Should seniors/the aged be restricted from firearm ownership?

That’s really tough but I’d like to see more ‘competency requirements’ rather than an age limit across the board.

In your scenario, they should lose because of mishandling of a firearm a la Alec Baldwin. Age shouldn’t factor, and if said person is an American citizen then disarming someone should be an absolute last resort as we have 2nd Amendment considerations in play.

Well, I think everybody should be restricted from firearm ownership, but if firearms are allowed then no, age should not be a factor. A guy in my band is 74, and NRA guy, and owns many guns. I would trust him with a firearm any time, and I would trust him to teach me if I so chose.

Perhaps there should be an anti-racist test you have to pass as part of licensure?

An excellent question @zenvelo .
I always thought people should be assessed to keep their drivers license every 5 years.
As a owner of firearms, I would be fine with this.

The problem would be, if they weren’t deemed capable to own firearms, what then?

Maybe make it illegal for them to possess ammunition?...

No.
What should be done is require everyone who wishes to possess a rifle to take a gun safety course. Everyone who wishes to own a handgun should be required to take a course in proper gun safety and proper use in life and/or death situations.
@Acrylic Alec Baldwin is not guilty of mishandling a firearm. He was following the film director’s instructions with what he thought was a “cold” non-lethal gun, not a gun containing live rounds.

@kritiper You mean like every 5 years or ?

@KNOWITALL Anytime. I don’t mean a license. I mean proper training.

@Acrylic You might have heard by now that charges against Alec Baldwin have been dropped due to the fact the FBI discovered the gun had been altered and could have gone off without him pulling the trigger.

I don’t think that there are many old geezers are out gunning down people. Oh like one. Right?

Get real.

No. It’s the crazy nut job younger monsters and the drugged out gang bangers that are doing the slaughtering with guns.

Maybe…

But that still leaves mercenary armies, drone swarms, and weapons of mass destruction.

I know of two shootings in the past week that were done by elderly people. One, the young girl was shot while in her car, when the car went up the wrong driveway. The guy who shot her was in his 60’s, I think 64. “Elderly” by technical standards and maybe legal standards but not elderly as in anybody would expect him to be senile.

The other shooting was the teenage boy who was shot by the man who was in his 80s. The boy knocked on the wrong door, and the guy shot him. The guy claimed the boy pulled on the door handle, the boy said he didn’t. The guy claimed he was scared for his life and that’s why he shot the boy. I am guessing that guy is going to say self defense because his attorney will stress that he claims he was scared for his life and I am wondering if the attorney will also say the guy is in his 80s and a bit daft. In no way am I saying that shooting was justified, but I am trying to guess at how the defense attorney will defend him.

@kritiper your classes and training sound great, but what if somebody jumps through all the hoops and then is still determined to misuse their guns?

@jca2 I don’t know how well the self-defense argument is going to work since the guy then exited his house, walked up to the kid laying on the ground, and shot him a second time. I’m not sure that defense will hold after you do that.

No.

@LifeQuestioner Hey, nothing is perfect! Anyone who wants a gun can find one easily. Like the saying goes: “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”

No

It doesn’t matter how “sweet” the pull was on the trigger. There should not have been any live rounds in the gun!

^That’s 100% correct. If typical protocols were followed, this incident would never have occurred…
For me, tireless routine hopefully keeps me from having an incident while handling a firearm.
The woman in charge of the revolver, was not an “aged” person. So. Some form of CE, wouldn’t have prevented this.
But. The sad reality is that we all start to lose a bit of sharpness as we experience our later years. And I would favor a law with a teared age system for gun owners. But. That would be extended challenging, logistically, and even more so to enforce.

Another sad reality is that accidents happen.

I would add that regarding the Alec incident, I heard initially that the revolver was supposed to be cold but someone may have deliberately loaded it before the scene was filmed. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know. It’s a shady situation…

I think there are several aspects to this question. There are several cases of elderly people defending themselves with guns

https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2023/02/16/florida-woman-defends-self-90-year-old-mother-from-armed-intruder-n67422

https://www.wesh.com/article/orange-county-woman-kills-intruder/40080694

(just 2 examples). But that doesn’t excuse shooting or killing innocent people. I noticed there have been several examples of some completely innocent person being shot by someone who felt they were in danger. The first thing that came to my mind was to wonder why they felt they were in danger. Was crime out of control? Had they been threatened? Had they recently been attacked? Nothing I can find says what the driving force was in most of these cases.

But shooting an unarmed, innocent person deserves punishment.

^I’d like to think that there was more to all of these stories. But. That’s not really important, now…

@LifeQuestioner I’m not saying I agree with the old man (the shooter), I’m just presenting what I think might be the defense attorney’s stance, as it’s the defense attorney’s job to come up with a justification for his client’s actions (hence, a defense).

O course not. You talk like it’s a privilege; it’s a right.

It seems to be a right to “pop caps” at anyone or anything you don’t understand why they’re close to your “castle” !

Again . . . again . . . again . . . again . . . AGAIN . . . and AGAIN !

“because of mishandling of a firearm a la Alec Baldwin.”
– What?

@JLoon Exactly. Fortunately, I am extremely far from being anything like a homicidal maniac. But if I were, and if I were a gun rights enthusiast who was denied guns due to an ill-conceived age requirement, then I could easily think of many other ways to unleash destruction, which could easily be more destructive and deadly than if I were to try to go on a shooting spree.

If you really wanted to cut down on mass shootings, you’d look at the statistics . . . and probably end up restricting guns from young white men and teens . . . (at least, that’d be my guess . . .)

You’re still not a homocidal maniac?!

Damn, bro – share your meds ;D

@Tropical_Willie it sounds ridiculous, but some places are a war zone.
I’ve lived in some rough spots, and was a LEO in worse. Lots if people carry guns. In one of old neighborhoods though, they just carried them in their hands in large groups. It must sound crazy. But I felt pretty safe in my old “hoods.” Strangers didn’t come around much. Crime was mostly limited to rival factions of other neighborhoods and ours. Although my next door neighbor was murdered by her husband.
Few days used to pass without hearing gunshots, or a couple exchanges of fire on back pathways or alleys…
I guess I just got used to it.
I know I was not necessarily part of the solution. I kept my 12 gauge pump with me, wherever I was hanging out in my house. I answered the door with it too. I would rack it before I opened the door. I wouldn’t go outside with it. But if people were loitering around my motorcycle for too long, or knocking on my door at 3AM, you bet I was ready for a problem.
It’s nothing I am proud of. Guns were not that different than an umbrella in those places. They were just in case…

Sometimes it would be very quiet out. That was the worst. Everyone would come and go quickly to and fro…
When everyone was back on the streets and yards, it was ok…

@MrGrimm888 What kind of LEO were you?

^I’ll PM you.

@JLoon People have often told me I have the patience of a saint.

My secret meds, have been avoiding taking meds and drugs, avoiding smoking anything, and using alcohol only occasionally. I have succumbed to coffee though.

I recommend fresh air, trees, mountains, rivers, oceans, cats, meditation, Feldenkrais, and figuring out one’s shit.

But I also have played games about violent subjects for most of my life. If I ever feel like I want to shoot people, or even run them over with cars, or hack them to death with medieval weapons, or plot massive disasters, they provide the opportunity without doing much damage. And some of them get one to think about the consequences of such actions, too.

@MrGrimm888 Gun control efforts begin with not believing that people use guns for defense at all, or only on VERY rare occasions. It has to have the attitude that only people that want to run out and kill others actually buy guns and it fully believes that just by owning a gun you will get the irresistible urge to start shooting people indiscriminately.

Another view of this question is to look at the opposite end of the age spectrum. According to the NY Times most of the worst mass shootings were done by people 21 years old and younger.

No, just as long they are still able to be responsible in the way of owning them.Age matters when you can’t for sure though.