Victim-blaming is supposed to be a bad thing. In fact, it’s so bad that any critique of what someone could have done to protect themselves from becoming the victim of certain crimes is now taken as victim-blaming, no matter how much you say that you don’t hold them responsible for what happened to them.

For other crimes, it’s a bit different.

In fact, in some cases, you can be charged for being the victim of a crime.

In a move that sparked debate on social media, Eastpointe police Thursday announced a new local law banning storage of a firearm in an unlocked motor vehicle.

The police department posted the ordinance on its Facebook page Thursday afternoon and and by 8 p.m., about 500 people had commented.

Eastpointe police said the ordinance, which has been adopted by the City Council, was in response to an “inordinate” number of guns being stolen from unlocked cars or trucks. Its aim is to make gun owners “more responsible.”

“There is no reason to store a firearm in a vehicle that is not secured, especially overnight,” police officials said in their Facebook post.

…

Police said they wrote their first ticket under the new law Thursday and hoped that it is the last one they will issue. They noted people usually don’t leave their cellphones behind, but often forget to bring their guns into their homes.

Well, yeah, most people don’t leave their cellphones behind. That’s because unless you work in a SCIF, there aren’t many places you’re going to go where you can’t take your phone with you.

Guns, however, are a very different matter. There are a lot of places people can’t carry their guns such as banks, schools, churches, theaters with more than a certain number of seats, daycares, courthouses, hospitals, and bars.

That means the more often you have to leave your gun behind–and let’s be honest, within the span of a month, we almost all hit at least one of these types of places–the easier it becomes for you not to remember it at another time.

Locking the door is all fine and well, but we all forget that as well.

In other words, Eastpointe is upset that people are human. They’re so upset that they’re going to penalize people for being human.

Look, I’m not fond of people leaving their guns in their cars either. I’m not fond of people not locking their doors, while we’re at it. But people who have their guns stolen are the victims here. It would be nice if they were treated as if they were.

Instead, someone’s been penalized because someone else committed a crime.

I don’t care how anti-gunners try to spin it, that’s precisely what happened here, and stuff like that needs to end. Punish criminals instead of creating new rules so you can penalize good people who make slight oversights. We shouldn’t have to lock up our guns like we shouldn’t have to lock up our cars or homes.

The problem is the criminals, not the gun owners.