People in my neck of the woods talk about fire arms the way I talk about video games or TV shows. They sound like recreation rather than self defense. I don’t know if knowledge is the only factor; a sense of seriousness about firearms seems to be lacking.

That's exactly the point. Those of us that want gun control don't want to rip them from the hands of responsible gun-owners.

We want common-sense laws that let us research and prevent gun violence. We want to keep guns out of the hands of those too young to understand them, criminals, abusers, stalkers, and the mentally-ill. We want people to have to understand how to safely operate them before purchasing guns, going hunting, or obtaining a concealed-carry permit. We want to limit gun crimes and school shootings.

But Republicans, the NRA, and gun lobbies oppose all of these popular positions most Americans agree on, even though it results in more gun deaths. There's no compromising with fundamentalists...

Lol, ranges aren't necessarily any better. Hopefully they have someone enforcing safety rules, but there are a great deal of them that are in suburban areas, and even the rural ones can be within striking range of homes.

My wife worked with someone that didn't know that bullets come down after you shoot them in the air. People are fucking stupid.

While in military school after boot camp, I was stuck in the barracks because our Chief was extremely strict about letting us use our evening time how we’d like. While mopping the same spot for the 4th hour, I get a call from my wife advising that she’s really scared. A gun had just discharged from the neighbors house, went through our wall, got lodged in our dresser about 2” from my 1.5 year old daughter’s leg. I went to my chief and other instructors, asking to be let out so I can comfort my family. They said no, there’s nothing I can do if I leave and my family can drive to a motel if they feel unsafe.

Coworker of mine was shot through her apartment floor (accidental discharge). She almost died.

It’s genuinely wild to me that Americans let just anyone have the capability to do that.

Maybe those people fell off of the apathy tree.

System works as designed. The second amendment fuckwits never cared about freedom and democracy at all.

Who is protecting your democracy?

Well obviously Dale, the overweight guy who wants nothing more than owing guns and Nazis memorabilia

its usually the people on the right that are touting the 2nd admen, and they are okay with the faciscm.

The common modern interpretation of the 2nd amendment being that gun sales and ownership must be almost completely unregulated is bullshit and not at all the way it was intended to be interpreted. It was supposed to protect the right of people to form and maintain local militias independent from the federal government, hence the "well-regulated militia" wording. The idea was that if local governments maintained their own militias consisting of private citizens it would create a collective military force capable of keeping the federal army in check. The modern emphasis on individual gun ownership with no organization has clearly not served this purpose.

And here I am at 42 considering a pistol for the first time, to protect against other crazy citizens.

Disagree, arms can absolutely be used to resist tyranny. Look at any resitance movement in history. They were effective. French resistance, Viet Cong, Taliban, etc.

Each of these were far out gunned, but they won. In the case of the French resistance is probably more accurate to say they were effective then the allies showed up, but still.

There's more of a lack of willingness to rebel in the US. Power works, people have food, and the largest demographic of the population isn't being shipped off by ICE.

This is Oklahoma.

A "backstop" is not a shooting range...

It's usually just a pile of dirt.

It's wild for a bunch of people in a neighborhood to all be doing this, because even if the first couple are kind of safe about it, every idiot starts thinking jt's safe to just shoot at a can or anything. All they know is they hear gunshots

Yeah, this happened literally 4 houses down from me. We all shoot guns, but we have targets, and those that dont go down to the bridge and fire into the creek bank. This whole thing is because he was lazy/stupid.

Exactly! I don't want to take away your guns. I want fuckheads like these to not be able to buy them in the first place.

Gun ownership should come with a psych test and some kind of basic system for ensuring people understand the gravity of the device they are purchasing at minimum. As it stands, I can walk into a pawn shop a few blocks away and have a weapon in almost no time, and I'm all kinds of fucked up.

Gun owner here. The bar to owning a gun is so ridiculously stupid and easy. Anyone who says otherwise is stupid.

It's not difficult at all.

Fully agree and I'm multiple gun owner. In my home, the firearms and ammunition are stored separately and nothing is loaded.