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.

  • remotelove@lemmy.ca
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    9 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.

      • remotelove@lemmy.ca
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        9 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.

        • Nudding@lemmy.world
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          9 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@sh.itjust.works
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          9 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.

          • remotelove@lemmy.ca
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            9 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@sh.itjust.works
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              9 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.

              • remotelove@lemmy.ca
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                9 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@sh.itjust.works
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                  9 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.

                  • chingadera@lemmy.world
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                    9 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.

                  • chingadera@lemmy.world
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                    9 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”