TexasCHLforum.com

winters wrote:

AlaskanInTexas wrote:Do people really leave loaded handguns laying around the house unattended? Seems terribly unsafe to me. If it isn't on your person/under your immediate control, I really think you ought to unload the thing. You just never know who might end up running across it and possibly creating a 100% preventable tragedy.

Im single and I live alone. I do what I want.

I am not single. I don't live alone. Everyone in the house is trained in the use of firearms, or trained in not approaching a firearm. I hope beyond hope that a tragedy never happens. But I don't think that I have ever lived my life trying to prevent every tragedy that is 100% preventable. And I don't say this with some fake internetz machismo. I sincerely believe that we all evaluate checks and balances to find what risks we take on to mitigate other risks (in a personal defense context). I have a loaded firearm in my home. I hope that I never have to use it in anger. I hope that it is never involved in an accident. I calculate that the risk of needing my firearm and it being inaccessible (in a safe) is greater than the risk of a family member treating ANY firearm in a casual manner. I hope that I am right. I might plan differently if I thought that my family wasn't safe in the handling of firearms. I'm just not sure blanket statements about unloading all unattended firearms is valid for everyone. I guess I would also qualify that I don't see my firearms as "lying around the house." A person would have to be fairly intimate with my dwelling to just stumble across a firearm.