Drunk driving is a terrible example.
There is no point in making alcohol illegal cause you can punish individual people for their actions.
Drunk driving laws allow to punish the one neglegent person and make him take responsibility for his own actions. NOBODY bats an eye when somebody you know gets a DWI, fuck some people call cops on their friends when they drive even though others try to stop them.
However it’s impossible to implement anything on one single negligible irresponsible gun owner due to the “rights to bear arms yarrrr”.
I’m of the belief that as soon as you do something stupid/negligent with a firearm, or are stupid enough to commit a felony, you give up your right to bear arms. I am not the minority in thinking this. Sadly, it is the vocal gun nuts (the true nuts) that the media focuses on. We are not all that insane. You’re not going to ever stop the “it’s our right yarrr” argument, but well designed laws could easily keep firearms out of the hands of the idiots while preserving the rights of the sane majority.
All the stories of people leaving loaded guns within childrens reach with no safety, or accidental discharges killing people are here to stay.
They have always been here. You read about them now more, because the media has started reporting them. Gun owners are expected to exercise their right responsibly. Just like everyone is expected to exercise their right to free speech responsibly. You can’t yell ‘Fire!’ in a movie theater. Guns should be required to be locked up when not in use. Pretty sure it is as law that every new gun in NYS must be sold with a trigger lock of some sort.
There is no way to report somebody for having a loaded rifle just laying around in a frat house full of drunk people. They can’t take his “gun license” away and punish just that one person.
Sure you can. It is called reckless endangerment. Pretty sure someone drunk waving a loaded firearm around a crowded room falls within the definition of reckless endangerment.
Anti gunners are mad at the idiots having guns and doing stupid thing with them. If there were no stupid mistakes made with guns by stupid people, that would cut half the drama off the issue off.
I totally agree, the few ruin it for the majority. But isn’t that why there things like the ‘screaming Fire! in a movie theater’ restriction? Why aren’t people asking for real common sense gun control laws like that instead of the ‘common sense’ laws of ‘ban all the scary looking guns’?
So if there is no education on proper firearm handling and self policing within firearm community, anti gunners have no choice but to make a policy on the entire population every time an idiot kills somebody or leaves a loaded gun with kids that end up shooting others.
What?! There is plenty of education and self policing within the firearm community. The problem is that media loves to take the isolated incidents and blow them out of proportion. Statistically, you’re more likely to get struck by lightning twice than to be killed in a mass shooting. Yet it is the firearms used in the mass shootings that everyone wants to ban. More people were killed with handguns in Chicago than in CT by Lanza with his AR over the course of that weekend. And that happens every weekend in Chicago. What was reported on? The mass shooting. What was no where to be seen on any national news network? The killings in Chicago.
Now, I don’t consider gang members using firearms to wage turf wars as part of the community. If the politicians really wanted to reduce gun violence the would go after those people and those guns, not long rifles, which make up a small fraction of all gun fatalities.