I’ll reply to myself, from the POV of someone who thinks it’s a terrible idea.
“I have knives. They can hurt people - should the government mandate I get knife insurance? I can curb stomp someone after hitting them with a shovel. Do I need shovel insurance? And foot insurance? Also - people will just get weapons illegally or not carry the insurance. And criminals with illegal guns aren’t going to care. You’re going after them millions of Americans who own guns and hurt nobody with them year in year out. It’s not going to prevent someone from shooting up a night club.”
And the answer (not mine) is that disarming a populace of Frisbees doesn’t make it impossible (nevermind that it already is) for the populace to fight back against a government that has turned against its people. That combo’ed with the fact that frisbee ownership is not in the bill of rights.
It’s funny, because the gun rights fundamentalists are the ones who seem to be the most terrified of the military, what with their fantasies about going out in a blaze of glory fighting against an oppressive government assault on its own citizenry.
But we do regulate the way people drive, car ownership, liability from use of a car and demand registration which is part of a nationwide database used in fraud and crime statistics. Trying to do any of that with guns just raises the NRA nonsense “its a slippery slope towards total ban!!!” bullshit. If we regulated guns like we did cars, there would be more financial incentive for gun owners to be responsible with their weapons and greater protection to the public.
I genuinely think that this is the kind of argument we need on a national level, or at least state by state. Marijuana legalization started gaining a lot of ground when the language changed from “legalize it, man!!” to “regulate pot like alcohol”. When people could see that it was very silly to treat the two things differently, and that we already had a framework for how to regulate it, the conversation changed. If we can get people out of the “the feds are gunna take mah gurrnz” mindset and thinking more about it like a thing to be insured and registered, it might evolve the conversation.
I like the idea of auto-like car registration and insurance because it creates private industry market incentives to do what would be heavy handed for the government. If social media demonstrates anything is that the public is more willing to sign over its privacy rights to a faceless corporation before it would do so to the government.
In the name of facilitating a constructive conversation about sane regulations on firearms, here’s my list of ideas from way back in 2015:
To improve the general safety and accountability of gun ownership commensurate with the danger these weapons pose:
Create a national registry of firearms and link them to their owners. We do this (at the state level) with cars and even some prescription drugs, so doing it with a lethal weapon doesn’t seem like a terrible stretch.
Require a license for all firearms, which must be renewed annually through a re-application process requiring no less than three hours of firearms training relevant to the type of weapon being licensed, as well as a psychiatric evaluation to assess the mental fitness of the potential owner.
Every additional firearm purchased by an individual must require similar registration, training, and screening.
To reduce the dangers of criminals with guns:
No firearm may be sold without first having its barrel rifling pattern recorded along with its serial number, so that in the event of a crime, its owner can be more easily located.
Anyone who wants to buy a firearm must pass a background check. No exceptions.
Gun owners who lose their guns or have them stolen from them will be obligated to file a police report, and gun sales must be reported to a state authority.
If a weapon is not reported as sold, lost, or stolen and the firearm is used in a crime, the original owner will be considered to have aided and abetted in the commission of that crime. If someone attempts to circumvent the background check process by buying a gun and giving it to someone else, they will be similarly liable.
In the event of a stolen weapon being used in the commission of a crime, negligent ownership on the part of the rightful license holder (not keeping the gun in a secure safe, for example) will be grounds for criminal charges, regardless of whether the weapon was reported stolen.
Create a fund, backed by the addition of a tax on gun and ammunition sales, that can be used to institute a permanent federal gun buy-back program (ideally one which rewards more than 100% of the gun’s current street value). If a registered gun is stolen and then traded in to the buy-back program, the owner can file a report, the gun can be returned to them, and the person who traded it in would also be on record to pursue for the theft (photo ID and address verification can help weed out people who might lie on the buy-back form).
To aid in the process of “making whole” those families who are victims of gun violence:
Require every gun owner to carry insurance for their firearms.
Eliminate liability lawsuit immunity for gun manufacturers.
Establish a fund, also backed by the firearm/ammo sales tax, that can be tapped by victims and their families to provide for medical care and/or funeral costs. Firearm insurance could also be required to pay for these costs, and uninsured owners would be on the hook directly for any costs associated with the use of their weapon.
So people already did a lot of good work with this one, but let’s sum up.
If you make the argument from @RichZellich quoted above or similar, you are being at least one of the following:
a) pedantic
b) obtuse
c) unreasonable
What I don’t understand is why it matters. If the best defense against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, then what’s it matter whether it’s semi-auto or fully auto? In other words, isn’t the pedantic “assault weapons are only full auto” argument really a concession that all their other arguments are bullshit and they’re just making unprincipled distinctions to get their way instead of reasoning their way to a solid conclusion?
That said, I don’t think gun control legislation actually fixes any of these problems. But for me to argue against gun control legislation I’d have to take sides with the pro-gun, pro-NRA folks and they’re a bunch of dangerous death-loving nuts who are actually causing the problem.
There are people in this thread citing studies and expert opinions to try to determine whether particular claims are true or false.
Do you have a better definition of the term “rational debate” than that?
There’s another problem here – one that I realized when I was about 8 years old speculating about the motives of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine: even the bad guys tend to think they are the good guys.
Take the guy who shot the other guy in the movie theater in Florida because of a verbal altercation. I’m pretty sure the 72 year old movie patron was not a career criminal or anything. But he killed another human being over a verbal argument over cell phone use in a movie theater. Hell, he probably still thinks of himself as a good guy – and he might not even be wrong about that moment to moment.
But he was the bad guy for just a few minutes in the Florida theater and that’s all it took to irrevocably take another’s life, to make a widow of someone’s wife and an orphan of their daughter.
These discussions of gun control should spend more time talking about cases like this, because they are far more representative of how freedom to bear arms is actually used in our society.
Removing some of these gun-free zones may have changed the out come of the people trapped in the bathrooms. It may have not. We do know people had the time to post on social media where the killer was while they were hiding.
If another security guard or police officer was off duty with his weapon do you think the number of dead would be the same? If just one person in one of the bathrooms had a pistol could they have change the out come? Maybe? We will never know. What I do know is I do not want my last tweet to be, “I left my pistol in the car”.
I don’t want anyone dead, but if someone is killing or hurting people around me I’m going to try to stop them. Preferably non violently. Limiting my choice of tools doesn’t give me or anyone else around me a fighting chance when some starts shooting people. With limited options hiding is a much better choice than non violent negotiations, with an active shooter. Fight back while limiting exposure to yourself may be better than hiding alone, a gun allows you to do that.
In Oregon you can carry into a bar, by law you can not be drunk. In Washington state you can not. People obeying the concealed carry laws in Florida should not go in to a bar while carrying. There are fines and possibly jail time for a single violations. Also the loss of gun ownership for their lifetime. I wouldn’t be surprised if there will be a rise of Florida residents breaking the restrictions. Without anyone noticing they are.
A person who is going to break the law doesn’t care. Terrorists and mass shooters want to inflict the most death they can. They want the media to shout there name and reason why to the world. They go where people are and places that limit the chance of someone stopping them.
Changing gun-free zones just makes it legal for licensed conceal carry owners to go unnoticed legally.
I’m assuming this latter measure is to prevent suicides rather than homicides, because people with brain cooties are wayyyyyyyyy more likely than your averaged [sic] American to use a firearm to kill themselves, not other people.
When I said ‘active shooter’ I am talking about a person activity shooting at another person. I think the government would like us to believe they are close to having a minority report like background check and terrorists list. If they do its really not working well.
I’m not against gun laws and consider myself a Bernie Sanders support too. The 4 laws that failed to pass the other day are just an example of our government failing. Read them over and there are flaws in all of them. It is as they were almost written not to be passed.
We are at a difficult cross road when it comes to guns in our country. Personal safety, terrorists attacks, mass shootings, and a broken government controlled via lobbies and corporations. Also various side streets and dead ends, suicides, accidents, gang violence, domestic violence, robberies, and murder.
Let’s pass laws to increase education, social, and health services. Nobody should be forced to die because they can’t afford a medical treatment.
