12-Year-Old Charged - Gun-Owner Dad Gets a Slap on the Wrist

[mikeb302000]

http://www.wten.com/story/15251447/saratoga-boy-pleads-guilty-to-shooting-friend">Albany News 10 reports on the sad story.

First of all, there's something terribly wrong here. I can understand not being angry and vengeful towards the kid, but the gun-owner dad is another story. Allowing kids access to guns should be an extremely serious offense. Men who are responsible for that should pay http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2010/08/one-strike-youre-out.html">a heavier price than a slap on the wrist and they certainly should not enjoy the continuation of their gun rights.

Secondly there are the improvements in gun law that the grieving parents would like to see.

The Naumkin's say they'd like to see all gun owners have liability insurance for their firearms, and take a required safety course every three years. They want that course to include family members of a gun owner, as well.

Yuri Naumkin would also want to see signs displayed at homes with guns to increase transparency.

"We're supposed to have a right to know who they are and they have a right to express it freely," said Yuri.

"Transparency" and the "right to know," those are interesting concepts. What do you think? Isn't it reasonable for parents to want to know if there are guns in the homes where their children visit?

Well, as reasonable as that desire might be, I'm afraid it wouldn't be enough. Even if every home with guns were marked, it still depends upon the level of responsibility of the adults who reside there.

I think it always gets back to increased controls on gun owners. Safe storage laws, mental health screening, mandatory training, and severe sanctions for infractions, these and other policies would help.

http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/">(cross posted at Mikeb302000)

What do you think? Please leave a comment.

[gejohnston]

1. transparency or privacy invasion

more of the latter. Then the signs will attract robbers to supply the black market, then there will be calls for unsafe storage being defined as a vault that is defeated regardless of quality, then there will be screams for banning because legally owned and safely stored guns are being stolen.
I understand the grief but invasion of privacy and basing public policy on emotion is always bad. One question, did the parents own the gun? Did the kids find it someplace else? Last time I looked, right to privacy is protected in the BoR.

[Blown330]

2. Nothing to see here.

Blog flogging unrec.


"We're supposed to have a right to know who they are and they have a right to express it freely," said Yuri.


My right to privacy trumps that. She has a right to be a responsible parent and ASK questions.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hangingon]

15. This is the new view of rights.

We have a right to know. There is no privacy anymore. They have a right to express it freely. This means they ask a question and must answer it. As the Albany WTEN reported, ""But, if we can take a baby step, changing some laws so they're not so free."

unrec for blogspam.

[iverglas]

35. for totally different reasons, you're right

It is a "new view of rights".

It is the view held by your neighbours in the nations where conditions are comparable to your own: developed liberal/social democracies.

The view is that "you're not the boss of me" alone is no longer a good basis for a society to make decisions that affect all its members and the public as a whole.

A few centuries ago now, the idea emerged that individual liberty was a good thing.

There really have been changes in the world, and in how human beings interact with one another and arrange for our collective cohabitation, since that time.

"Equality" was the next step. Formal equality for many minority groups didn't encounter quite the late resistance in most comparable places that it did and still does in your place. And more recently, it has been enshrined in domestic and international instruments outside your place, like Canada's constitution, the European Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights, and so on.

The third generation is what are often called "solidarity rights" these days; in the French Revolution, the trio was completed by fraternité, meaning solidarity.

You could always educate yourself by reading something that wasn't written in the 18th century. An intro:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_generations_of_human_rights

First-generation human rights

First-generation human rights deal essentially with liberty and participation in political life. They are fundamentally civil and political in nature, and serve to protect the individual from excesses of the state. First-generation rights include, among other things, freedom of speech, the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion, and voting rights. Pioneered by the United States Bill of Rights and in France by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in the 18th century, though the right to a due process goes back to the Magna Carta of 1297. They were first enshrined at the global level by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and given status in international law in Articles 3 to 21 of the Universal Declaration, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

When first generation human rights are limited this directly limits second generation rights. Improving first generation rights is the "causal link from first generation human rights to improved socio-economic outcomes".

Second-generation human rights

Second-generation human rights are related to equality and began to be recognized by governments after World War I. They are fundamentally social, economic, and cultural in nature. They ensure different members of the citizenry equal conditions and treatment. Secondary rights would include a right to be employed, rights to housing and health care, as well as social security and unemployment benefits. Like first-generation rights, they were also covered by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and further embodied in Articles 22 to 27 of the Universal Declaration, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. In the United States of America, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed a Second Bill of Rights, covering much the same grounds, during his State of the Union Address on 11 January 1944. Today, many nations or groups of nations have developed legally binding declarations guaranteeing comprehensive sets of human rights, e.g. the European Social Charter.

Third-generation human rights

Third-generation human rights are those rights that go beyond the mere civil and social, as expressed in many progressive documents of international law, including the 1972 Stockholm Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and other pieces of generally aspirational "soft law." Because of the present-day tilting toward national sovereignty and the preponderance of would-be offender nations, these rights have been hard to enact in legally binding documents.

The term "third-generation human rights" remains largely unofficial, and thus houses an extremely broad spectrum of rights, including:

Group and collective rights
Right to self-determination
Right to economic and social development
Right to a healthy environment
Right to natural resources
Right to communicate and communication rights
Right to participation in cultural heritage
Rights to intergenerational equity and sustainability

The right to economic and social development is one that many people consider important. And it is what communities are denied when their streets are awash in guns and ablaze in gunfire. That situation kind of disrupts the exercise of quite a number of rights.

You can stamp your feet all you like, but this is the direction the world is going in, and those stamping their feet and screeching "nobody is the boss of me" are the ones who will be out of step and living in a cultural and economic backwater. It's right over there on the horison.

[Hangingon]

46. Wow. I am only interested in our Constitutional rights.

Go yammer at someone else. Take your agendas elsewhere.

[iverglas]

51. Wow. You are weirdly insular and narrow-minded.

Colour me surprised.

[Hangingon]

61. More hot air.

We are discussing US rights. Your BS cut and paste is not really on subject.

[Rabblevox]

3. Sad story. I agree completely about mandatory training, but the "gun here" signs are the stupidist.

damn thing I've heard in awhile. And the dad should be going to prison. It's called reckless endangerment, and it's a felony in most states. Also, dad should permanently lose his right to own a weapon.

[petronius]

4. It seems that the dad was charged with misdemeanor child endangerment

My quick google-age didn't turn up any details about where the gun was located or how the kids got it...

[iverglas]

29. where the gun was located

Google the victim's name as I did and it's hard to miss.

http://www.saratogian.com/articles/2011/01/01/news/doc4d1fef32a8fff285376720.txt

WILTON — On Dec. 22, a 12-year-old boy in Gansevoort found a gun in a drawer in his father’s bedroom and accidentally shot and killed his seventh-grade friend Nicholas Naumkin. ... His father was charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor, for leaving the handgun and “unsecured loose ammunition” in the residence with the two boys alone.

Kind of like the gun was to a 12-yr-old kid.

[gejohnston]

5. If dad were convicted of reckless endangerment

or any other felony, he would. Been federal law since 1938.

[iverglas]

30. but just leaving a handgun in a bedroom drawer

with "loose ammunition" (somewhere in the house, haven't looked for where) in a house with unattended children ... no, that isn't enough to get someone barred from possessing firearms. Not even when one of the children got dead.

Approve or disapprove?

[RSillsbee]

7. What standard would you set for such training?

how would you enforce it?

[Rabblevox]

9. Similar to a driver's licence test, with a very basic written and practical...

and enforcement is easy. No pass/no play. (i.e., no safety cert, no buying ammo or weapons...period).

[RSillsbee]

10. so you'd outlaw private sales and reoaders, got it. NT

[Rabblevox]

12. The analogy is cars. Private sales are fine, they still got to be documented, and you have to...

have a valid licence to register a car. And I'm not sure what a reoader is, but if you meant reloaders, the car analogy still holds.

[RSillsbee]

13. Sorry, I meant to say reloaders,

So what happens when there's no measurable impact on stupiity related gun deaths? Do you think that kid didn't know that you aren't supposed to play w/ a gun?

Every gun I've ever bought that was still in the box came w/ an owner's manual. Every manual has an exstensive list of safety precautions gun owners should take. What would you add to that?

We've all had driver's ed but people still speed, still drive drunk , still run red lights and still text and drive.

Similarly, the people that do stupid things w/ guns will continue to do so so no matter how much "training" you force me to endure

[Hoopla Phil]

16. The car analogy is not valid.

You do not have to register a car, have a license, or insurance to own or drive a vehicle on private land. Only when the vehicle is driven on public roads do those requirements come into play. Your analogy would only work for firearms that are carried in public - which is what we have been migrating to for the past two decades.

Courts have ruled that testing before exercising a civil right are unconstitutional. You also may note that know one has a right to know what legal possessions another has.

[friendly_iconoclast]

21. You also don't need official permission to buy a car.

You do need permission to buy a gun in certain locales.

[iverglas]

34. interesting

Conviction for the commission of a criminal offence, not to mention an offence involving a motor vehicle, does not disqualify you from buying a car.

And yet the same will disqualify you from buying a firearm.

Odd, that.

I wonder whether it suggests that a large number of ... average ... people, and the society they live in, actually do see significant differences between the two items.

[iverglas]

33. "Your analogy would only work for firearms that are carried in public"

Yeah -- the ones that come with a device that flashes a red light and announces, every 10 seconds, "firearm ... firearm ... firearm" ... so that people can see/hear it coming THEY WAY THEY CAN SEE AND HEAR CARS COMING and go somewhere else if they choose.

May you drive your car around the aisles of the grocery store? Park it at a table at the local McDonalds? WITHOUT ANYONE KNOWING?

If your car is on the public highway with no licence plate or a licence plate that does not belong to it, or if you have no licence/insurance when you drive it, is there no way at all for anyone to notice/determine this?

Do cars have Klingon cloaking devices that make them invisible, or come with shrinking rays so they can be slipped in pockets or down pants?

Do guns have high-tech devices that cause them to shoot out blue dye and make loud noises if someone (owner or not) takes them off the property of the owner?

No to any of the above?

Then when you say ...

You do not have to register a car, have a license, or insurance to own or drive a vehicle on private land. Only when the vehicle is driven on public roads do those requirements come into play. Your analogy would only work for firearms that are carried in public

... what point did you think you had / could make some unsuspecting passerby think you had?

Are thousands and thousands of people INTENTIONALLY KILLED or disabled or wounded or robbed or intimidated into submission as a result of people committing criminal assaults by motor vehicle in your country every year?



typo fixed

[ProgressiveProfessor]

19. Do you support mandatory training before you can vote or own property?

[iverglas]

31. any kid ever got hold of your vote

and killed somebody with it?

No laws where you are about how you may and may not use your property and what you may and may not do on it, and what liability you have even to trespassers?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

36. Not germane, but typical obfuscation

If something is a right, can the government require training before exercising that right?

[iverglas]

41. yeah

The way it works is that you have a right to do anything you damned well feel like, right?

Yup. That's what that liberty stuff is all about.

Then come the limits that may be imposed on the exercise of rights.

And one of them is requiring training and licensing -- WHERE THAT REQUIREMENT IS JUSTIFIED.

Some people just don't do real well at the fine motor skills part of thinking, do they?

Different rights, different modes of exercising them, different limits justified.

Or did you think you could just vote whenever and wherever you felt like it?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

45. I saw that cute bit of sophistry earlier...we have a right to vote during elections...

because voting outside of them is nonsensical.

What rights do you believe the government can reasonably license or otherwise require training for? Please feel free to use the superset that Americans are afforded vice those in Canada.

[iverglas]

52. hahahahahaha

You have a right to bear arms in a militia, because bearing them outside a militia is nonsensical.

:rofl:

Maybe you're almost getting it ...



What rights do you believe the government can reasonably license or otherwise require training for? Please feel free to use the superset that Americans are afforded vice those in Canada.

Am I supposed to discern the intended insult there? The "superset" that USAmericans are "afforded" (eh?) ... um ... versus? those in Canada?

So, you mean like the right to marry the person of your choice? Oh wait, that's Canadian. It was, back when USAmericans couldn't marry people of a different race, and it is, when USAmericans can't marry people of the same sex. The right to liberty; some have it more than others, I guess.

The right to vote no matter who you are or where you are, as long as you're a citizen? No, sorry, that one's Canadian too. Citizens are not denied the vote in Canada. (And I'm not talking about Diebold.) The right not to have your exercise of your rights impaired without justification, we're big on that.

The right to determine the outcome of your own pregnancy, without interference, and to have your choice treated as the publicly insured medical care it is? Damn, that one's Canadian too. Women have rights in Canada. Women in the US have the rights to life and liberty too, it's just that not all get to exercise them.

The right to equal treatment in the private sector (because you have the right to equal treatment by governments, which regulate the private sector) without distinction based on sexual orientation? Shit, I'm not batting very well for you here.

Now, please do let's speak English. "Rights" are not "licensed". Yeesh. What gobbledygook.

A licence may be required in order to exercise certain rights in certain ways, where justification is demonstrated, by the appropriate standard, for the requirement.

Licensing, hmm. Well, that marriage thing comes to mind.

The right to earn a living, that's kind of an important aspect of the rights to life and liberty. But if you want to do it by driving cab or practising medicine, you need a licence.

Free speech, there's another one. And yet if you want to broadcast your speech, you need a licence.

A licence is granted upon proof of qualification to exercise the right in question in the particular way -- and in a way that is not harmful to the public interests in issue.

Where there are public interests at play and allowing people to exercise a particular right willy-nilly would be demonstrably injurious to those interests, a licence requirement is one way of reducing the risk of such harm.

Seriously, you didn't know this?

[PavePusher]

64. You're trying to herd Jello. You're gonna need a shower afterwards... n/t

[Hangingon]

20. How about mandatory firearms training in schools?

All children, not jut the kids of gun owners, should know firearms safety.

[iverglas]

32. how about you keep your agenda out of other people's kids' classrooms?

Sounds good to me.

But of course, I'm sure no school anywhere has ever suggested that its pupils not play with firearms ...

[ProgressiveProfessor]

37. There are people who say the same thing about sex ed in schools.

They feel that it is a matter best kept out of schools and those who want it to be mandatory are pushing their agenda.

Nice bedfellows you keep

[iverglas]

42. there are people who say the same thing about religious instruction in schools

I'm happy with my bedfellows, who are on the side of providing students with information and instruction that is important to their welfare, and keeping the ones with their own agendas rather than the students' interests at heart away from them.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

44. So no relgigion, guns, or sex education?

Gun safety training, especially for elementary school students can be done in a neutral fashion. So can sex ed for a somewhat older crowd, and classes about religion.

[iverglas]

50. why can no one stick to the subject?

It's not like it isn't right there in the subject lines.

Here's this one, the one this little conversation is actually about:

"How about mandatory firearms training in schools?"

Not "gun safety training".

"Gun safety training" in schools consists of: If you see a gun outside your home, do not pick it up or otherwise touch it, attempt to deter anyone else from picking it up, and call the police. Absolutely "neutral". (As far as what you do if you see a gun in your home, kids, you're at your parents' mercy there.)

[ProgressiveProfessor]

56. I often wonder that about your posts

[iverglas]

59. Q.E.D.

[Hangingon]

39. The OP discusses mandatory education.

{lesae do try to keep up/

[iverglas]

43. what are you yammering about?

The OP discusses mandatory education.

It does indeed:

The Naumkin's say they'd like to see all gun owners have liability insurance for their firearms, and take a required safety course every three years.

The conversation you've wandered into here is about mandatory instruction of schoolchildren, not gun owners.

You seeing the difference? Yet? How about if I stand over here?

[Hangingon]

47. Go stand out in the paddock and yell.

I started the sub thread about education of school children in gun safety in schools.

[iverglas]

53. it's a sad day

when people can't read their own words on their monitor ... or think nobody else can so they can just pretend they said something else ...

How about mandatory firearms training in schools?

"Firearms training" -- YOUR WORDS -- IS NOT "education in gun safety".

And you very clearly and definitely did not mean "gun safety", you meant "training in using firearms".

[Hangingon]

62. Firearms training is most certainly "gun safety".

Please take your agenda elsewhere.

[iverglas]

65. "gun safety" is not "firearms training"

Perhaps it's a reading disability.

You've heard of "sets"?

Firearms training includes some aspects of gun safety.

Gun safety instruction for schoolchildren does not include firearms training.

[friendly_iconoclast]

66. Absolutely correct. Even the NRA acknowledges that.

Why some gun control .org hasn't simply copied (with appropriate changes) their Eddie Eagle program has always escaped me...

[ProgressiveProfessor]

48. The OP, why are you muddying the waters?

[iverglas]

54. is this duplicity

or stupidity?

The OP says:

I think it always gets back to increased controls on gun owners. Safe storage laws, mental health screening, mandatory training, and severe sanctions for infractions, these and other policies would help.

THAT is what the OP said: that there needs to be mandatory training FOR GUN OWNERS.

NOT FOR SCHOOLCHILDREN.

There actually appears to be an effort underway here to claim that the OP was referring to teaching chldren how to play with guns safely.

No wonder I never know what you people are talking about.

Whatever. This subthread begins with this:

How about mandatory firearms training in schools?

Nothing to do with anything said in the OP.

[mikeb302000]

57. actually I agree about the signs

but about the "right to know," I have some sympathy. But It's tough to see how we might do such a thing, accommodate the guys who want to know and respect the privacy of others.

What's simple and easy is that when you store your gun in such a way that an 11-year-old can get it and kill somebody with it, you go to jail and lose your gun rights forever. I'd make an exception on the jail time if the kid is yours, since that's already a too-heavy punishment, but the guns have got to go.

[ileus]

8. Dear methheads here be guns...

[PavePusher]

11. "We're supposed to have a right to know who they are..."

Bullshit, of course.

[michreject]

14. I'll put a sign on my house that reads

"Any guns in this house? Come inside without permission and find out".

[Hoopla Phil]

17. More reason to have firearms safety training in schools.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

18. Again you advocate unconsitutuion infringement while flogging your blog

unrec of course...

[friendly_iconoclast]

22. An Orwellian Lovejoy: "Won't somebody *please* think of the children?"

Unreccomended for flagrant blogspamming

[krispos42]

23. Signs, huh?

Okay.

[rrneck]

24. Heh

A couple of other suggestions that I recall...

"Security system by Smith and Wesson".

"If you are found here tonight you will be found here in the morning".

[iverglas]

28. hmm

Which would yer average housebreaker rather have ...

(a) the neighbour's DVD player
(b) your guns

Now, I don't claim to speak for the average housebreaker, but I do generally assume they aren't unable to figure out a simple thing like that.


By the way, what kind of piece of shit actually puts up a sign like that?

[krispos42]

40. I certainly don't know.

I'm not a career housebreaker.

Why not give them an informed choice?

[PavePusher]

67. Depends on what kind of piece of shit my neighbor is... n/t

[ProgressiveProfessor]

38. Ahhh...sign wars...

One broke out in a neighborhood near here a while back. One neighbor tried to invoke CC&Rs but did not realize certain nearby properties predated them and were not subject to the restriction. It got interesting from there.

[rrneck]

25. Signs...

Jesus fucking Christ. That's visible from orbit stupid.

[iverglas]

26. pride calls for it, surely

People do stick those things on their houses, don't they?

And then all the other people have to do is wait until the morons in question aren't home ... and bingo, Smith & Wesson meets the pavement, i.e. the street.

[iverglas]

27. weirdness

Yuri and Oksana Naumkin are somewhat pleased that the boy accused of shooting Nicholas, made those admissions in family court.

"We're happy with the fact that he finally manned up," said Oksana Naumkin. "He knew what he was doing was wrong. He didn't have to take it this far."

"Manned up"???

The two boys were both 12 years old. This is the victim:



In the normal world, that is called "a child".


http://online.wsj.com/article/AP04a5c150e798427cb950111fe83eda68.html

A 13-year-old boy has pleaded guilty to a juvenile delinquency charge of unlawful possession of a weapon and misdemeanor reckless endangerment for the accidental shooting death of his friend.

What a sad, bad joke. "Reckless endangerment". That's what 12-yr-olds do to themselves and others every day of their lives. What kind of society treats 12-yr-olds like adults, with adult brains and adult accountability? When will the middle ages / Puritan era end in your part of the continent?

http://www.saratogian.com/articles/2011/01/01/news/doc4d1fef32a8fff285376720.txt

On Dec. 22, a 12-year-old boy in Gansevoort found a gun in a drawer in his father’s bedroom and accidentally shot and killed his seventh-grade friend Nicholas Naumkin.

The following week, the boy was charged with the second-degree manslaughter, a felony. His father was charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor, for leaving the handgun and “unsecured loose ammunition” in the residence with the two boys alone.

Sounds like "reckless endangerment" to me, at the very best. Asshole.

Saratoga County District Attorney James A. Murphy III pointed out that pistol permits require the applicant to take a course on gun safety, which covers gun storage.

Oh, yay.

Let's have people take courses before they get permits to drive, but not bother having any fucking laws about what they may do once they get behind the wheel.

“We don’t need any laws to lock up our guns. We need responsible gun owners and education for youth with regard to guns,” gun shop owner Kevin Zacharewicz said.

WHO "WE", big breathing he-man?

You don't speak for dead kids, or their parents, so take your "we" and shove it up the barrel of your gun.

“It is up to the individual as to how people should store their guns,” said Jacob J. Rieper, vice president of legislative and political affairs for the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association. He said there is no law in New York state that requires people to store their firearms in any specific way and said there should not be one.

In your useless and worthless opinion, dirtball.



formatting fixed

[Atypical Liberal]

49. If you have kids, lock up your firearms.

First of all, there's something terribly wrong here. I can understand not being angry and vengeful towards the kid, but the gun-owner dad is another story. Allowing kids access to guns should be an extremely serious offense. Men who are responsible for that should pay a heavier price than a slap on the wrist and they certainly should not enjoy the continuation of their gun rights.

I agree.

Secondly there are the improvements in gun law that the grieving parents would like to see.

The Naumkin's say they'd like to see all gun owners have liability insurance for their firearms, and take a required safety course every three years. They want that course to include family members of a gun owner, as well.

The liability insurance would be insanely cheap. We have a million dollar umbrella policy and they didn't even ask if we had firearms. This is not surprising. People who are buying insurance policies are probably stable, law-abiding people. These kinds of people are probably hardly ever involved in firearm crimes or accidents.

If this was a big liability concern, it would show up in your homeowners or other insurance policies.

As for training, it is impossible to enforce training if the government doesn't now who owns firearms, which it shouldn't.

Yuri Naumkin would also want to see signs displayed at homes with guns to increase transparency.

"We're supposed to have a right to know who they are and they have a right to express it freely," said Yuri.

Sorry, but no one has a right to know what guns I own any more than what kind of jewelry I own. If you have a child that plays with other children, and you are concerned about firearms in their home, you should do two things:

1) Educate your child about what to do if they encounter a gun. The Eddie Eagle program is great - Stop! Don't Touch! Tell and adult!
2) Ask your child's friends' parents if they have firearms and if they safely store them.


What do you think? Isn't it reasonable for parents to want to know if there are guns in the homes where their children visit?

Yes, it is quite reasonable. Such parents should ask the adults who live in those homes.

Safe storage laws, mental health screening, mandatory training, and severe sanctions for infractions, these and other policies would help.

I am somewhat ambivalent about safe storage laws. When I was growing up, my father kept a loaded pistol in his nightstand. And he had a full gun case in his office full of firearms and ammunition. I used to sneak them out sometimes when I got home from school, before my parents got home from work, and shoot things in the woods with them (matchbox cars, model planes, etc.) Of course, I was trained in firearm safety from about 8 years old, so I always "played" with the guns safely, knowing my target, my backstop, etc. And I also showed our guns to friends on occasion. But again, I knew firearm safety, and always checked to see if they were loaded, handled them safely, etc.

So it is not necessary to lock your firearms up if you have responsible, educated kids in your house.

That said, once I had kids, I bought a gun safe. It's not much, it was $150 and while it satisfies the California Department of Justice requirement for firearm storage, it's little more than a lockable filing cabinet. But it is sufficient to keep the kids out of the guns. As much as I teach my kids gun safety (my oldest is 5, I took her to the range and she shot my .44 1851 Navy last month), I don't want to be that guy.

So I tend to lean towards the idea that if you have kids, you should lock up your guns. But I also have the luxury of living in a very low-crime neighborhood and city (although last year someone tried to hot-wire our garden tractor out of our fenced-in back yard). I've never had cause to retrieve a firearm for defensive use, and I feel it is unlikely that I will. So I'm OK with keeping my loaded defensive pistol in the safe.

But not everyone lives in such peaceful environments. Some people might need speedier access to their gun. Then again, there are tools, like the GunVault, that allow speedy access to firearms while still keeping them secure.

As for mental health screening, I am satisfied with the current NICS background checks. States do need to do their part and make sure that they submit information on their mentally unstable people. I would like to see an opt-out FOID system so that all firearm owners get run through NICS, not just those who buy firearms through FFL dealers.

As for the severe sanctions, again, I am torn. In the case cited, it sounds like a neighbor kid was killed. In this case, their most definitely should be severe penalties, and there almost certainly will be. Even if there are no severe criminal penalties, there will almost certainly be a civil lawsuit that will take the gun owner to the cleaners, provided they have anything to take, which may be why they are wishing there was an insurance policy they could claim against.

In the case where a family member, like a child, is killed through negligent firearm ownership, I don't think prison accomplishes much. You won't punish a parent any harsher than the punishment of being responsible for the death of your child, and it seems that that is a mistake that would never be made again so there is not much case for rehabilitation, either.

[iverglas]

55. but if you don't

Oh, well, who cares ... it's not like this is at all similar to other human behaviours and could in at least some instances be deterred by laws and enforcement and the possibility of punishment ... that being what we actually do in the case of behaviours that endanger people ... thus potentially saving some lives instead of just weeping crocodile tears when there are deaths ... nah, this is the sort of thing that we should just let people get sued for, or beat themselves up over, and then just sit back and wait til next time ...

[Atypical Liberal]

63. That is correct.

this is the sort of thing that we should just let people get sued for, or beat themselves up over, and then just sit back and wait til next time.

Sounds good to me.

[Name removed]

58. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[iverglas]

60. rules violation +3

Personal attack, bigotry and disruption, all rolled up in one little post.