re: #616 Kragar

Yeah, I’d go with more than annual myself but I’m a super-safety-oriented guy.

I was just talking with my wife’s dad, who is this gigantic shy retired Ironworker now working as a supervisor for mass building projects. He has an immaculate safety record, it’s what he’s built his career on. He recently got a gun, since he has a crazy ex-wife who assaulted their mutual daughters.

He told me he couldn’t believe how easy it was to get the gun, how little training he got, how there wasn’t going to be any ongoing safety routine or checks now that he had the gun. He said that he treats nail guns more seriously than the government treats real guns.

He immediately made a checklist for himself for gun safety, and runs through it every day. He keeps the gun in a safe next to his bed, with a deadman lock— if he punches in the wrong code twice, the safe bricks itself and you’d have to drill or blow it open. He keeps it unloaded, with the clip in the safe next to the gun. So every day he opens the safe, takes out the gun, verifies that it’s still unloaded, takes it down to the range near where he lives and fires a few clips.

He doesn’t load it until he’s on the range, he makes sure it’s unloaded after, he even keeps a goddamn spreadsheet of his ammo so he can account for every bullet. Afterwards it goes back in the safe, unloaded and cleaned. He’s never told the number on the safe to anyone, not even his daughters. He told them he’ll tell them if they start taking gun safety classes to and demonstrate to him that they’ll be responsible about it.

I pointed out to him that he doesn’t really have the tactical training to use it, and now he’s all gung ho about getting that and has added it to his checklist.

I am fine with him having a gun. He’s a serious man who needs it for a real reason and he’s acting responsibly.

He contrasts so vividly with the goddamn TACTICUL assholes buying a gun so that they can bring it to fucking political rallies while wearing a shirt that says “We came unarmed— this time.”