“[H]e forgot his handgun was in his bag”

Via the Austin American-StatesmanState Rep. Drew Darby charged with taking weapon to Austin airport

Texas State Rep. Drew Darby is facing a felony charge after he attempted to take a weapon through a security screening at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport this month, according to court documents.

[…]

The weapon was found to be in Darby’s brown leather carry-on bag and detected during an X-ray screening and subsequent search of Darby’s luggage, the affidavit said.

A Transportation Security Administration worker flagged an Austin police officer of the discovery, who then confirmed the weapon and ammunition was in the luggage, the affidavit said. Darby told the officer the weapon and magazine belonged to him and he was a concealed pistol license holder, the affidavit said.

Darby “stated he forgot his handgun was in his bag,” the affidavit said.

Ah yes, the ol’ “I forgot it was in there” excuse (that I think I first remember hearing from Barry Switzer back when he was the head coach of the Cowboys).  Pretty much if you are that cavalier about where you left your firearm, I am pretty sure your concealed carry permit ought to be revoked (and indeed, I am not sure you are you should be licensed to own a gun period).

Along these lines, a story from 2012:  That Loaded Gun in My Carry-On? Oh, I Forgot

the T.S.A. says the number of guns found at airport security checkpoints has been steadily rising for the last couple of years. Through Friday, 1,105 guns have been found this year, a pace that is higher than last year’s. In 2011, the total was 1,320, up from 1,123 in 2010, the agency says.

Security experts attribute the increase to two factors: a rise in gun sales and the sharp growth of so-called right-to-carry laws across the country that significantly relax regulations on carrying guns in many areas of public life, from colleges to hospitals.

Invariably, according to the T.S.A., travelers at airports with guns in their carry-on bags say they simply forgot they had them.

And if these people are this careless when going into a place known to have metal detectors and security who are especially focused on finding weapons, how are they behaving in other locations?

FILED UNDER: Guns and Gun Control, US Politics, , , ,
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. ernieyeball says:

    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

    Doesn’t say you have to remember where you keep your firearms.

  2. Todd says:

    Oh come on Steven, don’t be so harsh. What if there was another highjacking? Wouldn’t it be awesome if one of these guys happened to get their “forgotten” gun past the TSA … then “remember” they had it when the time came to shoot the bad guy?

    I know I’d feel so much more comfortable on my next flight if I knew at least a few people were armed. (rolls eyes).

  3. rudderpedals says:

    “No guns for you – ever” I’m thinking would be optimal, in light of having dropped Mrs. rp off at the airport less than an hour ago.

    When we need a militia we’ll call

  4. James in Silverdale, WA says:

    Entitlements to guns make boys of men.

  5. de stijl says:

    Concealed Carry Permit = Portable Penis Extender*

    (*penis elongation is imaginary)

    Granted there are a few folks who have a legitimate reason to conceal carry in about a hundred square miles of the country disparately distributed. If you’re a retail purveyor of party favors in a location where another party favor concern has a legitimate claim to the market territory, I could see why a regulator could be handy.

    A Texas state representative with a CC is just pathetic. Forgetting it in your luggage is a pretty compelling reason that you should not be within a two hundred yards of a firearm unless it’s sported by an LEO with some proper training.

    Darby “stated he forgot his handgun was in his bag,” the affidavit said.

    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a dipshit who forgot his Ruger was in his Tumi messenger bag.

  6. C. Clavin says:

    Just another safe, responsible gun owner.
    Like that guy Zimmerman.
    No need to regulate these fellows.

  7. john says:

    So, what about these asshat politicians in Chicago who tell us WE can’t have guns, then get caughtcarrying guns into airports and federal buildings, and get off with no charges?

    And tell me again why David Gregory isn’t in jail.

  8. de stijl says:

    You know how sometimes you see that guy that’s trying too hard? He’s 52 and rides a long board to work? Wears a thread bracelet? Takes One Direction stage costumes as a fashion arbiter? Manpris?

    People look at Open Carry (or CC’ers if they eff up and make it apparent) folks the same way. “You’re not 16 anymore – grow up” but with an extra element of “Get me and mine the hell away from this moron before he does something really stupid.”

  9. michael reynolds says:

    Owning a gun minus a very compelling need is an anti-social act. Having a gun in a home with a child or grand-child is reckless and stupid.

    The notion of safe gun ownership is nonsense. If you can forget a gun in your carry-on, you can forget a gun on your kitchen table.

    Mr. Darby is a lawyer with five kids and two grand-kids. He should not have a gun, period. He’s being a damned fool, and his kids are fools if they let his grandkids near him.

  10. Todd says:

    @michael reynolds:

    Having a gun in a home with a child or grand-child is reckless and stupid.

    That is precisely the reason there will probably never be a (hand)gun in my house. I have nothing against guns per se, but I do know myself entirely too well. Although both would be extremely unlikely to ever happen, the odds that I might leave the gun someplace where one of my kids might be able to get to it, and do something awful/tragic, are almost certainly significantly greater than the odds that I might ever have to use such a weapon to stop a “bad guy” in my home.

  11. de stijl says:

    @michael reynolds:

    Disagree slightly, He is well within social norms to own a firearm – as long as he knows how to use it and store it properly – and by properly I mean that the kids and grandkids don’t even know that he owns the damn thing. Or if they do, they’ve seen him exhibit the proper way to control and fire it. It would be helpful if the gent then explained that he was about a hundred times more likely to kill himself or one of them than he was an intruder, but, still, solidly within social norms.

  12. michael reynolds says:

    @de stijl:

    Kids can’t be taught the proper way to handle the food on their plates, let alone a gun. “Can’t handle things properly” is part of the definition of a child. They are literally incapable of understanding dire consequences, which is why we don’t let them drive, drink or fly airplanes. Kids are immortal. They’ll ride a skateboard down an escalator.

    In a story I’ve told many times, I fired a Colt 45 accidentally in my home with three family members present. I was 22 or 23, holding down a responsible job and reasonably bright.

  13. de stijl says:

    @michael reynolds:

    Kids can’t be taught the proper way to handle the food on their plates

    And yet it is perfectly acceptable to mix kids with guns in this country. American exceptionalism is a hell of a thing, ain’t it? We’re either exceptionally good at teaching our kids how to have a healthy relationship with firearms, or we’re exceptionally stupid and exceptionally likely to lose our kids to gun deaths.

  14. de stijl says:

    I’m exceptionally depressed now for some reason that absolutely doesn’t have anything to do with American’s relationship with firearms. I have to lay down now.

  15. JohnMcC says:

    In the part of the US where I was born, raised and have lived most of my life, there are plenty of folks (and not all are men) who, if they are clothed, have a pistol on them. Damn shame. Wish it weren’t so. Still is part of the social reality I live in; that, and ‘stand your ground’ laws. That’s why I also have a concealed carry permit. And a Smith .357. Don’t want to be a victim.

  16. michael reynolds says:

    @de stijl:

    I recommend drinking.

  17. Valerie says:

    According to a cop I spoke with about this, cops tend to be the ones caught the most at TSA because they wear one all the time.

  18. Matt says:

    @michael reynolds: You mean dumb kids.

    I was raised on a farm as a smart kid and I wouldn’t of dared do anything you mentioned.

    If what you say is true then I have no idea how any kid survives being raised on a farm. There are thousands of ways to get yourself killed on any normal day on the farm. I didn’t have any accidents or any near misses growing up on the farm and neither did my sister, my cousins or anyone in my school district. My family, friends, and myself had no problem handling firearms safely while practice shooting or hunting. My school district was so rural it was tradition for the seniors to drive tractors to school for one day of the year.

    Not even 100 years ago what we considered “kids” today were considered grown ups. Just look at any of the variety of old police reports and mugshots from the 1800s and early 1900s and you’ll see quite a lot of “kids” dressed as adults with smokes and such.

    I refuse to believe my sister my cousins and I are some kind of exception..

    As for Drew Darby as a fellow CCW and firearms owner I am alarmed by his disregard for safety. My knee jerk reaction is to have Mr Darby stripped of his CCW as he clearly has responsibility issues.

  19. Matt says:

    @michael reynolds: I’m exceedingly glad that you realized you don’t have what it takes to be a responsible gun owner. The most basic rule of any firearm is to make sure it’s clear as soon as you pick it up (while never pointing it at anyone). It doesn’t matter if you just put it down and you “know” it’s clear. ALWAYS ALWAYS clear the gun. If you can’t handle the simple most basic rules of gun ownership then you shouldn’t own one.

    I applaud you for realizing that you and firearms don’t mix well. Unfortunately not everyone is so honest with themselves as you. Meaning there’s a too many irresponsible owners (1irresponsible owner is 1 too many) out there that have no business possessing a firearm.

  20. michael reynolds says:

    @Matt:

    Actually lots of kids die on farms. Here’s the conclusion from a study done in Canada:

    CONCLUSIONS: Machinery related injuries are not uncommon in farm children and have a high case fatality rate. These rates changed little over the five year study period. Feasible strategies for prevention of these injuries, four of which are presented here, need to be developed and implemented by public health professionals working in cooperation with members of the agricultural industry.

    Here’s one from the US in 2012:

    MONDAY, March 12 (HealthDay News) — Almost 27,000 children are injured on farms in the United States each year, and many require hospitalization, according to a new study.

    Many of these serious, sometimes fatal, injuries are caused by agricultural industrial hazards, such as falls from tractors or machinery accidents, the researchers report.

    “To address this serious problem, prevention should focus on better controlling both child access to agricultural recreational activities and child assignment to agricultural work tasks that exceed developmental norms,” said lead researcher Eduard Zaloshnja from the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Beltsville, Md.

    “This study finds that, similarly to adult agricultural injuries, youth agricultural injuries tend to be more severe and more costly than non-agricultural injuries,” Zaloshnja added.

    And lots of kids die from firearms. Here from a recent NYT:

    The .45-caliber pistol that killed Lucas Heagren, 3, on Memorial Day last year at his Ohio home had been temporarily hidden under the couch by his father. But Lucas found it and shot himself through the right eye. “It’s bad,” his mother told the 911 dispatcher. “It’s really bad.”

    A few days later in Georgia, Cassie Culpepper, 11, was riding in the back of a pickup with her 12-year-old brother and two other children. Her brother started playing with a pistol his father had lent him to scare coyotes. Believing he had removed all the bullets, he pointed the pistol at his sister and squeezed the trigger. It fired, and blood poured from Cassie’s mouth.

    Just a few weeks earlier, in Houston, a group of youths found a Glock pistol in an apartment closet while searching for snack money. A 15-year-old boy was handling the gun when it went off. Alex Whitfield, who had just turned 11, was struck. A relative found the bullet in his ashes from the funeral home.

    They die because they played with a gun. Or dropped a gun. Or were standing in the wrong place when a gun went off either due to recklessness or simple error. I could sit here and post links for you all day long.

    Just recently a four year-old, IIRC, died when his father was placing a handgun in the glove compartment of his truck.

    But that’s just mere reality, and when reality conflicts with the need of some people to justify their creepy obsession with guns, well, we know how that comes out.

  21. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    I don’t remember where I heard it, but there was this one guy who, as a form of security, argued that he should be allowed to bring a bomb on to his plane. Statistically speaking, the odds of there being two independent bombs on a plane are almost non-existent. So, since he had one and had no intention of setting it off, he was tremendously reducing the odds of his plane being blown up.

    Perhaps this guy had a similar thought about guns. What would be the odds of two people sneaking a gun on to a plane? This guy deserves a medal.

  22. de stijl says:

    @michael reynolds:

    Took your advice. God bless whichever deity dreamed up blue agave. And the distillation process.

  23. de stijl says:

    @michael reynolds:

    I grew up a on a farm. The youngest of three boys. The middle brother got his pant leg caught in a PTO which ended up tearing off at the waist after breaking his leg in about eight places. His life was saved by shitty jeans. Had Mom bought new Levis instead of crappy 1960s Toughskins hand-me-downs he would have been wrapped around the ass end of a tractor. The whole thing took about four seconds.

    Cut to 2011 and my oldest brother was about to get sent to the pokey for breaking a restraining order because of his alcoholism. He desperately and drunkenly wanted to get into his wife’s house to “get his guns” and it wasn’t for personal protection – he wanted to pop his own melon. Thankfully the cops intervened and by the time he got out of jail that particular brain demon had gone away for then.

    One of these things is not like the other. No one knowingly throws themselves on a silage blower because his life is going in a bad direction.

    He’s drinking again and every time I get a call from my mother I brace myself.

  24. Franklin says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: Oh, c’mon folks, this was funny (unless you don’t understand statistics, in which case you probably thought Jenos was being serious).

  25. JKB says:

    @michael reynolds:

    Your concern for farm kids is touching. There have been 56,997 post 16 week (4 month) gestation abortions in the US so far this year. They were all fatalities.

  26. Scott O says:

    @JKB: Do you want to charge 56,997 women with murder?

  27. michael reynolds says:

    @JKB:

    Here’s what you might try doing: reading. Were you to do that you’d see that I was responding specifically to a point made by another commenter who brought up farms and accidents on same. So your snark about my concerns is misplaced.

    But nowhere near as just plain stupid or irrelevant as your abortion analogy. Which I can only read as a blustery surrender on the core point that yes, guns do kill children, and anyone who has a gun in a home with a child is committing a dangerously reckless act.

  28. T says:

    @michael reynolds: I was the victim of a home invasion robbery a few years ago and while I had grown up around firearms and felt comfortable around them; I was still uneasy with the idea of having one in the house…I also dont have any children so that wasnt even an issue. but after the robbery, and even after I moved out of that gentrified neighborhood to the suburbs. I immediately purchased 3 pistols and keep them close at night. I also have a large dog. Feeling like a victim is awful. waking up to two dudes in your house and opening your bedroom door and seeing your LCD tv in their hands is awful. So yes. I confidently own weapons and am prepared to defend myself.

    @JKB: Oh hush, are you prepared to adopt 56,997 kids?

  29. Matt says:

    @michael reynolds: Yes and lots of kids die in comfortable rubber coated neighborhoods. I can sit here all day linking to pool deaths and injuries for example. Hell 9 million children aged 0-19 are seen in emergency rooms a year. The vast majority of these are in the cities or suburbs. I never claimed no one ever was hurt. I just stated the fact that my extended family didn’t have any injuries on the farms. Now at school or in sports well that’s a far different story.

    The vast majority of injuries and fatalities involving children has nothing to do with guns.

    @de stijl:
    PTO shafts always scared the shit out of me as a kid. Also I remember augers were a major concern too.

    @JKB: So are you volunteering to adopt them then?

    Growing up with parents who don’t want you is a lifelong scaring event. Being told by your mom that she didn’t have to have you and that I could of been aborted is one of the most harshest things I was told as a kid. I can only imagine what it would be like to grow up as a kid who isn’t wanted because abortions were banned. Statistically those are the kids that will grow up to be criminals (violent/abusive parents, no family support etc etc).

    Also there’s the whole aspect that a whole slew of those fetuses were not viable. I see no reason to force a fetus to be born so it can die an agonizing prolonged death outside the womb(undeveloped lungs etc). I also see no reason to force women to carry to term their dead fetuses (which still happens some thanks to late term abortion bans and the resultant doctor fear).

    Clearly the days of backalley abortions and coathanger deaths are so much better.


    Abortion is definitely on the list of topics to NOT discuss around the majority of my family. Fortunately they are coming around on gay marriage and fairly rapidly.

    Obama is still an ‘MURICAN HATIN DICTATOR MUZLIM!!! though 🙁

    Oh and the ACA is a SOCIALISTIC NATIONALIZATION GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER OF THE ENTIRE MEDICAL FIELD/INDUSTRY!!!

    I honestly don’t miss the rural life for the most part. Between the wild animals trying to kill you and the stupidity of the few people around you..

  30. Matt says:

    @T: I have renter’s insurance but since everything I own is so “old” I’d probably get squat for payout if someone decided to rob me. So I settled on adopting a scary looking dog.. AKA a vaguely pitbull looking dog with a brindle pattern. She’s got a mean pitbull like bark and my worthless neighbors are scared of her. So I put up a dog warning sign on the fence and on my front window and left it at that.

    My home defense is either my bokken or my ccw handgun which I keep unloaded in a concealed spot. I actually intentionally keep an empty magazine in it while the loaded magazine (Hornady 230gr+P XTP) is also hidden in a draw. I do this because I’m actually more worried about having one of those weird night terrors where you move without being fully awake. I’ve never had that happen nor have I ever slept walk but I’m still preparing for that to occur. I don’t practice drawing it or anything because frankly if I have to speed draw I’m pretty much screwed anyway. Since I rarely carry it goes into the fireproof safe before I leave.

    Honestly though I think a good cheap pistol gripped 12guage would do the job better. 12 gauge with proper home defense rounds is much less likely to over-penetrate and is easier to hit with in a close environment. Now if you can legally get a good suppressor for your pistols you will want to consider that as shooting indoors is extremely damaging to hearing and can cause disorientation problems (think flashbang).

  31. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: Thanx, I needed that.

  32. Tony W says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    Statistically speaking, the odds of there being two independent bombs on a plane are almost non-existent.

    The roulette wheel came up three times in a row red – bet black!

  33. michael reynolds says:

    @Matt:

    The vast majority of injuries and fatalities involving children has nothing to do with guns.

    The vast majority of deaths have nothing to do with cars. So let’s get rid of seatbelts and airbags and let everyone drive 100 miles an hour.

    See, that’s a non sequitur. The fact that X, Y and Z all kill people is not an argument for more X.

  34. michael reynolds says:

    @T:

    You made a foolish decision.

    The response to a break-in is a security system which would most likely cost less than your three handguns and a dog, and would not actually increase your risk as the guns now do.

    You went from zero chance of accidental self-inflicted wound to some chance of same. You went from zero chance of an incident like the recent one where an innocent woman came to a man’s door seeking help and got a bullet in the face, to a distinct chance of same. You’re frightened and armed: you have now become the danger you sought to minimize.

    In separate incidents my wife and I were both threatened by guns. In both cases we (obviously) survived. Had we had guns and attempted to use them, we’d be dead. Your sense of security is false.

  35. john personna says:

    I’d again point to the sensible Australian system, which grants graduated permits matched to need.

    But as noted above, we are blocked from sensibility by exceptionalism.

  36. john personna says:

    Also, we have this inculcated idea that we have guns to fight our own democratic government. That has been unfortunate because it has reinforced a lot of paranoid individuals and groups over the years.

    Call the need to fight the government a 1000:1 shot (if that) and then ask about using such odds as any kind of justification, personal or political.

    Or note that such political justifications bridge to SHTF, TEOTWAWKI, or zombie attack.

    Not a lot of sensible risk planning in the whole “I must outgun the government” thing.

  37. JohnMcC says:

    @john personna: “…(W)e are blocked from sensibility by exceptionalism.” Wonderful! I salute you, sir! I will steal that line without shame sometime in the near future.

  38. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @michael reynolds: I bet you think this guy deserves the full Zimmerman.

  39. al-Ameda says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    @michael reynolds: I bet you think this guy deserves the full Zimmerman.

    You mean that Darby should be tried and acquitted?

  40. T says:

    @michael reynolds:

    The house I was living in at the time DID have a security system. Even had one of the little stick in the ground signs out front… It failed to go off and alert me to intruders in the house…apparently it was only as good as the people that installed it. And no, it wasnt cheaper than the pistols and actually increased my risk because it did not work properly.

    As I mentioned, i bought a dog. HE is now the alarm system. He sleeps inside my house and is pretty much the best theft deterrent I could get. The pistols are a last resort. If i’m home and someone decides to break into the house with a car parked out front and a large dog going crazy inside, that’s their fault and I will defend myself.

    While you also had incidences where firearms could have been used to protect yourself, each incident is vastly different, I was well within the law to use my firearm on these two individuals that decided to break into my home. That is a risk that THEY chose.

    I dont open carry, nor do I CC, the guns are locked safely in a house with a single male that never has children in it. I open myself up to risk (and for awhile after the robbery, I was on the fence about purchasing them) but you can mitigate risk with training and education and it is a risk I now 100% accept. As stated before, just because YOU are afraid of something because you are not responsible enough to figure out how to use it properly and safely, does not mean that others are completely inept and incapable of using a firearm, or have that same hesitancy about owning one.

  41. michael reynolds says:

    @T:

    As stated before, just because YOU are afraid of something because you are not responsible enough to figure out how to use it properly and safely, does not mean that others are completely inept and incapable of using a firearm, or have that same hesitancy about owning one.

    Exactly what everyone who has ever shot themselves by accident was saying ten seconds earlier.

    By the way, you really think you should shoot someone for stealing a TV? Death for theft? That doesn’t seem a bit of an overreaction?

    So let’s say you’re more rational than that. Let’s say your plan is that you’ll just aim the gun and them and tell them to get out. Right? Any chance that they’ll panic, pull a gun of their own and shoot you? Any chance there’s a guy you don’t see just to your right through that doorway who might shoot you or grab your gun and shoot you?

    No chance that sleepy, awakened from a bad dream you hear a noise, see a shadow, and shoot your husband?

    If the guns are really locked away of course they’re of very little use to you. So, they may be “locked in your house” but are presumably loaded and where you can reach them: night stand, let’s say? Car glove compartment? One in the kitchen, in a knife drawer? Any chance that a burglar is in your home and finds one? Is there some magic keeping him from using it on you?

    You’re scared, you’re rattled, so you make things more dangerous for yourself. It’s a very human reaction. Understandable. But wrong.

  42. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @al-Ameda: You mean that Darby should be tried and acquitted?

    Shouldn’t even be tried. Clear-cut case of self-defense.

  43. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @michael reynolds: By the way, you really think you should shoot someone for stealing a TV? Death for theft? That doesn’t seem a bit of an overreaction?

    I put the right of a person to defend themselves, their homes, and their property. I value those rights above the right of people to take from other people.

    Even your right to defense.

  44. Matt says:

    @michael reynolds:The issue is you’re pretending that guns are killing all the children. All I did was bring some reality into your fear driven crazy. That’s not a non sequitur as I never said that was proof we should remove all restrictions on guns and gun ownership. Your inability to see such a simple concept is quite disturbing. It’s readily apparent that you’ve ventured into the same terrority as the anti-choice crowd. Ruled by emotion and facts be damned.

    I’m actually seriously worried about you Michael. You’re a bright guy who can clearly write some good pieces. You shouldn’t let your emotions rule you so much when it comes to politics. You are risking becoming what you hate every time you go on one of your tangents. Since you’ve started posting your posts have changed. You started off posting smart informative and nuanced posts. Now most of your posts are full of anger and hatred. You make blind assumptions and paint vast numbers of people with the same brush. You have become a left leaning version of what you so hate. You went from seeing the world as greys to everything is black and white. Either you support no gun restrictions or you support a complete ban. If someone supports some restrictions but not the ones you want then that person is no different from the worst of the Republicans…

    It’s really saddening to see this occur with you. Maybe you should take a break from politics for a bit?

  45. Matt says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: My CCW instructor actually touched on the TV thing. He straight up asked everyone in the class how we’d react to being awakened by someone carrying our TV out of the house. One fellow who was gungho the entire class was like “I’d shoot em dead where he stood”. The instructor asked if it was really worth taking a life over a replaceable inanimate object. OF course gung ho dude was all about killing anyone in their house. That fellow ended up being rejected for a CCW although he passed the class. As for the rest of us most of the people there said they’d barricade their location and call the cops. One woman said she’d hold the door open for them as long as they didn’t threaten her.

  46. al-Ameda says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    Shouldn’t even be tried. Clear-cut case of self-defense.

    Two things:
    (1) Who was Darby defending himself from?
    (2) Why was Zimmerman stalking Martin?

  47. T says:

    @michael reynolds: No, I am the single male. No one lives in the house but me and the dog. All 3 are loaded and In a lockbox in one location next to each other right next to my bed.

    All 3 of them are legally owned and registered.

    I do not leave guns or ammo in the car or anywhere else around the house but in the locked box.

    I even take a locked case when I take them to an indoor range every few months. I do not take them to show anyone, leave them alone unsupervised or even let anyone else hold.

    They are instruments of death, not toys. And should be respected.

    Like @Matt: I agree that the texas state rep should have his privilege to own a gun taken away. he clearly has a flippant attitude about guns and as such should have his privilege to own one taken away, just like a person who has shown disregard for DUI or speeding laws should have his privilege to drive taken away.

  48. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @al-Ameda: Two answers:

    1) Darby was an idiot, and deserved to be arrested.
    2) Presumes facts not only not evident, but strongly indicated against. So: dishonest question, deserves no answer.

  49. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @Matt: That guy was too gung-ho. Here’s how it should play out:

    1) Confront intruder with gun, inform him/her that we’re going to wait for the police.
    2) Fire the instant said intruder makes a threatening move.
    2A) Aim for center mass (none of this “warning shot” or “shoot to wound” bullshit) and fire until threatening behavior ceases.

    The Joe Biden method — empty your gun into the air as warning shots and hope like hell that 1) the shots don’t cause any deaths, injuries, or damage and 2) the intruder takes the warning and flees, instead of attacking you now that your gun is empty — is not recommended.

  50. grumpy realist says:

    @JohnMcC: It’s not just a rural vs. urban thing, it’s also a division between those who realize that a gun is a very dangerous tool and treat it accordingly vs. those who want to use it as a phallic extender and scare people.

    I grew up in a rural area. Never owned a gun, but had neighbors who did. To a man, they were careful of how they stored and used the instrument. Kept away from kids. Kids taught “don’t touch, if you find one lying around immediately get an adult.” Guns mainly used to keep down the rabbits and other vermin (yes, and I include deer in that.)

    The other types? Sheesh. Drunk would-be-hunters stumbling around in the back yard.

  51. Matt says:

    @T: For the record I live alone too with only a dog. So if someone is in my house at an odd hour it’s because they broke in. That simplifies matters a lot for me.

    As for the gungho dude it was a surreal moment as people in the class tried to reach him via appealing to his humanity. “but that’s someone son” or “that could be some kid’s dad” “what if it’s just a kid making a stupid mistake” etc etc. No one could reach him. So I was like “Do you have any idea how annoying it’ll be to clean all that blood up inside your house?” “hell what about your tv when dude crashes to the floor with it?”.. sadly that actually made him think for a moment…

    I double facepalmed most of that conversation…

  52. Matt says:

    @T: Oh yeah forgot to mention.

    I belong to a club that has an expansive outdoor range. The yearly membership is a flat fee that ends up being cheaper then paying per use at one of the other various indoor/outdoor ranges. I’ve let people handle my rifle (unloaded w/o magazine) as it’s fairly uncommon down here (converted saiga x39). Most people here have seen or own ARs but not a member of the AK family. I do keep a sharp eye on them and if I let them shoot they get the magazine I bring for that purpose (I always bring one magazine with 3-4 rounds in it for such cases). Before that even occurs I see how they handle their own firearms. Fortunately the people on the rifle range that I’ve met have all been very safe about their handling and usage of firearms.

    @Jenos Idanian #13: Oh man the shoot to wound people are so bloody annoying. “why did you kill them and not wound them wtf??” Because this isn’t a freaking movie and if you have the luxury of shooting to wound someone then you shouldn’t be shooting them in the first place. That’s also how the law sees it in a lot of places too.

    What’s sad is most of those people don’t even realize that shooting someone in the leg can kill them in minutes. For example hit the femoral artery and it’s over quickly.

  53. al-Ameda says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    2) Presumes facts not only not evident, but strongly indicated against. So: dishonest question, deserves no answer.

    Yes, George was indeed lucky that he had an ‘OJ Jury.’

  54. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @al-Ameda: Zimmerman, like William Ayers, was never convicted of a crime. However, unlike Ayers, Zimmerman never proclaimed his guilt.

  55. @Jenos Idanian #13: One thing this thread has confirmed: you need to work on your analogies.

  56. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: Yeah, I lost track of names at one point. “Darby” was the rep busted with the gun at the plane; the shooter I brought up was not named.

  57. grumpy realist says:

    @Matt: Isn’t this like all the armchair quarterbacking about that crazy lady that tried to ram the barriers at the White House? “Why didn’t they shoot the tires?” (Well, because it’s not as easy as it looks on cops-and-robbers shows and because that might not be the quickest way of stopping a car. Shooting the driver probably IS the fastest way, especially if you’re worried that said driver has a large explosive device next to her and is going to set it off.)