A couple people had expressed interest in this topic, and I have a bit of extra time for a couple days, so here goes:
Bona fides: I am a former infantry NCO and sniper, hunter, competitive shooter, reloader, hobby gunsmith, sometimes firearms trainer and currently work in a gun shop, mostly on the paperwork/compliance side. Back in the day, was a qualified expert with every standard small arm in the US inventory circa 2003 (M2, 4, 9, 16, 19, 249, 240B, 21, 24, 82 etc.), and today hang around the 75th percentile of USPSA classifications. I've shot Cap-and-Ball, Trap and Sporting Clays badly; Bullseye and PRS somewhat better and IDPA/USPSA/UML/Two-gun with some local success. Been active in the 2A community since the mid-90s, got my first instructor cert in high school, and have held a CPL for almost twenty years now.
I certainly don't claim to be an expert in every aspect of firearms, there's huge areas that escape my knowledge base, but if you've got questions I'll do my best to answer.
Technical questions
Gun control proposals for feasibility
Industry
Training
Wacky opinions
General geekery
Some competition links (not my own) just for the interested.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=U5IhsWamaLY&t=173
https://youtube.com/watch?v=93nEEINflXE
https://youtube.com/watch?v=utcky0zq10E
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
If you use a good quality gunsafe/trigger lock, conceal it well, and don't wave it around, it presents basically no added risk on net. The basic rules of range safety/trigger discipline make it basically impossible to shoot someone by accident if followed properly and consistently.
The biggest risk to having a gun in the home isn't accidents, it is a (more likely to be successful) suicide. You can judge that risk, I can't. I have never been suicidal in any serious way, and so I don't want to speak on what it looks/feels like; but when I went through a particular rough patch I did not have firearms in my home for a six month period out of an abundance of caution; and when friends have gone through things like eg divorce/infidelity I got a bunch of guys together from out mutual church and we went over and had a few beers and said "Hey, we're worried about you, let's take the guns out of your home for a bit."
That's the most important thing, and unfortunately one that so many people are uncomfortable thinking about. I've been a lifelong gun owner and gun user and 2a advocate; but the numbers don't lie. The majority of gun deaths are suicides, and if you take out gang violence and other shit that likely does not apply to your family it becomes the vast majority of possible deaths that you are at risk for. Accidents are by comparison practically non-existent, and responsible conservative gun use practically zeros that out.
My first senior patrol leader from the Boy Scouts shot himself while he was in college, as did my first cub-scout pack leader when he was going through a messy divorce. {My Scoutmaster actually got shot too, but it was his wife's new boyfriend. Boy Scouts featured a lot of gun violence come to think of it.} While I oppose Red Flag laws as the worst of modern gun restrictions, I think we as a community need to think about helping people be responsible during personal crises. If someone is in a high risk situation (fired, cancer diagnosis, infidelity) when you think about it the odds of a DGU have remained constant while the odds of suicide are acute at that time; family/friends would do well to try to remove guns from the home for a period and return them later.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link