this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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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?
Edit: "Not Qualified" is not the right wording. Because Qualification only plays a secondary role. It is all about the licence.
In Germany carrying a gun without the right licence would be illegal possesion of a firearm.
But wait, even if you have a licence you can get fined for illegal transport and handling of a firearm.
Carrying a conceiled small sidearm without a special permit is big trouble. Transporting a firearm without a locked enclosure and not seperated from the ammunition is also a serious offence. At home you need a locked container. All in all it got so complicated that my Dad stopped storing guns at home. He sold one and put the other into the gun club. The club is really helpful, we can lend legal transport containers and for guns which we are not allowed to move in public they offer transport services for a small fee, usually that means a police officer moves the gun in his free time using legal transport containers in exchange for a beer.
Classic case: Someone dies and you find a loaded pistol in his inheritance. You bring it to the police. You did three offences: Carrying a conceiled firearm in public, carrying a firearm without proper container, carrying a loaded firearm. The legal way would have been: Calling the police to retrieve the firearm. To be honest, the state attourney usually closes those cases rather quick as "minor incident without criminal intent" but you still get a serious talk.
There are some exceptions for old historic muzzleloaders which are often fired at historic events without bullets. We don't have those so I don't know barely anything about those rules.
Prison sentence up to 5 years.
Over an object.
Literally the war on drugs all over again.
Yeah except how once you use the gun, the fucking gun is still there and can't be flushed down the toilet.
That greatly depends on the gun. And the toilet, honestly. Have you seen those golf ball ones? Those could take a .380 or a double deuce, I bet.
What are your views on 'objects' such as personal hand grenades or professionally made improvised fertiliser explosives?
I find it absolutely disgusting that I'm not allowed to turn MY innocent 4 wheel brumm brummm object in to a fun party popper object of devastation!!! It's political correctness gone mad it is !!!
(Do I need the /s?)
Ok lolbertarian🙄
Now go and whine about age of consent or something
If you'd actually received as much safety training as you claim, you never would have taken a shot at an elevated target with a center-fire rifle.
The target wasn't elevated. We were elevated. I tried to explain that the duck was just taking speed to take off but honestly I don't know the right English word for that maneuver. And as I hinted, I had fired the exact same rifle two years earlier at our gun club several times. Also, I paid with an aching shoulder for my recklessness.