her parents should be charged with negligent homicide

8/29/2014 10:24:16 PM

Eh, I don't know about that. Do we know how much of a hand they had in having her shoot that weapon set to full-auto? Plus, I mean, that "instructor" was the one who got killed, and he was very negligent and contributed to his own undoing.

If some bystander got shot, then maybe I could see the case for it. When you hover over a little girl that you handed a submachine to, hurriedly say "switch it to full-auto" without being in position to help hold the thing in place or reminding her of anything, and then she fucking shoots you...well, I appreciate that your stupid heart was in the right place trying to do something cool for a kid, but it doesn't really make me want to go crucify her [likely dumbass] parents.

Quote :

"why not? he worked at a gun range and took extra classes and education and had his concealed carry license"

I know I defend concealed carry, because statistically, CC permit holders are collectively a complete non-issue...

...but I have long said that the courses should require significantly more proficiency in the live fire portion. Maybe it doesn't need to be part of the course; maybe the courses should continue to be focused on the legal aspects, but if you aren't reasonably handy with the steel, you should have to go get instruction in weapons handling and marksmanship before you get your CCP.


The analogy would be like an instrument rating in aviation. No, the instrument training doesn't emphasize basic airmanship, but that doesn't mean you can just walk in off the street and get your instrument rating. You have to get your private pilot's license first, where all the basic stuff is taught; the baseline expectation before you even pursue an instrument rating is that you're good at all the basic stuff. A CCP should be the same thing. If you want to own a gun and keep it in your house, well, it doesn't make as much difference how proficient you are with it. If you want to carry it around with you everywhere, the baseline expectation before schooling you up on the legal aspects should be that you are absolutely safe and proficient and handling it, and at least OK at marksmanship.

On one hand, problems arising from this are pretty rare, so toughening the requirements is a solution in search of a problem, in that sense. On the other, I think that it's irresponsible from a public safety standpoint to give CCPs to people with no fucking idea what they're doing (most people who carry routinely are proficient, but for example, my mom has a CCP even if she maybe carries twice per year or something, but she requires help and supervision just to punch paper at a shooting range, just with the basics of handling and operating the pistol, let alone actually hitting anything).

The other part of it is that I am pretty jealously protective of 2A rights, and don't want people who don't know what they're doing to fuck it up for me and others. Again, this is a minority; the great majority of CCers know what they are doing--but not due to the course...simply because they wouldn't be packing a gun everywhere if they weren't "into" guns enough to be proficient with them.

8/29/2014 10:45:27 PM

You can't just be some geek off the street.

Gotta be handy with the steel.

8/29/2014 10:54:46 PM

nawImean? Earn ya keep.

8/29/2014 11:35:22 PM

Quote :

"Funny....kids can't legally drive until they're 16. Good example, ace."

definitely done with responding to you in any way. at least my nemesis dtownral can manage to put together a reply that at least shows some thought. you're just spouting off at this point.

8/29/2014 11:37:55 PM

Quote :

"simply because they wouldn't be packing a gun everywhere if they weren't "into" guns enough to be proficient with them."

I'm sure there's plenty of people in the recent bumper crop who are getting one because they feel like they're sticking it to Obama. I know of at least 1 person who wants one for this reason (but has lots of rifle experience).

Regarding this uzi thing, i can't see this as much more than an accident. That doesn't mean there wasn't negligence, but the negligent person is now dead, so there's not much more to do.

8/30/2014 12:31:20 AM

A lot of people who have a CCP but are incompetent very rarely actually carry.

That's not OK either, but I think that the people who no-kidding keep a gun on or with them routinely are on average pretty proficient. Again, problems with CCers are rare, but I still would toughen the proficiency requirements. I guess what I'm saying is that CCers are pretty great on a macro level, but a CCP doesn't give an individual any credibility whatsoever in my eyes in terms of ability to handle and operate even a basic handgun, let alone shoot it accurately, and it certainly doesn't qualify you to teach a novice to shoot a select-fire, open-bolt submachine gun. It basically means that you were taught the applicable laws in your state, got background checked and fingerprinted, and managed to load a pistol and shoot a few rounds under supervision and manage to not blow a hole through your foot.

[Edited on August 30, 2014 at 3:09 AM. Reason : ]

8/30/2014 2:59:34 AM

in GA, all you have to do is pass a background check then wait for the call from the sheriff. no class or anything iirc

8/30/2014 7:06:15 AM

That's the way FL is if you're military, because presumably your military training means you're proficient with weapons, hahaha. (I've seen Marines who were not proficient at all).

8/30/2014 10:47:17 AM

Quote :

"because this means dick-else if you're also willing to give a 9 year old an uzi. how is it this hard for you to understand? do you need a comparative metaphor?"

you're still missing the point, up until the point that he gave a uzi to a 9 year old he had not given an uzi to a 9 year old and anyone here would have considered him a responsible gun owner. since you can't trust this responsible gun owner to not give an uzi to a 9 year old, why should any other responsible gun owner be trusted? the point is that this guy was seemingly doing everything right, everything beyond the requirements, and he still wasn't someone to be trusted.

[Edited on August 30, 2014 at 2:39 PM. Reason : .]

8/30/2014 2:28:11 PM

Quote :

"why should any other responsible gun owner be trusted?"

...because they aren't this dead guy.

Quote :

"the point is that this guy was seemingly doing everything right, everything beyond the requirements,"

No he wasn't; god damn you are fucking stupid.

8/30/2014 9:50:18 PM

what was he doing wrong before this happened? this guy seems like every other person that people point to as a responsible gun owner, someone who goes above and beyond minimum requirements.

you all seem to think that you have perfect foresight, that you can see the future and know who will give a fun to someone who is too young to safely handle it. how can you know that?

[Edited on August 31, 2014 at 9:03 AM. Reason : .]

8/31/2014 9:02:28 AM

Quote :

"what was he doing wrong before this happened?"

Working for a place called "Burgers and Bullets."

Quote :

"you all seem to think that you have perfect foresight, that you can see the future and know who will give a fun to someone who is too young to safely handle it. how can you know that?"

You seem to think for awhile now that you have a clever argument ITT. "No gun owner can truly be called responsible anymore."

Quote :

"god damn you are fucking stupid."

8/31/2014 8:32:42 PM

i like how dtownral is anti-gun despite the 2nd amendment, yet says terrorism isn't a worry and to stop trampling on our liberties

8/31/2014 11:45:06 PM

uh, i'm not anti-gun in the least, i carry concealed pretty often. i'm also not anti-2nd amendment. i am very against the erosion of our civil liberties. maybe you are mistaking me with another poster?

Quote :

"Working for a place called "Burgers and Bullets.""

so anyone who wants to go to the shooting range and likes burgers is irresponsible?

Quote :

"You seem to think for awhile now that you have a clever argument ITT. "No gun owner can truly be called responsible anymore.""

the argument is the same as it was before this happened: you can't tell what gun owners to trust


[Edited on September 1, 2014 at 12:12 PM. Reason : .]

9/1/2014 12:06:10 PM

you can't tell which people to trust in general, regardless of gun-ownership. what kind of guilty until proven innocent bullshit are you trying to push?

9/1/2014 1:25:52 PM

Gun advocates don't give a shit about civil liberties.

If they did, they would have reacted to government intrusions to civil liberties a long time ago.



Like these guys:

American patriots exercising their second amendment rights to resist state oppression

http://youtu.be/OLqXYF3ephY


[Edited on September 1, 2014 at 2:13 PM. Reason : murica]

9/1/2014 2:07:12 PM

Quote :

"what kind of guilty until proven innocent bullshit are you trying to push"

i'm not, the "concealed carry holders are very responsible" meme is a terrible argument and this is one example why

9/1/2014 3:16:40 PM

well, my mind is certainly changed after hearing this one piece of anecdotal evidence

9/1/2014 3:18:51 PM

but this is not the only instance, and it highlights the inability to tell who is going to do something this dumb before it happens

9/1/2014 3:19:47 PM

it doesn't matter what examples you can come up with, it matters how many you can come up with. that's called statistics. the statistics support the claim that CHP holders are responsible.

i can paste a list of articles about teachers sexually abusing students. we shouldn't trust teachers.

i can paste a list of humans killing other humans. we shouldn't trust humans.

[Edited on September 1, 2014 at 3:24 PM. Reason : dafs]

9/1/2014 3:22:39 PM

i've only every seen statistics regarding criminal convictions, never accidents. do you have statistics for accidents?

9/1/2014 3:32:09 PM

[Edited on September 1, 2014 at 3:39 PM. Reason : 18 "unintentional" shootings involving the gun of a CC'er since May 2007]

[Edited on September 1, 2014 at 3:42 PM. Reason : sorry, 18 deaths from accidental shootings]

9/1/2014 3:38:31 PM

and i'll go ahead and be the first to point out that the VPC's data is simply their tally of news articles

9/1/2014 3:45:48 PM

Quote :

"Gun advocates don't give a shit about civil liberties"

eh, false for a great many gun advocates.

9/1/2014 9:58:22 PM

Quote :

"Doesn't this highlight that responsible gun owners are responsible up until the moment that they aren't, and in that moment someone can die?"

Best shit that I have read on TWW in a while.

9/2/2014 9:45:35 AM

Before the incident, none of us would have known what kind of gun owner the guy was. Some may have presumed him to be responsible based on his training/certifications/job/etc. But had some known that this guy likes to hand little kids automatic firearms, maybe they would have considered him irresponsible. And one has to do something to be an irresponsible gun owner, so the quote (^) isn't far off. This happens all the time. A responsible gun owner, as evidenced by years of responsible gun ownership, leaves a gun safe unlocked one time by accident and a kid dies. Now some may say this person is no longer a responsible gun owner.

[Edited on September 2, 2014 at 10:18 AM. Reason : .]

9/2/2014 10:17:35 AM

there's a certain distinction between accidentally leaving something unlocked and intentionally setting the uzi in a 9 year old's hands to full auto.

from that perspective
the former: i'd have no problem calling that irresponsible
the latter: just plain freakin stupid

9/2/2014 12:27:14 PM

9/2/2014 12:37:40 PM

That. Is. Awesome.

9/2/2014 1:16:12 PM

Quote :

"The number of incidents in which a shooter opens fire on a crowd of people more than doubled over the past seven years compared with the previous seven, the FBI found in a study made public Wednesday. The Federal Bureau of Investigation analyzed 160 "active shooter" incidents from 2000 through 2013 to look for common elements that might guide law enforcement officers in preventing the shootings or responding more effectively. The study found an average of six incidents per year from 2000 through 2006. The number rose to 16 incidents annually in the past seven years."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/24/active-shooter-incidents-rising-fbi-finds/16158921/

IT would be interesting to see how these shooters acquired their guns.

9/25/2014 2:32:39 AM

^^^

hahahahaha

1. Treat every weapon as if it were loaded.
2. Never point a weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot.
3. Keep your weapon on safe until you are ready to fire.
4. Keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you intend to fire.


It's not fucking rocket science. My 7 year old daughter recites those every time when we get her BB gun out of the safe.

9/25/2014 2:40:36 AM

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/24/surveillance-video-walmart-shooting-john-crawford-police

9/25/2014 2:08:47 PM

Quote :

"Now some may say this person is no longer a responsible gun owner."

And they'd be right. Gun responsibility is something you can't fuck up. Of course there's a big difference in leaving a pistol on a coffee table while a 7 year old's birthday party is going on and forgetting to lock a gun safe, but the consequences of either can be the same exact thing.

You can't fuck up, not even once.

9/25/2014 3:07:48 PM

yeah, pretty much. Guns are unforgiving of error.

That said, you implement a system of multiple failure points...nobody is perfect 100% of the time forever. That's pretty much the foundation of weapons handling safety. Treat every gun like it's loaded even if it's not, always point it in a safe direction, even if it's unloaded, which of course it "never is". If it has a safety, use it. Keep your fucking finger off the trigger at all times unless you're in the act of firing it. Pretty much all of those things have to simultaneously break down for there to be an accidental shooting of anyone.

i.e., if you fuck up and point the gun in an unsafe direction, if you have good trigger discipline, you're still OK.


...or once I came home after picking up my daughter from school. I keep my 9 on my nightstand when she's not with me; I usually put it in the safe before heading to work on days when she's coming back to my house. Once, I forgot to do that, and shortly after we got home, she saw it on my nightstand and said "Dad, you need to put your gun away." She is very well trained and has had the seriousness of firearms safety impressed upon her firmly and repeatedly. I felt like the biggest dumbass ever and haven't made that mistake since, and it still scares me that I fucked that up (even though plenty of people leave their guns unlocked with kids in the house all the time...that's the way I was raised at our house and at both grandparents' houses).

That said, that's one reason I've taken significant efforts to make my daughter safe around guns, here at home or anywhere else if she were to encounter one...and the one time that "plan A" broke down, "plan B" worked exactly as desired.

9/26/2014 12:46:17 AM

^ what's going to happen the next time you fuck up safeguard A, and she comes home with a friend who doesn't know your rules? Or if you fuck up safeguard A and your home gets broken into?

9/26/2014 1:15:18 AM

Jesus H Christ, dude.

9/26/2014 8:06:17 AM

you know who else thinks that they have taught their kids the right thing and that their kids know the rules by heart and will never break them? plenty of parents whose children have been the victims of gun accidents.

9/26/2014 9:20:46 AM

If your requirement is perfection I'll kindly take your car keys.

9/26/2014 9:36:16 AM

^^^ What?

He literally said that "guns are unforgiving of error." Then he cited a perfect example of his own mental lapse that could have resulted in death.

He also implied that he keeps it on his nightstand when he's not expecting her. We've gone over this before in this thread. That's begging for trouble if his home is over broken into when he's not there. Sorry duke, but if I were running a campaign against you, I'd smear the fuck out of you for being an "irresponsible 2A supporter." Regardless of whether or not that's actually true, I'd have enough ammo in this thread to paint you as such (probably ammo that you leave...just hanging around your place.) Seriously, it wouldn't be hard. Just cast an adorable little blonde girl walking into your room, cut-away to you on the campaign trail, cut back to your daughter holding your gun in your bedroom....fade to a picture of you in black and white. Sound of a gunshot over the text quotes from you admitting to leaving your gun out. Smear campaign complete. Your political ambitions would be done, son.


Irrespective of the secondary and tertiary safeguards you put in place, leaving a gun out in the open and easily accessible to ANYONE is far and away the biggest error you can make from your list. Doesn't matter how stiff YOUR index finger is when another person is holding the gun.

[Edited on September 26, 2014 at 2:09 PM. Reason : ]

9/26/2014 1:51:56 PM

Quote :

"An Oklahoma City man is hospitalized after being shot multiple times by the 11-year-old girl. Police say the suspect attacked and stabbed the girl’s mother inside the victim’s home near SE 89th and Bryant."

http://kfor.com/2014/09/24/okc-police-child-calls-911-saying-mother-was-stabbed/

It's a good thing then these gun owners were NOT responsible, otherwise this 11 year old girl and her mother would have been dead.

9/26/2014 2:31:15 PM

yeah, i grew up with guns unsecured in our house and in houses of neighbors/family.

I think that's a terrible idea with children around, but it's evidence that teaching your kids "don't fuck with guns" and then later how to safely handle them is a legitimate and meaningful layer of protection.

Human beings are fallible. The idea is to implement enough "safety catches" to reduce the odds to an acceptable level. In this case, the stakes are high-an incident could very likely have disastrous consequences-so you need to be very safe.

Given a large enough population of "responsible" gun owners, there are going to be incidents at least very occasionally. Some of these incidents are times when the odds are defied and shit happens (almost all of these involve someone fucking up in some way-even in the exceedingly rare case of mechanical failure causing a round to be discharged, if you have it pointed the right way, nobody gets hurt. A "kaboom" where the gun explodes, or a ricochet, are about the only exceptions to that I can think of, and those are rare and often still the result of someone fucking up.) I'm talking about cases like my one day where I forgot to lock my pistol back up in the safe, and all other layers of protection failing as well...or maybe the reloader who is careful, knowledgable, and has decades of experience, but still somehow manages to double-charge a cartridge and blow a gun up.

Some of these incidents are when some fucking idiot gives a select-fire Mini Uzi to a little girl and has her switch it to full-auto. I question whether that guy was a "responsible" owner to begin with, but regardless, normally responsible people occasionally do completely willingly imbecilic things, and in that case, yes, they were "responsible owners" right up until they weren't.

I've known very safe aviators to fuck up. It happens. Usually there is another "safety catch" in place for that exact reason, be it a training rule, or a technological solution, or awareness from another crew member or wingman trained to be a backup and watch for dangerous things developing.

My grandfather was a mechanic, among other things. He did a good bit of welding. He was not an aggressive or risk-taking personality at all, and he was very skilled and experienced. He once blew himself up and got kinda banged up with a concussion, etc, by welding some sort of tank for a customer who assured him that the tank was clean (and my granddad didn't fill the tank with water first as a "safety catch"). A combination of mistakes-his and those of others-and his skipping over a safeguard that he normally would have applied, could have easily gotten him killed. That doesn't make him reckless, or an "irresponsible" welder analogous to the Uzi guy, in my opinion. I mean, I guess this stuff has degrees and shades of grey, but I think there's a distinction there.

Yes, firearms are potentially dangerous and intolerant of carelessness. I have a bit of experience with things of that nature (flying, to include high performance jets...motorcycles, SCUBA diving, racing cars, etc.) I can tell you that while you want to be demanding of yourself and really make an intense effort to not screw up, if you are doing things like these and counting on never, ever screwing up, even a little bit, as the thing that's going to keep you and others safe, you are guaranteed to be fucked. You are going to make mistakes, and so are other people. You cannot rely on perfection to avoid catastrophe. That's insane and doomed to end in, well, catastrophe.

What DeltaBeta said and I agree with is "Gun responsibility is something you can't fuck up...You can't fuck up, not even once." I agree with that, but in the sense that you cannot be the Uzi guy. Not fucking up "gun responsibility" is not the same thing as never, ever, making any sort of mistake. Again, if that's your plan, that itself is irresponsible.

[Edited on September 27, 2014 at 3:15 PM. Reason : ]

9/27/2014 3:13:54 PM

Quote :

"but it's evidence that teaching your kids "don't fuck with guns" and then later how to safely handle them is a legitimate and meaningful layer of protection"

but a lot of the gun accident deaths are because of this exact situation, which is evidence that it's not actually legitimate

9/27/2014 3:35:36 PM

It is not.

Relying on that as THE thing that keeps an accident from happening is irresponsible. That's exactly what I'm saying--if your plan for nothing bad happening is centered around perfection from a child, you are being extra irresponsible. I don't even count on myself to never make a mistake.

If you lock your gun in the safe 99.5% (conservatively) of the time when your kid is around, and your kid is 90% trustworthy to leave it alone, then you are 99.95% safe.

If your kid is 50% trustworthy (and I'd even wager that number is conservative) to handle it properly even if you leave it out and even if she fucks with it in some way, you are then 99.975% safe.


More to your point, if you always leave a gun accessible, but "[teach] your kids "don't fuck with guns" and then later how to safely handle them", then that layer of protection alone is still (with my above % assumptions) good for 95% safety. I don't know what the baseline is for a kid who's totally ignorant of guns, and 95% is nowhere near good enough for something with such potentially severe consequences (you wouldn't skydive with a single, 95% effective parachute), but say that it's "evidence that it's not actually legitimate" as a layer of protection is wrong and misses my point completely.

[Edited on September 27, 2014 at 3:56 PM. Reason : my guess is more like 99.8% locked up, 97% leave it alone, 90% handle properly=99.999% safe]

[Edited on September 27, 2014 at 3:59 PM. Reason : but yes, locking it up is by far the biggest driver. i'm not saying to trust a kid. just the opposit]

[Edited on September 27, 2014 at 4:08 PM. Reason : ]

9/27/2014 3:53:35 PM

Sounds a lot lome what we do in manufacturing: PFMEA
Potential Failure Modes and Effects Analysis
You rate frequency, severity, and detection of issues, then address them before they happen, or work to reduce the ratings.

[Edited on September 30, 2014 at 12:15 PM. Reason : ..]

9/30/2014 12:15:06 PM

school shooting in albemarle

9/30/2014 2:46:07 PM

Shooting at school in Louisville, KY

9/30/2014 2:52:37 PM

^^ Yep. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

[Edited on September 30, 2014 at 3:06 PM. Reason : son of a bitch, looks like there's also one in NC. hopefully no fatalities in either.]

[Edited on September 30, 2014 at 3:06 PM. Reason : never mind, got 'em both ]

9/30/2014 2:56:41 PM

more information about the albemarle one:
15 y/o shot a 17 y/o twice in the leg after a "heated" argument.

Quote :

"Russell, 15, was a student last year at West Montgomery High School in nearby Mt. Gilead when he stabbed a fellow football player during a fight on campus, the Montgomery Herald reported."

this guy's a real winner.

9/30/2014 3:12:48 PM

Quote :

"you are guaranteed to be fucked. You are going to make mistakes, and so are other people. You cannot rely on perfection to avoid catastrophe. "

In the same vain, newer skydivers like to point to egregious fuck ups causing an incident as proof they are safe because they'd never make a mistake that idiotic. I like to remind them that everyone makes mistakes and gets complacent at some point.

10/1/2014 4:39:18 PM