There are approaches that do not require an full-on ban, which is likely impossible here.
(ETA: This is specifically addressed at mass shootings, although it would very likely have a measurable effect on other forms of gun violence as well)
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Seems like an appeal to extremes. Since even minor efforts to curb ownership/availability of weapons isn’t being done. Guns aren’t smuggled into this country. We are an exporter of illegal guns. Illegal guns they are largely bought in shops in states that don’t give a crap about reasonable regulation. We have a federal law enforcement system which lacks the ability to gather pertinent data or make efforts against gun smuggling, as the NRA wants it.
We also have cheap and available weapons on the market making mass murder easy to pull off. If criminals need to get creative to get them, it will reduce their ability to get them. Two great ways to get the glut of guns off the market are buyback programs and liability insurance. One is the incentive to sell off hoarded guns, the other is a disincentive for stockpiling + creates means for red flagging gun hoarders/smugglers.
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And many of those injuries and most of the deaths are children.
To have a gun available for home defense means it is not stored safety. Which means kids can get to it. Which means dead and injured children and children forced to live with knowing they killed their mother or sibling or friend. Home invasions are rare. Gun accidents are common. If someone wants to keep their family safe, they should not have a gun for self defense.
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I respect Beau and I agree with most of what he says. But we do need bans on most kinds of firearms, at least bans on the sales of fire arms like AK-15s, the ones that are only useful for killing lots of people. If Texas had a ban like that, there would be 2 more adults and 19 children alive today. The Uvalde mass murderer bought the gun he used mere days before killing those children.
Would it take a really long time to reduce the number of guns in the US? Yes. Would it be expensive? Hell yes. Would it be worth it? Fuck yes.
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The whole claim that one needs a semi-automatic rifle to defend one’s home is completely absurd. Unless one is a drug lord or gangster like Tony Montana. Playing a realistic recording of a shotgun being cocked would be safer, cheaper, and more effective in chasing off a burglar – but still overkill --for the vast majority of households.
Affluent white ammosexuals like to shed crocodile tears about gun control measures making it difficult for racial minorites and poor people to defend themselves in their rough urban neighbourhoods, but it’s just another pretense aimed at allowing them to keep their own collections of weapons.
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No argument. The question is what can we get through the morass that our government has become. If we could get the kind of Red Flag Laws he talks about enacted (and enforced) that would be a huge step, but not the whole journey. Even something this targeted and limited would be a crack in the armor of “all gun laws are bad, nukes for all” bullshit arguments they make all the time. No one “needs” military grade weaponry for any legitimate reason other than “Me big man! Me got big gun!” The sooner than mindset dies, the better for all of us.
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As this is a catch-all topic (for which I am very grateful–thank you @gracchus ), I am parking this here:
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The guns in those rough urban neighborhoods are purchased in rural and suburban gun stores where many affluent white ammosexuals live.
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Racism underlies every aspect of the anti-gun-control position, as it does so many positions of American conservatives and right-wingers. It’s what makes these disingenuous appeals on behalf of POC especially disgusting.
[this is also in response to @Mangochin’s comment directly above.
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Feel free to shoot me down here, because what follows is probably some naive shit.
In the UK, I’m pretty sure we don’t follow the Magna Carta to the letter, because it’s ancient and not wholly relevant.
The second amendment was instigated in 1791, when America was surely a very different place than it is today.
The key word, to my simplistic mind, is amendment. If it can be amended once, why not again, more in line with today’s problems?
Fire away, pun not intended.
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The Second Amendment would have to be repealed first. Since the duopoly party of demonstrable bad faith won’t allow that to happen, there won’t be a new amendment related to firearms that supercedes it. Instead we’re going to keep playing this stupid game, hoping that the courts will save us (which they won’t, especially now).
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Told you I was simple. You can’t just amend an amendment.
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Okay, so this is a point I’ve made before.
There are two different ways to write legislation. You can write legislation pertaining to technical qualities and capabilities of something, or you can write legislation pertaining to how that thing is used. ONE of these approaches requires advanced technical knowledge, and is likely to be circumvented before it’s even fully implemented.
Requiring background checks is an easy thing to write and enforce a law around, because we can all agree on what a background check is. Licensing and registration, or creating limitations on how or when someone can carry a firearm, are easy things to structure a law around with unambiguous purpose and implementation. Hell- Simply repealing the second amendment is absolutely clear and simple (to explain, not necessarily to do).
NONE of these approaches require any sort of technical knowledge about firearms. Anyone in congress should be able to write an effective law based on any of those approaches.
But when you start talking about laws based on the specifics of manufacture, capability, or metrics, then yes, you absolutely do need to have a good understanding of those things. Not only that, but the police enforcing that law, and the judges upholding it, ALL also need to have that level of knowledge.
And even then, someone with more knowledge will be easily able to circumvent, challenge, or undermine that law. Does it still apply if I extend the barrel by 1/8" or use a different material for the stock? How about if the part in question isn’t permanently attached? How does that law apply to a firearm that technically falls under a different category, but has been modified? Antique or collector pieces? If I invented a modular magazine/clip, would it’s capacity be based on the size of the module, or the total number connected? This shit will literally go on forever. It also, quite frankly, increases the chance that the law will be badly worded enough that it does ban all kinds of guns it was never intended to.
But the first approach? Two questions: Did they have a gun? Was it licensed? Literally anyone off the street can tell exactly what the law says, and how to enforce it. Zero technical expertise required.
So yeah, pass legislation. I’m not arguing that. But for fuck’s sake, how hard is it to just stick to common sense principles everyone can understand and agree on, instead of plunging into specifics you’re not qualified to discuss?
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There has been a proposal to simply change the wording to “the right to bear arms, while serving in a state militia, shall not be infringed.” Honestly, I think that’s not a particularly bad approach, if the votes were there to do it.
Alternately, add language specifying exactly what is meant by “regulated”, and how it applies.
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See the rest of my post that you quoted. The points I propose are deliberately chosen to be as broad-based as possible. If I left loopholes, and I’m sure I did, I welcome any suggestions for closing them.
See paragraph 6 of my modest gun control proposal.
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You can, it generally involves a new amendment that nullifies the old one, and sets up new rules, for example prohibition.
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Yeah. A major reason I’ve given up on this country. Honestly, I believe in the intent of the 2A as a democratization of power and a hedge against tyranny, but at this point, half our population has abdicated that responsibility, and the other half isn’t fit for it.
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The final paragraph:
That it arises out of the constitution – its second amendment and its design of the Senate – is a bitter irony. The whole point of the American revolution enshrined in that document was to forge a society that could make the world anew, able to adapt to the present unbound by the strictures of the past. In the words of the great English-born revolutionary Thomas Paine, who argued that circumstances always changed from one generation to the next: “As government is for the living, and not for the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it.” Today’s America is sacrificing the living in the name of the dead of two centuries ago. It is betraying its founding ideal. It is offering up its young to placate ghosts from a time long gone.
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