JFerio Wrote:Psychological screening could cause many problems. Depending on where you draw the lines of "too crazy to carry" and "sane enough to carry", it could be used to literally shove various bits of the U.S. population out of gun ownership... and could be expanded into other things.
Yep. Someone might have brought that up if they hadn't gotten to the large-scale failure modes first, and then the conversation moved on to something else. Still think it's not necessarily a bad idea in principle, but I don't know if there's any good way to make it work.
Quote:(Rule #1 of gun safety: The gun is ALWAYS loaded, ALWAYS.)
I thought it was "Never point it at anyone you aren't willing to kill."
Quote:If you take more than 2 bullets to take someone down, either the person was armored, or you'd better hope your target wasn't in front of something you didn't want 3-5 bullets to go into...
I'm led to believe it's a bit more involved than that. Apparently, any individual shot actually has a pretty high chance of not hitting anything immediately critical, and particularly with small calibers* shock alone will not do the job without more hits. The type of ammunition used makes a major difference too.
*I'm led to believe .22 caliber is very popular with people who enjoy target shooting, due to the extremely low cost of ammunition and the only mild recoil. But the same things that lead to those traits make it not all that great for stopping an assailant.
Quote:I usually follow other methods for "self defense". Namely, I stay away from areas and situations that I'd need to use violence to get out of.
Does that even count as self defense? '.'
Quote:And I've known several people in the past that, rather than being the "last resort" option in their toolbox, would pull out that "self defense" gun in a BAR FIGHT WITH FISTS.
Sound like the kind of people who shouldn't have guns. ^.- But I think that sort of person is in the minority.
Quote:But I'm dreadfully uncomfortable with any mandatory purchase requirements like that.
I too generally consider it a waste of time (among other things) to make someone who doesn't want a gun own one. I'm not certain, but I think when I first heard about the place (a few years ago or so), they mentioned some people there who, having no desire to have a gun, kept it locked away on an essentially permanent basis. That doesn't do anything useful for anyone. Still, they provide a valuable example case.
I do think a certain amount of universal *training* would be a good idea though.
Quote:a "self defense" that has a higher odds than it should that, when it gets pulled out in that mythical "held up in the alley" scenario, will possibly injure the owner or a nearby innocent before the criminal.
I don't know. I've seen some statistics related to those things, but they've all been about CCP holders, who generally have had to meet a somewhat more stringent set of requirements. None for the set of gun owners who don't have such a permit.
Of course, if someone has a gun handy enough to pull out when they're in an alley, they might themselves be committing a crime if they don't have some kind of permit or other... laws seem to vary wildly on the point.
Training is one thing we definitely agree on.
robkelk Wrote:No amount of training or licensing is going to stop somebody who flouts a condition of parole...
Well, that's not really what they're *for*. The sort of stuff we're talking about is mainly focused at which behaviors we want to encourage or discourage in the law-abiding. I don't expect any direct effect on criminals.
-Morgan.