Do you carry

Because kids NEVER fuck up and do something they were taught not to do.

 

I don't think I'd ever feel comfortable carrying a gun or using it.

My father carried one when he worked for a while. He sold improvements. I always found it odd, thinking that people who had enough money to pay a contractor for home improvement work probably didn't live in the really dangerous neighborhoods.

Then a former business partner of his went to a customer's home to discuss a problem with the work that was done. The customer opened the door with a gun drawn and fired one shot before slamming it shut. He ended up losing his spleen, but otherwise ended up making a complete recovery. Not carrying a gun would have helped him even in that situation, when he did need to defend himself.

 

Unless it's a cop, a good number of people who carry likely couldn't pass a police department psychological exam.

 

Ultimately, the reality of the world are that guns are out there, not going away, too many to be confiscated, and sometimes shit happens. You can't protect everyone, even from themselves, at all times. So why worry about it?

 

I always wonder if a taser is a good compromise.

It can certainly disable/disarm someone. And, I imagine the odds of a life threatening accident are greatly reduced.

Honestly don't know much about getting licensed to carry one though.

 

ya know, the funny thing is, i own a handgun, a rifle, a shotgun and a semi-auto. but if someone were to kick my door down in the middle of the night, my pit bull/great dane mix would be on top of the person a full 10 minutes before i ever got my sleepy ass out of bed. a dog/alarm would work much better in my home.

on a side note, i own every one of those guns because they were given to me. didn't buy a single one of them.

 

Sure they do. But the chances decrease greatly if they are taught the proper way to handle firearms.

 

People who are "strong swimmers" seem to drown just as often as folks who don't know how to swim.

 

If somebody is going to own a firearm, they have a responsibility to teach everybody in the house proper safety.

A 13yo should know not to be horsing around with a gun at all. He should also know you treat every gun as if it is loaded. He should know you never, ever point a gun at a living creature unless you are wanting to kill it.

 

Any system that only works if a 13-year-old acts on what he "should know" is a bad system.

 

I guess this is partly a cultural thing. Growing up in the South, around guns and hunters, the idea of playing with a gun was foreign to me. Firearms safety was drilled into me as a kid and never an issue.

 

I would wager that 99.9 percent of auto accidents involve drivers who are trained and pass a test to be able to drive.