2nd amendment

If you choose to use the 2nd amendment then there is responsibilities that go along with
them . So if your screwed up kid can get there hands on your unsecured firearms then you are the problem that is jeopardizing everyone else's rights . This alone is why the NRA is dropping the ball. NRA should be all over the media and preaching the importance of locking down you firearms but instead they choose to do nothing and stay in the shadows. Mean while irresponsible gun owners make it harder and harder to defend this right.Its about time parents are held responsible for their messed up kids and their unsecured firearms.I'm not a hunter and for my own safety I'm not saying if I own guns or not but I'm tried of hearing about unsecured firearm getting in the hands of children to be used to kill people.I know one thing if I would have lost a child in a school shooting I would lawyer up and go after the parents of the kid who done it and the school for turning a blind eye to the messed up kid that did it in the first place.

As a lifetime member of the NRA as well as the son of a NRA instructor I remember this.

All firearms are and should be treated as loaded. Firearm safety starts at home.

When I was a young teen growing up, my parents were anti gun bigtime. But I managed to buy guns and keep them well hidden from them. Moral of story is " where there is a will there is a way". Can't blame the adults for everything.

IMHO: A responsible gun owner should keep his or her gun in a place and manner in which nobody but them can get their hands on it.
I’ve seen more gun tragedies up close than I care to remember over the years that could have been avoided if the gun owner acted more responsibly.
I’ve owned and been discreetly carrying handguns on a daily basis for nearly 4 decades now and nobody gets their hands on them but me. In fact, most people I know don’t even realize I’m carrying a gun when I’m with them.
Any gun I own that isn’t on my person is well secured.
If I die or become incapacitated my wife only knows to call the police and let them do what they have to do to free my guns from multiple layers of protection.
The only way anyone gets their hands on the one I’m carrying is if they take it from where it is concealed on my corpse.
My wife has never touched one of my guns, she has no interest at all.
My ex-wife (many years ago) never touched my gun. She didn’t have to, she had her own that I never touched.
I did unload and let my two kids check them out when they were a little younger to satisfy any curiousty they may have had. Most tragedies involving kids and guns that I’ve seen were a result of a kids curiousity.
I’ve got friends that I go back almost 50 years with that have never even seen one of my guns despite the fact that I regularly carry one when I’m in their company. They don’t know how many I own, what they are, or where I keep them.
It’s none of their business.

I have a couple of grandsons (3 and 7 years old) that know I own guns, keep the guns in a gun safe, and will open it and show them a gun any time they want. Their parents are very liberal, very anti gun and will NEVER own one or keep one around the house.

When the kids get older I may take them out shooting with a little .22 rifle, just to let them have the experience. I think it's important that the kids know a bit about guns and gun safety.

On a somewhat related note, I qualified last Saturday for my LEOSA card. Shot the course with a 1.5" barrel S&W Model 60 and shot a 94%. Not too bad considering that's the first time I've shot since I qualified a year ago.

I agree with the NRA on one main point: It's not the gun that kills people.

I also agree with DVX that we should go after parents who allow their kids to access their guns. Happens too often and the results are often disastrous.

Gofirstclass said:

On a somewhat related note, I qualified last Saturday for my LEOSA card. Shot the course with a 1.5" barrel S&W Model 60 and shot a 94%. Not too bad considering that's the first time I've shot since I qualified a year ago.
.

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Thanks for reminding me! Need to stay away from the New Jersey side of the river until I get that done!

I would like to see something done about the fact we have so many people reaching for guns in the first place. Everyone today is over stressed, over worked, under socialized, under appreciated, overly self entitled, depressed, sick, mentaly unstable and painfully inept to survive in the real world. You used to be able to bring swiss army knives to show and tell. Hell, everyone in my home town had rifles in gun racks in their trucks. I think we try too hard to shelter kids from bad things, and when they finally come to grips with reality, they fold. Time for them to get away from the social media and mind numbing useless entertainment on tv and go experience the world. Go buy a boat, get the kid a beer and share a good story.

importmonkey said:

I would like to see something done about the fact we have so many people reaching for guns in the first place. Everyone today is over stressed, over worked, under socialized, under appreciated, overly self entitled, depressed, sick, mentaly unstable and painfully inept to survive in the real world. You used to be able to bring swiss army knives to show and tell. Hell, everyone in my home town had rifles in gun racks in their trucks. I think we try too hard to shelter kids from bad things, and when they finally come to grips with reality, they fold. Time for them to get away from the social media and mind numbing useless entertainment on tv and go experience the world. Go buy a boat, get the kid a beer and share a good story.

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BINGO WE HAVE A WINNER HERE!

IM, you nailed it. I don't know where your hometown was but it sounds like it was right next to mine. I always had a shotgun in the car in high school when it was hunting season, and continued that into college. My grandfather game me my first shotgun, and old Remington 16 gauge with a poly-choke. Shot a lot of birds, squirrels, a few rabbits but never another person. I still have it and it sits proudly in my gun safe.

IM, if you ever wend your way west or I head east to MD, the first round is on me. And we'll tell plenty of stories.

I have had a carry permit since the mid 90's and was in law enforcement from 2004-2010. Unfortunately I don't qualify for LEOSA because I didn't retire. I used to carry everywhere but after 2010 I just didn't carry anymore...until a few months ago. Things are just getting too crazy and I want to be able to protect myself and my family. As an ex LEO I have been through formal firearms training. EVERY gun is ALWAYS loaded. My finger does not go in the trigger guard unless I intend to fire. My kids were taught to respect guns and were taught the proper way to safely handle a gun. My oldest step-son is now a detective, my other step-son carries, and my son and daughter both carry. When my kids all got their permits I sat them down and talked to them about gun safety and taught them how to handle their specific guns. My son just got his permit and bought a gun earlier this year and he is 25 and I still sat him down before he ever carried it or even handled it.

As said earlier, when I carry nobody knows it. My wife is the only one that will know because she sees me putting it on. She has no interest in guns and won't touch them. I don't talk about my permit, my guns, or me carrying. The less people that know the better. My kids are all grown but when they were younger my guns stayed locked in the gun safe and I was the only one that knew the combination (now they all know). To my kids guns aren't a big deal. If you grow up around something then the mystery and curiosity is gone. My kids never thought it was 'cool' to handle a gun. A gun was a tool with a specific purpose and they knew it because it was taught to them at a young age.

I am not an NRA member (I used to be). I don't agree with the NRA on some issues but do support the 2nd amendment.

In my opinion the issue isn't guns. The issue is how society handles adversity today. Everyone gets a trophy, if you don't feel like doing homework you have mom request an IEP so little Johnny gets special treatment and doessn't have to do anymore homework. Punishment is frowned upon. So when these kids get out to the real world they don't have the tools to cope with adversity. My wife is a teacher and sees it all the time. Kids that got good grades in their younger years get lazy so mommy gets an IEP so when Johnny takes a test it is multiple choice and 2 wrong answers are eliminated before they even see the test. And if they fail then they get to retake it as many times as needed until they pass. And the schools have to play along because it is state law. Don't get me wrong, there are cases where special care is needed but there are more cases where it is taken advantage of and they are doing a disservice to these kids by handling them this way. I taught my kids to be responsible and actually earn what they got.

Rant over

Gofirstclass said:

I agree with the NRA on one main point: It's not the gun that kills people.

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Correct, it's the bullet

juggernaut1 said:

Correct, it's the bullet

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Isn't that like saying a spoon makes someone fat?

dwna1a said:

As a lifetime member of the NRA as well as the son of a NRA instructor I remember this.

All firearms are and should be treated as loaded. Firearm safety starts at home.

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This Statement is something that every gunner knows but how many do it.I just don't understand why there is not more said about unsecured firearms from all gun activist.It's time that all pro gun groups get involved with helping solve this out break of shootings in our schools by at least being more vocal to the public about being responsible gun owners.Because if we the people don't start policing our own then you know the federal government will .

I would hate for anyone of you out there if one of your children end up on the wrong side of a law with one of your guns and your only defense was we didn't know there was a problem or we never seen this coming.There isn't a parent out there if they are honest with them self haven't been blind sided by some dump shit their kids has done. I'm just glad my sons are not in high school anymore because there is nothing being done except the schools covering their own ass and hoping someone else will fix this problem for them

CaptRonn said:

Isn't that like saying a spoon makes someone fat?

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I would have thought not. My logic....the spoon (knife, fork) is the tool, akin to the gun. The bullet and the food is what does the "damage". And the motivation in both cases comes from the person.

One time I was doing something a ways in the woods and my 10 year old son came riding up on a ATV. He was a little bit excited as he said ‘Dad, I had to use this’ and he pulls out a little model 36 SW. For a second I’m thinking he might have shot a burglar or something but he continued the story.

He was sitting at the dinning room table doing school work when the dog went nuts in the living room. He goes in to see what’s going on and finds a big bear on the other side of the picture window. The dog is mad and jumping up on the window trying to get at the bear. The bear gets po’d, stands up, and is roaring, throwing his head around, mouth wide open, spittle flying and he starts swatting at the dog but he’s hitting the window instead. My son was afraid to go pull the dog back, he thought the bear would see him, get madder and break in through the window.

My son ran upstairs to a gun cabinet and grabbed that .38. Then he went out the side door which is about 20 feet from the bear, the ruckus is still going on as he cuts loose with the gun. I said ‘you didn’t shoot him did you’ and he said no, he just was making noise to scare him off and it worked.

It wasn’t that I made my guns available to the kids in case they needed one, it just wasn’t necessary to lock them up at my house. In that light I’ve read of many cases where a kid has saved himself, family members, and pets from predators both human and animal because they had access to the parents guns. That's a decision that should be carefully made case by case, I'm by no means recommending it.

I suppose some folks would say I’m a poor parent, my guns were not locked up, but my kids were taught about guns, they’ve shot them since they were 3-4 years old. When little it was handguns that interested them, eventually shooting a piece of paper and then looking at the holes wasn’t fun for them. I used to practice often, would say ‘you wanna go shoot’, they’d usually say no. I had a place set up for shooting clay pigeons, when they were older we all did have some fun doing that. My son did do some deer hunting when a teenager but never caught the hunting bug. Neither of my kids, now 45 and 38 years old has ever owned a gun.

My grandkids have had minimal experience with guns. They’re well adjusted intelligent kids and I really believe they can be trusted but just in case I’ve taken to locking everything up. It’s not that I fear they would do something terrible, it’s because they haven’t been trained well enough on how to handle them. I think they should learn but they have no interest.

This isn't much to do with school shootings, it's just about the way things were done at my house.

juggernaut1 said:

And the motivation in both cases comes from the person.

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Exactly!

We had guns in the house when I was little. They weren't locked up and I knew where they were. My grandfather had a gun cabinet that wasn't locked but I was warned one time about never going in there and I knew better. I started shooting at about 7 years old so guns weren't a fascination to me and I knew to respect them.

I've read a lot of anecdotes about kids who grew up around guns and were taught how to properly handle them. I was one of them. The moral of the story always seems to be "not my kids". One bit of admonishment, if I may. When the hormones start kicking in, and the pressures of life start to be applied, they are no longer your kids. They are aliens. Do not for a minute, think that you know them. You don't. That is all.

Then there is the scenario of a break-in and your unlocked guns falling into the wrong hands that could be used in the commission of a crime.

electricaldoctor said:

Then there is the scenario of a break-in and your unlocked guns falling into the wrong hands that could be used in the commission of a crime.

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If they want your guns they'll get them unless you have something like this.

OK, folks, it appears that I was wrong. Don't lock up your guns.
I know that locking up your guns isn't the entire solution, but I felt that taking at least one positive step in the right direction was better than sitting on your ass and leaving everything up to chance.