The hunting gun: a thought experiment

It's not really physics, but psychology.

Which means people run into the problem of their being no clear answers.

Guns keep brawn from ruling all physical contests. That's nice if you're a street-stupid weakling like me.

I associate them with violent people, and I hate violent people because I suck at violence.

Which probably means I should be jealous of guns, since they're "the great equalizer". But I wouldn't trust myself with a gun (or any other weapon) either.

edited 22nd Jul '11 8:46:40 AM by Medinoc

^

Well yeah, for the same reason I don't trust myself with an F-22, I don't know how to fly.

You just haven't learned to fly a gun yet.

Honestly, this device in the OP would be great as a training aid. I wouldn't want it mandatory, but it'd be a kickass device for teaching newcomers how to use guns without having any fear of harming others. The biggest roadblock that I get when teaching people who are uncomfortable with guns how to shoot is that they somehow think that they'll drop it and make it randomly fire even with the safety on, going through like 5 children and hitting a propane tank.

They think the damn thing is going to just go off in their hands for no reason.

edited 22nd Jul '11 9:02:14 AM by Barkey

Sounds like my GF's mother, the GF on the other hand; started hoping up and down like a 7 year old when I said I was taking her to the range.

The learn how guns work, learn proper firearm safety, then go to the range and fire off a couple dozen rounds.

edited 22nd Jul '11 9:10:02 AM by Kino

Got your comma and your semicolon switched out there.

^

Sieg Heil!

edited 22nd Jul '11 9:17:41 AM by Barkey

Nobody should trust themselves with a gun. Constant vigilance is very appropriate when it comes to firearms. Much like industrial chemicals, medical procedures, or even an automobile.

Why not?

Was it not clear from what rest of what I said?

Why shouldn't people trust themselves with firearms? If you can't trust yourself, then you shouldn't use it; this apples to more than guns.

don't you trust people with guns?

Kino I don't trust anyone with anything period. I cut my own hair.

edited 22nd Jul '11 9:30:20 AM by joeyjojo

Well, then I guess you'll have to cut off a lot of society then.

Me, I say not trusting means you check and double-check. Maybe triple-check. As I said, it means constant vigilance. For example, I've never seen anybody harmed by checking to see if a gun is in fact, unloaded, but if they were, I'd say because they were trusting that they wouldn't cause harm while checking.

edited 22nd Jul '11 9:31:44 AM by blueharp

I would have to check up on that

^^

When I say trust, it means that I trust myself to double check.

I'm around guns all the time and I still always check the chamber before I do anything, even if I know for a fact my gun is empty. Anyone who doesn't isn't being safe.

And when I say you should not trust yourself with a gun, I do mean double-check.

I have never seen anybody harmed by being cautious with firearms. I have seen the opposite.

Anyone who knows 2 cents about firearms safety already does that, you're making it seem like people who are armed can't be trusted.

No, I'm not.

I'm saying anybody who knows anything about firearms knows they can't trust that things won't go wrong.

Are you confusing me with somebody else?

Admittedly, it is a bad idea to walk in front of anybody with a gun and trust that they won't fire, but that's kinda twisting the point.

I get the feeling the miscommunication is coming from using "trust".

"Nobody should trust themselves with a gun. Constant vigilance is very appropriate when it comes to firearms. Much like industrial chemicals, medical procedures, or even an automobile."

Trust and constant vigilance aren't mutually exclusive. Trusting yourself with a gun is knowing what you should and should not be doing, and that you can and will do it. Like double checking the chamber. Similarly, trusting myself with H Cl is knowing that if I follow proper procedures I'm not going to burn my face off and being confident I can follow those procedures, as well as what I should do if the unthinkable were to happen.

I wouldn't trust a 6 year old with a cell phone because they wouldn't know how to use it responsibly. It has nothing to do with perceived levels of inherent danger.

edited 22nd Jul '11 10:53:12 AM by Kashie

Of course it's miscommunication, couldn't you tell? I could tell people were reacting to what they wanted me to have said, not to what I was actually expressing.

But no, I would not trust myself with high concentrations of H Cl either, that's the point of safety protocols, that you can't trust yourself. Constant vigilance is not exclusive with not doing something, it is with doing so appropriately. And that may mean not trusting yourself. That's why I brought up the other things, to point out the applicability is broad-based.

And most 6 year olds can probably handle a cell-phone better than I can, so...yeah.

edited 22nd Jul '11 11:29:48 AM by blueharp

People aren't reacting to what they wanted you to say, they're reacting to what you did say. You just have a different definition of trust than others. "Trusting yourself" = being responsible, at least to most people. The point of having safety protocols is to make it so you can trust yourself. In other words, trusting yourself to be responsible enough to behave with constant vigilance.

In my high school (JROTC) we had a gun range that we used old rifles on, to learn the basics. I trusted myself with a gun much more after that than before, because I learned how to be responsible with one. Still never want to own one, but at least I'm not going to freak out about having to pick one up or anything.

I would like to learn to shoot some day. Not so much because I expect to have to defend myself in the immediate future, and not out of patriotism or some obsession over the Second Amendment. More because it's the kind of skill that I might someday regret not having acquired.

edited 22nd Jul '11 12:16:35 PM by Fighteer

The point I was making is that we have different perspectives on trust, safety, and responsibility.

But people who think I'm saying that it's some horrible horrendous thing are reacting to that idea of what I said, not to what I really said.

What kind of shooting do you want to learn? For hunting, or for self-defense? Well, whichever you want to learn, it's a different set of skills, but the safety part is always the same.

It's a matter of framing, I believe if you frame it as never trusting from the start, you're a lot safer, whether it be guns, electricity, fire, chemicals, automobiles, disease, small children or whatever.

The degree to which you need to assume things will go wrong depends on the particulars, but guns, go on the more rather than less side.

edited 22nd Jul '11 12:36:43 PM by blueharp

^

What I got out of your post was that trusting yourself with a firearm meant being overconfident and thus perhaps lazy with safety protocols Blueharp. For me, trusting myself with a firearm means I'm confident in my ability to be safe with it. Just a miscommunication dude.

^

Just make sure you get a good teacher, that's a very important part of it.

edited 22nd Jul '11 12:31:47 PM by Barkey

About the device in the OP: I think if it were invented, training ranges where they teach newbies to shoot should be required to have it, and guns that the owner wants to use exclusively for hunting should have a toggle switch with the device activated as a default. But for it to be required on all guns, without a toggle switch? No. I want to learn to shoot someday, too, and I want to do that because I might have to protect myself one day with a gun. Something that can't shoot humans is utterly pointless.