"Instead of turning schools into armed camps, we should hold gun owners responsible..."

[alp227]

Lead LTTE for the New Years Day edition of the local paper:

Holding gun owners responsible for harm

In Newtown, Nancy Lanza allowed her mentally ill son access to her guns, leading to a massacre. The children at San Jose's Minor School recently were locked down, losing valuable educational time, because a neighbor's gun had been stolen during a burglary. These gun owners, and many more, have displayed a serious lack of responsibility that has harmed others.

Instead of turning schools into armed camps, we should hold gun owners responsible for the harm they cause by the negligent use, care, and storage of weapons. Insurance should be mandatory to compensate victims of their carelessness. Let the insurance market do the job of screening out those who pose the highest risk, and the job of establishing requirements, such as gun safes, that will help reduce gun violence in our society.

[awake]

1. Good idea

[LAGC]

2. Nancy Lanza didn't "allow" her son to access her guns.

He overpowered her, then killed her, then stole her guns.

Let's quit blaming the victim here...

[Auntie Bush]

3. I thought he shot her while she was sleeping.

But they should have been in a safe with a combination lock.

[Squinch]

5. Especially given that she knew he was not stable enough to attend school.

[Thinkingabout]

7. She was asleep

[Crunchy Frog]

9. If only she'd been armed, maybe she could have protected herself...

oh wait...

Not to blame the victim, but maybe she should have considered the potential implications of having an arsenal in a household that was shared by a seriously disturbed family member. And she did allow access. She obviously did not have her guns sufficiently secured to prevent his getting his hands on them. I was under the impression that was one of the fundamental principles of responsible gun ownership.

[Squinch]

4. Excellent idea. And for certain gun results, like murders, rather than an insurance settlement,

Last edited Tue Jan 1, 2013, 09:25 AM - Edit history (1)

the gun owner should get a percentage of the jail sentence given to the shooter.

THIS approach, punish the gun owner for crimes committed with their guns, is kind of guaranteed to be effective.

[Crunchy Frog]

10. Sounds good to me.

Once again, something that responsible gun owners should have nothing to fear from. Could weed out some of the less responsible gun owners.

[NutmegYankee]

13. Sounds good at first, but not in detail

Any car could be stolen, locked and without keys and used in a crime. In a similar fashion, any gun safe can be cracked. Any law would have to be reasonable in this approach.

[Crunchy Frog]

16. We're not talking about cars, we're talking about guns.

I keep hearing that "responsible" gun owners store their guns in such a way that they can't be stolen or misused. If that's not the case, though, then I agree that something like mandatory registration and insurance coverage similar to that required for cars would be in order.

One way or another, gun owners need to take responsibility for what happens with their guns.

[Thinkingabout]

6. I agree, let the owners purchase insurance and renew license yearly.

[freshwest]

11. Sounds more than fair. A gun is made for killing, cars maim and kill, thus insured.

There are penalties for operating without a license or without insurance. It would be an incentive to be careful.

[NutmegYankee]

12. There are penalties for operating the car on the roads without license.

There are no penalties for having an unregistered car in your garage, such as while you do a restoration. The license is solely to operate on public roads.

[freshwest]

18. And penalties for using it without insurance, if it is stored away, who would care?

Being stored doesn't preclude insurance. Homeowners covers it for loss, and if it hurt someone while being restored, it would cover those injuries. It's a possession and anyone is responsible, just as they are for their pets.

[Crunchy Frog]

19. I believe that's because the car in your garage being restored

is not regarded as any kind of threat to public safety. I don't believe that you can say the same thing about guns. If you can say that about guns, then the owners should have no worries about being asked to assume full liability for any death, destruction, or injury that might result from those guns being misused or getting into the wrong hands. Not such a risky proposition, since they're no more dangerous than an unregistered car in your garage, apparently.

Full liability for the owner of any firearm for any destruction caused by that firearm. If they don't choose to carry insurance, then the liability can come out of complete siezure of all property and all future earnings until the cost is recouped. If the person is confident that their guns are securely stored, then they don't have anything to worry about. If they're worried, then they can purchase insurance.

[NutmegYankee]

20. Your absolute position wouldn't survive a court challenge.

You are only responsible for someone's else use of a weapon if you were negligent in securing it. If a thief takes the time to crack a safe, which is always doable, then the owner under law is not responsible because they were not negligent in the storage. You wouldn't be able to require additional insurance in this case because it would die in the courts.

Some of the anti-ownership positions taken on DU are the intellectual equivalent of masturbating to a porno mag. Flame away.

[Crunchy Frog]

21. If gun theft is really that easy, even with proper storage

then maybe it's time to re-examine the idea of gun ownership as a whole, or at least of ownership of the most destructive types of firearms.

Because for all your defense of gun ownership, you seem to be claiming that it's impossible for even the most responsible of gun owners to keep their firearms out of the posession of criminals. That seems to me to be a very powerful argument in favor of placing limitations on firearm posessions, and it's coming from you, not me, for all of your irrelevant talk about masturbation (is that what this whole gun thing is really all about?).

[NutmegYankee]

22. It's extremely difficult with a good safe. But your position wasn't reasonable.

You'd just put some very unlucky innocent person in jail because they got hit by a very skilled and prepared thief who then used that gun in a crime.
And you know what I mean about anti-ownership positions. It's like the Ryan budget - Just political jizz, nothing more.

And I understand why DUers keep proposing to impose onerous regulations on gun owners. They absolutely can't stand that people have a Constitutional right to own them. And so the only approach is to keep trying to make it painful to exercise that right. It works - Just look at all of the Anti-Abortion laws that have practically shut down the Right to Choose in several states. And no offense, but I have spent years as a Pro-choice activist fighting through that restrictive methodology, and I smell it here too.

[Crunchy Frog]

24. Not in jail, just glad that they've got insurance.

Or do you think I'm interchangeable with other posters on this thread?

And I don't have a problem with people owning guns. I do have a problem with guns getting into the hands of mass murderers. I do have a problem with gun owners who give or sell their guns to mass murderers, or who fail to properly secure their firearms. I have problems with people who fail to take responsibility for the firearms in their posession, but who don't want to assume any liability for the consequences. If you want to equate me with the anti-choice people over that, whatever.

I see you're going on about "jizz" again. Is that what it's really all about for most of you gun owners?

[Crunchy Frog]

8. Totally agree. You want to own a gun, you take full responsibility

for anything that happens with that gun.

That includes complete liability for any mayhem caused by that gun if someone else gets hold of it. If the vast majority of gun owners are responsible and store their firearms correctly then they should have nothing to worry about.

Happy New Year!

[NutmegYankee]

14. It's already taken into account in home insurance.

You almost never have to pay any extra ( I don't) as the companies have found the risk extremely low. I pay more for a fireplace than firearms.

[cascadiance]

15. Gun owner here in Tillamook was just arrested for leaving a gun in a theater this week...

Only a short time after the shooting here right before the Newtown massacre, a kid found a loaded gun with the safety off in a theater that a conceal and carry person had dropped earlier there that was in a theater seat. The gun owner was just arraigned today on a charge of "recklessly endangering another person". So, perhaps we're starting to do this now. Certainly authorities aren't going to be too tolerant of this sort of crap after what just happened.

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2012/12/tillamook_gun_owner_who_left_g.html

On a side note, I need to take my cell phone in to a repair shop right near the Clackamas mall after it was busted earlier today. Talked with someone there about some stories about "close calls" some of his customers had that day.

[bettyellen]

23. charged with one misdemeanor, and released immediately. No charges for not reporting loss of gun....

even though he suspected it was lost in the theater showing a PG movie. Doesn't the law say he's required to report the gun theft?
What's more he explained he brought it in case he needed to jump into action in a shoot out. Scary shit.

"Gary Warren Quackenbush, the 61-year-old man who said he mistakenly left behind his loaded gun at a Tillamook movie theater, was arraigned Monday on one charge of recklessly endangering another person.

Quackenbush appeared in Tillamook County Circuit Court to hear the misdemeanor charge."

[cascadiance]

26. And this story posted on DU just back in 2010 shows what happened in Tillamook before...

... might have been repeated in this theater again if the wrong kids had found that gun.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/boy_accidentally_shoots_kills.html

I wonder if this shooting incident prompted their boy scout groups in that area to train kids a lot more that lead to these kids being more wise in how to deal with finding this gun. It's a shame that we need tragedies to wake us up to these dangers that we keep wanting to ignore all of the time.

And though there wasn't an actual gun theft in this case at the theater, the gun owner at the time certainly didn't know that there was or wasn't a theft, so your point is well taken.

[Squirmworm]

17. people who commit a crime

and someone is killed are commited murders. Why not?

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

25. There should be tax break or incentive for purchasing good/secure gun safes.

And something done to make people actually use them.

[lynne]

27. Only problem I see is that someone needs to be shot -

- before anyone can be held responsible. A bit like shutting the barn door after the horse is out.

Don't disagree with you but don't see how this will prevent another Sandy Hook. In that particular case, the person to hold responsible is dead.