The reward doesn't match the risk. People make mistakes, and to me, the tradeoff of gun ownership

[Ed Suspicious]

is just too much. The consequences are often just too tragic. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/02/ohio-boy-fatally-shoots-8-year-old-brother-after-thinking-handgun-wasnt-real/

“We walked in through the front door here that’s in to the kitchen area and the child was laying on his back with a gunshot wound to the chest. He was conscious and alert at that time,” Cincinnati police Sgt. Jim Perkins told WXIX.

Lt. Don Luck recalled that one sibling “kept telling the story of how it happened, over and over again.”

[tblue37]

1. When these things happen, the *irresponsible* gun owner needs to suffer

real criminal penalties for failing to secure the gun when kids are in the vicinity. But LEOs always just handwave these incidents away as nothing but tragic accidents rather than criminal negligence

Unless the uncle who owned the handgun has a record or had the gun illegally, he would have been, by current definition, a "responsible" gun owner--right up until the moment when his nephew's death magically transformed him into an irresponsible gun owner.

And even if the uncle does have a record or owned the gun illegally, a lot of these kinds of incidents do occur with the guns belonging to the kind of gun owner who is supposedly responsible, right up until his irresponsibilty causes the accidental death of an innocent.

Maybe the risk of criminal penalties would help careless, forgetful gun owners remember that they need to secure their weapons away from children.

[drm604]

2. This is my thinking on this.

People keep talking about how more people carrying guns will lead to the prevention, or at least minimization, of tragic but rare incidents like school and mall shootings.

If I had to bet, I'd say that more people owning and carrying more guns will lead to more deaths than it will prevent. It seems like common sense to me that this would be the case.

There will be more more unbalanced people with easier access to firearms that enable them to commit mass murder, more accidental discharges (gun cleaning, children playing, idiots dropping their guns in stores, etc.), more vigilante incidents leading to deadly confrontations with innocents (Trayvon Martin and others), more people shooting innocents who knock on their door, more suicides, and more hotheads using an available weapon in incidents that would otherwise have ended in a fistfight.

[defacto7]

4. I like your point.

People carrying guns will not lead to prevention, or minimization. It only makes people feel in control of themselves and feel powerful over their fearful lives, and in that lies deadly mistakes, misjudgments and human frailty.

[billh58]

3. Responsible American gun owners

have no problem with reasonable gun control regulation and by-and-large are both accountable and responsible for their lethal weapons. Second Amendment absolutists and their apologists, on the other hand, bristle at any mention of individual responsibility or restrictions on exercising an enumerated right.

Until we can restore a Liberal balance to the judicial and political system in this country, the right-wing NRA/ALEC/Koch Brothers/Fox News cabal will continue to successfully play on the fears of the mostly white, right-wing, armed "conservatives" in this country. The result of this marketing campaign based on fear is the blood profits made by the gun death merchants which in turn fuel the right-wing political machine.

[DRAEGER]

5. LoL!

Been reading these forums for a long time... Never thought this would be the subject of my first reply and this isn't meant as a personal dig, but I Gotta say Billh58, you are one of the funnest people on these forums and scary at the same time because you actually believe the things you say. LMAO!

I've been a life long Democrat, but lately it is extremely hard to follow the some of the direction of the party. I have noticed that there are only about a dozen or so people that seem to actively post favorable comments on the anti-gun threads. Most people here seem to want the Government to leave them alone.

I'd comment more, but I am sure I'd either be banned or my comments would simply be lost in translation and give some that "Deer in the headlight look".

But on a good note, keep up the rant because it is amusing to many of us...

[SecularMotion]

6. Blocking for the personal attack

Enjoy your stay, Draeger.

And may it be brief.

[billh58]

11. His stay with us

was indeed brief:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=311183&sub=trans

[Flying Squirrel]

7. Welcome to DU

O life-long Democrat

[rdharma]

9. And LEO?

[Paladin]

8. Welcome to one of the members of the latest pro-gun crowd.

Years ago, I used to wonder why you folks turned up in clusters at regular intervals, here on DU. I'm no longer surprised by such things. Enjoy your stay.

[billh58]

10. Multiple personalities

as this one has been PPR'd on several occasions, but actually thinks no one will notice this time...

Also, notice that his sig line claims that he is a "conservative" Democrat (Second Amendment absolutist speak for Right-Wing Libertarian).

[billh58]

12. In case you are still

lurking, I'm sure that you will be back with another cutsey name. Please keep up your juvenile ramblings as well Bubba, as we also find a righteous right-wing Libertarian rant amusing.