America's Gun Violence

tempo_n_groove said:

dudeman said:

Has anyone on here ever argued that negligence by parents that results in a kid getting their hands on a gun not be met with prosecution?

I haven't seen that. Those parents, or parent if single, should absolutely face charges. 

That was a big topic for a concealed weapons class in Florida in that you MUST keep your firearm(s) secured or result in prosecution.

I agree with that you never see charges brought forth on this if it does happen.

mace1229 said:

tbergs said:

tempo_n_groove said:

dudeman said:

Has anyone on here ever argued that negligence by parents that results in a kid getting their hands on a gun not be met with prosecution?

I haven't seen that. Those parents, or parent if single, should absolutely face charges. 

That was a big topic for a concealed weapons class in Florida in that you MUST keep your firearm(s) secured or result in prosecution.

I agree with that you never see charges brought forth on this if it does happen.

Another one that isn't so simple. This goes back to the continued push back against gun reform and control. I keep hearing many on here say, just enforce the laws. What law and standards of a criminal act are you referring to? There isn't a common law across the country and where there is the language bootstraps the prosecution from bringing a strong criminal case. Criminal negligence is a different standard than just plain old I accidentally left my gun out and my child shot themselves or the gun went off on accident and I shot my girlfriend. Couple this with the fact that the manufacturers don't have to worry about a lawsuit and we just keep chugging along letting people be idiots while doing nothing to change the required standard for ownership of a gun because the NRA and gun lobbyists will never allow it to occur.

The past decade has seen legal measures to prevent gun negligence systematically dismantled. The 2005 Protection of Legal Commerce in Arms Act statutorily inoculated gun manufacturers and dealers from most claims of negligence in gun deaths. This is even more dangerous than it may first sound. Many people unfamiliar with guns assume that they are designed with simple safeguards against unintentional shootings, but this is not always the case. Glock handguns, for example, have no external safety: If a round is chambered and the trigger is squeezed, the gun fires. As Aaron Walsh, a criminal defense attorney in Augusta, Georgia, put it, “With any other product in the world there would be no Glock company because they would be sued out of existence. You don’t have a safety? That can’t be right.” 

Because the firearms industry enjoys exceptions from normal liability, more of the burden for preventing negligence falls to gun owners. Until recently, responsible gun ownership has to some extent been enforced through gatekeeping: State laws limit who can own guns and carry them in public. But advocates for expanded gun rights have been shifting away from an older gun lobby talking point—that we should stop passing new gun control laws and simply enforce the laws we already have—and toward a strategy of dismantling existing legal safeguards. The push for “constitutional carry”—gun carrying by anyone, anywhere, with no licensing required under the pretense that this is a right granted by the Constitution—has radically loosened restrictions on who can own guns and where they may carry them. In several states people may now carry guns on college campuses. In Michigan, guns may be carried openly at K-12 schools. In Iowa, a resident may not be denied a permit to carry a gun in public based on the fact that he or she is blind. In Georgia and other states, guns may be carried in churches and bars. In six states, resident adults may carry concealed handguns with no licensing or training required. Pediatricians in Florida are legally prohibited from asking new parents if they have guns in the home.

With preventative measures falling apart, punishment seems the only remaining legal recourse for enforcing responsibility with guns. But we are not responding to negligence, even egregious negligence, as one might expect. Unintentional shootings frequently go unprosecuted because they don’t always clearly rise to the level of crimes, explained Pete Theodocion, a criminal defense attorney in Augusta, Georgia. “If we are going to take away a person’s liberty and put a person in a cage, we typically require that person to have the mindset of ‘I’m going to do harm now’ as opposed to just acting like a dumbass,” he said.

Yet some of these cases are appalling. A man in Washington practiced drawing a loaded handgun and unintentionally shot and killed his girlfriend’s daughter. A man in Florida twirled a handgun on his finger and killed a pregnant woman. A man in New Mexico handed a loaded rifle to his six-year-old daughter, who unintentionally shot her sister in the neck. None of these gun owners was prosecuted. The district attorney in the New Mexico case told the Farmington Times, “The father did not follow basic and universally accepted firearm safety rules” but “the problem is that the standard for criminal negligence is higher.”

https://newrepublic.com/article/121632/why-are-states-so-reluctant-prosecute-gun-negligence-crime

I agree there should be laws that punish parents who leave guns out and children access them.
But you mentioned something else that I never understood. You said gun manufactures don't have to worry about it.
But why should they? They don't do anything wrong. If someone misuses their product and willingly or not kills someone, why should they be responsible?
Do we ever hold car manufactures responsible for accidents (beyond a defect in the car) or Jack Daniels for every DUI, or JA Henckels when someone gets stabbed? Why would guns be the one exception where the manufacturer is responsible for what someone does with their product, when they themselves have broken no laws? Its not like they are illegally making these guns are illegally adding banned features or something. 

PJPOWER said:

tbergs said:

Can't wait to here how this latest attack could've been averted if YouTube HQ had armed security. That and the fact that this was a handgun will most definitely have people dismissing the problem with semi auto rifles and for any change besides more good guys with guns.

You’re right, it surely would have been avoided it there were so many “gun free zone” signs up that she couldn’t even make her way in.
All kidding aside, I believe pjsoul mentioned that this incident was somewhat of an anomaly in many ways and probably would not benefit any argument that tries to draw major conclusions from it.  Anomalies are hard to avoid whatever measures are taken.