I know the DMV is not a shining example of government, but does anyone have a problem with issuing a gun license like you would a driver's license? Prove you know how to use it safely, store it securely, and aren't a nutjob, all through a strict test at a government facility?
Absolutely no problems here.
In fact, that's kinda exactly what I've been advocating for far longer than this current round of "Something happened, so we need to talk about this, how dare you suggest we not talk about this?" despite the fact that we've been talking about this every day for the last fifteen years, and the only reason the people saying "But we have to talk about this NOW!" think it's that ridiculously important is because they don't give it a single thought but for the week or two after a mass shooting, so they think because they never talk about it or do anything about it, that nobody else is either. And they'll stop talking about it in a week anyway, despite it being so important that we talk about it right goddamned now until it's fixed.
That aside, two more things I advocate:
1) Strict training and competency requirements for CCW holders. Yeah, I think people should be allowed to carry a concealed firearm if they wish, but I also think that if they're going to carry a loaded firearm around in public, they'd better be fucking well trained, and absolutely certified as competent and knowledgeable. Hell, throw in a fitness component if you want, just for a bonus. You want to take up that responsibility? Fine. Let's start treating it like the serious responsibility to yourself and the public that it is, and start making sure people have a fucking clue before they strap on their irons on their trip to costco for a pallet of cheetos and coke on their fucking mobility scooter. If you can't pass the test, then fuck you, leave your gun at home.
2) Re-certification. You don't just give someone a firearms license and away they go forever. People change, circumstances change. Annual mandatory re-testing is a must, No less than 6 months and no more than 12 months after your last re-test, and aside from that, randomly timed checks that you can be called up for, again, attendance mandatory. You don't get a re-sit, if you fail, your license is taken away until you can pass. And the tests must be worth a damn, both practical and theory. Same with CCW holders.
I mean, shit, that's the sort of testing regime they used to use on us as flight attendants - One annual, and randoms at any time or company discretion. And it works, too - I can still tell you the locations of safety equipment on a standard layout 737. If you don't pass, you don't get a re-sit, you get your walking papers.
What would the age restrictions be? When can you get your "learners permit," so to speak?
Down here, you can get what's called a "Minor's licence" for anyone between 11-17. You can't own firearms, but you are allowed to "Physically possess" them, which basically means you can carry them on private property, or to and from the gun range if stored appropriately while doing so.
That would work. But you would have to let actual firearms experts have control over the safety and competent usage portions of the regulation. Part of the problem with current firearms laws is that most of them are written by folks who have no idea what the heck they are talking about, leading to either nonsensical restrictions or unrealistic expectations.
That would work. But you would have to let actual firearms experts have control over the safety and competent usage portions of the regulation. Part of the problem with current firearms laws is that most of them are written by folks who have no idea what the heck they are talking about, leading to either nonsensical restrictions or unrealistic expectations.
Hear that.
As it stands, you have legislators who are trying to classify something as a highly deadly "assault weapon", because it's more dangerous because it has a barrel shroud which makes it like 100x more deadly, and which is apparently "a shoulder thing that goes up." In fact, the same congressperson demanded that a list of 65 firearms be banned for no more reason than the fact that they look scary. I'm not even fucking joking here, that congressperson literally does not know one end of a gun from the other.
And people wonder why a retired Marine former co-worker of mine said that "there is no such thing as an assault weapon." As a retired Marine, he knew his stuff and basically thought that "assault weapon" was a BS term. He said they should instead refer to the weapons by their operation and properly refer to them as automatic or semi-automatic rifles. At least in that case, any regulation involving them would come down to how they work and not how "scary" they look.
Yup yup. On the news I heard "automatic" rather than semi-automatic until this morning. I think my favorite was the "13 round" police service revolver.
I'm also tiring of the second amendment being misdefined as only for hunters. As if only firearms used to kill deer qualify under the second amendment.
Kidding aside, the most legitimate reasons for a private citizen to own a gun in this day and age are hunting and target shooting at a gun range. Self-defense could also be legitimate, but it requires a much, much higher standard to be acceptable -- i.e., mandatory training and/or registration combined with background checks. That's not to say that hunting and target shooting shouldn't also require these, but it's one thing when you own a gun to shoot deer or shoot clay pigeons. It's another thing if you own one for the purpose of shooting other people who are threatening you. Part of the training should be recognition of a legitimate threat that justifies the use of lethal force. Another part of the training is when not to use your weapon in self-defense because the odds are far more likely you'll hit innocent bystanders instead of the actual person threatening you.
What about the old excuse that you need private citizens to own guns in order to protect themselves from the government? That may have applied in colonial times when they only real difference in weapons availability between Joe Farmer and Roger Redcoat is that Roger Redcoat had access to artillery whereas the average infantryman had a rifle/musket that wasn't all that different from a private citizen's hunting rifle. Nowadays, even if you had an M-16 or AK-47, it's not gonna do you a heck of a lot of good against M1 Abrams tanks, A-10 Warthogs, F-15E Strike Eagles, and the like. Just look at how the Taliban and such fight against our troops: they don't go toe to toe with them with Kalashnikovs, they use things like IEDs, car bombs, RPGs smuggled in from places like Iran or leftover from the Soviet occupation, and so on, as those are the only weapons that can have any effect against a modern, technologically sophisticated army and only when used with proper guerrilla tactics.
Kidding aside, the most legitimate reasons for a private citizen to own a gun in this day and age are hunting and target shooting at a gun range. Self-defense could also be legitimate, but it requires a much, much higher standard to be acceptable -- i.e., mandatory training and/or registration combined with background checks. That's not to say that hunting and target shooting shouldn't also require these, but it's one thing when you own a gun to shoot deer or shoot clay pigeons. It's another thing if you own one for the purpose of shooting other people who are threatening you. Part of the training should be recognition of a legitimate threat that justifies the use of lethal force. Another part of the training is when not to use your weapon in self-defense because the odds are far more likely you'll hit innocent bystanders instead of the actual person threatening you.
Although I agree with your general point, I'd add that hunting is still rather a different class of activity than target shooting and would also warrant higher (albeit different) requirements, given the various environmental impacts and the fact that it involves hurting living things.
For example, courses on which animals to shoot and how best to do it would be in order.
I'd be fine with scrapping the 2nd amendment and just regulating guns like we do cars. While we're at it, let's add sexual orientation and gender equality protections, slip some campaign finance reform in, and muzzle the filibuster in the Senate.
Our last several amendments have been lame. What ever happened to the concept of a "living document?"
Although I agree with your general point, I'd add that hunting is still rather a different class of activity than target shooting and would also warrant higher (albeit different) requirements, given the various environmental impacts and the fact that it involves hurting living things.
For example, courses on which animals to shoot and how best to do it would be in order.
Nothing wrong with that either. I can see different thresholds for different levels of gun permit. Most basic is for target shooting. A step up would be hunting. Next step is self defense. Kind of like how you need different licenses to drive a regular car, a motorcycle, a truck, a bus, and so on.
Our last several amendments have been lame. What ever happened to the concept of a "living document?"
So you consider the 26th amendment (lower the voting age to be 18) to be lame? What about the 24th (banning of poll taxes)? Or the 23rd (allows Washington, DC residents to vote for the President)?
So you consider the 26th amendment (lower the voting age to be 18) to be lame? What about the 24th (banning of poll taxes)? Or the 23rd (allows Washington, DC residents to vote for the President)?
Compared to the first amendment, yeah, kinda lame. :P
I'd be fine with scrapping the 2nd amendment and just regulating guns like we do cars. While we're at it, let's add sexual orientation and gender equality protections, slip some campaign finance reform in, and muzzle the filibuster in the Senate.
Our last several amendments have been lame. What ever happened to the concept of a "living document?"
The 25th is actually pretty cool, but we haven't used it yet. They passed it after Watergate so that they could kick out Nixon, but then he resigned before they got the chance.
/constitution nerd.
EDIT: @trogdor: compared to the First Amendment, everything is lame, even the cool ones like the 5th and the 3d.
It is completely legal to own a Minigun in the US, interestingly enough.
Well, Gatling guns are fine but good luck trying to afford a real minigun though. There can't be many civilian transferable ones out there, and there's a fuckload of paperwork if you can find one.
It is completely legal to own a Minigun in the US, interestingly enough.
Well, Gatling guns are fine but good luck trying to afford a real minigun though. There can't be many civilian transferable ones out there, and there's a fuckload of paperwork if you can find one.
Oh yeah, you're looking down at 200 grand minimum. They're fuckin' expensive, and rare.
If anything, people who are driven by media (if they do exist) to undertake actions like this are the danger, not the media itself. [...]
People who react to mad memes in a dangerous fashion in the real world are the problem: not the memes themselves. We need to evolve to where general society is immune to these memes [...]
As for the memes themselves, they're so prevalent solely because they're popular. People choose to spread them. [...]
If you can't ignore them, then you're a weak version of the people who act violently when exposed to certain memes.
Look, it's still much too soon for this in my opinion, but the gun argument is simple.
Nobody needs a gun that will shoot more than one bullet for each pull of the trigger. Period. Not for hunting, not for self defense. This is pretty much already accepted, right? Machine guns are not generally available.
I'd argue that similarly, nobody needs more than a single action firearm. No semi-autos are really necessary for hunting or self defense either. No revolvers, etc. Single shot, perhaps double barrel shotguns, only.
The only people who want a gun that will do more than that are in war zones, or have a pornographic obsession with firearms, and that's it.
Unless you're harboring some delirious fantasy of an NRA-led revolt against the US government, or becoming a hero in the zombie apocalypse due any day now, a simple cock-each-time-you-fire handgun will do for self defense and a single action hunting rifle or shotgun will do for any reasonable game you may care to hunt.
Will people still be able to shoot people? Sure, but they PROBABLY won't be able to put 300+ bullets into 27 people in 15 minutes.
The end.
Then the conversation can move on to reforming the entire science and culture of mental illness treatments and the integration (or not) of various degrees and types of mental illness into society, which we handle now by ignoring it all as best we can.
An awful lot of the law built up on our interpretation of the 2nd amendment is up for re-interpreting, if you ask me. It's a pretty thin sentence to base US gun culture on.
Take the word gun and replace it with speech in your argument. Do you support speech control? Does anyone really need a media platform that can reach millions of people in an instant?
Words are more powerful than guns, time for speech control?
Both are individual rights under the Constitution and both can be misused with deadly consequences. Yet when free speech is misused no one talks about removing that right from everyone, only the person who commited the act is punished.
Yes, let's get more serious about mental illness. I wonder if we'll be looking back on the deinstitutionalization of 1970s with regret. Yes, psychiatric hospitals at the time were pretty horrid places, but rather than reform them, we closed almost all of them, reducing the national patient population by 95%.
Now even if we provided them the best health care in the world, it's much harder to make sure that crazy people are receiving it. Instead of being in a straight jacket in a padded room, they're out on the street. Wonderful!
Yes, let's get more serious about mental illness. I wonder if we'll be looking back on the deinstitutionalization of 1970s with regret. Yes, psychiatric hospitals at the time were pretty horrid places, but rather than reform them, we closed almost all of them, reducing the national patient population by 95%.
Now even if we provided them the best health care in the world, it's much harder to make sure that crazy people are receiving it. Instead of being in a straight jacket in a padded room, they're out on the street. Wonderful!
What he said ^
Also:
Are we going to pretend that we don't ALREADY abridge speech more than we abridge guns? Sure, you can say whatever you want on the internet, and if you can get a critical mass of people to agree with you in a short enough period of time, your message might go viral and you might get everybody's attention for 24 hours, then... probably not much after that. Witness the total fizzling/co-opting of OWS.
If you aren't one of the 6 megacorporations that own all media in the United States today, your free speech is about as powerful as a cap gun.
Also on NPR yesterday was a supporter of concealed carry who stated (was not able to fact check) that almost every mass shooting in the last 50 years (US) has occurred in a "gun free zone". He even noted that Colorado theater was the only one in the area that had a no gun sign on the door.
Yea, that's sorta a BS argument. Guns are usually not permitted in crowded situations, for obvious reasons. Mass killings tend to be easiest in crowded area's.
Teachers, generally, want to teach. They don't want to be armed guards.
Making our schools into fortresses won't help. It'll teach our kids to be terrified whenever they're NOT in a fortress.
One thing I've taken away from this incident is that I'm even MORE pissed about the locked doors on my kids' schools, with the door bells and video intercoms and remote locks, treating every visitor, including parents, as a potential threat or invader. They were always security theater with a side effect of making parents feel alienated in their own children's schools, and now they've been dramatically demonstrated not to work. Not only do school secretaries casually buzz people in without checking the camera around half the time, but in this case absolutely no one buzzed the shooter in. He broke in and did all that damage despite the school having that security measure in place.
Take the locks off the doors and let's stop treating the entire community as suspect, since it demonstrably does nothing to stop a determined attacker.
Also on NPR yesterday was a supporter of concealed carry who stated (was not able to fact check) that almost every mass shooting in the last 50 years (US) has occurred in a "gun free zone". He even noted that Colorado theater was the only one in the area that had a no gun sign on the door.
Really, is that all you have at this point. That same old tired shit of, "if someone had had gun, this could have been prevented" line. Well, I hate to quote a D-bag like Micheal Moore, but when you're right you're right. He tweeted a day or so ago, "If only his first victim had been armed."
Comments
In fact, that's kinda exactly what I've been advocating for far longer than this current round of "Something happened, so we need to talk about this, how dare you suggest we not talk about this?" despite the fact that we've been talking about this every day for the last fifteen years, and the only reason the people saying "But we have to talk about this NOW!" think it's that ridiculously important is because they don't give it a single thought but for the week or two after a mass shooting, so they think because they never talk about it or do anything about it, that nobody else is either. And they'll stop talking about it in a week anyway, despite it being so important that we talk about it right goddamned now until it's fixed.
That aside, two more things I advocate:
1) Strict training and competency requirements for CCW holders. Yeah, I think people should be allowed to carry a concealed firearm if they wish, but I also think that if they're going to carry a loaded firearm around in public, they'd better be fucking well trained, and absolutely certified as competent and knowledgeable. Hell, throw in a fitness component if you want, just for a bonus. You want to take up that responsibility? Fine. Let's start treating it like the serious responsibility to yourself and the public that it is, and start making sure people have a fucking clue before they strap on their irons on their trip to costco for a pallet of cheetos and coke on their fucking mobility scooter. If you can't pass the test, then fuck you, leave your gun at home.
2) Re-certification. You don't just give someone a firearms license and away they go forever. People change, circumstances change. Annual mandatory re-testing is a must, No less than 6 months and no more than 12 months after your last re-test, and aside from that, randomly timed checks that you can be called up for, again, attendance mandatory. You don't get a re-sit, if you fail, your license is taken away until you can pass. And the tests must be worth a damn, both practical and theory. Same with CCW holders.
I mean, shit, that's the sort of testing regime they used to use on us as flight attendants - One annual, and randoms at any time or company discretion. And it works, too - I can still tell you the locations of safety equipment on a standard layout 737. If you don't pass, you don't get a re-sit, you get your walking papers. Down here, you can get what's called a "Minor's licence" for anyone between 11-17. You can't own firearms, but you are allowed to "Physically possess" them, which basically means you can carry them on private property, or to and from the gun range if stored appropriately while doing so.
As it stands, you have legislators who are trying to classify something as a highly deadly "assault weapon", because it's more dangerous because it has a barrel shroud which makes it like 100x more deadly, and which is apparently "a shoulder thing that goes up." In fact, the same congressperson demanded that a list of 65 firearms be banned for no more reason than the fact that they look scary. I'm not even fucking joking here, that congressperson literally does not know one end of a gun from the other.
I'm also tiring of the second amendment being misdefined as only for hunters. As if only firearms used to kill deer qualify under the second amendment.
But in all seriousness, there are better ways to define this sort of thing.
Kidding aside, the most legitimate reasons for a private citizen to own a gun in this day and age are hunting and target shooting at a gun range. Self-defense could also be legitimate, but it requires a much, much higher standard to be acceptable -- i.e., mandatory training and/or registration combined with background checks. That's not to say that hunting and target shooting shouldn't also require these, but it's one thing when you own a gun to shoot deer or shoot clay pigeons. It's another thing if you own one for the purpose of shooting other people who are threatening you. Part of the training should be recognition of a legitimate threat that justifies the use of lethal force. Another part of the training is when not to use your weapon in self-defense because the odds are far more likely you'll hit innocent bystanders instead of the actual person threatening you.
What about the old excuse that you need private citizens to own guns in order to protect themselves from the government? That may have applied in colonial times when they only real difference in weapons availability between Joe Farmer and Roger Redcoat is that Roger Redcoat had access to artillery whereas the average infantryman had a rifle/musket that wasn't all that different from a private citizen's hunting rifle. Nowadays, even if you had an M-16 or AK-47, it's not gonna do you a heck of a lot of good against M1 Abrams tanks, A-10 Warthogs, F-15E Strike Eagles, and the like. Just look at how the Taliban and such fight against our troops: they don't go toe to toe with them with Kalashnikovs, they use things like IEDs, car bombs, RPGs smuggled in from places like Iran or leftover from the Soviet occupation, and so on, as those are the only weapons that can have any effect against a modern, technologically sophisticated army and only when used with proper guerrilla tactics.
For example, courses on which animals to shoot and how best to do it would be in order.
Our last several amendments have been lame. What ever happened to the concept of a "living document?"
/constitution nerd.
EDIT: @trogdor: compared to the First Amendment, everything is lame, even the cool ones like the 5th and the 3d.
Nobody needs a gun that will shoot more than one bullet for each pull of the trigger. Period. Not for hunting, not for self defense. This is pretty much already accepted, right? Machine guns are not generally available.
I'd argue that similarly, nobody needs more than a single action firearm. No semi-autos are really necessary for hunting or self defense either. No revolvers, etc. Single shot, perhaps double barrel shotguns, only.
The only people who want a gun that will do more than that are in war zones, or have a pornographic obsession with firearms, and that's it.
Unless you're harboring some delirious fantasy of an NRA-led revolt against the US government, or becoming a hero in the zombie apocalypse due any day now, a simple cock-each-time-you-fire handgun will do for self defense and a single action hunting rifle or shotgun will do for any reasonable game you may care to hunt.
Will people still be able to shoot people? Sure, but they PROBABLY won't be able to put 300+ bullets into 27 people in 15 minutes.
The end.
Then the conversation can move on to reforming the entire science and culture of mental illness treatments and the integration (or not) of various degrees and types of mental illness into society, which we handle now by ignoring it all as best we can.
As for gun control ... Second Amendment has been interpreted to be an individual right. As such any law passed will face a constitutional challenge.
Words are more powerful than guns, time for speech control?
Both are individual rights under the Constitution and both can be misused with deadly consequences. Yet when free speech is misused no one talks about removing that right from everyone, only the person who commited the act is punished.
Now even if we provided them the best health care in the world, it's much harder to make sure that crazy people are receiving it. Instead of being in a straight jacket in a padded room, they're out on the street. Wonderful!
Also:
Are we going to pretend that we don't ALREADY abridge speech more than we abridge guns? Sure, you can say whatever you want on the internet, and if you can get a critical mass of people to agree with you in a short enough period of time, your message might go viral and you might get everybody's attention for 24 hours, then... probably not much after that. Witness the total fizzling/co-opting of OWS.
If you aren't one of the 6 megacorporations that own all media in the United States today, your free speech is about as powerful as a cap gun.
Making our schools into fortresses won't help. It'll teach our kids to be terrified whenever they're NOT in a fortress.
One thing I've taken away from this incident is that I'm even MORE pissed about the locked doors on my kids' schools, with the door bells and video intercoms and remote locks, treating every visitor, including parents, as a potential threat or invader. They were always security theater with a side effect of making parents feel alienated in their own children's schools, and now they've been dramatically demonstrated not to work. Not only do school secretaries casually buzz people in without checking the camera around half the time, but in this case absolutely no one buzzed the shooter in. He broke in and did all that damage despite the school having that security measure in place.
Take the locks off the doors and let's stop treating the entire community as suspect, since it demonstrably does nothing to stop a determined attacker.