Permit me to bring forth a compromise that I am sure both sides will endorse -especially responsible gun owners. In return, I will back off of any attempt to restrict or interfere with your owning a gun(s). Should your gun be used against me or my family by, your child or spouse, or should you give, lend, sell, or lose your gun, or should it be stolen from your home, place of business, vehicle, or person, and I or my family suffer harm, then you will face the same charges as the user of your gun would face, up to and including 1st degree murder and the full penalty as proscribed by law. Only an irresponsible gun owner would be opposed, since a responsible owner, fully aware of the harm and danger a gun presents in the wrong hands, would never permit his weapon to be out of his direct control in operating condition. I look forward to receiving support from both sides of the issue.
Typical liberal nonsense. How about if a judge gives a violent criminal a suspended sentence, the judge has to do time for any subsequent offenses? How about if someone steals your car, you have to serve time for any offenses they do with the car? Your proposal fails the first rule of rational gun control: it makes criminals of people who have done nothing wrong themselves.
Your "how abouts" are pointless and absurd. We now know that you are an irresponsible gun owner who doesn't want to face the consequences of his own irresponsibility.
An interesting combination of the almost reasonable and the grossly illogical. So even if a gun is locked in a safe when it's not in the owner's direct possession, were it nevertheless stolen you presume to hold the gun owner at fault for any crimes subsequently committed with it?? If the gun had been sold 2 years ago and thus no longer in the original owner's possession at all - you would still want to hold him responsible for any crimes committed with the gun?? It's doubtful you take anywhere near as much precaution to prevent your car from being stolen as most gun owners apply to their guns. Is it your wish that you be held responsible for any crimes committed with your stolen car? Or perhaps your kitchen knives - which could be easily stolen during a simple breaking and entry and subsequently used to kill someone. Your claim that your suggestion is a "compromise" is completely absurd. This is a perfect example of the fundamental problem in achieving reasonable firearm safeguards - those opposed to guns proceed from the most utterly irrational premises which unfortunately ends up producing an equally irrational response from the NRA, et al. Nothing is achievable when both sides remain so absolutely and incredibly STUPID about the subject. There are loads of rational approaches that can be taken to restrict improper possession and use of firearms. Unfortunately, the anti-gun lobby isn't interested in rational approaches (as your suggestion demonstrates). They're only interested in the complete elimination of guns based on the unsupportable and misbegotten idea that doing so would seriously reduce crime.
What if a gun is stolen from a police man? Then what? Lock him up too? What if I break into your home and steal a knife, you will be willing to assume some responsibility for anyone I kill with that knife? This is a joke. And what about all the other murders and attacks that aren't gun related?
I am shocked, and surprised, for you are almost always one of the most rational and logical posters on this zoo. Let's address the theft from the locked safe issue. If the gun was stolen from a locked safe, one can presume that the safe was not secure enough to do the job. Yet you want to let the owner off the hook. Now on to the "out of his possession for two years," Excuse me, but how did it get that way? Lost. stolen. borrowed. misplaced, or perhaps just forgotten. Again, let the irresponsible gun owner off the hook while I lay bleeding. But I am a reasonable men, had the gun been sold to a registered firearms dealer, then the original owner would be off the hook. The rest of your post indicates that a raw nerve was hit, because it lacks any semblance of your usual measured, logical approach, and even knocks on the door of "name calling". For which I am embarrassed for you. No one need a loaded and or functional firearm when it is not in their direct control. You can't drive off a hoard of invading darkies, nor fight off a tyrannic liberal government out to get you, or even blow away a home invader if the gun ain't in your control. If it ain't in your direct control, then there is a danger it will fall into another's hands. THE ONLY WAY TO INSURE THAT NO HARM WILL COME TO OTHERS IS TO DISABLE THE WEAPON. And if that's too damned much trouble, I will do everything in my power to see that you pay a high price for your irresponsibility.
No, you are the joke. The issue is guns. Privately owned guns. Not butter knives, carving forks, baseball bats, bar stools, or anything else. The point was clear and easy to understand. And we find yet another irresponsible gun owner.