TomJ
Contributing Member
I will be honest. I am more into gun control now than I was years ago before I shot. Since I took up pistol shooting a few years back as a serious hobby rather than a once a summer event, I have run into more mentally unstable people and training impaired people at the range than I ever new existed! I mean this seriously.
I have friends I have made over the years who carry and are not at all familiar with their weapon or shooting in general. I think these people are an outright danger. I also have friends who carry who laugh because they got away with taking the carry class with a guy who overloaded the class and only had each person shoot thirty rounds. I asked this person how much range time she has put in since then and she never went back to the range, but she carries. She has the permit but has no idea what she is doing. The thought of her out there with a gun scares me. It angers me that the instructor, under the guise of not wanting to deprive anyone of the rights to carry any longer than possible, beefed up what should have been a class of 12 to a class of 30.........at one hundred dollars a pop.
There is a guy who shows up at our range and routinely breaks all the safety rules you can imagine. Last week he was fiddling with his AR and was pointing it at the guy standing next to him! Suddenly the guy realized it and jumped back and spoke sharply to the gun. The guy laughed it off and said that the two of us, who both said he should keep the muzzle down range at all times, must be "Pink People." I assume he means we are gay because we did not want to risk getting shot?? I pack up and leave when he shows up, and yes I reported him but was told he had been a member for thirty five years and was a good guy.
I like guns and I think responsible adults should be allowed to have them and use them safely. But like with many rights, there have to be limitations so that the exercising of one's rights does not deprive others of their rights. It would be foolish, for example, to allow people to shoot fifty caliber rifles in densely populated areas unless that was done in a secure location. It is also a fact we can change our rules if we make them and then find they do not work.
I am constantly disappointed by the people in these discussion groups who say they never met a gun control advocate who made sense and those who go further and descend into stereotypes and name calling. Maybe these people need to look deeper into the issue or meet other people.
I have met lots of great people at the range and gun shops I go to. But there are a number of them that have made me support the idea of having some limitations and rules to protect the right to life of their fellow citizens.
What you're describing sounds like an enforcement problem, not problems which need additional laws or further restrictions of our rights. By way of example, what you experienced at your range would not have been allowed at the gun club I belong to. We have range safety officers who are respectful but vigilant. Someone being a good guy would not be an excuse for unsafe behavior. I live in a Chicago suburb and can assure you that if I shot any kind of gun here, unless it was at a range, I'd be arrested.
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