Anyone who negligently has a gun stolen should be held as an accessory for any crimes committed with said gun.
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It shouldn’t be an easy task to trade a stolen laptop for a stolen gun, because if gun owners treated their weapons as the inherently dangerous objects they are then there would be few stolen guns in circulation.
We don’t worry about people stealing laptop computers and trading them for stolen grenades because it’s pretty difficult for common criminals to get their hands on live grenades.
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Part of being responsible is securing your weapon. Leaving it in a vehicle, not in a locked compartment, is irresponsible. The real victim is/are the people who end up shot by the gun that some prick couldn’t be bothered with securing properly.
It’s not rocket surgery.
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“violence educator” sounds like an exciting vocation, whether or not you’re anti-gun
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On the same line as that, I was at the store a couple weeks ago, and there was a dude running around with no mask and a t-shirt with an AR rifle silkscreened on it in the center. Above it was the words “Intentionally unvaxxinated” and below it “Well Protected”.
I wanted to slip into my cheesy Heavy Weapons Guy accent, walk up to him, and go “You cannot kill virus with bullet. virus too small for bullet” and walk away briskly. However, I also wasn’t sure if he was carrying, and with that t-shirt, I also figured that he was spreading, so I kept FAR away from him.
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Look man, I am trying to have a consistent view on the concept: do not blame the victim. Which is part of the rules here.
On this site and other places, one might encounter examples where someone is a victim of a crime. That person may have made a mistake or a bad choice or a series of them - acted irresponsibly - that resulted in a position where they became a victim of a crime.
If one were to point out “They shouldn’t have done X.” you will get buzzed and called out for victim blaming. Even egregious examples where one can soberly say, “I wouldn’t do that.” The onus is on the person committing the crime to not do said crime. No one “made” them do a crime because there was an appealing target, they were assholes and wanted to steal or do some other crime.
And like I said, I can objectively agree that a firearm unsecured means that the person is partially responsible for the crime to happen. But I can say that about a lot of crime, where the victim’s bad choices resulted in a crime. But, as I understand the concept, we don’t blame the victim for making a bad decision leading up to the crime.
So how is it theft of a firearm the only crime that this reasoning doesn’t seem to apply? Are there other crimes I am not thinking of where, yeah, the victims aren’t really victims?
I am a little curious on what @orenwolf thinks, as he has to moderate things and does a good job at consistency.
I do agree with that completely.
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If I have an inherently dangerous object and do not treat it as such then I bear some of the responsibility if it is taken and used to cause harm, even if I can be broadly categorized as a victim of theft.
If a nuclear power plant doesn’t keep its plutonium under strict lock and key, then a terrorist steals said plutonium to do something bad with it, then we don’t think of the power plant management as the primary victims.
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Definitely a “Please stop helping us!” moment for the anti-gun violence issue.
I think that is what I am saying. I can agree they have some responsibility in the matter, but are still theft victims. (Though I wouldn’t use the term “broadly”. If you called the cops because a firearms was stolen from your car, they are going to fill out a theft report. It isn’t like this is true only because of some technicality.)
A guy flashing cash around all night, gets really drunk, keep his wallet half out of his pocket, and then manages to get his wallet stolen would still be the victim, even if he did a lot of things to make himself an easy mark.
Not sure that is apples to apples, as it isn’t one person being a victim who would be blamed, but a whole organization that would have failed in multiple ways. They would “blame” the “organization/company”, who are supposed to make sure security protocols are in place, which probably would fall on management’s shoulders (or a scapegoat). But the “don’t blame the victim” view I see mostly pertains to individuals.
But anyway. Pretty sure most of the outrage is going to be on the terrorists who managed to break in and steal it. Thought there would be some backlash once an investigation learned their theft was aided by lax security measures.
Like I said, I am trying to have a consistent reasoning on the matter. When talking about bad things happening to individuals, it generally isn’t acceptable to blame the victim.
As for @DukeTrout 's reply, I get you think I am trying to twist things around with the pretzel image. But on the contrary - I am trying to keep the reasoning simple.
I don’t get the reference in the 2nd pic.
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Pretzel Logic (the rapper)
Here’s the thing. People who fail to properly secure their firearms are contributing to not just firearm violence in the US, but to the illegal firearm trade globally. Note that a quarter of guns stolen are taken from vehicles.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/guns-crime/reports/2017/07/25/436533/stolen-guns-america/
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Ah. Not familiar. He reminds me of a healthy Pete Davidson.
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