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submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

A Washington state senator was arrested at the airport in Hong Kong and charged with possession of an unregistered firearm, his office said.

Sen. Jeff Wilson, R-Longview, was detained at Hong Kong International Airport on Friday night after he found a pistol in his carry-on bag and reported it to customs officials.

He was released on bail Sunday and faces a hearing Oct. 30.

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[-] [email protected] 64 points 8 months ago

Australian here.. I have never actually touched a handgun, in fact, I have never seen a handgun with my eyeballs outside of police/security.. it is weird how casual this seems

[-] [email protected] 63 points 8 months ago

“Woops, got so many firearms I didn’t even notice one was misplaced into my bag”

And americans think that’s normal

[-] Kecessa 44 points 8 months ago

"I'm a responsible gun owner!" say every irresponsible gun owners.

Fuck the USA and its constitution, it even becomes an issue the next country over because idiots get their firearms stolen and they make their way to Canada so gang members can shoot each other and kill bystanders at the same time.

[-] [email protected] 36 points 8 months ago

There are a lot of us here that would like to change things.

[-] funkless_eck 17 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I used to work at a place where a guy would bring his guns in his truck to work every day.

To work in sales in an office in an industrial estate.

They were locked in that metal case in the back of his Ram, but if you were robbing a truck isn't that the first place you'd look? I also am willing to bet they weren't disassembled, cased, ammo separate either.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago

I'm older than most of y'all, 70. In high school, it was not unusual to have the student parking lot filled with pickup trucks...most of which had shot guns on gun racks hanging on the back window.

It's so weird to think about that now, how very normal it seemed at the time.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

My older buddy tells me about how he used to bring his rifle on the school bus because he was on the high school shooting team. In and of itself, I don't think anyone can say such a change is either good or bad, just that the culture is different, as it always is after as many years.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Same for me. I have been around guns most of my life and seeing them in trucks was very common. Hell, me and my friends all owned .22's at a minimum and nobody cared when we wanted to go shooting. Where I grew up it was just... normal.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

The big difference being about 5 billion more people on the planet since then and now.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

100% what you break into. Its exposed, and the exact place most people keep expensive tools and stupid people keep guns.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

A guy I worked with had a handgun with permits and stored in his car. We made torpedo parts for the navy. HR found out and sent an email about weapons on the premises. Hehe

[-] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I was in the military, I regularly practice and teach responsible use and ownership. My background checks are clean and I never use firearms while under the influence of anything. All of my firearms are well maintained and locked away or disabled when they are not.

Guns are just guns. They are fun to shoot and a useful tool for hunting. Quite honestly, I love the precision engineering that it takes to contain up to 65,000 psi and direct that energy in a controlled manner.

Your generalization of responsible gun owners is bad, unfortunately. You seem to demonize people blindly and that is simply not healthy and not fair to people who actually respect what these tools actually are.

I am guessing your experience around firearms is basically nil and that is OK! Fear of them is a natural thing and is healthy to maintain a deep respect for any kind of high energy machinery.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

What is the leading cause of death for children in the US again?

[-] [email protected] -3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Stop deflecting with rehtorical questions. It's kinda hostile. But, to answer the question anyway, it's fairly close between motor vehicles, firearms, cancer and just "normal" accidents.

My point, is that you are generalizing a group of people based on the behaviors of a minority. You can call me an idiot to my face for any reason that you would like for anything that I have said. Totally cool. You cannot group me in with a subset of people that you believe are all the same. That is completely unrealistic.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

It's not a rhetorical question, and what the fuck is fairly close lol? There is a right answer here, big guy.

[-] Kecessa 7 points 8 months ago

The person that asked the question was someone other than the person you originally replied to (me).

My comment was just pointing out the truth, all irresponsible gun owners talk like they are responsible gun owners. You might be a responsible gun owner, it doesn't make what I say any less true.

It also doesn't change the fact that US guns make their way to my country and people get killed using them and these guns come, in part, from people who called themselves responsible owners and who got their gun(s) stolen.

[-] [email protected] -2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Canada should stop exporting alcohol. In my opinion, that is a much more potent killer than guns will ever be.

Crown Royal, and the responsible consumers of that product, should be held responsible for all deaths and domestic abuse caused by their products. The people that get drunk aren't the issue, so we should just ban alcohol completely.

People who say they are responsible consumers of alcohol are actually not. They actually hide bottles of booze from their family and get completely blitzed whenever they have the chance.


Before you dismiss my example as a false equivalence, and to a degree it is, I can't help but see your logic as a shift of blame per my example.

If someone gets drunk and beats their kids, that person is at fault. If someone stabs someone else with a knife, that person is also at fault. If your car gets stolen and it is used to run people over, it's the fault of the thief.

If someone shoots someone else with a stolen gun, it's now the fault of responsible gun owners who may also be victims of crimes (theft) themselves.

I should also point out that words are not actions. People can say anything they want. If someone says they are responsible and they actually aren't, that can create a risky situation. Guns aside, that is life in general. If people act irresponsibly, they should be treated as such. If they drink too much, send them to a doctor. If they don't obey traffic laws, send them to remedial training and suspend their license after that if necessary. If they can't operate a firearm or follow laws, take their guns.

Also, in my personal experience, irresponsible gun owners talk like irresponsible gun owners. In general, irresponsible people act like irresponsible people which is much easier to identify.

[-] Kecessa 6 points 8 months ago

Alcohol is easy to make at home so no way to realistically ban it, plenty of campaigns to lower it's consumption.

Knives are necessary to make food and are easy to make at home, already illegal to carry knives over a certain size.

Cars are necessary for personal transportation because of the way our countries are developed, manufacturers are making them safer and harder to steal.

Guns? Neither necessary or easy to make at home, manufacturers make them more efficient at killing, easy to ban.

The only reason these guns exist in Canada is because USA has the gun culture it has, make all guns disappear from the USA and Canada and see how little will illegally make the way inside both countries. The fact that you guys have such easy access to guns is the issue, no matter how safely you store them, if someone enters your house without you noticing, points one at your head and tells you to open your safe to steal your firearms, you'll do it while pissing your pants and say thank you if they don't shoot you before leaving.

Sure, people are the issue, the object isn't. What you guys don't get is that all people who want to own guns are the issue, not just irresponsible owners.

[-] [email protected] -4 points 8 months ago

I can easily make a "gun" at home and it doesn't take that much creativity. With a little bit of chemistry knowledge, you can make extremely dangerous explosives as well. Hell, it's even easier to make a gun at home with the advent of 3D printing and the wide availability of desktop CNC machines. By your logic, there is no realistic way to completely ban guns either.

There are plenty of people in Canada and the US that still require guns as a tool for food. It's not as prevalent as it once was, but it's still a thing. I still participate in the destruction of invasive species from time to time and it's a huge benefit to those farmers.

I will also admit that I really enjoy firearms and the hobby happens to align well with the rest of my engineering fascinations. To me, my guns are just as interchangeable with the new CNC machine I am designing and building. Two different machines, but are incredibly interesting when it comes to precision.

Also, what you think you want is a perfect world. Until that happens, I am absolutely more comfortable with a firearm at my side in some situations. If we all were good people and always had good intentions, sure! Throw out all the guns. Let's hold hands and sing. The truth of the matter is that humanity is undeniably dirty. If someone breaks into my house, they will probably be armed and I have no issues putting them down quickly in such a case. It's a sad and disgusting part of life that many people don't see, or choose to ignore.

There are a lot of gun owners from all walks of life, btw. Calling us "wrong" or "the problem" is just something that you need to do to feel better, I suppose.

[-] Kecessa 5 points 8 months ago

Also, what you think you want is a perfect world. Until that happens, I am absolutely more comfortable with a firearm at my side in some situations. If we all were good people and always had good intentions, sure! Throw out all the guns.

Funny how the USA is the only developed country where people without mental health issues feel this way... It's as if the fact that people having guns in the first place is the reason why... Heh, that's funny!

There are plenty of people in Canada and the US that still require guns as a tool for food.

Give guns only to the people that can justify not being able to purchase meat from the grocery store and see how many guns are left.

With a little bit of chemistry knowledge, you can make extremely dangerous explosives as well. Hell, it's even easier to make a gun at home with the advent of 3D printing and the wide availability of desktop CNC machines.

By that logic I guess we should make owning bombs legal then 🤷 The learning curve, financial investment and ability to build reliable guns at home makes them much easier to ban than anything you mentioned in your previous comment.

There are a lot of gun owners from all walks of life, btw. Calling us "wrong" or "the problem" is just something that you need to do to feel better, I suppose.

Nah, it's just a fact, no gun owners, no gun problem.

[-] [email protected] -2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Lol you mentioned cars earlier. You design a modern car while I design a modern gun. These arguments make zero sense. I vote hard left, and am a firm believer in gun control, but trying to justify the outright ban of guns is nonsense. Someone up there blaming the US for guns in Canada. Guns arent allowed there except under strict circumstances, but somehow that's averted. Just raise the bar for gun ownership and stop trying to justify working in absolutes.

[-] Kecessa 3 points 8 months ago

It's ILLEGAL guns making their way to Canada after being stolen in the USA because they're so easy to get over there! Gun control in Canada is super strict already, that's why the vast majority of guns used for crimes in Canada come from your country. We end up having to deal with your crap once country over and innocent people get killed because of it.

[-] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago

It's not our crap, if they didn't source them from here they would and likely do source them elsewhere. That sounds like a customs issue at the Canadian border. You can not use us as a catchall just because we have guns, that's not how this shit works at all.

[-] Kecessa 2 points 8 months ago

US guns make their way to fucking Europe because there's so many of them that it's sometimes easier than to source then from markets that are closer than that!

[-] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago

I'm sorry but this is no different than any other smuggling operation, whether it be counterfeit goods, drugs, guns, people. The origin country plays a role, but so do a shit ton of other factors, CA law enforcement and or politicians need to work to find a solution to resolve why it is that these guns are being smuggled, that would be infinitely easier and more effective than hoping the US will suddenly rewrite its constitution to abolish the right to own guns, and then effectively remove them from law abiding citizens as well as our own crime operations. That is a tall order that most people agree is not feasible. You can't do it in your country with less guns, how the fuck are we suppose to? This is not a US only problem and you pinning it that way is just lazy.

[-] Kecessa 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

We share the longest continuous land border in the world, pretty much all illegal guns in our country come from your country. I guess we could build a wall and make you guys pay for it, you seem like the kind of guy that likes ideas like that.

Guess you also think Columbia has no responsibility to share for the cocaine that makes its way to the USA and it's your own problem that you should tackle by yourself, right?

And if your neighbor is noisy, that's your problem, put more insulation in your walls!

[-] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago

Maybe you should reread what I said. It was good talking with you, I'm over it.

[-] Kecessa 1 points 8 months ago

Oh yeah, I read properly, to you it's not a US problem if your guns make their way to Canada and are used to kill people, I got all of that, don't worry.

[-] [email protected] -2 points 8 months ago

Edit: lol it was you that said that. How are you going to sit there and argue when you contradict yourself? "The only country" also "my country has the same problem but it's not our fault it's your country"

[-] Kecessa 3 points 8 months ago

In your country it's an everyone feels the need to carry a gun issue, in my country it's a gang gun violence made possible by guns from your country issue.

Not the same issue at all.

[-] [email protected] -5 points 8 months ago

I'm sorry but you cannot blame the US for gun crimes in CA, that's absurd.

[-] Kecessa 4 points 8 months ago

Pretty much all guns used for crimes in Canada illegally made their way to Canada from the USA, that's just a fact.

[-] BarterClub 7 points 8 months ago

Shouldn't be. But here in oh USA we treat it as our first born son. 🤦‍♂️

[-] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

You aren't missing much.

this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
245 points (97.7% liked)

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