God, I hate guns so much. Some of the hate comes from having to duck and cover from stray gunfire (which happened to me in Mexico, North Carolina and multiple times in Florida) but most of it comes from being a parent and knowing that most gun owners who claim to be oh-so-responsible are a bunch of lying fools who leave their guns unlocked where kids can sneak them and play with them.
You have every right to be concerned, and even frustrated when it comes to gun ownership; if you feel a gun owner is acting in an unsafe manner, please don’t hesitate to let them know; and to even shame them for their lack of responsibility. That, into and of itself, is an essential aspect of the culture of firearm ownership in the US, from my experience, so I have absolutely no issue with you calling out unsafe owners and shaming them for their unsafe practices.
I hope, moving forward, you experience no dangers from violence of any kind, and hope the people who, int he past may have posed a serious threat to your safety by either handling a gun unsafely, or maliciously/illegally, are punished for their negligence and/or malice.
You must be out of your damn mind. Of course I’m not going to investigate and call out unsafe gun owners. The mildest thing that would happen is that they curse me out for being a pussy liberal bitch (insert applicable racial slurs too IRL) and “hating freedom” and at worst they’d fucking shoot me.
I didn’t tag my original post because I didn’t want to debate with gun people, I just wanted to vent. I don’t know how you found it, but if you’re truly compassionate about these issues, I don’t appreciate bargain-basement well-wishes like “I hope you don’t get killed” and “it’s nice you care about your kids.” I would appreciate actually doing something concrete and legal about the fact that a child is killed in gun accidents almost every day. And that we’d know more about this problem except that gun rights groups consistently lobby against it being studied:
Since they strongly oppose both ownership restrictions and parent accountability, one might expect the NRA to emphasize safety. Yet the prevailing attitude appears to be that even talk of basic responsible ownership is for wusses and Constitution-haters. The NRA has waged all-out war against pediatricians and the CDC for recommending gun safety to parents, lobbying hard for laws to prohibit doctors from even discussing firearms risks with families. They’ve also stood staunchly against any effort to require that guns be kept safely stored out of the reach of children.
In contrast, child deaths by accidental poisoning are a small fraction of accidental gunfire child deaths, but because there’s no equivalent “pro-poison” lobby like the NRA, we as a society have come up with many ways to limit and reduce harm to children via poisoning: childproof caps on meds, warning labels, parent education.
If you truly care about this issue, then start calling out your fellow gun rights people for their lack of support for true gun safety, and leave people like me alone.
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Thoughtfulfangirling 