I guess if it were a truly close friend, I'd trust their judgement, just like if I were loaning them a vehicle....but the issue is that pretty much all my close friends already own guns...
Maybe I'm just too picky about who to take in as a close friend, but the end result is that I don't really have any gun-less friends...
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The people I do know fairly well who don't own guns are generally anti-gun, and so I regard them as mostly too 'violent' and 'irresponsible' to loan a gun to. Why...??? I think because most of the people I know who don't own firearms ARE individuals who are hot-tempered, have NO clue how to de-escalate an argument, much less a fight, and some will be the first to tell you that they don't own a gun because they are afraid of what they'd do with it, or afraid they'd forget and leave it in the baby's playpen.
Any of you guys ever loan a gun to a novice...???