Running shooting thread 2023

We have a Constitutional right to bear arms carry concealed weapons on public property?

 

This drives me absolutely nuts — this long-standing argument made by some in this country that we should never, ever pass laws that criminals might break.

 

When it comes to gun laws, there are dozens if not hundreds of laws on the books already. I'll venture a guess that many of them would address a lot of the recurring issues we face if enforced (and might horrify us if they were vigorously enforced, but that's another angle to the debate). The answer from many people seems to be to penalize the people who are following those laws, while often taking a sympathetic stance toward those who are not. That is true in this case as well.

The governor acknowledges that her order will do little to dissuade the people most inclined to commit gun crimes, so her answer is to penalize the people least inclined to do so. The people who have willingly done everything required of them by the state. Forgetting the constitutional debate with all of this for a moment, what kind of twisted logic is that? Moreover, what kind of an insult is that to your citizens?

 

I'd love to agree that US gun owners are responsible gun owners.

That seems not to be the case.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...b60022-a48e-11ed-8b47-9863fda8e494_story.html

The recklessness of gun owners is also a key to fueling the illegal gun trade that, in turn, powers violent crime. Private citizens wind up supplying more than a quarter million guns to criminals every year. From 2017 to 2021, 1,074,022 firearms were reported stolen, the overwhelming majority from private gun owners. Remarkably, roughly 1 in 4 firearm thefts aren’t reported.

 

also

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/

 

Our local PD started encouraging people to have a 9 pm routine of making sure their car doors were locked in response to a rash of “door flippers” - guys who walk through a neighborhood checking car doors and stealing whatever they can from unlocked ones.

As part of that, they suggested gun owners not leave firearms in unlocked cars. There was a backlash to that. Folks accused the PD of being anti-2A. The PD responded by posting in our city of 100k, there was an average of one gun stolen from an unlocked car every day of 2022. People responded by saying the PD should go catch the door flippers and quit harassing legal gun owners.

 

Oof.

A well-regulated militia knows to lock the car.

People? Not so much.

 

The police are not wrong. A big part of responsible gun ownership is securing your weapons. It's also common sense that if you don't want something expensive stolen, you lock it up. There's nothing wrong with suggesting that, and anyone who lashes back at it is pretty dumb. There's a big difference between the police suggesting you lock up your guns and saying they'll arrest you if you don't (which has been proposed as a law in several places around the country).
The citizens are also not wrong to suggest that the police investigate a wave of robberies and arrest and prosecute the thieves. Blaming the victims of property crime for what happens with their stolen property sounds like victim-blaming, which I thought was frowned upon in most circles.

 

If the local police tell me I should lock my doors, I lock my doors. You don't have to be a dumbass 2A freedumb fighter at every turn.

Cops, the next day: "Sir, didn't we tell you to lock your car doors? Well, then, why didn't you lock your car doors, dumbass?"

 

Let’s say there was a rash of high-speed deaths on the highway through town. The local government decided to police the road more heavily AND lower the speed limit to 40 mph.

I can’t think of the kind of warped mind that would immediately think “They’re punishing me for obeying the previous speed limit!”

 

This is quite a different argument from “Criminals break laws so we shouldn’t enact any.”

 

They are investigating and trying to catch the door flippers. Thanks to the rise in doorbell cams, they have photos and footage like never before.

But catching a door flipper is one of the most difficult things a PD can do. They increase patrols and the flippers just move to a different part of the city. Unless their prints are on file, and they don’t wear gloves, that isn’t a help. They steal cash and easily sellable merchandise.