The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Gunset Training Group or its affiliates.
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Irresponsible gun owners really irritate me. Correct firearm safety and storage practices should be holy writ for gun owners. But it’s not. Seems to me sometimes it’s the exception rather than the rule. Here’s a couple of examples of what I’m talking about:
A couple of weeks ago I read this story on the news:
6 year old shoots 3 year old brother
The short version, if you chose not to read the story, is this: dad keeps a loaded gun on top of the refrigerator for “protection” since he’s a “former” gang member. He showed it to his 6 year old son and tells him “this is for grown-ups only”. Later, his two boys are playing cops and robbers and the 6 year remembers where there’s a gun. He gets it off the top of the refrigerator and shoots his 3 year old brother in the head, killing his brother. His father is being charged with a felony.
Now many of you may think, “but he’s a gang member, he shouldn’t have a gun anyway”. I guarantee you there are hundreds of thousands of loaded firearms in American homes as I write this that are not stored in a way that would keep them from the hands of unauthorized people.
This year my agency has handled more pistol “giveaways” than seems to be the norm. What’s a “giveaway”, you ask? Well, it’s not what the owners of those pistols called it. They called it theft. But when you leave your loaded pistol in your unlocked vehicle that’s parked in your driveway or on the street, I call that a “giveaway”.
And finally, let me give some details about an incident I referenced in a post about safety earlier this year: You should be paranoid. A year ago, a family in my jurisdiction was sitting in their living room one sunny Sunday November afternoon watching football on the TV. Imagine their surprise when out of the blue a bullet fired from an AK clone comes through the ceiling and landed on the floor a few feet away from them.
At about the same time a block away, a guy walking his dog heard gun shots in the distance and then heard bullets zipping past his head.
Needless to say, they both called 911 and patrol units from my agency responded. They investigated and found the shooters were a group of guys who were shooting rifles and pistols on a piece of property that was just outside of the city. It was a farm in the township. They were shooting in a field that was relatively flat. Beyond where they were shooting was a subdivision. They readily admitted to shooting the weapons, but stated they were shooting at targets on the ground. The house they hit and the man they almost hit were @500 yards away.
The next day we got another call from a house in that neighborhood. They found a spent bullet on the play set in their backyard. This house was also about 500 yards away. It too was a 7.62 FMJ bullet.
Fast forward 6 weeks to a few days before Christmas. We get another call from the same neighborhood. This family was preparing a little used bedroom upstairs for family members coming in for the holiday. Imagine their surprise when they find a 7.62 FMJ round embedded in a window frame and the glass from that window cracked. This house was over a mile away from where the idiots shooting that AK were “shooting at the ground”.
Really? Anyone believe they were “shooting at the ground”? Those idiots could’ve killed several people that day.
The end result? Nothing. The prosecutor declined to press any kind of charges against any of those idiots. Ohio law doesn’t really cover situations like that. I had to give their AK back to them with an admonishment to be more responsible.
So it’s a civil issue, right? Well guess what? When the people who’s property was shot up came in to get a copy of the report so they knew who to sue for damages, they got reports with no names or addresses. Ohio public record laws required our records people to black out the names of the idiots since they weren’t criminally charged. Ain’t that a kick in the teeth?
I can tell you that those idiots unfortunately represent all of the decent gun owners in the country. And those idiots made at least two of the victims go from being neutral on gun issues to not supporting gun rights at all.
Thanks, idiots.
Be paranoid. We don’t need to give the antis any more reasons to go after our guns.
