About 2,200 guns were seized at TSA airport checkpoints last year, a 20 percent rise from the year before, and 230 percent more than 2005. And according to the New York Times, “a vast majority of the weapons were loaded and had bullets in the chamber.”
While defense attorneys and law enforcement officials said a vast majority of weapons cases at airports were honest mistakes, advocates of stricter gun laws said the number of incidents was alarming. “People say, ‘I’m so responsible with my gun,’ and here they are forgetting they have them in an airport where there are so many people and kids running around,” said Laura Cutilletta, senior staff attorney for the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in San Francisco.
The case of a toddler fatally shooting his mother after fishing a gun out of her purse in an Idaho Walmart in December shows how easily tragedies can occur.
We need to start treating gun violations the way we treat DUIs. Even a minor violation should result in a suspended license; repeat violations should result the permanent suspension of one’s right to own and carry a gun. These aren’t tragic accidents. Most “accidental” shootings are the result of criminal negligence by people who simply can’t be trusted to responsibly own a gun.
How can you suspend a gun owner’s license, when owning a gun doesn’t require a license?
I can see far more reasons to be lenient on DUI than gun violations.
The majority of first offenses are of people who don’t realize how much they have had to drink, and are better handled with a very firm slap on the wrist, rather than taking away their ability to get to and from work. The consequences are too high,me specially with crappy public transportation. Educating people and correcting the behavior should be the priority, rather than punishment. (But, if someone can’t learn, then send them off to jail. And if they are unlucky enough to injure or kill someone, off to jail).
But, taking away someone’s right to have guns for a while won’t cause any real harm to them, so that seems much more reasonable.
If you really want to reduce the number of gun nuts toting guns onto planes, just behead the ones you do catch and place their heads on poles just outside the TSA check points. In no time the smart ones will get the idea.
@3, and do the same with corrupt politicians at all government buildings.
@4…
So how about this numbskull names some of these corrupt politicians for us…hmmmmmm???
If you try to take a Swiss Army Knife past the TSA, they’ll confiscate it — and you won’t ever see it again. If we’d confiscate and melt down every one of the guns these idiots try to take aboard a commercial aircraft, the problem will solve itself pretty quickly.
@5,
How about Rob Holland and Creighton ?
http://www.king5.com/story/loc...../13198374/
Maybe dumb fuck @7 could get The Stranger on it. After all his pungent comments there, they should be eager to expose this massive scandal.