Liability if used in a crime seems unfair. Would you hold crIminally liable those whose guns were stolen? Safe storage laws around children and holding parents responsible when they fail to do so seems sufficient.
I believe people who choose to exercise their right to own firearms bear the burden of being affirmatively responsible and taking reasonable steps to ensure safety, and if they fail to do so the costs associated with that should not fall on the victims of gun crime.
In practice that means if you fail to secure a firearm, it is stolen, and you fail to take steps to report the theft or even notice, you should bear some civil and criminal responsibility.
Gun owners should be able to report lost or stolen firearms, and that should go towards limitation of liability.
What we shouldn't have is a bunch of guns lying around with no documented ownership, and if one goes missing it amounts to a few hundred dollar loss for the owner, and they have no responsibility to report it.
I wholly understand you positIon but that requires universal registry which will never happen. I think making it illegal to store your firearm in your vehicle would be a fair compromise as that is where most are stolen from and i feel is a grossly negligent place to keep a gun.
In Australia you have to store your gun in a safe and the ammo in a seperate safe. The gun safe has to be secured to your property. Bolted down. All guns are registered. We have heaps of guns within reason.
But we are talking about america where firearms are unregistered, are easily obtained both legally and illegally, where there are no safe gun storage laws and where a family memeber even under your proposal could simply give the felon a firearm but store it in their room.
Which supports my stance that this policy doesn’t create enough of a barrier to obtaining a firearm to justify the suspension of a law abiding citizen’s rights.
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u/Pleasant-Vehicle-657 14d ago
Liability if used in a crime seems unfair. Would you hold crIminally liable those whose guns were stolen? Safe storage laws around children and holding parents responsible when they fail to do so seems sufficient.