Nothing is going to change. Americans love their guns more than they love people and after Sandy Hook we decided that killing over 20 children was acceptable and not outrageous enough to make reasonable restrictions on guns. This is America, a country that has been around for 200 years, a superpower, a 1st world nation, and one of the wealthiest countries on the planet and we refuse to protect our own people. We respect guns more than we respect the lives of people.
What specific gun control measures would you propose and how would they directly and effectively make society safer?
Absolutely get rid of all AR-15′s and the like.
Intense background and criminal background checks and anything violent automatically disqualifies you.
Make getting a gun/gun permit more like getting a driver’s license:
permit to learn
includes an exam with 18 or more questions on the policies, laws, and etc of guns and gun ownership
if you get more than 8 questions incorrect you must retake it.
30 hours of practical experience at a gun range with a licensed teacher
Must take a 5 hour class on the dangers of guns and how to use them safely which will then yield you a certificate that grants you to take the practical exam and lasts for one year. If you don’t gain the license within the allotted year you must retake the class.
A practical exam with a licensed instructor who will grade you on various skills. If you pass you may be granted a permit on the weapon of your choice, the exams may differ on the type of firearm you want.
Follow the Japanese model where you must have two gun safes in different areas of the house, one to store the gun and one to store the bullets and you must provide the police with information on where those safes are.
No concealed carry and only handguns may be allowed to be out in public.
If transporting a weapon, it must be in the trunk of the vehicle, in a bag or some other case, safety on and unloaded and may not leave the vehicle until you are at the destination.
If you’re a hunter or some other gun hobbyist that requires a functional weapon other than a handgun then the gun must stay on the premises, whether that is a gun range or the Fish and Wildlife facility.
If you live in a rural area where police (and people, for that matter) are few and far between, something akin to a deer hunting rifle should provide plenty of protection from predators and poachers, you still have to follow the aforementioned steps.
This doesn’t cover everything but I think it’s a good place to start.
Can you show me evidence that this would directly and effectively create a safer society?
I have never laughed so hard at a gun law post. Like seriously, the evidence is in fucking reality. The proposed restrictions are just fucking logic.
You want to incentivize gun reform in a manner that will make Libertarians and free-market folks shit themselves into apoplexy of crossed purposes?
Require firearm insurance the same way we do for motor vehicles (which, in a popular but specious form of anti-regulation rhetoric, are constantly trotted out as being deadlier than firearms).
If you own a gun, you must insure it, even if you never use it, just like a show car or antique.
If you use your gun regularly, you may qualify for skilled operator discounts. Or, you may need to pay more. That’s up to the actuarial tables to decide.
If you own a high-risk gun, that insurance gets even more fucking expensive.
If your gun is used in a way that causes harm, your rates go up. If your gun is stolen and used to harm someone else before you report it to the authorities? So sorry, that firearm is still your responsibility. Here’s your bill to go with your guilt.
Create a market where insurance companies are slavering to get money from gun owners, and, suddenly, the prospect of having to pay hundreds of dollars a year for the privilege of owning a dangerous toy (or ten) becomes a lot less attractive to a lot of people.
Does it address the problem of unregistered firearms? Barely. But that’s the same argument the people who say “laws against shooting people don’t stop them from shooting people,” which I find to be a fairly inane and reductionist bit of rhetoric.
Making gun ownership an expensive and paperwork-laden pain in the ass will reduce gun ownership in ways that the kind of people who are very very into gun ownership hate.
“We’re not taking away your guns. We’re just making sure you’re on the hook if something bad happens with them.”
(Full disclosure: I own a .22 target pistol. I would absolutely divest myself of it the day something like this went into effect.)
