Idea regarding "Gun-Control".

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.

 

We don't restrict them to only buying compact with less than 150hp and driving it for 1-5 years to prove they handle a car.

Wait, so a middle-aged man who never owned a gun who has finally decided to take up trap can't buy a Beretta UGB25 Xcel Trap 12?

Right, because the best way to deal with mentally ill people is to make sure that their families throw them out on the street rather than deal with the burden. Technically, eating disorders are a form of mental illness. Does that mean a family with anorexic teenage daughter can't buy guns? What happens if they already have them when she is diagnosed?

You need to go back to the drawing board.

 

This seems like a particularly foolish attempt at "compromise"

No more compromises will be accepted. Particularly silly ones about placing restrictions on sales from sumdood that can't differentiate "you're" / "your".

Forget compromise, forget "giving the banners something". Now is the time to point out the failure of all the stupid, misguided, foolish, nanny-state, wishful-thinking "laws" about guns. Ethics and morality can't be legislated or preached, adding another restriction is not acceptable.

How do you enforce this nonsense, anyway? National FOID card? Registration of all guns? Will ASHA handle the administration of this policy?

 

Expect more budget to mental illness . THat is the bottom line . We got more vets from two wars who are experiencing PTSDs and some of them can go the thin line of no return.

 

Only if I get to decide who is mentally ill

 

Some states already require any purchaser to have a "permit to purchase" (such as an Illinois Firearms Owners Identification Card, for example.) These "permits-to-own" already come with the required background checks and what-not.
Other localities limit buyers to one gun per month, which would limit anyone to one gun per purchase.
None of these areas has been able to show a reduction in gun violence directly attributable to these restrictions.
The issue is far bigger than gun-control.

 

Americans have proven that we, as a people, suck at responsibility. In terms of firearms rights, hundreds of millions of Americans do it right every day, but the handful of Americans that do not responsibly use their firearms ruin them for everyone. This is graphically demonstrated by the school shooting. At what point does self-defense counter the increased ease of murder firearms provide?

My solution is simple: We keep current gun laws as-is, with some major additions.
1. Mandatory shall-issue firearms licenses, Constitutionally protected, but mandating initial training, testing and psychological screening. Loss of the license means loss of your right to own weapons. Licenses removable for essentially the same reasons that we have in place, plus mental incapacity. All gun owners, current and future, would be forced to take the license exam or lose their weapons.
2. Revolvers and pistols with less than 10 rounds will be available essentially as they are now, with presentation of a valid firearms license as the only acceptable ID for the background check. Long rifles with 10 or less rounds would be similarly unaffected. Weapon styling would not matter. Why? Because it's a lot harder to kill 26 people with a revolver or a neutered AR-15 than it is to do it with a 30-round magazine.

11+ rounds: Ownership essentially the same as before, but with a $100/round extra tax for the magazine. So, basically, let's say a 16-round XD. That's going to be a $650 magazine, the $600 due to the extra 6 rounds. A 30-round AR magazine is going to be more than $2000- prohibitively expensive. These magazines would have a tax mark authorizing them. Prior magazines would be subject to taxation and would be exchanged by the government.
3. Ammunition sales will be taxed at a further 2% of cost. This will fund mental-health treatment.

Use or public possession of a counterfeit, unmarked or defaced magazine without the stamp would be grounds for removal of license. Possession of firearms without a license would be a federal crime with sentences ranging from dismissal and a slap on the back to life in prison, depending on the circumstances.

Concealed-carry would be legal nation-wide, based on that federal firearms license. Once again, protected in the Constitution. Shall-issue, with either Arizona-style "constitutional carry" or a Texas-style "shall issue, but school first", with personal preference towards school required. Make it free. Heck, make it mandatory to attend and pass CCW education.

There would also be an extensive mental-health screening program in high school and college, focused on identifying threats before they destabilize. We can't get rid of quirky people- it's simply not possible. However, James Holmes and many other shooters have sought help, and for whatever reason, they were not helped or stopped. We need to remove that fear of action and get these people the help society needs them to have to protect all of us.

I am a supporter of the right to bear arms. I've got hundreds of rounds of ammunition and multiple firearms in my closet, and I carry a firearm where legally/intelligently safe to do so. I am familiar with firearms and their effects on targets. I've killed someone in self-defense with a firearm. Guns help protect people from other people, especially those who are traditionally targets- the old, the weak, females, etc. However, they also enable murder on a scale near-unimaginable. Many of the right-wing advocates point to the atrocity in China where a knife-wielding man slashed 22 children. The difference is that those kids lived.

It's time to realize that the Second Amendment is interpretable, and that we have to do something as a nation to stop these senseless mass killings. A classroom full of kindergartners is too far. There's a league of difference between taking your wife's M1911 .45ACP concealed-carry pistol with 7 rounds and some psycopath's AR-15 or Glock hi-capacity magazine with 33.

The guns aren't to blame, but they are far easier to regulate than human behavior. Managing the ammunition capacity of the weapon is a logical counter to their potential danger.

 

There doesn't seem to be any evidence that the shooter had any trouble whatsoever changing magazines due to capacity. I like the shall issue part and school screening, but mag capacity seems a little reaching to me.

 

I've got a crazy idea...

Why don't we take the current laws, and leave them alone.

History will tell you you can pass all the laws you want, it won't prevent shootings from happening.

Yes, there needs to be reform.... But of the mental health system, not the gun laws.

 

The california babe has drawn up a new Assault Weapons Ban for congress.
This one is going to be trouble---they consider anything semi-auto to be an Assault Weapon----I see big trouble coming & I am sure Obama will tell us all about it.

 

Wow, just when I thought we couldn't have a more stupid idea than the OP presented, Rocketmedic comes along and ups the ante.

Rocketmedic's proposal is too asinine to even address.

 

How so? What exactly is unreasonable about it?

 

You need to read the post thoroughly.

We require a year-long permit process before buying a car. During which time you drive someone else car. You can't buy a car without a license, which is only acquired once you pass a test. Same idea here. Don't spin this.

You can buy that Beretta Shotgun. Like I said, you can own one until you've proven yourself.

You really think someone is going to throw their child out to own a gun? I'm not sure your thinking clearly. And you know damn well what I mean by mental illness.

You need to read. And not take out of context for the purpose of belittling someone, it makes you look like an ass.

It's exactly this kind of mind-set that's going to get the AWB reinstated. When it passes, guys like you will be to blame. We could save ourselves, but no. You'd rather children die than compromise.

And Rocketmedic, you know they get plenty of 30-rounders in Mexico right? Where they're banned? Even in Canada, where guns are limited to ten rounds for rifles, all you have to do is remove the restraining pin and you have a 10+ capacity.

 

You must certainly be in love with Bloomberg, Schumer, and Feinstein....because they all preach regulating guns instead of going after the root of the problem our mental health system.

If your answer is to regulate guns then here (you'll really enjoy this website): http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.beb0d8fdaa9e1607a62fa24601c789a0/

 

@Rocketmedic. I reject your proposals out of hand.

 

There are what, something along the lines of 75 million gun owners in America?

There are, overestimating a good amount, 35 thousand gun related deaths every year?

If, incorrectly and not true in any way shape or form, each firearm related death is related to a different gun owner.

We would have less than 5 thousandths of a percent of all firearms owners involved with a firearm related death. (EDIT: I had an attack of the dumbs. Should read hundredths not thousandths.)

So, over 99.95% of all firearms owners somehow manage not to kill anyone in the course of their day.

Yeah, imposing more restrictions on an overwhelming number of responsible people due to actions of, this next part is just my opinion, mentally ill people does not make sense.

Note: My opinion is that anyone that commits murder has issues with mental stability. I believe that rational, normal, well adjusted people do not do this.

 

RocketMedic: Well-said.

 

Clearly the quislings are out in force today.

 

Well off the top of my head, without even getting into the fact that you are taking away what the 2nd Amendment is all about, for the price of a $650 gun (cheap AR) and a $650 magazine (your proposal), I or just about any other person alive could build over 100 pipe bombs. That would most certainly do a lot more damage then even this monstrosity that was just committed. And before you say pipe bombs are hard to build do your research, a trained monkey could build one. Look how many military members who are well trained AND armed are killed by IED's.

That is what's wrong with it. Plus a little thing like that it doesn't solve the problem.

 

I'm with Justin; didn't think I'd encounter that kind of "appease them and they'll leave us be" attitude here...

 

As a people? Yet you acknowledge that hundreds of millions of us do it right every day.

As a people? Yet I as an individual have rights.

As a people? You're expressing a blanket opinion about 300 million people you don't know personally. You're entitled to your opinion, but it doesn't trump my Constitutionally guaranteed individual civil rights.

It's easier to regulate guns (violate my rkba) than regulate human behavior?

ROT. Lazy, intellectually dishonest rubbish. Illogical, emotionally overwrought, knee-jerk anti -2A garbage. Unacceptable.

 

Comparing cars and guns is plain silly. Sure, they can both be misused in a deadly fashion, but that is where the similarity ends. Driving is a 'Privelege" granted by each individual state, a privelege easily revoked by being found guilty of misdemeanor, or running into a surly judge. Firearm ownership is a 'Right' protected (NOT granted) by the Constitution. It requires a much more stringent test to have that right revoked, such as being found guilty of a felony. Please consult a dictionary for clarification of certain comparators.

I don't know where people live that a person is not allowed to purchase a car until they have been driving for a year. That seems just plain silly to me. My nephew bought a '67 Mustang when he was 14 years old. For the next 2 years he worked over the engine, did the body work and interior, and when he was old enough to drive, he took his driving test in his own car. Sure, he had restricted priveleges for a year, but in his own car.

 

I guess I know who's been sending XOXO love letters to Bloomberg and I bet you think Feinstein is the most beautiful woman to walk this Earth. Correct me if I'm wrong.