General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I just noticed that amongst all the 'blame the parents' and 'arm the teacher' threads [View all]jberryhill
(62,444 posts)The drunk guy driving a car who takes 4 passengers with him to their deaths is also a victim.
What does "properly secure" mean?
That's very simple. You might look up the meaning of the legal term "res ipsa loquitur", Latin for "the thing speaks for itself". http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Res_ipsa_loquitur
It is a principle applied in negligence cases involving inherently dangerous instrumentalities or practices. For example, if your neighbor keeps a tiger in a backyard enclosure, and the tiger gets out and kills people, then we do not get into whether the neighbor properly maintained the enclosure, or whether the enclosure was considered good enough. Liability is established by the fact that the tiger - an inherently dangerous animal - was under the control of the neighbor, but nonetheless got out and killed people, which is precisely what we expect from uncaged tigers.
So, what "properly secure" in this context means is just as simple, "if you have an arsenal, it is up to you to ensure that someone doesn't take the weapons and shoot a bunch of people".
It is not up to us to tell people things like "how to cage your tiger". It is the responsibility of the tiger owner to do it in such a way that the tiger doesn't get out and kill people. Because if it does, they are going to be held liable.