Perhaps you could try carefully reading what I wrote before telling me to “… shut the fuck up.”

Did you ever hear of sarcasm? I was implying that a trained civilian can responsible and safely carry a concealed gun, just like a trained soldier does. The whole point of allowing licensed concealed carry is to insure public safety while also respecting the right of self-defense. A college campus is no different than any other public location.

The Second Amendment of our Constitution is intended to protect citizens from government abuse by insuring the means to rebel. Remember that American Colonists were able to fight a war against abuse by the British government because they were armed? Now, in the name of public safety, you tell us trust a government to license weapons and restrict firearm ownership!

So to be absolutely clear

While reasonable background checks for gun buyers, are largely meaningless since true enforcement of all sells is impossible.
We have already enforceable laws for confiscation of weapons when abuse occurs.

I don’t trust our government licensing and requiring people to have the kind of how-to-use-it and respect-for-it training the military provides in order to purchase and carry a firearm!
I don’t trust our government taking other steps to restrict firearm ownership to the responsible!

Paul

Actually, we have no way of knowing that, do we? Which consumer protection agency sort of entity has the data on testing, what are the testing protocols, what independent agency designates guns as safe and keeps track of incidents and issues recalls, etc?

There are many concealable weapons today have no safeties. I have a small .38 special revolver and a Glock handgun (both purchased brand new). The former has no safeties, and Glock handguns only have trigger safeties. So if the trigger of either catches on something (say, a bit of loose fabric or a pen in the pocket of your jeans), it can very easily discharge.

I would include having a loose gun jostling around with various other crap in your pocket (or purse, backpack, whatever) under “intentionally doing something stupid”. Which, of course, doesn’t mean that people don’t do it, or that it isn’t a safety concern when it comes to random folks who may or may not have a clue what they’re doing but are nonetheless wandering around with guns.

It may be a pedantic point, but any well-designed modern firearm is not going to discharge unless the trigger is pulled; that doesn’t mean there aren’t any number of stupid ways to unintentionally pull the trigger, but it does mean that the gun doesn’t simply “go off” on its own. It goes off because the trigger was pulled.

Even though the military trains 18 years olds to handle automatic weapons and then sends them into combat, it just isn’t possible for a trained civilian to responsible and safely carry a concealed gun and perhaps use it in self-defense, without killing numerous by-standers.

Apparently so.

But ignoring the real-world data. Do you support requiring people to have the kind of how-to-use-it and respect-for-it training the military provides in order to purchase and carry a firearm? Do you support background checks, licensing, confiscation of weapons when abuse occurs, and other steps to restrict firearm ownership to the responsible?

If not, then shut the fuck up.

You make an excellent point.

Didn’t the one guy who actually had a gun at the Gabrielle Giffords’ shooting come very close to killing the person who had finally taken the gun away from Loughner? If everyone there had had guns, how much more chaos and death would have ensued?

(I think I am quoting an advert from the anti-NRA from many years ago.)