Your opinion on this gun law?

[DaveBeal]

Would you support a law saying that if a gun owner fails to take reasonable steps to secure a firearm (e.g., trigger/cable lock, gun safe) and someone to whom the owner allowed access uses the gun to commit a crime (possibly including suicide), the owner would be prosecuted?

Note that this wouldn't require all guns to be locked. If you never have children or untrusted visitors in your house, or if you have educated your children and trust them to never use your guns unsupervised, you could leave them unlocked.

Subsequent clarification: Also note that this law would apply only to those to whom the owner had allowed access. It's not applicable if a secured gun is stolen.

(If this has been discussed before, please just refer me to the thread.)

 

[Zundfolge]

Note that this wouldn't require all guns to be locked.

Yes they will, if you're going to be held responsible for your unlocked guns that is a defacto requirement that they all be locked.

Lock mandates will end up locking up self defense guns.

Should I also be responsible if all my guns are locked up and someone bypasses the locks?

If you never have children or untrusted visitors in your house, or if you have educated your children and trust them to never use your guns unsupervised, you could leave them unlocked.

What happens if the children or adults you thought you could trust in your house got into your guns?

What about the Carpenter case where following California's draconian gun storage law all the Carpenter's guns were locked up and their children were unable to defend themselves against a psychotic armed with a pitch fork?


No, I don't believe we need more government intrusion into our lives and no I don't believe more government intrusion into our lives would do any good anyway.

 

[General Geoff]

Would you support a law saying that if a gun owner fails to take reasonable steps to secure a firearm (e.g., trigger/cable lock, gun safe) and someone to whom the owner allowed access uses the gun to commit a crime (possibly including suicide), the owner would be prosecuted?

No.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Would you support a law saying that if a gun owner fails to take reasonable steps to secure a firearm (e.g., trigger/cable lock, gun safe) and someone to whom the owner allowed access uses the gun to commit a crime (possibly including suicide), the owner would be prosecuted?

No.

First, what's "reasonable steps"? One person's "reasonable steps" are another person's unreasonable restrictions.

Second, where does the 2nd Amendment say anything about "reasonable steps to secure firearms"?

If someone steals your car and kills a pedestrian, should you be prosecuted because you didn't put a "club" on the steering column?

 

[zxcvbob]

No..

 

[Gator]

No. The person who took the gun is responsible for their actions.

 

[alucard0822]

Would you support a law saying that if a gun owner fails to take reasonable steps to secure a firearm (e.g., trigger/cable lock, gun safe) and someone to whom the owner allowed access uses the gun to commit a crime (possibly including suicide), the owner would be prosecuted?

The entire premise of a law like this consists of inherent fallacies. That an inanimate object can be blamed for the actions of it's user, and in turn, an owner not taking vaguely described "reasonable" steps to prevent It's misuse by others makes him liable. Just the same, if you do not take "reasonable" steps to secure your car, and someone steals it and runs over a pedestrian, should the victim of the initial theft be liable for the vehicular manslaughter he did not directly commit? A law like this supports the premise of shifting blame for a crime from the perpetrator of that crime, and as a "reasonable" person, I would not support, and would probably spend some time fighting a law like this. However, as a gun owner, car owner, or homeowner you should make sure you secure your belongings, and do what you can to keep your family and belongings safe, but not forced to comply with a law that is almost impossible to enforce, where the only way to charge someone would be either by an intrusive search, or going off of claims by the criminal, who might deny the owner locked up the gun that he stole.

 

[learn2shoot]

um.... no

 

[K3]

Nyet.

 

[RobTzu]

Not in a billion years.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

Nope!

 

[Javelin]

http://nope!!

 

[Thumper]

No, and I'd spend money, time, and effort to fight such a law.

 

[qbpc]

NO!!!

 

[RyanM]

No way. If someone steals my car and commits a crime with it, should I be liable? If I leave my car unlocked, and a little kid gets in, hotwires it somehow, and crashes and kills itself, should I be liable?

Problem is the mainstream opinion of guns is they're like mousetraps, only deadlier. They get this mindset that guns are just waiting to go off, and pretty soon, they get legislated the same way as deadly booby traps.

 

[doc2rn]

Hmmm.....no!

 

[jimbob86]

No. More nanny statism, attempting to shift responsibility from where it rightfully belongs: Folk fooling with stuff that doesn't belong to them.

 

[jon_in_wv]

No way thats stupid. Someone takes something I legally own and commits a crime with it and I'M responsible????? Make the CRIMINAL responsible. Don't find a way to make ME the criminal.

 

[Robert Hairless]

Great idea, Dave. In fact I'd like to see that kind of law applied to every situation in which people could be held responsible for the actions of other people.

For example if your kids used your car in a bank holdup, I'd like to be able to put you and your wife away for twenty years or more. But if your kids only broke the speed limit while driving, I'd be happy if you and your wife got traffic tickets. Of course if they were caught DUI I'd be tickled to have you and your wife lose your drivers' licenses and your car, and also serve some time in the slammer. That would teach you a lesson for sure.

If your kids brought a neighbor's kid to your home, played on your computer, and managed to get you on some pornographer's spam list, I think it would be great fun to have you and your wife put away for a lot of years and forced to register as sex offenders for the rest of your life.

I'm with you. Let's suggest your idea to legislators all over the country. Whoops: you've already done that. But you can count on me to help you push for the idea. Crazy is fun sometimes.

Have you given some thought to a law that would remove children from parents who own guns and raise the kids in foster homes? That one has possibilities too. Any way to get the government involved in the lives of families is worth considering.

That's the way lots of people think when they want to control other people's lives. It's not a good way to think. Let's not do it. The initial intent might seem good and the theory might seem beneficial but it never accomplishes anything good and always winds up hurting people.

You might want to read John Lott's More Guns Less Crime. One of his findings is that gun locks cause more harm than good.

 

[19-3Ben]

I think part of the problem is the vague term "reasonable steps to secure."

What is reasonable? And what makes a gun secure? Those are VERY situation dependent. Here's an example.
Lets say that your kid is 14 years old. He has already been put in juvie once or twice for possession with intent to sell. He got kicked out of school for slashing a kid's face with a box cutter. His friends are no different. You go out of town for a week and leave your .38 in the night-table loaded and unlocked. he takes it and kills someone.
You are a damned irresponsible idiot and you ought to be locked away as an accomplice to murder in my opinion. Your kid is a minor, and obviously has problems. If you aren't responsible enough to deal with it, too bad.

On the other hand, if you have a good kid. Gets good grades, never been in trouble, well spoken, 18 years old, just got into Princeton with a scholarship, and an avid marksman who has never broken the 4 rules of gun safety.
One night he goes out and unexpecedly gets plastered. You step out of the house for 10 minutes to go to the 7/11 or something. In that 10 minute window he comes home, finds that .38 in the night stand and does something stupid with it because of his impaired judgement.

Who would have seen that second example coming? I don't think a guy ought to be responsible for the damage his kid who was a legal adult, causes if it is something so unforeseeable.

I think certain laws like this are not terrible in theory. The problem is that in practice they never work, and they only end up serving as a way to screw gun owners. If the law could be VERY narrowly tailored so as not to allow any ass-clownery.
In other words, I'd support it in theory. in practice though it's very tough.

 

[19-3Ben]

I didn't actually comment on what i had begun to. I covered reasonable, but what is secure?
Gun has the safety on? Empty chamber? gun and ammo stored in different areas? loaded with a trigger lock? unloaded with trigger lock? Disassembled in a safe?

The reason it doesn't work in practice is because no matter how "secure" one makes a gun, someone with enough time and tools can find a way to make it operable. And any time that someone's gun get into the wrong hands, the prosecutor will say "it wasn't reasonably secure" as though it has a defined meaning. You see where the problem lies? It's just too....flexible of a term. That's why gun banners always call for "reasonable gun laws." To them, an outright ban is reasonable.

So as I said before, I might support this in theory. But in practice it is VERY grey territory.

 

[Cuda]

No!!!



C

 

[Ninja42]

No, such a law would not help anyone at all, and it would be a great step down the slippery slope towards total gun control.

 

[joffe]

More laws are not the solution.

Evidence and testimony will allow judge and jury to tell by common sense and facts whether or not the owner was at fault, not some arbitrary law. If the owner behaved negligently and practically left his guns loaded for small children to use, he will pay for it. No more laws needed.

LESS laws, not MORE laws.

 

[Geno]

That law would be as-dumb-as issuing failing grades to Webster for people failing to check the dictionary. After all, he had the foresight to know people would likely make spelling errors and he still failed to leave each person a dictionary. Too, Webster had motive to fail to provide dictionaries...greed! OMW...that's a RICO violation, isn't it?!

Doc2005