Gun control

[Crazed_Insanity]

With regard to registering guns... I wish NRA could take the initiative to become the DMV of guns... and do the administering for free for all patriotic americans... rather than waste their money lobbying. Do the job of identifying all the good gun owning citizens... or do the job of "regulating the militia" as a private non-government organization... and hopefully help government identify risk areas so that we can minimize bad things from happening... NRA needs to do a better job bridging the gap between gun lovers and gun haters IMHO.

The other issue is the tendency for folks in our societies to go too extreme for whatever reasons. Forget terrorists for now, even for women, it's either full on feminism or secretly loving 50 shades of gray. Pretty much all mass shooters harbored some sort of extreme ideology. Our society is just sick for whatever reasons. Having gun rights and a society flooded with guns certainly didn't help... Anyway, I do believe the root problem isn't with guns though. There are just more and more broken messed up folks. As Canada has demonstrated, mass killers can kill mass without guns. Vans well do. 911 terrorists used airplanes.

If we keep banning and restricting, we will eventually end up banning all modes of transport... or perhaps make traveling so much hassle that people will simply stay home all the time and just chat with each other in front of their computers... probably end up causing more problems for our culture...

[dodint]

It's common enough right now that we don't seem to be able to get past the "it's too soon to politicize this" stage before the next one happens.

What's interesting is that language, that law-abiding gun owners have done all these things but the anti-2A crowd keeps taking. Like it's this contrived plan to just make life difficult for gun owners, and has nothing to do with people wanting to try to stop people from being shot to death. The fact that you think that I'm being disingenuous because I don't want to see schoolkids get shot is troubling. What do you think my real motivation is?

But, to go back to the car thing, I'd like to see it be way harder to get a license, way easier to lose one's license, and for us to take driving and the law a hell of a lot more seriously in this country, and then regulate guns just as much as that. A hell of a lot of people are allowed to drive cars right now that shouldn't be allowed to.

No one here questions the sincerity of your anger. What's disingenuous is presenting gun violence as a national epidemic when every statistic demonstrates that it's a very unlikely way to die. We've gone through the stats before so I'm not going to bother rehashing it because you're unable or unwilling to contextualize their significance.

You won't be satisfied until there are zero guns; fine. My guess is your position is "a single gun death is too many", which is a sincere and noble position. But the practical reality is that guns are here and even with a full abolition of gun ownership in the country they will exist for generations in the hands of those willing to operate outside of the law (see: small but measurable Australian gun violence). So as long as guns are legal I'll have mine; and I'll use them for the wide array of activities that don't involve killing people because that's what I, as a law abiding gun owner, choose to do with them. Your insistence on stripping all of that away from every legal gun owner in America to forward what would be an ineffective public policy agenda is what's troubling, to me. It is literally "Well I don't do it and so you can't either."

Hundreds of cyclists are killed annually. I'm not a cyclist so I'm okay with banning everyone from cycling to save a small number of lives. Too bad if your livelihood depends on it, we're doing you a favor for the public good.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Helluva lot of folks shouldn't drive.
Helluva lot of folks shouldn't own guns.
Helluva lot of folks shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Where should we draw that line is the difficult question.

Suffice to say we shouldn't just ban vans because of mass van killer or ban elections because of Donald Trump.

What we really need to address is why that guy felt entitled to get laid and if not, he's justified to mow down women with a van...

Also, what caused the rise of the orange ape?

Blaming vans or blaming stupid voters won't solve the root problem. We don't really have a van problem nor an election problem.

Of course, to be fair, we do have a way-too-many-guns in our society problem though. Maybe we can setup some sort of cap and trade system for gun owners?

[Tom Servo]

Your cycling analogy doesn't really work. With a gun, even accidentally, you cause a not insignificant risk to the lives of others as well as yourself. With a bike, you don't. If you had a gun that you could only shoot yourself with, then that might be a reasonable argument.

You won't be satisfied until there are zero guns;

Who's being disingenuous here? I think we should do a hell of a lot more to regulate them, at least as much as we do driving a car (and we should regulate that more too). I literally said that in the next paragraph.

[dodint]

Yeah, you didn't address the premise of my post. And we're talking past each other, as we always do.

I was sucked in by Bills reasonable, thought provoking post, but then he never came back. Lesson learned.

[TheBenior]

Who's being disingenuous here? I think we should do a hell of a lot more to regulate them, at least as much as we do driving a car (and we should regulate that more too). I literally said that in the next paragraph.

Saying that we should regulate them at least as much as cars tells me that you've never tried to buy one. I never had to have my background checked to buy a vehicle that I wasn't financing, nor did I fill out any federal paperwork. I never had to bring a form saying I was a police officer to not have to wait 72 hours to buy a car. FWIU, most states don't require background checks for intrastate private (non-dealer) sales (Illinois does), but I'd be fine with that. Some states allow concealed carrying without a permit, but most require a class, which one strictly doesn't have to do to get a driver's license. Furthermore, a driver's license lets you drive in drive in every state (and isn't subject to the whim/bribery of your county/municipality like concealed carry is in HI, MA, MD, NY, NJ, and RI). State reciprocity for concealed carry varies quite a bit.

Cars are by necessity more complex than guns, which have existed in small arm form since the 13th Century, and in the current form with convenient metallic cartridges since 1845. Also, in spite of all the regulations for street legal vehicles, if I'm making an off-road only dune buggy (or buying one of these cheap Chinese dirt bikes that are all over the coasts) to hillbilly about with on my cousin's farm, there's pretty almost no regulation whatsoever.

If you want to credibly argue for more regulation, ignorance about current and past regulation is not a virtue.

[Tom Servo]

I'll admit my ignorance on all the regulations regarding firearms. Out of curiosity, do you have to have a license that requires passing a test to be able to buy a gun? Does that license have to be renewed every few years, potentially including passing written and physical tests again? Do you have to register every firearm and renew that registration every year? Do you have to periodically bring the firearms in for inspection to make sure they're still in good working order? Carry insurance at all times indicating coverage in the event that an accident occurs with the firearm? Have a identifying and clearly visible from a distance number plate on all firearms? Can the license be revoked if you use the firearm in a reckless way or somewhere outside the designated places where you're allowed to use it?

Honestly curious.

[Rare White Ape]

[TheBenior]

I'll admit my ignorance on all the regulations regarding firearms. Out of curiosity, do you have to have a license that requires passing a test to be able to buy a gun? Does that license have to be renewed every few years, potentially including passing written and physical tests again? Do you have to register every firearm and renew that registration every year? Do you have to periodically bring the firearms in for inspection to make sure they're still in good working order? Carry insurance at all times indicating coverage in the event that an accident occurs with the firearm? Have a identifying and clearly visible from a distance number plate on all firearms? Can the license be revoked if you use the firearm in a reckless way or somewhere outside the designated places where you're allowed to use it?

Honestly curious.

No you're not, you're trolling.

None of those things are mandatory towards car ownership in this country, only car operation on public roads.

[Tom Servo]

I'm not trolling. I'm legitimately listing out the regulations I know of for driving, because as far as I can tell there are significant regulations for that, certainly more than you alluded to in your post and I actually want to know if those same regulations apply to having firearms in populated areas. I might also point out that I previously referred to driving, not car ownership, but I'm happy to clarify that I mean "driving on public roads". I honestly couldn't give a shit if you only shot guns out in the middle of nowhere on your cousin's farm, just like I don't expect those same regulations to be the same if you're driving a dune buggy on said farm, but that's not what we're talking about here.