A Monday night sighting of the convicted killer who escaped from an eastern Pennsylvania prison nearly two weeks ago jolted the surrounding community into high alert and prompted school closures Tuesday, after police warned the inmate now has a weapon.
I would argue that, generally, one isn’t responsible for the crimes that another commits – the perp would have trespassed and stole the rifle. What one does on their own property is generally of their own concern. This is assuming, of course, that the reason in which this occurred has no laws on the storage of firearms (whether such laws are justified, or not is separate argument, ofc).
Let’s say you’re a reactor engineer, and you’re safeguarding a package of plutonium being unloaded from a truck while some others go to get equipment to move it. You look at a particularly fluffy cloud in the sky for 25 minutes, then look down and the plutonium is gone. You apologize to your superiors about the oversight, not knowing what criminal might have trespassed in the area. Then, terrorists blow up a city with a dirty bomb.
Are you a terrorist directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people? No. Are you still partly responsible, enough that you should lose any potential jobs in nuclear engineering? Absolutely. Carrying dangerous items bears responsibility for their safeguarding.
While I don’t think laws exist for gun storage in most of the US. It is very well known that you should lock up guns when not in use. Seriously there are ads about it on YouTube ( I don’t know why, I don’t and have never had a gun, nor anyone in my immediate family) at the very least he deserves to be bullied for making such an obvious bad decision. I want this to be kept in mind you live in the same state as Kensington… and you think it’s a good idea to leave guns open?
Suggestions enforced by tutting on social media are not a substitute for actual laws with actual repurcussions.
That’s what irks me. Say we get a weekly report about another child shooting their brother with an unsecured loaded gun. That just prompts observatory responses from gun nuts: “Oh yeah, generally it’s a good idea to secure your guns and keep the ammo separate. Here’s a handy youtube guide for setting one up if you feel like it.”
It infuriates me to no end that the response is not the same as it is in industrial topics: “There is no such thing as an accident. Just willful ignorance of safety rules/laws.” Let’s make those into laws.
It’s just gun owners jerking each other off because it wasn’t them, they don’t actually care to fix anything and will staunchly oppose trying.
For safe storage, the talking point is usually “Safes are expensive! What about poor people? Do you hate poor people? Do you want them to be raped? Some of them might be black or gay or women! Whose the real nazi now?”.
Of course, they’re not giving away guns for free, so they’re obviously fine with a financial barrier for gun ownership, as long as that money goes into the pockets of gun manufacturers and lobbyists.