Hammerhead6814
Member
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2009
- Messages
- 701
Kind of a rant here. Brings up gun control, but in a way that I feel still respects us, the law-abiding gun owners in America, while dealing with the mass-shooter problem.
Some things that always gets lost when any new gun control is brought up is the effectiveness of the old "Assault Weapons ban" and gun-owners. Everyone who wants gun control wants to bring back the AWB, but they forget that the Columbine shooting happened during it, the North Hollywood shoot-out (in which fully-automatic weapons were used) happened during it. They like to bring up that gun-related homicides fell during it, but then gloss over the fact that they kept falling after it expired.
Who gets the blame after a mass-shooter? Gun owners. It's always us or the NRA. Never mind that gun-related crime among CCW holders represents less than 1% of gun-related crimes in the United States. They don't care that hundreds of millions of gun-owners committed no crimes yesterday or the day before. We are not the Adam Lanza's or Sung Hoi-Cho's of America!
When you look at mass-shooters, they have a few things in common. They're young (under 30), mentally ill, and they have no prior interest or long-term interest in firearms. They either steal them, buy them in straw-purchases, or buy them all at once just before the shooting. No gun-owner I know bought more than one on his first trip to the gun store. Who, when your that young and trying to pay for school or rent, buys an arsenal? No one with a rational (healthy) mind does.
Inevitably, someone is going to try and pass new restrictions due to these tragedies. And the legislation they pass will fail, like it did the first time around. It will fail because it doesn't go after the problem, just the symptoms. I'm not talking about mental health care, that problem would require raising taxes to fix. I'm talking about how easy it is for someone with zero prior interest in owning a gun and no knowledge of them can get three or four of them in a single day.
So here is my idea (I took long enough to get here). The only restriction I propose is on the first gun someone buys. Instead of letting an 18-year old buy all the rifles and ammo he wants, lets make him prove himself first. If your 18 and buying a gun, your restricted to ONE manual-action rifle or shotgun for X years. Same if your 24 and just buying a gun for the first time. X has been suggested to be anywhere from one to five years. We make young drivers prove they can handle a car, why not young would-be-gun-owners? Also, lets completely prohibit sales to individuals who have been found mentally ill in the course of their life, or who live in a home with a mentally ill person.
The benefits of this idea are that these mass-shooters wouldn't have easy access to firearms. What they would have access to wouldn't cause as much damage. It would also respects us, the law-abiding gun owners of America. Anyone who's owned a gun for more than five years (without a felony) would be grandfathered in. I know that none of us want to see things like what happened Friday. I also know that complete bans do not work. Liberals love to bring up Britain, but then gloss over Albania, Brazil, South Africa, Venezuela, etc. So if there is to be new legislation to stop these events, I think that we should be shaping it, not someone who doesn't know what a barrel shroud is. Or who thinks unloaded gun can kill someone.
Some things that always gets lost when any new gun control is brought up is the effectiveness of the old "Assault Weapons ban" and gun-owners. Everyone who wants gun control wants to bring back the AWB, but they forget that the Columbine shooting happened during it, the North Hollywood shoot-out (in which fully-automatic weapons were used) happened during it. They like to bring up that gun-related homicides fell during it, but then gloss over the fact that they kept falling after it expired.
Who gets the blame after a mass-shooter? Gun owners. It's always us or the NRA. Never mind that gun-related crime among CCW holders represents less than 1% of gun-related crimes in the United States. They don't care that hundreds of millions of gun-owners committed no crimes yesterday or the day before. We are not the Adam Lanza's or Sung Hoi-Cho's of America!
When you look at mass-shooters, they have a few things in common. They're young (under 30), mentally ill, and they have no prior interest or long-term interest in firearms. They either steal them, buy them in straw-purchases, or buy them all at once just before the shooting. No gun-owner I know bought more than one on his first trip to the gun store. Who, when your that young and trying to pay for school or rent, buys an arsenal? No one with a rational (healthy) mind does.
Inevitably, someone is going to try and pass new restrictions due to these tragedies. And the legislation they pass will fail, like it did the first time around. It will fail because it doesn't go after the problem, just the symptoms. I'm not talking about mental health care, that problem would require raising taxes to fix. I'm talking about how easy it is for someone with zero prior interest in owning a gun and no knowledge of them can get three or four of them in a single day.
So here is my idea (I took long enough to get here). The only restriction I propose is on the first gun someone buys. Instead of letting an 18-year old buy all the rifles and ammo he wants, lets make him prove himself first. If your 18 and buying a gun, your restricted to ONE manual-action rifle or shotgun for X years. Same if your 24 and just buying a gun for the first time. X has been suggested to be anywhere from one to five years. We make young drivers prove they can handle a car, why not young would-be-gun-owners? Also, lets completely prohibit sales to individuals who have been found mentally ill in the course of their life, or who live in a home with a mentally ill person.
The benefits of this idea are that these mass-shooters wouldn't have easy access to firearms. What they would have access to wouldn't cause as much damage. It would also respects us, the law-abiding gun owners of America. Anyone who's owned a gun for more than five years (without a felony) would be grandfathered in. I know that none of us want to see things like what happened Friday. I also know that complete bans do not work. Liberals love to bring up Britain, but then gloss over Albania, Brazil, South Africa, Venezuela, etc. So if there is to be new legislation to stop these events, I think that we should be shaping it, not someone who doesn't know what a barrel shroud is. Or who thinks unloaded gun can kill someone.
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