I am a cop. I used to visit my parents when they were alive, and I didn’t care much where I’d put my gun when I’d stay there for an extended duration. One day, I left it behind a pillow on the chair I was using while talking to my dad. After more than an hour, suddenly, my brother showed up to pay them a visit too. He brought my nieces with him: 2 and 5 years old, at the time. We chatted and had lunch together. Suddenly, while I was talking and having a glass of wine by the table, I hear a scream. It was by the chair I had been sitting. I got up immediately and saw my wife, holding my gun with one hand and my older niece with the other, her (my wife’s) eyes wide open and her skin white as a cadaver’s. For no reason, she had (thankfully) walked there after eating a lot, when she saw my niece holding the gun with the barrel pointing to her face. BTW, this is a reflex I’ve noticed people who are not used to guns have: to point the gun to oneself. Anyway, my first point here is: if you want to have guns in your home or even carry guns, you MUST be EXTREMELY careful ALL THE TIME. People will probably respond to this with a simple “Sure”, but that’s not enough. To imagine my niece lying dead on the floor of my parent’s home, with a gunshot in her mouth (my gun!) was the scariest thought I ever had.
My second point is: if we accept that it should be compulsory for parents to have guns (which I disagree), it should also be compulsory for them to have proper training and proper mental evaluation, routinely. To use a gun properly is not easy. I don’t mean here to fire at a paper target and hit the bullseye: any old one-eyed retarded can do that after little training. I mean acting safely and effectively in a life-threatening situation where you’ll probably have a split-second to react — and a target who might be shooting back. You also need to make sure (as much as possible) that your gun will work properly when needed, so you need to know how to maintain it, and this should be also guaranteed by the enforced routine training you should receive. Moreover, it makes no sense to demand the right to have a gun to defend your family if, in the case they get hurt, you don’t know what to do. So, as a corollary to the right to have a gun, you must receive proper first-aid training as well. I don’t know if the majority of the people who claim the right to carry guns would be willing to put the right effort into it.
All that said, I don’t agree with the OP. It is the saddest fact that children must pay for our vices, but the need for the citizens to carry guns is a failure of the state. I understand your reaction to it — we feel the same way in my country (in Latin America). Almost everybody here claim they should be allowed to carry guns, and I totally see why. The government is a total failure. The police is a failure. And I, being a cop, feel the utmost shame for being a part of it, in spite of all I and my men try to do — unfortunately, we are barred from doing our job. But I digress. My point here is that the solution, just like the solution to poverty as a whole, is not a reactionary measure based on despair for the current defeat status of a giving society: the solution must come from the bottom up. In an extremely simplistic view (also, because I lack the vocabulary), you (government) provide decent education and work opportunity, you avoid poverty; you uphold the law, make justice count, and properly apply your police power, you avoid violence. If you (citizen) tell me the situation RIGHT NOW is too bad to allow you to wait for such long-term improvements, and if you would promise you would let go of the guns as soon as the situation is controlled, and if you would abide by all the laws concerning its proper use and associated training and routine evaluations, I might accede to the use of guns by you temporarily, but I know you won’t do that, because you will argue that the situation is controlled
exactly because you have guns. So I, as your government, have no other choice than to allow the police to do their job, to hasten with the aforementioned basal changes, and to do my best to care for the wounded, especially the children.
Necromancer wrote: ↑Tue Dec 05, 2017 11:36 am
My hypothesis is that the crimes become less severe and more people are willing to come to the aid if they have something to intervene with, like pepperspray or a pistol or revolver.
I tend to agree with that. But this solution is like indulging in short-term pleasures while knowingly jeopardising long-term improvements. It is definitely our normal tendency as humans — but a flawed one.