“None of my guns are locked up. They’re all in accessible places around the home and loaded. I’ll shift them if there’s kids coming, idiots just plain aren’t allowed, and they’re supposed to be a risk to criminals.”
I guess you haven’t been burglarized. The safest place to have a gun is on your person so it can be at immediate risk for criminals. After that, in a gun safe.
Each gun that is ripped off or worse, used by some kid that found it is just like stroking a check to Michael Bloomberg. It’s a propaganda victory for them.
I haven’t been burglarized because I take the step necessary to prevent such a thing. The problem with a locked up gun is it’s useless. On your person has its place, but not terribly helpful when you’re asleep, and can be kind of in the way moving around. Everywhere I spend time around the house has a gun within 2 steps and a reach, been that way for a long time, and zero have been stolen. My FIL followed the same principle from the day he joined the Army Air Corp until his death a few years ago, also zero stolen. And no accidents from his kids either, he raised them better than that, even the two that came out idiots understood guns aren’t toys.
I think the propaganda victory comes in thinking responsible gun ownership involves hiding them away where they “can’t do harm”. They’re tools, treat them as such. They don’t have minds of their own, they aren’t magical, and if all the people in your home understand that you can have loaded guns on every surface and nothing bad will happen. Locking them away takes away opportunities to teach people to respect and understand guns, THAT’S writing a check to Bloomberg by giving him more people that think guns are magical evil. To break the propaganda you need them out and about and not doing harm, not locked away like scary monsters.