Who Leave Their Weapons in Cars Make It Easy for Thieves.
Police data shows thefts of firearms from vehicles are rising in many large cities. One gun swiped from a truck in Atlanta was used in three crimes, including a murder.

by Brian Freskos

September 21, 2016

Updated December 21, 2016 2:49 pm EDT

ATLANTA — Landen Boyd parked his Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck at a construction site south of downtown Atlanta and went to work, leaving his black Smith & Wesson 9mm in a case underneath the center console.

It was the fall of 2006, and Boyd, a 37-year-old construction superintendent, was overseeing the development of an apartment complex across the train tracks from Mechanicsville, a high-crime neighborhood. When noon came, Boyd hitched a ride to eat lunch with coworkers at a rib joint near Turner Field, the Atlanta Braves’ home stadium.

While Boyd dined, someone chucked a brick through his truck’s back window, crawled inside, grabbed his weapon, and fled.

The Smith & Wesson vanished into Atlanta’s underworld for more than two years. The handgun resurfaced when police found it, smeared with blood, at the scene of a shootout in early 2009.

Privately owned firearms are stolen in America with alarming frequency: between 300,000 and 600,000 every year, a forthcoming survey of gun ownership by researchers at Harvard and Northeastern universities will show. At the high end, that’s more than 1,600 guns stolen every day, more than one every minute. That’s enough firearms to provide a weapon for every instance of gun violence in the country each year — several times over.

The gun owner should have to pay restitution to the estate of the person he helped murder by giving away his handgun.


yrs,
rubato

[dales]

rube, I know you have trouble with the English language, hence:

stolen=/= given away

[rubato]

Unsecured guns = "giveaway guns"

When I worked in forensic chemistry we were required to store all scheduled drugs in a locked metal cabinet inside a room with different locks inside our premises which had alarmed entry and interior and a combination lock to the lab areas because rational people recognize that scheduled drugs are attractive to thieves. Apparently guns are attractive to thieves and you and the NRA are too innately stupid to grasp this concept?


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

we were required to store all scheduled drugs in a locked metal cabinet inside a room with different locks which had alarmed entry and interior and a combination lock

And did you need to have access a "scheduled drug" to protect yourself and your family from a home invader?

Are you suggesting that if someone doesn't store their gun with a similar level of security, they are "giving away" their gun?

Geezus, there are really poor analogies, and then there's that one...

Privately owned firearms are stolen in America with alarming frequency: between 300,000 and 600,000 every year, a forthcoming survey of gun ownership by researchers at Harvard and Northeastern universities will show.

For a real scientist, a "study" which has a 100% numerical differential would raise red flags...

I hope you'll be posting a link to the methodology used to come up with that...

ETA:

Oldr:

I doubt any proposal gets 90% support.

The proposal for universal background checks regularly polls at 90%...(over 80% among NRA members)

[dales]

For a real scientist....

That's my LOL moment of the day!

[Bicycle Bill]

How many times must the cannonballs bullets fly, before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.

And in the hot air of the debate(s) in Congress.

-"BB"-

[Jarlaxle]

Just donated to the NRA and GOAL.

[Big RR]

Unsecured guns = "giveaway guns"

When I worked in forensic chemistry we were required to store all scheduled drugs in a locked metal cabinet inside a room with different locks inside our premises which had alarmed entry and interior and a combination lock to the lab areas because rational people recognize that scheduled drugs are attractive to thieves. Apparently guns are attractive to thieves and you and the NRA are too innately stupid to grasp this concept?


yrs,
rubato

So then when a pharmacy is robbed and scheduled drugs are taken you'd hold the pharmacist responsible as well? Pharmacies are not required to keep such drugs under lock and key so long as they disperse them throughout the inventory and don't have a shelf or area just for them (they can also lock them up, but most pharmacies do not).

eta: from the DOJ website (summarizing storage rules:

Controlled substances must be stored in a securely locked cabinet of substantial construction. Pharmacies have the option of storing controlled substances as set forth above, or concealing them by dispersal throughout their stock of non-controlled substances.

[Jarlaxle]

By rube's "logic", the owner of a car should be liable for the actions of a car thief.

[Burning Petard]

But on the other hand, what happens when you turn in an insurance claim for your stolen car and you tell them it was stolen while you left it with the door unlocked, the keys in the ignition and the motor running?

'Requiring' locks and the firearms to be be secured would just be one of those 'ad-on' charges when something bad happens. Any enforcement of that law alone would need total gun registration and some kind of routine inspection to make it happen. Yes, they do have just that in England. But as I said, they have a tradition that the people only have rights that are granted by the sovereign. In the USofA people have all rights, unless there is a law limiting or abolishing that right. Check out the 9th 10th or the amendments about paying income tax or buying and selling of people or ethanol beverages.

On the other hand, changing tort law at state and national level for strict liability would be mostly enforced by insurance companies at both the dealer and private owner level. The business insurance cost would go up for dealers and individuals would be asked about gun ownership when buying many kinds of insurance. "You had a gun in your house? Sorry your homeowners insurance for that fire you had and the smoke damage when you set the couch on fire not covered. The fireman saw the gun. You did not tell us ab out guns when you bought the policy, See that exclusion way down on page 17--if you had told us, your premium would have been 3X higher. By the way, you better check with your mortgage company about what happens when the homeowners policy is cancelled." That would definitely get Wayne Lafear and the NRA's attention.

snailgate

[Big RR]

BP, but that's a different thing--an insurance company can refuse your claim if you do not comply with the policy requirements to secure your car from theft, just as they might be able to not pay for an unsecured gun that was stolen. But forcing you to pay for the consequential damages to others (caused by the thief) would be something very different; I don't know of any state's laws that would force you (or your insurer) to pay for the damages to third parties because of the actions of the car thief (but then this is not my area of law, so maybe Sue or Guin can help).

Likewise, I would think the changing of tort law would first require governmental action, and with NRA lobbying efforts I doubt we would see it (and even if such laws did pass, a second amendment challenge would also certainly follow if those changes had the effects you describe, because it would be a serious impediment to the exercise of a constitutional right if insurance rates went up as you suggest--it might not be a winning case, but count on years of litigation).

As for your position about the sale of alcoholic beverages or payment of income tax, there is a specific constitutional amendment to provide for a federal income income tax, and so far as I know there is nothing akin to the second amendment that give people a right to sell alcoholic beverages (and prior to the 13th amendment, slavery was recognized and embraced by the constitution in its way of determining populations for representatives--slaves were counted as 2/3 of a person).