Quote:
Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz
I say this as a gun owner/user (I would wager on a # of guns basis, I'm near the top for CP users), but that is not a reasonable idea.
There are a huge number of hobbies that require special safety instruction (motorcycles, anything to do with outdoors/bears, water safety), why single out guns to spend a whole bunch of money on?
It's our hobby, we should be the ones bearing the cost of passing it along, and reducing it's impact on society.
The fact of the matter is, if we do our part to safely/properly store our guns, people that shouldn't be coming into contact with them (children for example) shouldn't ever come into contact with them. When I go shooting with someone for the first time, I treat them like a child that has never held a gun before. I take responsibility for making sure, I, and they are safe.
No one that enters my house needs to be versed in gun safety, because they aren't ever going to get to the guns unless I'm the one opening the safe.
If we want to make a compelling argument about why we should be able to own something, we need to do better ourselves, and provide a solution that demonstrates our own responsibility, not say things like "The government should take responsibility for our inability to use these things safely."
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I agree with pretty much everything you said. Hit the nail on the head. Anyone that comes into my house has no idea that I own firearms. So that's a good thing, both from a safety and op-sec perspective.
Here's a bit of a thought exercise, though, with everything going on in the world.
The only thing that I think would be useful for this country, is for every citizen to maybe take some more responsibility for our national defense. So I would really just advocate for a "territorial defense" type of component in grade 12 where everyone learned to safely operate, disassemble/clean/maintain and reassemble firearms, as well as basic safety and marksmanship skills. Now you can add whatever other component onto that like survival skills etc., but that would be a bonus.
Honestly, this country relies way too much on our cousins down south to come to our aid if SHTF. The Russian war on Ukraine really spells this out in clear terms. You have to have a population that's willing, knowledgable and brave enough to stand up to an invader. Not saying it has to be big bad Russia, but Canada is generally inept when it comes to anything to do with National Defense. And no, let's not lean on the fact that we're in NATO to save our ass if things ever go that way.
It would inevitably fall on the 2.2 million firearms owners to be the second line of defense for this country. Wouldn't it be better to have a population that knows how to be useful in this scenario, however unlikely it is??