A slightly longer version of my “So you want to buy a gun?“piece is up at the Examiner.
While I believe that everyone should have the right to own a gun (with the obvious exceptions of the criminal and the insane), that doesn’t mean everyone should choose to own a gun.
That’s because while I believe in rights, I also believe in responsibilities — and I don’t think they can be separated. You want rights? Great. You have to take a good helping of responsibilities to go with them.
“Everyone has a right to be stupid, but Comrade McDonald abuses the privilege.” Trotsky
“…You have to take a good helping of responsibilities to go with them…”
You don’t HAVE TO take responsibility. You may choose to ignore them. It’s your choice. That’s why we call them freedoms — you get to choose.
Freedom always mean freedom to hurt yourself and others. Some people are stupid. People in general are stupid. Thank goodness we don’t constrain freedoms based on stupid people.
This is a good place to publicly acknowledge A.L. for facilitating my own ‘late entry’ to responsible gun ownership, by providing pointers to a great range and instructors, and some useful philosophy on what to buy and when (some which was promptly ignored, of course). Thanks, Marc!
Since the discussion has focused on the ‘down side’ risks, let me mention another set of consequences:
One element of responsible ownership is staying in practice.
You’ll practice if you enjoy shooting what you own.
In fact, you might find out you enjoy it a lot.
You might find that your spouse has just as much fun (and may get better than you are).
Given the above, guns seem to multiply at about the same rate as puppies and PCs.
So, consider your responsibilities – but also consider your budget!
Tim – I tried taking your advice – “shooting what you own”. Now there’s a puddle under my car and it won’t start.
🙂
I don’t think owning a gun should be a right. This is one instance where the founding fathers got it all wrong and failed to “future-proof” the constitution.
Guns=killing; I don’t want them around in my environment, in my society. I want handguns to be outlawed. I want owing a gun to require a license that is as difficult to obtain, or moreso, than a driver’s license.
Nothing good comes from this “freedom”.
Wizard, whether or not guns=killing, explain to me how that’s supposed to prevent criminals from obtaining one illegally. Drugs=ruined lives. They’re illegal. Yet we have a problem with drug abuse that’s larger than our gun crime problem. Not that law-abiding citizens can use drugs for protection, but you get the point.
As to “nothing good comes from this freedom”: Have you never read ANY stories of convenience store owners, homeowners, or RVers who have defended themselves with firearms? Does not scaring off criminals from committing a crime constitue good? Admittedly, crimes happen with guns. But crimes happen with too many things to consider banning them on this basis.
You are entitled to believe what you want but the founders wisely didn’t take the tyranny of one as their model for our republic. I, personally, do not own a gun but I believe that people have a right to protect themselves and their property. As long as these citizens are responsible, they have every right to own a gun. Also, if guns were outlawed tomorrow, the criminals will still get guns. Responsibility is the key to responsible citizenship.
Laws don’t work well as a substitute for attitudes. We should recognize that most people want guns, drugs and hookers. They should all be legal and regulated.
bq. Guns=killing; I don’t want them around in my environment, in my society. I want handguns to be outlawed. I want owing a gun to require a license that is as difficult to obtain, or moreso, than a driver’s license.
Vizard, answer me this, would you really trust George Bush or Hillary Clinton to be the only man with a gun in the United States (sorry for those offended)?
In the United Kingdom, Canada, and Washington DC, handguns are banned. In the above, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, a license is effectively required for the ownership of any other gun, and unless your driver’s license requires three signed letters and sponsorship from a driving club, the other criteria are ‘set’. They still have handgun murders, and violent crime is higher than pre-ban levels in all sets.
Look at the Battle of Athens. Look at the one German ghetto where the Jews had weapons of their own. Look at the hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of defensive gun uses _every year_ in the United States.
Outlaw guns, and only outlaws will own guns. Manage to get rid of the rest – no doubt killing the right to privacy and protection from post ex facto laws in the process – and you will just see criminals move on to other weapons or make their own, and speaking from personal experience, being stabbed or electrocuted is no more fun than being shot.
You want to reduce violent crime? Get rid of the causes. Fighting hard to reduce a tool will just cost you your rights in exchange for a seperate tool being picked up.
Blaming a tool for equaling death is just foolish. I can assure you that without fear of death, there is nothing reliably stopping violent criminals.
#7,
Drug prohibition encourages gun crime. Just like alcohol prohibition before it. It is one of the biggest threats to gun rights. Yet so few gunners make the connection.
I want owing a gun to require a license that is as difficult to obtain, or moreso, than a driver’s license.
“Licence”, no.
More difficult than a driver licence? Yes – got that already. Have had that since 1968.
It really irks me when people spout crap like this and don’t even know the existing laws on the books.
– Illegal aliens can’t buy a gun, but some places are giving them driver licences.
– People with restraining orders for domestic violence things can’t buy a gun, but they can get a driver licence.
– People with dishonorable discharges can’t buy a gun, but they can get a driver licence.
– Someone else can buy a car for you, but they can’t buy a gun for you.
– If you’re under felony indictment you can’t buy a gun, but you can get a driver licence.
– People who renounce US citizenship can get a driver licence, but they can’t buy a gun.
– If you’ve been in the nut house you can get a D/L, but you can’t buy a gun.
If you are a foreign national being legally in the US, can you own a gun?
Yes. The various states may have differing requirements and I don’t know if the tpe of visa matters, but it is a fact that foreign nationals who are legal permananent residents (green card holders) may own firearms.
The key being legal permanent resident status.
Not only that, here in Texas you can do a concealed-carry permit. My wife’s is under-app as we speak.
Vizard, let me tell you why you’re wrong. You have an abstract emotional sense that killing is bad. That’s good. But that’s not moral. Morality involves some context to determine whether killing is murder, or whether it’s justified.
Here’s a little story. I was in a university basement formerly used by secret police to torture people, talking to a man with an attractive but completely outrageous accent. We spoke in my language, b/c I couldn’t do more than order ice cream and get around town haltingly in his, and the only other common language we had was French in which he was so rusty that it just wasn’t worth the trouble.
So the long and the short of this long, coffee-filled conversation was the following line. “Of course we know where Milosevic and his friends are. They’re all in the fancy houses at the top of the hill. We could get rid of them tomorrow and stop the Chetniks from killing all the Bosnians, no problem. Peace in the Balkans, no problem, everybody except the crazy people like each other. Except, problem. We have no bullets.”
THAT is a real-life example of why common citizens are considered to have the right to own and carry firearms. Self-defense is a no-brainer: if you don’t have the right to survive, you are, *at best* a slave, and at worst an organic toaster. Defense against tyranny is the same thing writ large — forcing people whose inner instincts parallel Mugabe to do some very serious calculations about what their chances are before they get too far out of line.
That said, A.L. is right. I know folks whose kids are safer with unsecured firearms than a lot of adults I’ve met. I also know folks who fly off the handle at each and every little thing who should NEVER buy a gun. Human beings are their own context.
I have to agree. Gun ownership is a very heavy responsibility. Essentially, you have to trust your own judgement, and not just on cold reflection but in the heat of the moment. Are you the kind of person who will use your gun when it wasn’t necessary? Then you probably should not own one.
Regrettably, accurate self-assessment is pretty tough. Plenty of people who would be perfectly safe owning a gun (well, not a danger to those around them, and safer to the extent that they’re now armed) simply don’t believe it, or they think like Vizard above and just don’t want any guns anywhere. There are those who think they’re just fine with a gun but actually are hotheaded or have poor impulse control… but, fortunately, there are very few of these individuals.
I’d also add that I’d be very hesitant to own a gun if I had young children in the household. You have to take significant precautions with your weapons to keep them out of the hands of your kids, but these same precautions will make the weapons unavailable in most self-defense scenarios. About all you can do is keep a few weapons locked away for a du Toit-style SHTF situation. (Of course, once your children get older, then training them how to shoot a gun – and to respect the power in that gun – is the safer course of action…)
I suspect the ‘demonization of guns’ is a large contributor to the rates of accidental gun death/injury.
A gun is a tool, no more and no less. When you cast it as some sort of potent magical thing, be it good magic (“I’ve got a gun, so I’m safe now”) or bad (“a gun just means death”), you’re not understanding it and you’re likely to misuse it. Worse, you’re likely to cause children to misuse it.
People who are afraid of guns tend not to learn to handle them correctly. That would require looking at and even touching ‘that horrible thing.’ They don’t know how to tell if a gun is loaded (or even that they should check), they don’t know how to unload it, they don’t know what a safety is, they have zero muzzle discipline, etc. If they encounter a gun (or, Goddess help us all, actually own one) they’re a menace to themselves and everyone around them.
People who think simply owning (or waving around) a gun makes them proof against all attack are almost as bad. They tend to be almost as dangerously ignorant as the guns=evil people. What’s to learn? Just bring out the magic gun and the bad guy will go away, right? Nevermind that you don’t even know how to load the thing and/or you can’t tell the safety’s on and/or it hasn’t been cleaned in 15 years and/or you have no idea what those funny little things on top of the long straight part are for.
And then there are children. Children are curious. Children are especially curious about mysterious things. If adults refuse to tell them about a mysterious thing, they will try to find out about it on their own. Making guns into a forbidden secret just gives them a nigh-irresistable glamor.
To get a driver’s license, you have to prove that you know how to operate a car safely. I don’t have a problem with requiring equivalent competence with a gun to get a gun license (provided, of course, there were safeguards against the government simply setting the competence bar impossibly high).
Achillea, would you also have the government pay for this training? If not, than you are discriminating against poor people and poor people have a higher percentage of victimization. The same happens when they outlaw “Saturday Night Specials”, the affluent can afford protection while the poor get nothing.
The right to be safe in your own person is an absolute, and the corollary is that you have the right to the most effective means available which, in modern times, is a firearm. If you can afford training, more power to you. If not, you still have the right to protect yourself.
P.S. I’m one of the volunteers on Publicola’s list to provide an introduction and instruction in firearms free of charge, if you are in the Vail, CO area look me up.
Good article. I cut the one out of The Examiner for my mom. She’s home alone most of the time and wanted a firearm as she was worried. She was previously very against guns (but ignored my four rifles and two handguns, unless we happened to end up in a bad neighborhood while driving).
Being home alone a lot made her into one of those “cargo cult” people, apparently. Doesn’t want ammo, doesn’t want training, just a hunk of metal. *sigh*
would you also have the government pay for this training?
The government already pays to make driver education available in high school (at least some of them). Much as I’m generally opposed to nanny state-ish government programs, I would certainly support universal firearms education at that level. And not because it would send a large portion of the left into absolute conniptions (as entertaining as that image is). The demystification of guns and safety instruction in their handling would save hundreds, probably thousands, of lives a year.
At the adult level, no. Is that unfair to poor people? Like cars, guns in and of themselves are expensive, which makes their relative availability inherently unfair to poor people. Adding the negligible cost of basic firearms instruction (if it even costs anything, I was taught both driving and gun handling free by my parents) really doesn’t keep me awake at night agonizing over the injustice of it all.