Guns should not be kept in houses where children are present

[Crepuscular]

46. Not so

No, guns are not primarily designed to kill people. Sorry, but that just is not true. Guns are designed to shoot a small projectile at high rates of speed. That result has a number of different purposes, one of which may be to kill people but it's certainly not the primary or even the most common result of shooting a firearm. I've owned guns for about 35 years, have fired tens of thousands of rounds and never shot at or killed a human being.

Do I think we should have any gun laws? Sure, I have no problem with most of the gun laws that we currently have. I'd also support making all sales go through an FFL license holder and increasing the penalties for violating existing gun laws. What I don't support is banning certain types of weapons based primarily on cosmetic features, for reasons that have nothing to do with functionality or which won't have any tangible impact on actually reducing the potential for gun violence.

As with many things, there are going to be a certain number of deaths resulting from lack of proper precautions or due to the fact that some people are simply idiots. Unfortunately, sometimes innocent victims die as a result of the acts of those irresponsible individuals. But I don't believe you can legislate for every degree of idiocy and still enjoy the type of society that we do. 3 times as many kids die every year due to accidental drownings in swimming pools, as are killed accidentally by guns. I don't think banning either swimming pools or guns is the answer, I think education and the adverse impact of resulting civil liability is a far better means of addressing those problems.