Anyone who lives in a semi-rural area is probably familiar with the sounds of gunshots at various hours of the day, and even sometimes at night. It's the sound of freedom, after all. It's less glorious, though, when you live inside the city limits, and the gunshots are down the street. Believe me.
But when there are tons of times when people read way too much into shots, it's why it's impossible to reason with anti-gunners.
I say "anti-gunners" here because the author I'm addressing is either one of the more "reasonable" types of anti-gunner or he's not particularly hostile toward gun ownership, but at least one of his comments frames the mentality of the gun control crowd's preferred narrative perfectly.
It starts with a story about some gunshots at night, after dark. Now, the author lives near a gun range, which he says expressly, but because it's after dark, it's an issue.
Which I kind of get. If the range is closed, there are questions to be asked, I'm sure.
Yet this bit here? It bothered me.
A long time ago, there was a gun dealer in the state where I lived who had stores in all of the big cities. He made his own TV advertisements, and at the end he’d always grin and shrug and say, “I don’t want to hurt anybody. I just love to sell guns.” What a lovely disconnect. He gets to love selling guns, but he doesn’t have to worry about who shoots them, at what or at whom. Those who sell the guns aren’t held responsible for what people do with them. Same goes for those who make them. More and more, it seems that also applies to those who shoot them. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised if someone finds a pistol slug in my roof, or one of my neighbors starts shooting in the dark.
Those who shoot guns are, in fact, held responsible for what they do. They're held responsible all the time, as they should be when they cross the line. Gun dealers and manufacturers aren't held responsible for what third parties do with the guns they sell because they have literally no control over that. It's like holding a car dealer and the manufacturer responsible for a drunk driving crash. How are they supposed to stop it?
And realistically, car companies could install breathalizers in their cars to prevent drunk driving wrecks. The technology exists and is actually used quite often for people who have a record of drunk driving as a condition of getting their licenses back.
It's more proven than, say, biometrics on firearms, but no one considers that as a viable mandate for some silly reason.
As for the gun store owner's "disconnect," that's the part that really irked me. There's no disconnect here. He sells guns. He conducts the federally mandated background checks. He follows any applicable state laws. Why should he have to worry about who shoots them? If the bill of goods sold to the American people regarding all of these laws, namely that they work to keep bad people from getting guns, what is there to worry about in the first place?
And note, all of this started because he heard gunshots that sounded, at least to him, like someone engaging in target practice at night. There's no evidence they did anything wrong, that they were irresponsible, or anything. They just fired a gun in an area with a known gun range. Could it be someone who was practicing using their firearm in the dark, just in case something went bump in the night and he or she felt the need to bump back?
Nah. Couldn't be.
It must be some deranged idiot just firing into the air blindly, all without any care in the world.
It's kind of difficult to look at someone who makes that kind of leap in so-called logic and see someone who can be reasoned with. He automatically assumes the worst without any evidence, and since you can't provide specific evidence back, he's unlikely to change his view.
You can't reason with unreasonable people, which is why there's never going to be much of a middle ground on guns.
