Except, you're wrong about me in all particulars. But while I follow gun safety rules scrupulously, I also know guns aren't magic - they're machines. And as machines you can keep them safe several ways. Responsible gun owners use multiple safety rules to protect against failure of any one or even two safety barriers, but that doesn't mea…
Except, you're wrong about me in all particulars. But while I follow gun safety rules scrupulously, I also know guns aren't magic - they're machines. And as machines you can keep them safe several ways. Responsible gun owners use multiple safety rules to protect against failure of any one or even two safety barriers, but that doesn't mean guns can fire unless they're loaded with live ammunition. If you obsessively control live ammunition rather than the firearm, you can keep the gun just as safe as when you obsessively control the firearm. For obvious reasons this is a lot harder for responsible gun owners - you actually want to shoot your gun, not quarantine your entire house of ammunition, and you'll have a lot more ammunition than guns even if you only own a single box of rounds or shells - so it's not a practical control for a firearm owner, but it IS a real control. No live round in the chamber, no bullet out the muzzle regardless of what you do to the gun. We are in agreement that Alec Baldwin is an asshole who hates guns so he isn't a responsible gun owner - because he's not one at all. But the safety rules in place for the set would work if followed - doesn't matter what you do to a gun if it never has live rounds in it. Repeating the fundamental gun safety rules doesn't change that guns will not go off without ammunition. So while I would never, ever point a gun at someone and I do follow all gun safety rules in my home and at my range, I also understand how a Hollywood set is different and why - because they do crap for dramatic effect that would never be safe in real life. I understand that guns take live rounds to fire, so that if you scrupulously control ammunition you can keep guns every bit as safe as if you scrupulously control the guns.
So no, I fully understand firearms, I can (and have) disassembled every firearm I own down to its basic components and the reassembled them, and in many instances have built them entirely from unassembled basic components. But though Alec Baldwin is a horrible person and an anti-gun fanatic, I'm not going to ignore that, if practiced as he had every expectation they were, the controls on ammunition and the loading of firearms were more than adequate to protect safety - because guns without live rounds cannot fire. Just because we do things entirely differently doesn't mean he has to do things the same way.
And the way to make more people who support gun rights and responsible gun ownership is to familiarize them with guns, not say "do not ever handle firearms". You take people to the range, teach them, let them responsibly fire a gun, and let them see that guns aren't black magic. The last thing you should do is tell someone never to handle them (unless they're a convicted felon or someone else rightly barred from owning them). Your mindset is entirely wrong there - more people being taught what guns are and how to handle them is better for all of us.
Except, you're wrong about me in all particulars. But while I follow gun safety rules scrupulously, I also know guns aren't magic - they're machines. And as machines you can keep them safe several ways. Responsible gun owners use multiple safety rules to protect against failure of any one or even two safety barriers, but that doesn't mean guns can fire unless they're loaded with live ammunition. If you obsessively control live ammunition rather than the firearm, you can keep the gun just as safe as when you obsessively control the firearm. For obvious reasons this is a lot harder for responsible gun owners - you actually want to shoot your gun, not quarantine your entire house of ammunition, and you'll have a lot more ammunition than guns even if you only own a single box of rounds or shells - so it's not a practical control for a firearm owner, but it IS a real control. No live round in the chamber, no bullet out the muzzle regardless of what you do to the gun. We are in agreement that Alec Baldwin is an asshole who hates guns so he isn't a responsible gun owner - because he's not one at all. But the safety rules in place for the set would work if followed - doesn't matter what you do to a gun if it never has live rounds in it. Repeating the fundamental gun safety rules doesn't change that guns will not go off without ammunition. So while I would never, ever point a gun at someone and I do follow all gun safety rules in my home and at my range, I also understand how a Hollywood set is different and why - because they do crap for dramatic effect that would never be safe in real life. I understand that guns take live rounds to fire, so that if you scrupulously control ammunition you can keep guns every bit as safe as if you scrupulously control the guns.
So no, I fully understand firearms, I can (and have) disassembled every firearm I own down to its basic components and the reassembled them, and in many instances have built them entirely from unassembled basic components. But though Alec Baldwin is a horrible person and an anti-gun fanatic, I'm not going to ignore that, if practiced as he had every expectation they were, the controls on ammunition and the loading of firearms were more than adequate to protect safety - because guns without live rounds cannot fire. Just because we do things entirely differently doesn't mean he has to do things the same way.
And the way to make more people who support gun rights and responsible gun ownership is to familiarize them with guns, not say "do not ever handle firearms". You take people to the range, teach them, let them responsibly fire a gun, and let them see that guns aren't black magic. The last thing you should do is tell someone never to handle them (unless they're a convicted felon or someone else rightly barred from owning them). Your mindset is entirely wrong there - more people being taught what guns are and how to handle them is better for all of us.