Another school shooting

NSFW · 10-24-2006, 04:52 AM

There is a pistol range near me that has a braille translation on the sign where the rules are posted, next to the door that leads into the range. One day, while going in, I pointed directed my girlfriend's attention to the braille and we snickered. Later we went back out to exchange guns (we were renting) and the guy behind the counter handed my a newspaper article about a customer at a range facility. His vision is bad enough that he can't read, but he can put the necessary percentage of his bullets in the right places to pass a test that allows him to carry a gun.

On the one hand, here's a guy who lives in a not-very-nice part of town, a guy who would be an easy victim, a ripe target for a hoodlum, and thus a guy who has more cause to buy a gun than I do. On the other hand, one of the tenets of shooting is that you take a good look behind your target and make sure there's nobody back there to get hit by strays and over-penetrated rounds.

Given the choice, would I take away his ability to defend himself from an attacker he can barely see, on the theory that he might fire into a crowd by mistake? I'm sure he's wise enough to at least know where people are likely to be, and not reckless enough to fire indiscriminantly. I would, somewhat uncomfortably, opt to trust his judgement rather than try to take his gun.

What would you do? The same? Leave him to be preyed upon but the hoods in his neighborhood? Ideally, he'd move, but economics don't favor that outcome. He's not well-off, so moving to a nicer neighborhood isn't a practical option; he's in a place where he can make his commute safely, to the best job he's had in years. It's just not a very nice neighborhood though. Does he deserve to carry a device that he gives him a chance to deter (or if necessary defeat) an attacker? Or should it be taken away from him?

10-24-2006, 04:52 AM	#25
NSFW Non-practicing agnostic Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 9	There is a pistol range near me that has a braille translation on the sign where the rules are posted, next to the door that leads into the range. One day, while going in, I pointed directed my girlfriend's attention to the braille and we snickered. Later we went back out to exchange guns (we were renting) and the guy behind the counter handed my a newspaper article about a customer at a range facility. His vision is bad enough that he can't read, but he can put the necessary percentage of his bullets in the right places to pass a test that allows him to carry a gun. On the one hand, here's a guy who lives in a not-very-nice part of town, a guy who would be an easy victim, a ripe target for a hoodlum, and thus a guy who has more cause to buy a gun than I do. On the other hand, one of the tenets of shooting is that you take a good look behind your target and make sure there's nobody back there to get hit by strays and over-penetrated rounds. Given the choice, would I take away his ability to defend himself from an attacker he can barely see, on the theory that he might fire into a crowd by mistake? I'm sure he's wise enough to at least know where people are likely to be, and not reckless enough to fire indiscriminantly. I would, somewhat uncomfortably, opt to trust his judgement rather than try to take his gun. What would you do? The same? Leave him to be preyed upon but the hoods in his neighborhood? Ideally, he'd move, but economics don't favor that outcome. He's not well-off, so moving to a nicer neighborhood isn't a practical option; he's in a place where he can make his commute safely, to the best job he's had in years. It's just not a very nice neighborhood though. Does he deserve to carry a device that he gives him a chance to deter (or if necessary defeat) an attacker? Or should it be taken away from him?

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