In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre the question of gun control has come up once again. Sure, we can’t blame people, or guns, or bullets, so I guess the onus falls on firing pins, and they’re the real villains.
What I’ve seen on political discussion sites, including /r/politics on Reddit, is an awful lot of hate for common sense approaches to even the most modest, incremental steps towards regulating guns in America.
The simple truth is that gun deaths in America are out of control. I haven’t seen a single serious solution from the right, nor anything from the left that would stand a remote chance of passage, so here are a few suggestions that would work, if we could ever just implement them, which we can’t.
Read the rest of our gun debate series here:
• Florida Teachers Take the Heat, Won’t Pack It
• Pro-gun Lobby Calls for State-Level Ban On Schools
• God Categorically Denies Telling Local Man to Shoot His Family
• Answer to Gun Control Problem; Americans Now Buying Chinese Guns
• Raise Your Hands For Gun Control! Then..Drop Your Pants!
• Sensible Gun-Control Proposals Obvious, Impossible
• The Proposed 2013 Great Gun Grab…Why Sen. Dianne Feinstein is Full of It
• NRA solves gun violence problem: Bullet-proof vests for every American
• The National Rifle Association Revises Its Proposal
• NRA Finds Just the Man for Their Propaganda Ministry
1 – Grant every American the right to muskets
The second amendment is open for debate. Folks on the the right would argue that it is very clear, and so would those on the left, they just disagree with what that clarity means.
What is known is that the founding fathers intended the constitution to be a living document, one flexible and ambiguous enough to be adapted for the times, and they did indeed live in very different times. Back then, French prostitutes were a death sentence, for one thing.
So let’s take them at the most pro-gun possibility interpretable. Let’s say that they intended for Americans to have the right to own unlimited guns. They meant muskets. Single shot, it takes quite a bit of work to pack even that single ball, it has a limited range, terrible accuracy, and requires a good 15-20 seconds to reload, assuming proficiency.
That’s still solid for close-quarters self defense. Best of all it would honor the spirit of what the founding fathers knew. It’s already been established that the 2nd amendment doesn’t extend to mortars, cannons or fully-automatic weapons, so this would just lower the bar on what we decide to denote as a strictly military armament.
The right to a well-regulated militia to keep and bear arms does not include tanks, grenades or drones. Those things didn’t exist back then, and we accept that.
This suggestions just makes so much sense that you can rest assured it will never happen, even though there is a vast, untapped market for muskets. Won’t anyone think of the small business owners?
2 – Require liability insurance on guns
I’ve read many editorials where gun ownership is likened to car ownership. Save for the fact the cars serve countless purposes other than taking a life and guns serve only one (target practice to make one more adept at taking a life,) I’m willing to follow this mental exercise a bit further.
If you have a car, you are required to purchase liability insurance to protect against the harm it may cause, if not used properly, never mind that using a gun properly exactly entails tremendous harm. We could likewise extend that same requirement to firearms. Possession of an uninsured firearm would land you in hot water, much like it would with a car.
If Jason is injured in a robbery, and we can trace the gun back to its owner, Jason should be able to get his medical bills paid by that insurance company. It’s only fair. If David accidentally dies in a hunting accident, his family should be provided for by a policy taken out by the shooter. Those children deserve as much.
You may have heard of safe driver insurance discounts. Well there would be safe gun-owner discounts too. Own a gun safe? Discount! Have trigger locks on your guns? Discount! Complete extra safety courses? Discount! Flo would have a fine time pushing these products, and it’s an untapped market.
The woman who owns a gun to protect herself would be insured at one rate, while the doomsday prepper with 100 guns would be charged at another rate. Adam Lanza’s mother, from whom the guns were stolen, was a doomsday prepper, and she should have been insured out the wazoo. Nothing can bring back those murdered children, but a high premium might have encouraged her to keep fewer death tools, and to keep them more secure.
Insurance makes too much sense, and even though requiring it would grow the economy, those with vested interests in selling forever more guns would never allow it.
3 – Require training and testing
Let’s continue with the car analogy. Everyone feels entitled to drive, and well they should, there are very few places in the country where you can live and work without a car. Cars are critical to employment and survival in the majority of the country.
We require training and testing to get a car, so lets require it with guns. How safe would you feel on the road if all it took to get a driver’s license was to complete a form and pay a fee? Or to compare it to the sale of shotguns or gun show loophole sales, if all they had to do was go and buy a car from a private party (at a dealership, still, obviously) and hop straight away on the road?
A safety and operations course of a good hundred hours or so would make gun owners more safe, more secure, and far less likely to die from their own weapon. It would also educate citizens about the legality of lethal force and cut down on all the bullshit ‘stand your ground’ murders that happen every year. And testing would ensure that the knowledge was absorbed.
Training and testing would not infringe on rights, but it will never come to pass because it would just make too damn much sense.
4 – License and tab guns like cars and boats
The constitution does not say that you have the right to a boat, but I think we can all agree that we should be allowed. Boats are dangerous. Boats are fast and can be used to kill, in the wrong hands. You are free to buy one boat or a hundred boats… but you have to license them.
If I want to own twenty cars, I am free to do so, provided I can afford to license them. If guns had tabs, like cars do, it would make me take a good hard look at my priorities and determine how many, if any, I really want to own.
Car tabs are used to pay for roads, police to enforce the roads and courts to adjudicate road use. Gun tabs could be used to fund police, emergency response from gun violence, prosecutors for gun crimes, prisons for gun offenders and victim compensation.
One does not need fifty guns, or even five. Requiring tabs on killing devices would not infringe on anyone’s rights and it would reduce the number of guns floating around America significantly, without reducing safety.
Requiring gun-havers to pay a fee is not akin to a poll tax. Voting is a constitutional right, and the 24th amendment guarantees that it’s a right that cannot be tied to a financial obligation. If you want your gun without having to pay for it, then you need another constitutional amendment.
5 – Just ban guns
It worked in Canada and England. Last year the US had over 12,000 gun deaths, while the UK had just 55. That’s a pretty telling divide. Canada confiscated all guns within memorable history, and their gun violence has fallen dramatically. What little remains is fueled only by the ease of buying a gun in the US and bringing it across the border.
If you ban guns, only criminals will have them
Well yes, technically. If they’re illegal, anyone in possession will be a criminal, including you. Criminals only obtain guns from people who purchased them legally. Sometimes they steal them, other times they buy them. This would become more complicated and convoluted.
It would also drive the price of an illegal gun through the roof. Right now a criminal can often get a gun for $50 to $200. If the seller can’t just go out and buy another, the cost will rise to a thousand or more, deterring many criminals. As the ban becomes more pervasive and complete, the cost will continue to rise, putting it out of reach for that many more criminals.
It may take a decade or three to get rid of all the guns Americans have hoarded over the past few decades, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay to spare 120,000 lives over the next decade.
Let’s weigh that. 120,000 Americans times the average household income of $50,000 is $6 billion in lost income and $1.2 billion in tax revenue (assuming a rate of 20%, including sales and gas taxes.) No fiscal conservative should be willing to sacrifice $1.2 billion in revenue to the federal coffer.
But we need to defend ourselves from the government
We are a representative democracy. We defend ourselves from the government by voting. If you think your 9mm or even your AR-15 is going to stop the National Guard from mowing you down with impunity, you are mistaken. Look at the way law enforcement treated the Occupy movement and you’ll see that there is no conceivable way to stand up to a well organized police state. They’ll tap your phones, read your emails and bust in on you at 3:00 in the morning to nip you in the bud before your insurrection even gets off the drawing boards.
If you’re worried about the government, you should worry less about your guns than you should about warrantless wiretapping, domestic drones and the widespread data harvesting already in place to spy on Americans. Show me the outrage over that and I’ll quiet down about guns.
But I might get raped
Yes, you might. That remains a real possibility. I would point out that very few rapes are ever stopped because the victim possesses a gun. It just doesn’t happen, unfortunately. I wish nothing but the worst punishment for rapists, but the 310 million guns in America as of 2009 (much higher now,) has not served as any deterrent to rape.
The number of non-lethal weapons available to those who fear they may be raped or robbed remains untouched. You can buy mace, which is sub-lethal, but can easily kill an asthmatic (and stop anyone from doing anything but clawing at their eyes.) You can also buy a Tazer, which likewise will stop anyone in their tracks. You can’t fight a tazer, we’re all run on electricity and that stuff lights you up in every synapse.
Where does the rubber meet the road?
I got (rid of) mine, Jack. I’ve been a proud gun owner since 1994. Well, not consecutively, many of the years I wasn’t proud and at least a couple of the years I wasn’t sure where my guns were, but still, I had technical, legal possession of them, and I was an American human.
But I’ve been weighing this recently, and I finally came to a conclusion. I don’t use them, I don’t carry them, they only pose a hazard in my home (I have small children,) and they would never be handy enough to use in self-defense… it’s time to let them go.
So I sold them. Rock bottom prices, and to a dear, close, trusted friend who is already a gun owner. He has a place to keep them safe, he’s already used one of them for target practice, and I made sure the sale was legal in my state. My guns are gone.
I don’t fear my government, or as I do, I don’t think having a gun will help me. A gun could only help me kill my fellow American, regardless of which side of the thin blue line he is on, and I have zero desire to do that.
I’ve been in some pretty hairy situations in my life, and I’ve always been glad I didn’t have a gun, because someone may well have died, and it may have been me. I don’t want that. Not from either side of the equation.
I can’t imagine what the next round of laws will bring, and I don’t care. It doesn’t affect me. Confiscate them, I don’t care, I have none. What troubles me is all the people “stocking up” because they fear an impending ban. If you already have five, you don’t need another twenty. You only have two hands, let that be a practical limit.
What is the solution?
I haven’t seen one yet. The litmus test for me is this: how many lives would your proposed legislation have saved in past shootings?
I think it’s plain that we should close the gun show loophole, which allows any random person to purchase an unlimited number of guns without a background check. That’s a no-brainer… but none of the mass shootings took place with gun show loophole weapons.
Maybe we should ban 100-round clips… except that none of those were used either.
We can ban Uzis if you like, but not a single Uzi has been used in an American mass shooting to date. All these common sense approaches sound good, but they don’t realize a tangible benefit.
I am confident of two things. One, that the suggestions listed above would have a life-saving benefit. And, B, that none of them will be implemented, because they are inconvenient to moneyed interests in Washington… and Gamma, that FOX News et al will run a successful scare campaign decrying this as un-American… and IV, that tens of thousands of Americans will die as a result.
Do we not care because most of the victims are dark in skin tone? Is that it? Do we not care because we’re afraid of the bogeyman who never comes?
I used to believe in the bogeyman, but I grew up. I also used to believe in Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and Jesus, but will you disregard my comment straight away because I included the mythical Jew from the desert on my list? If you’re going to insist that he’s real, I’m going to insist that he was a man of uncommon compassion, according to all the gnostic gospels. He was not the Jesus of the modern conservative right. He was a veritable hippy, dirty feet and all.
Wherever you come from, no matter your background, you have to admit it’s time to get serious about gun control. These are weapons designed only to kill.
I welcome the blind pro-gun hate in the comments below. Use the Facebook comments for maximum reach and impact and I’ll do my best to respond to them.
Canada confiscated all guns? You need to check your facts buddy.
Good dialogue Kilroy!
The method from what I understand about DGU is the data was gleaned from newspapers, police reports and FBI reports. Yes, if you live in a reasonably safe part of an urban area, a confrontation might never happen in a lifetime. But from a first-hand experience it can and does happen when you least expect it.
It just might be that there is no soultion and working on the mental health issue just might give us the desired results. I cannot believe a sane person would actually take part in such a diabolitcal action like harming children or teachers.
Myself and many others have no problem with securing schools since that’s today’s target choice in order for an unstable person to get himself in the news.
So far what’s being proposed only effects law-abiding citizens. Criminals won’t do a darn thing in order to have any sort of gun control work effectively. We’re not socialistically saturated England with a millenia of humbling servitude in our genes, nor do we want to be like Mexico which has very strict gun control and you see where that’s heading.
80 million plus gun owners haven’t shot anyone, nor do they want to shoot anyone, so one-size-fits-all legislation only tramples on our rights as honest law-abiding men and women.
Hmmm, lots of food for thought.
Just regarding armed guards in schools, 25 years ago when I was teaching, the only armed guards were in tough inner city schools.
I never saw one incident where they had to pull their guns to stop a fight and take someone into custody. Many teachers left because, “This isn’t a school environment, it’s a prison environment.” They fled to the suburbs…and 25 years later, here come the guards.
I haven’t done the math but if you were to plot inner city school shooting against the number of people killed in the suburbs in the past ten years, you might suggest inner city schools have fewer (if any) mass shootings because of the armed guards. I’d suggest it’s because inner city students only shoot each other (if they can sneak that gun in by the metal detector). It’s personal. Suburban schools have outsiders shoot students in mass. So I’m not sure about the armed guard plan…afterall what’s to keep someone from walking up to their staging area by the front door and just shooting them first? You can’t stop a determined enemy with a new dress code.
The only way to prevent it is to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally unbalanced. Civil rights are going to get trampled just trying to make that plan work, presenting an entirely new set of issues. Get ready for that.
Also, I find it difficult to quantify something that DIDN’T happen so I’m not sure how you can prove guns prevented a single death….I believe they do on occasion but I question ANY hard number. It’s like trying to prove nukes prevented an alien invasion. In the local news, an 87 year old man was home invaded, beaten and robbed BECAUSE he had a large gun collection, so there can be instances where guns CAUSED a crime rather than prevented it.
If anyone has a real solution for this dilemma, I’m all ears. But a total ban will just make criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens who probably will never shoot at anyone their entire life.
Meanwhile, the real “criminal” will just do as they please anyway.
'well regulated militia' refers to keeping the firearm in good working order and proficiency in it's use. It has absolutely nothing to to with gun control (regulation) Up until 1934 citizens could own any arms they wanted. That's 150 years of freedom from infringement.
As to you guns don't save lives your just ignorant of the facts. It's been proven time and again that guns prevent violent crimes well in excess of 1 million times a year. Just because you don't read it in the 'news' doesn't mean it doesn't happen. If your not aware all news anymore is biased.
The only plan thjat has made any sense (without descriminating and punishing innocent citizens) is placing armed guards in schools and removing the ‘gun free zoine status’. That will save lives not disrupt over 80 million lives like endless gun control will.
Roughly 30% of US schools already have armed guards in them. Not one has been attacked.
We have armed guards at sporting events, banks, even Home Dept stores, so why not at schools which mainly rely on a glass door and a few frouzzy teachers as deterents.
Now, don’t go throwing the old and worn cover job of….”But there were police stationed a Columbine!” Yeah, there were and no they weren’t trained to thwart an attack. They were there to direct school bus traffic and look for lost bicycles.
Well then we can just agree that you are wrong.
What I propose will save lives. What you propose will not. I'd say 'check mate', but that would be petty and shallow. We both know more children will be murdered under your plan. It's wrong, but you've got a party line to toe, so keep it up. I won't fault you for it. The parents would, if they knew who it was that subjected their children to needless death, but they'll never know you individually, so you win.
Hundreds of children will be murdered in the coming decade at the hands of firearms, and why? Because old white people think the muslin president is coming to get them? Hey man, if that helps you sleep at night, go with it. You're wrong and we both know it, but you've got a party line to pull and let me tell you, you're doing a fine job of it.
Sorry Brian but blustering and calling truth bullshit won’t make it go away. Now….About those really ickey stats concerning the amount of times guns were used to SAVE lives in the US.
There are approximately two million defensive gun uses (DGU’s) per year by law abiding citizens. That was one of the findings in a national survey conducted by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist in 1993. Prior to Dr. Kleck’s survey, thirteen other surveys indicated a range of between 800,000 to 2.5 million DGU’s annually. However these surveys each had their flaws which prompted Dr. Kleck to conduct his own study specifically tailored to estimate the number of DGU’s annually.
Subsequent to Kleck’s study, the Department of Justice sponsored a survey in 1994 titled, Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms. Using a smaller sample size than Kleck’s, this survey estimated 1.5 million DGU’s annually.
Of course, if half the people who have their panties-in-a-wad about guns and killings would just hold back from supporting Planned Parenthood and their 90% abortion rate, about 200,000 lives would’ve been spared just last year alone.
Oh Jesus imaginary Christ, the intellectual dishonety on the GlossyNews gun articles is second to none, and I've been doing this for almost 11 years now.
@ Bargis
Uzis have been banned for import since 1988, but they still exist in the country. They didn't become illegal to own, just to import. Be more honest.
"Guns and the mere threat of gun use has prevented over 1 million crimes this past year alone." Bullshit. Pure bullshit. Prove it.
@ Steve Durnan
You're confusing two things here, and I'm glad you're doing it, because it's an effortless argument to wholly destroy.
Guns may be a constitutional right, but they have to be regulated appropriately for the times. VOTING is also a constitutional right, but we force voters to register. We make public their history of voting participation. We make public their party affiliation. Should we do that with gun owners? Make a public registry? List which category of guns they bought and every time they did so?
Or should we make voting as open. Allow people to vote whenever they want, whereever they want, whenever they want. No registration, just show up any time in the 6-months prior to an election at any government office and cast a ballot… you'd obviously support that too, right?
What about the right to assemble? Go on, try it. Try organizing a mass assembly without permits, without permission, with a $10,000 budget for portapotties. OWS will tell you that the right to peacably assemble can sometimes be infringed, and the far right will agree that sometimes that's a good thing.
Guess you have no 1A right to spread your vitriol on the internet too?
Cause that's not covered under the quill and pen or manual printing press of the time it was written.
The Supreme Court has already ruled, not just in Heller and McDonald in owning firearms in 'common use', but also in the 1939 Miller case that we have the right to own military weapons. And not just facsimiles.
Dang, refreed, that’s some kind of evil genie solution!
Make the person doing the shooting put the person shot back together or suffer the same fate.
Hey Kilroy, good to see you again!
The answer to the composite gun question is yes and no. If your metal gun or composite gun was made before 1898 no problem! Own as many as you like!
Now, the question I think you’re really asking is, can a workable composite (ie:plastic)firearm made on a computer generated 3-D printer be legal. If you hold an FFL license that precribes you’re a ‘licensed manufacturer’ and the weapon is serialized and tracking paperwork generated to satisfy current BATF criteria, than…yes you can. Giving away the program to the public so they can generate their own un-serialized weapon. Nope…Go directly to jail and do not collect $200! I believe it would be conspiracy and aiding abetting a felony.
A rail gun? Really? Any modern weapon over .50 caliber is considered a cannon for all intensive puroposes and rigourous BATF regulations would prevail. Again, a rail gun big or small would have to meet current criteria as listed by BATF.
Of course, if you could do that you’d be worth umpteen millions of dollars and you’d be too busy chasing pussy at some Caribbean resort to even ask that question, nor care!
Now, the ammo question…It’s a complexs question since there are many types of ammo for various sporting and self protection uses. But what’s on the shelf at Bass Pro-Cabela’s-WalMart is legal by BATF definitions.
The teflon-coated ammo was discontinued in the mid to early 80’s due to law enforcement fears it would penetrate a bullet proof vest. That was never proven, but the manufaturer stopped all production anyway. Today, it’s a collector’s item. Most true is, a standard .22 magnum round will defeat some body armor but not the newer variety.
Exploding ammo has been banned since about 1983 I believe, but was never any good anyway and hardly was worth the extra price..In short, it was hyped by the media and anyone who really understood ballistics never thought it a threat anyway and could basically screw up your firearm..
Looks like we’ve got a debate brewing here! I’m not getting in…yet, but I just want to throw a little gasoline on the fire with a conceptual question regarding rights to bear arms.
First, does the Founding Father’s 2nd Amendment intent extend as far in granting the right to bear a regulation firearm made of metal as completely as one made of composite material? Any limitations on my ammo or can I still use those copper jacketed little beauties with teflon tips?
Second, is the Rail Gun in my garage covered by 2nd Amendment rights as a firearm if I can miniaturize it to fit into a holster with a battery backpack? If they try to classify it as a WMD, I’ll petition to have a fully automatic weapon classified likewise.
Good to see you jump in that discussion Barg, else it’s the sound of one hand clapping.
Oh geez! Where do I start….
“We can ban Uzi’s if you like, but not a single Uzi has been used in an American mass shooting to date. All these common sense approaches sound good, but they don’t realize a tangible benefit….”
Uzi’s have been banned from import since 1988. Duh!
“I would point out that very few rapes are ever stopped because the victim possesses a gun. It just doesn’t happen, unfortunately. I wish nothing but the worst punishment for rapists, but the 310 million guns in America as of 2009 (much higher now,) has not served as any deterrent to rape….”
Guns and the mere threat of gun use has prevented over 1 million crimes this past year alone.
“I’ve read many editorials where gun ownership is likened to car ownership….”
Automobile or boat ownership is not specically guaranteed under any Amendment to the Constitution.
“What is known is that the founding fathers intended the constitution to be a living document….”
There is not one mention in the Constitution that it is a living document. That interpretion is wide open and has been refuted by the Supreme Court.
“The right to a well-regulated militia to keep and bear arms does not include tanks, grenades or drones. Those things didn’t exist back then, and we accept that….”
You forgot the most telling part. The Right Of The People To Keep and Bear Arms Shall Not Be infringed.
So..Here’s the telling FACTS:
The Supreme Court, in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), said that the Second Amendment protects the right to arms for “confrontation,” that individuals have a right to use arms for defensive purposes, and that “self-defense is central to the Second Amendment right.” Rejecting the suggestion that the amendment doesn’t protect modern defensive arms, the Court said “Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms.”
The Heller case concerned handguns, and the Court noted that handguns are the type of firearm most commonly used for self-defense. The vast majority of handguns made today are semi-automatics that use detachable magazines, and most of these are designed to use magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. However, pump-action and semi-automatic shotguns have been widely used for home protection for decades, and AR-15s and comparable semi-automatic rifles are increasingly kept for home protection today.
In Heller, the Court suggested that the Second Amendment could be read as protecting the right to keep and bear arms that are in common use. There are reasons to disagree with the suggestion that the right to keep and bear a firearm might hinge on how commonly it is possessed, but depending on whose definition of “assault weapon” one uses, there are nearly 10 million, and perhaps well over 30 million “assault weapons” in the United States, and a comparable number of conventional handguns designed to use magazines that hold more than 10 rounds—numbers which certainly would satisfy a “common use” test.
OK..I’m tired now, but bring it on!
Nice piece, Brian! Now step away from the computer and get some sleep. Go on now!
Now that Brian is getting some shut-eye…I believe Chris Rock has the most practical solution and I’ll let him tell you in his own (censured) words:
“You don’t need no gun control, you know what you need? We need some bullet control. Men, we need to control the bullets, that’s right. I think all bullets should cost five thousand dollars… five thousand dollars per bullet… You know why? Cause if a bullet cost five thousand dollars there would be no more innocent bystanders.
Yeah! Every time somebody get shut we’d say, ‘Damn, he must have done something … S**t, he’s got fifty thousand dollars worth of bullets in his a**.’
And people would think before they killed somebody if a bullet cost five thousand dollars. ‘Man I would blow your f***ing head off…if I could afford it.’ ‘I’m gonna get me another job, I’m going to start saving some money, and you’re a dead man. You’d better hope I can’t get no bullets on layaway.’
So even if you get shot by a stray bullet, you wouldn’t have to go to no doctor to get it taken out. Whoever shot you would take their bullet back, like “I believe you got my property.”
I nominate Chris Rock for president of the NRA!
But, that still doesn’t prevent the threat of random violence; so I propose “Kilroy’s Integrated Security Solution” (KISS). This is an upgrade from my former proposal “Trinity Elimination of Loony Liabilities” (TELL). I don’t want to get into the details here, but let’s just say it involved psychics and seal teams and drones.
(Cue George Takei’s “Oh Myyyyy…” here)