That’s a standard rule at ranges I’m familiar with. The range operator has a duty to ensure safety at the range. To make their job manageable, they have to impose some stricter rules.
Fair, there are more people to monitor and more people to keep safe. It was not busy when we were there, we were the only group in that room, so maybe a bit less mindfulness of the rules.
Is it reasonable to judge that noncompliance as what might be typical against standard practice while at home? Like 90% safe?
Wow. I hope the families of the victims get every penny he has, and any money the son has too (college money?) and they are both locked up for a long time.
Judging from the news media shots of the family home and news of a nasty divorce happening during this period, i imagine assets are negligible. Locking him up and having the governor pardon him is probably the best outcome.
I’d say that for the “strictly adhere to the rules of safe handling” item in my list of traits defining responsible gun ownership, the “rules” are the ones that would apply in the real world, not the necessary paranoia of a range.
One of the articles I encountered summarized the firearms that were inventoried by the authorities during an eviction.
I received a work email advertising active shooter training and target dummies. Wow, they waited a whole 24 hours to capitalize on the Georgia shooting.
I wonder how many kids across America were given a gun as a gift where we might think “that is a bad idea.”
For families that like to hunt, I could see a responsible teenager being gifted a hunting rifle or shotgun. I don’t think any kid should get gifted an AR15, but I imagine it’s not all that uncommon.
Right, and we are a county of 330m. Assuming 99% of parents make really good decisions still leaves a few thousand? kids being gifted guns each year that maybe shouldn’t have them.
Story time:
A regular acquaintance and I had this conversation a couple of weeks ago, before this most recent school shooting. He’s an old guy with some health and vision issues that don’t allow him to hunt or even go shooting at the range. He was an avid hunter. He owned part of a hunt club with its own shooting range. He has an extensive collection of weapons for hunting, guns and bows for all seasons and animals. His plan was to give his guns to his grand kids and extended family now that he has no use for them. He gave away three to his closest family, all three had been out shooting and hunting with him in the past. He lamented they don’t hunt. “I gave them the guns and they don’t hunt.” He said, “I don’t know the rest of them. It would ruin me if they shot someone with one of my guns.”
He then went on about his one grand daughter that bow hunts. He has given her a couple of bows, repaired her equipment and taught her what he knows. He proudly pointed out “she harvests her limit.”
I feel for this guy. A gun safe full of good memories and a collection/pasttime he loves and no way to share it. What will happen to all his guns once this guy dies? I don’t know.
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Post script to that post:
I think there are two divisions within the gun ownership crowd, hunting culture and gun for power culture. There is some overlap but my guess is that most of the mass shooters come out of the gun for power culture. Those people that see guns as an object of power, whether for self defense or whatever. I would be interested if anyone has looked at mass shooters and separated them into hunters and nonhunters.
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They should be buried with him. Or cremated with him, if that’s his preference.
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I’ve had a lot of responsible gun owners scan their weapon muzzles across my body, often while at a firing range when the guns are more likely to be loaded, and not understand why I made a big deal about it because it was just a second and the gun (usually) wasn’t loaded.
I don’t shoot with those people, ever. If they’d done it once and apologized, maybe they’re generally responsible but made a mistake. If they play it down, I do not go near them with guns.
My cousin died of an accidental gunshot from an “unloaded” gun and left his 4 kids behind.
Other things would be required for me to consider one responsible, like unloaded and locked storage, but not pointing guns at me is necessary.
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Better to be proven than assumed.
I have no comment on JD Vance’s comment.
I hate that Vance is right that they are a fact of life, but I think for the foreseeable future (say, the next century) he is correct.
I think there are reasonable steps most of us can agree on (universal background checks, better quality on the background check databases, banning bump stocks which even the NRA supports) that will knock the frequency down a bit and we should absolutely pursue those. But I don’t think they’re going away.
They and other mass casualty events happen in countries too and while guns do make it easier, they are not required.
Even if you repealed the second amendment tomorrow and adopted Canadian-style regulations we’ve currently got more guns than people and that fact is not going to change any time soon. People who want to do bad things WILL largely be able to get guns.
So while it’s not politically prudent to say so… it IS correct, unfortunately.
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Vance is not my favorite guy, but he is correct. The US can only work toward decreasing the number of such events. Of course, Vance is not supporting measures that could decrease the frequency, but any platitudes stating that “this doesn’t have to happen” are false.
The elimination of school shootings is multi-layered and impossible.
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And the implication for him to say it is that he won’t bother to even try.
Probably keeps the base.
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Yeah, Vance would certainly not be my nominee to be “School Shooting Reduction Czar”.
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