The right to bear arms...DEFINE ARMS

[Ben Swenson]

how do I know that you are storing them properly unless I know in advance that you have them?

How do you know your neighbor isn't pointing a gun at you through the wall of his home?

[Joe Demko]

How do you know your neighbor isn't pointing a gun at you through the wall of his home?

*sigh* We're back to the gun again. One more time, the gun won't spontaneously point itself at me and go off because it is not stored properly. Explosives can do very much that, since they are "pointed" at everybody within the destructive radius.
Edited to add:
Neglected guns cause no harm. Even if they are stolen, for them to cause harm requires evil intentions on somebody's part. Neglected explosives that have become unstable can cause harm with no desire to do so on the part of their owner. He may have had the best of intentions in stockpiling explosives to use agin' them godless commie ratbastards in their blue helmets. His good intentions don't mean a thing when folks are dead and buildings are destroyed.

[Ben Swenson]

Golgo-13, my point was that you can't know for certain that anyone is being absolutely safe with anything. You seem to think that it is very important to make absolutely sure that people have the facilities to store explosives in accordance with military/industrial standards before they purchase them (ignoring the fact that even if they have the facilities, they might not use them). What else must the gov't check up on people for? Anything that might cause harm to others?

Golgo, if I owned 200+ acres of land and a wooden shack built on a concrete pad stuck right in the middle (not in compliance with any military or industrial standards for explosives storage), why should I not be allowed to store explosives there? Any damage done by unstable explosives is to my own property. Additionally, this could be considerably safer than a fully 40 CFR-264.175 compliant outbuilding in a residential area.

[Joe Demko]

Golgo, if I owned 200+ acres of land and a wooden shack built on a concrete pad stuck right in the middle (not in compliance with any military or industrial standards for explosives storage), why should I not be allowed to store explosives there? Any damage done by unstable explosives is to my own property. Additionally, this could be considerably safer than a fully 40 CFR-264.175 compliant outbuilding in a residential area.

In a situation like that, you can keep it in your living room for all I care. In a suburban neighborhood or an apartment building or other place where people live close together, I'd have a different opinion. I'm not particularly fond of laws. I am fond of not being blown up.

[Ben Swenson]

In a situation like that, you can keep it in your living room for all I care.

Agreed. But your proposed law didn't allow for that.

In a suburban neighborhood or an apartment building or other place where people live close together, I'd have a different opinion. I'm not particularly fond of laws. I am fond of not being blown up.

I am similarly fond of not being blown up. I merely have a different perspective as to whose responsibility it is to make sure I'm not.

[Joe Demko]

I merely have a different perspective as to whose responsibility it is to make sure I'm not.

Do you know what all your neighbors keep in their homes? If so, you are surely the nebbiest of busybodies. I try to stay out of my neighbor's business until it becomes my business. The storage of materials that, through simple neglect on his part, can kill me makes it my business. If possession of explosives fills some deep-seated need for him, then he needs to have the responsibility to go with that ownership. I simply believe that he needs to verifiably demonstrate that level of responsibility. After his stash killed a half dozen people while he was away on vacation is too late. Don't give me any lines about holding him responsible. Even if you shove a stick of dynamite up his behind and detonate it as punishment, it won't bring back the poor slobs his ignorance killled.

[Ben Swenson]

Do you know what all your neighbors keep in their homes?

Nope. Do you?

I try to stay out of my neighbor's business until it becomes my business. The storage of materials that, through simple neglect on his part, can kill me makes it my business.

So, you know all the toxic chemicals (or just mildly carcinogenic paints) your neighbor stores in rusty cans in his shed? You've checked to make sure none of them are leaking into the groundwater or putting off fumes that are drifting towards your home?
If you don't periodically monitor what your neighbor does, what he owns, when he buys stuff and how he stores things that could be dangerous, how can you know when something becomes your business?

If possession of explosives fills some deep-seated need for him, then he needs to have the responsibility to go with that ownership.

Agreed. Same as with owning anything else capable of causing harm.

[Drjones]

Just thought of a problem with all this:

If the average person was allowed to own nukes, the only people who would be able to afford them would be super-wealthy people.

The ACLU and NAACP would have a total field-day with this, and then we would have govt. subsidies so that poor people could own nukes too.

Then, you'd have to fight a carjacker with a nuke instead of just a knife!!!