"Gun Owner Openly Carries Gun To Little League Game Without Incident" doesn't make for nearly as sensational a headline as "Thirty-Seven Massacred At Redbox Dropoff" and newspapers exist to tell us about sensational events.
I won't deny that there are responsible gun owners, but they're not a problem. The problem is that any nutjob can carry a gun and by the time he or she has demonstrated working knowledge of a safety and trigger, it's too late.
Even the nutjobs we know are nutjobs are allowed to carry.
And yes, there are people who carry as a condition of their job, even when they're not on the job. But they are somewhat answerable to some authority other than their own recognizance.
If someone can figure out how to spot the difference between an armed, responsible individual and an armed, irresponsible nutjob, that person will make a fortune.
"The problem is that any nutjob can carry a gun...."
If you mean legally, that turns out not to be the case. Or at least most states have prior restraint licencing requirements, which have done a great job of weeding out "nutjobs". Even those that don't, like Vermont (forever, never got into 19th and early 20th century anti-black/immigrant gun grabbing), Alaska, Wyoming, and populated Arizona, where you can carry concealed if you're not a criminal or an adjudicated "nutcase", have had no problems of this sort (if they had, you and I would have heard about them).
Per the GAO and scholar Clayton Cramer, as of the summer of 2013 there were 8 million licensed concealed carriers. If this is a problem, where's the blood on the streets?
Or is the problem rank bigotry by people who know nothing about these sorts of people?
>"Gun Owner Openly Carries Gun To Little League Game Without Incident" doesn't make for nearly as sensational a headline as "Thirty-Seven Massacred At Redbox Dropoff" and newspapers exist to tell us about sensational events.
I wish that 'Seemingly Responsible Gun-Owning Ex-Policeman/Soldier Accidentally Leaves Gun in Movie Theater Seat' informed the debate a little more. Happened twice to me while working as a movie theater usher in Arkansas.
I won't deny that there are responsible gun owners, but they're not a problem. The problem is that any nutjob can carry a gun and by the time he or she has demonstrated working knowledge of a safety and trigger, it's too late.
Even the nutjobs we know are nutjobs are allowed to carry.
And yes, there are people who carry as a condition of their job, even when they're not on the job. But they are somewhat answerable to some authority other than their own recognizance.
If someone can figure out how to spot the difference between an armed, responsible individual and an armed, irresponsible nutjob, that person will make a fortune.