In short: You have to qualify to own a gun. Assholes don’t get guns. And by fullfilling the laws to own a gun you actually earn respect in your community.
I am member of a German gun club where the local population, the regional police and a couple of NATO soldiers train. It took me nearly one year before I even was allowed to touch a loaded gun, all through my 14th year I was basically just taught how to clean and repair my rifle, how to handle it, how to NOT use it, only then how to use it. And after ten months I was finally given a single bullet.
I am now 30. Nowadays my family owns and shares a Sig Sauer 200, locked inside the gun club. Everyone except my Mum shots around 25 bullets per month, once a year the whole gun club repeats basic training which includes mental health checks.
And after basic training we have special events. For example six years ago a local NATO garrison was massively downsized and so they offered us to use up their overaged surplus ammunition. I got to shot pretty much anything from 9mm to 7,62mm for basically free - we collected money for the victims of a local house fire so I put €50 into the collection.
Did I ever shot a gun outside the gun club?
Actually: Yes. When I was in the US I joined my Uncle on duck hunt. He was like “ok, hold the big rifle while I show you how to shot a duck using 12gd bird shot.” - he misses, I aim and shot the duck mid-air with a .308. I didn’t know ducks could explode, but yes, they can. I paid with a badly aching shoulder, I wasn’t used to those powerful cadridges any more. He looked angry at me and grumbled the plan was to eat the duck not turn them into fine mist. The other three ducks he left for me to shot and wondered where I had learned to operate a gun like that.
When I told him a US lieutenant taught me to operate exaclty the same rifle in my gun club he was like “WTF?”. I might mention the lieutenant immediatelly settled down in my town after his duty was over because he liked Bavaria so much and wanted his kids to grow up in a less crazy nation.
I appreciate your perspective on this. What you describe is about more than just ‘assholes don’t get guns’, although that is a crucial aspect. The way your family owns just ‘a’ gun, trained for a long while before shooting, respect for following gun laws. This is the opposite of the usual experience around guns in the US. We as a culture in the US are careless and wanton with guns in general from what I’ve seen.
I was shown how to use a gun when I was 6 years old, my parents were responsible though so it was only an air pistol, but heavy duty, not airsoft. We had a shotgun, 9mm pistol and a .22 rifle in the house never locked up, didn’t even have a safe to lock them if my dad wanted to, and the shotgun was often stored loaded. When people here get together to shoot, it’s not odd to hand a loaded gun to someone that has never been to a range or even seen one fired before. Plenty of people are much safer than this, but I would guess my experience is the more common from what I’ve seen.
From what I can tell, most gun safety training in the US is a single sentence: Always treat it like it’s loaded, and keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
In Germany we have on average more privately owned guns than most US states. Still… we had just TWO mass shooting in 20 years.
Why?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08GbT5ZEs08
In short: You have to qualify to own a gun. Assholes don’t get guns. And by fullfilling the laws to own a gun you actually earn respect in your community.
I am member of a German gun club where the local population, the regional police and a couple of NATO soldiers train. It took me nearly one year before I even was allowed to touch a loaded gun, all through my 14th year I was basically just taught how to clean and repair my rifle, how to handle it, how to NOT use it, only then how to use it. And after ten months I was finally given a single bullet.
I am now 30. Nowadays my family owns and shares a Sig Sauer 200, locked inside the gun club. Everyone except my Mum shots around 25 bullets per month, once a year the whole gun club repeats basic training which includes mental health checks.
And after basic training we have special events. For example six years ago a local NATO garrison was massively downsized and so they offered us to use up their overaged surplus ammunition. I got to shot pretty much anything from 9mm to 7,62mm for basically free - we collected money for the victims of a local house fire so I put €50 into the collection.
Did I ever shot a gun outside the gun club?
Actually: Yes. When I was in the US I joined my Uncle on duck hunt. He was like “ok, hold the big rifle while I show you how to shot a duck using 12gd bird shot.” - he misses, I aim and shot the duck mid-air with a .308. I didn’t know ducks could explode, but yes, they can. I paid with a badly aching shoulder, I wasn’t used to those powerful cadridges any more. He looked angry at me and grumbled the plan was to eat the duck not turn them into fine mist. The other three ducks he left for me to shot and wondered where I had learned to operate a gun like that.
When I told him a US lieutenant taught me to operate exaclty the same rifle in my gun club he was like “WTF?”. I might mention the lieutenant immediatelly settled down in my town after his duty was over because he liked Bavaria so much and wanted his kids to grow up in a less crazy nation.
I appreciate your perspective on this. What you describe is about more than just ‘assholes don’t get guns’, although that is a crucial aspect. The way your family owns just ‘a’ gun, trained for a long while before shooting, respect for following gun laws. This is the opposite of the usual experience around guns in the US. We as a culture in the US are careless and wanton with guns in general from what I’ve seen.
I was shown how to use a gun when I was 6 years old, my parents were responsible though so it was only an air pistol, but heavy duty, not airsoft. We had a shotgun, 9mm pistol and a .22 rifle in the house never locked up, didn’t even have a safe to lock them if my dad wanted to, and the shotgun was often stored loaded. When people here get together to shoot, it’s not odd to hand a loaded gun to someone that has never been to a range or even seen one fired before. Plenty of people are much safer than this, but I would guess my experience is the more common from what I’ve seen.
From what I can tell, most gun safety training in the US is a single sentence: Always treat it like it’s loaded, and keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
What is the penalty if you are caught with a gun you are not qualified to have?
Prison sentence up to 5 years.
Over an object.
Literally the war on drugs all over again.
Ok lolbertarian🙄
Now go and whine about age of consent or something