"Item 2: After it's on, don't touch it."

[elmo_iscariot]

[h/t to DooT.]

Gun fires from girl's purse in Cheyenne Starbucks

Police in Wyoming say nobody was hurt when a small [derringer] that was inside a girl's purse fired while she was in a Cheyenne Starbucks

Comments

[jaimefeu]

I've always had issue with women carrying any weapon. Anything they carry could be taken and used against them. It scares me. While I don't want to show up to the dance empty handed, I know that my elbow can't be taken away (except for the worst case scenario where I lose an arm) and I don't want some unarmed guy using my stun gun/pepper spray/knife/gun (or what have you) to knock me out or potentially kill me.

[elmo_iscariot]

In practice, it almost never happens. According to the FBI's analysis of actual crime records, your chances of coming out of a violent crime alive and uninjured are directly related to how hard you fight back, and to the power of the weapons you use to fight back with. In real life, the only people who have their weapons used against them in any numbers are violent criminals themselves, because they have to split their attention between fighting and completing the robbery/rape, while the victim only needs to focus on fighting and can decide when to start. Not everybody is psychologically comfortable carrying a weapon, and it's certainly not my place to tell them to do so anyway. But if we speak pragmatic decisions to prepare yourself to best deal with a violent assault, the tiny risk of having your weapons used against you is overwhelmed by the great risk of being hurt or killed because you couldn't fight back as hard as you could have with a weapon

[jaimefeu]

I totally see your side of the argument. I always have. It just makes me personally uncomfortable and I believe that given any scary situation, I'll probably pass out from fear anyway, so all weapons will be my attacker's. So why should I stock him/her up on hurty objects?

[elmo_iscariot]

Good enough. This is why I'm pro-choice on carrying weapons: you know yourself better than I do, so why should anybody else presume to tell you how to protect yourself?

[theweaselking]

I think "formal firearm training" is like formal driver's training: a perfectly useful assurance that you do, in fact, know what the safety is, and how to tell if it's on, and how to carry the weapon without engaging the trigger. And like formal driver's training, it's not legally required.

There are a lot of drivers who are idiots, despite suggested training and required testing. There are a LOT of gun owners who are also idiots, and where training or testing wouldn't help - but a mechanism for separating the idiots from the ignorant is a nice idea. I'd rather all of these "idiot does something stupid with a gun" stories required that the user do something they *know* is stupid.

And I also want a pony.

[elmo_iscariot]

Heh. :)

Like I say, I agree that getting some instruction is a good idea. And the very basics (which are about a thousand times simpler than operating a car) are important enough for me to call morally mandatory.* If you learn best from a formal classroom setting and can afford the (not insignificant) cost, that's fantastic. If you have a prudent and trustworthy friend who knows his gun safety and is willing to teach, that's great, too. If you're the type who learns best by reading, the knowledge you need is freely available all over the Internet, and there are books that exist for exactly that purpose.

I did the last, by the way, reading up on firearm safety and function before buying my first gun. Danielle and I eventually saved up for an NRA class only because the state where we were applying for carry permits is one of those that requires a gun-school certificate.

...that you do, in fact, know what the safety is, and how to tell if it's on...Am especially good example of stuff you need to know, actually, since not

[theweaselking]

I know not all of 'em have safeties, but we're talking about carrying this thing all the time every time you leave your house.

Making sure that the one you get *does* have a two-factor trigger mechanism seems... obvious. We're discussing handing a handgun to a noob to carry all the time - if their weapon DOESN'T have a safety, then we have handed them the wrong weapon and they should hand it back.

[elmo_iscariot]

I want to make sure we understand each other: I wasn't chiding you. I was backing you up, saying that this isn't necessarily obvious to the new gun owner, and so it's necessary for him or her to know enough about his gun to carry it in the condition it's meant to be carried in

[elmo_iscariot]

[This will probably be a big ol' wall of text when I post it; sorry about that. It's an issue with a lot of ground to cover, and I need to run so I can't revise and make it punchier. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

[elmo_iscariot]

It's expensive and time consuming...When the people have a fundamental Constitutional right to bear arms for self defense, it's not acceptable to raise the cost out of the reach of the poor.

Meant to add that around here, due to the way all the classes are scheduled, the right would be unavailable to anybody who has to work Saturdays.