Glorifying Guns?

Sozobe: there are items out there that will provide you with quick access to your firearm, yet keep it out of the reach of your child. These items are locking pistol boxes. They have a combination of buttons that must be pressed in a certain order that when done properly, a trap door opens and your pistol is readily accessible. Not to mention, if you keep the pistol in one place and the magazine in another, your child is not likely to be able to get to both at once but you can and it only takes about 3 seconds to load and make ready a semi automatic pistol if the magazine is full of ammunition all ready.

I understand that kids and guns don't mix, but if the kid doesn't know about it and is not allowed in your room unsupervised, then there shouldn't be an issue.

Here are just some of the locking pistol cases. I am not saying you should purchase them but this is to be used as an example only: http://www.deansafe.com/pistol_safes_index.html.

Really? I have a 6 year old and a 2 year old and neither of them are even allowed in my room unsupervised. There is no reason for them to.

To each his own, McGentrix. I regularly host playdates, the parents downstairs chatting, the kids playing wherever they want. I will not have a gun in one piece anywhere in the house. Period.

saintsfanbrian, thanks, but that still is more complication than I think would be reasonable. I am deaf, and if something happens in the middle of the night when I'm alone, the first I'll know about it is when the person is in my room. The only thing that would be practical would be to reach under the bed. (Where I kept my old metal heavy flashlight, and what introduced the fleeting thought.) There would not be nearly enough time to remember a code, key it, then somehow move to another area and get the magazine.

Anyway, kids and guns don't mix, yes, I agree with that.

Sozobe - that's the beauty of the safe. The magazine would still be in the gun. I apologize if I didn't make that clear on the other post. With the safes that I have seen, there is a 4 key punch and the trap door opens up. Also there are indentions that your fingers fit in to so you don't even have to look at the buttons. Press them in the right order (which you set) and the trap door opens allowing you to reach in and grab the pistol. All of this takes about 2 seconds.

That sounds way too easy for a very smart kid to learn.

Thanks for the info, it's interesting. Still seems like it's either easy/ accessible or tough/ inaccessible.

Smart kid would have to have time to figure out all of the possible combinations. Theorhetically, you wouldn't leave your child alone for that length of time.

Again, to each his own but that's not how it works in our house. As I'm here at the computer, she's wandering hither and yon -- in my lap now, was in the bedroom a bit ago, making a fort.

Guns aren't gonna happen.

But again, I'm always interested in learning new things, and thanks for the info.

IMO, the benefit would, for the most part, be psychological no? And if it ends up bothering her more, then IMO it would not be helpful.

Just thinking: because people here live for centuries without a gun in the house (at least most of them, and besides those, who had one illigelly), no-one really would think about it, when he is alone or goes through bad neighbourhood.

[From the experiences during my time as probation officer - which is 15 years back - I think, I still know where to get a gun ... within hours.]

True - I was just trying to give her an option. I still think that if you (or any anti gun person) would spend about 1 hour on a range, they might change their mind as to how "dangerous" a legally owned firearm truely is.

Hey, I'm the guy who thinks kids and guns actually DO mix.

As a child I'd have been very responsible with guns, I had a very short hit list and each snot nosed toy stealing kid on the list deserved it.

You think, we used bow and arrow or catapults in our navy?

No I don't think that, but I do think that too many people get their opinions based on what they see on the evening news and do not experience it for themselves. How can you make a decision with out knowledge?

This goes for the majority of things people beleive in or don't.

But it's just my 2 cents worth.

So, like I said, how can you make a decision with out knowledge.

Absence of experience is not the same as absence of knowledge. Experience can be just as detrimental to decision making through the intruduction of bias as lacking experience.

So knowledge is more important than experience, correct?

I can't imagine why you would say that. And, of course, CdK has not said that.

Nope. It depends on what the issue is and how the appeal to authority is being used. In some cases an appeal to authority based on experience is perfectly valid (an obvious example is an eye witness in a court case).

But making an appeal to authority based on experience needs to contain support for that experience being both crucial and not detrimental to the issue being discussed. Otherwise it's just a common fallacy.

E.g.

"You are not black. You are not qualified to speak about the race relations in America."

This would be a fallacy, there's no need to actually have the experience of being black to assert that race relations have improved.

There are some perfectly valid cases in which an appeal to authority is not fallacious.

To give a contextual example, experience with guns would probably give someone knowledge that is otherwise not possible.

But that knowledge needs to then be supported as critical to the issue being describe. Knowledge of how to operate a gun is not necessary to have an informed opinion on gun control. Knowledge about the societal effects of guns and gun control would be more relevant.

Experience with guns can help take away some of the stigma and knee-jerk reactions to guns but it can also introduce a bias (e.g. I love using guns and that influences my opinion).

Here's another example:

vaginas

Men don't have 'em (usually). Does that mean a male gynecologist is unqualified?

Perhaps there are some things he could learn from having a vagina but at the same time not everyone who has a vagina is qualified to be a gynecologist. I'd say that the gynecological experience is more relevant to being qualified for gynecological medicine than is owning a vagina.

So, depending on the issue... sometimes experience is more important and in others knowledge, right?