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[–] 10 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

You don’t accidentally squeeze a trigger hard enough to fire.

Yes you do. What do you suppose trigger discipline is for?

It's trivially easy to accidentally discharge a firearm. People kill their loved ones like this all the time. Guns are dangerous and their presence is a mortal threat to everyone around them. Responsible gun ownership is an oxymoron.

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  • [–] 12 points 5 hours ago (1 child)

    It's not accidental, it's negligent. They're not the same.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 hours ago*

    Yeah, there is no such thing as an accidental discharge. Only negligence. Unless the weapon can fire without the trigger being pulled (some old guns can, but basically every modern firearm has mechanisms to prevent that) there is no such thing as an “accident”. You were negligent in handling the firearm, and your negligence caused it to fire.

    And if you hit someone with that negligent discharge, your negligence caused them to be shot because you were negligently aiming it at them. It wasn’t an “accident” that they got shot, because it wasn’t fully preventable and you should have prevented it. The only reason the “accident” occurred is because your negligence directly allowed the chain of events that led to the gun being fired, and led to the person being shot.

    We should treat “accidental” discharges as if the person intentionally ignored the safety guidelines that they undoubtedly knew to follow. And if you’re intentionally ignoring safety procedures, then you’re causing a dangerous situation due to willful negligence. And willful negligence can be a criminal act when it involves injuries and death.

    Even in cases of a child getting a gun and playing with it, it’s not an accident when the child discharges the firearm. Maybe it was an accident on the child’s part, but it was the parents’ negligence that allowed the child to access the firearm in the first place.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 hours ago

    If they're stored properly (locked in a safe, with the ammunition locked up separately somewhere else) then they're not particularly dangerous.

    I don't have any guns in my house, but if I did and they were properly stored I'd be far more concerned about someone grabbing a hammer or other tool from my workshop room and killing me with that instead.

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