You know, I could have sworn I'd talked about guns on this blog before. Maybe I'd intended to but never got around to it, or maybe I've buried it in some post with other subjects. But it's in the news again and therefore in the forefront of my mind and I'm in the middle of several facebook debates so I figured I'd put my thoughts into order here.
I'm fairly liberal on most subjects. But guns are an area where I tend to go back and forth over that fence. There's times where I believe that we should allow anybody to own any gun they want and there's times that I believe that nobody should own any gun. I guess the first thing we need to do is decide if there is a problem and then decide how best to fix that problem.
I don't think we have to dig too deep to realize that yes, we do indeed have a gun problem. In fact, I think we have several different gun problems. There's a youtube video I saw from Vox that I think lays it out pretty well (click here to watch it), but the gist that I got from it is that while mass shootings take up the news whenever they happen, they're only one problem that we have. We also have gang gun violence. We also have domestic gun violence. We also have suicidal gun violence. We also have terrorist gun violence. None of these problems are similar, none of these problems have the same solutions. And I honestly believe that none of these problems can be solved in part or in whole through the gun control options being tossed around currently.
Lets take a deeper look at these problems.
Mass shootings
This isn't as easy to identify as you'd think. Technically I think the FBI defines any shooting that involves four or more people injured by one or more guns as a mass shooting. So if a police officer shoots at a running criminal, hits three people plus the criminal, then it's technically a mass shooting. But lets not look at the technical side, and instead focus on the intent. I look at mass shootings as someone going into an area with the intent of shooting as many people as they can. Almost all terrorist gun violence can be easily included in this category.
These are the shootings that get the news. The theater shooting in Colorado. The San Bernardino attack. The Fort Hood Attack. The Pulse club attack. Sandy Hook. The Florida shooting. Las Vegas. Columbine. Virginia Tech. Most of them utilize 'assault rifles' but several simply use semi automatic pistols. Outside of moral/idealistic/terroristic reasons, these almost always have a mental health component as well.
Gang Violence
Gangs kill people. They kill other gang members, they kill police, they kill innocents that get in the way. They kill for profit, they kill for initiation, they kill for sport. Gangs take over entire areas of Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. And their killing doesn't stop on the street, as they continue it in prison, obviously without the use of guns. They use whatever guns they can get their hands on. Handguns, revolvers, rifles, shotguns. Hell, if they can get fully automatic guns they use those.
Domestic Gun Violence
This can almost be broken down into two categories, but for the ease of argument I'm gong to keep it as one. The first part is the extension of abuse. An abusive partner uses a gun to threaten, harm, and finally kill their partner. The other part is a crime of passion. In a moment of anger, despair, grief, or other overpowering emotion, a partner uses a gun to kill their partner.
Suicide
I think this is the hardest gun problem to deal with. There are plenty of people that in a moment of weakness attempt suicide. Most suicide attempts... slitting wrists, hanging, taking pills, driving into another car, jumping off of a bridge... fail. The person survives their suicide attempt, gets the help they need, and live a long life to regret their moment of weakness. That is except for those that attempt suicide with a gun. Those that attempt suicide with a gun are mostly successful.
I say that this is the most problematic as we can make guns safer in a way that will make mass shootings less effective. We can make guns and gun laws more safe so that gang violence will be less deadly. We can make gun laws more effective so that domestic gun violence will be come more rare and less deadly. But to reduce suicide gun deaths we'd have to reduce the number of guns. Period. There is no 'safe' gun for a suicide attempt.
So let's look at possible solutions to these problems, and lets start with ones that are talked about a lot.
Assault Weapon Ban
The one I hear most often is a ban on assault weapons. I have yet to see a definition of an assault weapon that makes any sense whatsoever. It's like they were written by people that have no idea what makes a gun good at killing people, so they're targeting the scariest looking guns. I think if they put any amount of though into it, they'd come to the conclusion that what they really want to target is semi-automatic guns.
A semi-automatic gun is any gun that can shoot a bullet any time the trigger is pulled without any further action. A 'pump action' shot gun isn't a semi-automatic gun because you have to 'pump' it to release the spent cartridge and load up a new one. It takes time and makes it far less effective for killing multiple people. And before you just put all shot guns into the 'non semi-automatic' category, understand that there ARE semi-automatic shotguns and they are are just as devastating as you'd imagine they'd be. I'd imagine that if the school shooters were using one of these instead of an 'AR-15' style rifle, their injury and fatality count would be far FAR higher. A bolt action rifle isn't a semi-automatic, and a revolver that has to be cocked on each shot isn't a semi-automatic gun. There's a few other categories of modern weapons that aren't semi-automatic but most modern guns ARE semi-automatic.
Almost all pistols and rifles that you see are semi-automatic and can therefore fire just about as fast as you can pull the trigger. Sure, some are more accurate, but accuracy has far more to do with the shooter than the gun.
So I don't think an 'assault weapon' ban is a good idea unless it includes all semi-automatic weapons, and then I think it's gone too far to ban almost every single gun.
Bump Stock Ban
In short, yes. Ban them fuckers. Now realistically, no we wouldn't 'ban' them. We'd classify them in the same way that we do fully automatic weapons and tools that modify semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic weapons. In otherwords we'd make it ALMOST impossible to sell or own one. But not FULLY impossible. Why not fully impossible? Because we have the second amendment.
Magazine Restrictions
I think this one is another one that's just misunderstood. Yes, on paper if you reduce the number of bullets that are readily available to shoot, you reduce the number of possible people that can be shot, right? But it's not as cut and dry as that. Most magazines for guns have an 'optimal' capacity. You can make a magazine that carries 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, or even 200 rounds more than the optimal, but you also increase the chances of the gun jamming. You increase the size of the gun making it more difficult to carry, to conceal, and to use.
Ask most gun real gun enthusiasts and they look at high capacity gun magazines as toys. So bans on high capacity magazines are looked at as ineffective bans on toys that won't affect mass shootings. And it brings to bear a lot of questions. What do you do with the magazines already in circulation? Do you confiscate them? Do you just ban people from using them (meaning you're asking the person with the intent of killing multiple people to not use something that is readily available?). What do you do with guns that are designed with magazines that are above the new legal restriction? And just how many rounds do you allow a mass shooter to shoot before reloading? How many rounds do you allow a target shooter to shoot before reloading? How about a hunter?
If this were done fully across the country and there were no magazines left in circulation that could carry more rounds, then it might reduce injuries and fatalities in mass shootings, gang violence, and terrorism attacks, but it would do nothing for domestic violence and suicides. It would be a major undertaking, a major inconvenience, and at best a minor help and no solution whatsoever.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of this.
Age Limits
Raise the Age limit to 21. I don't think we should take freedoms away from some adults based upon an arbitrary age. If you're an adult at 18, can vote at 18, can serve in the military voluntarily at 18, can live alone and make all legal decisions on your own at age 18, then the right to buy a gun shouldn't be taken away from you just because someone thinks you're irresponsible. I personally know (or rather, have known) 16 year olds that are responsible enough to own a gun. And I've personally known 40 year olds that wren't responsible enough to own a gun.
Responsibility has nothing to do with age. If we start picking and choosing what rights we have at what age, we're opening a whole big set of problems that don't need to be there. 18 is adult, so 18 should be fine for owning and buying a gun. There are better ways to define 'responsible' than age.
And before you mention it, yes I recognize that we have a 21 year old restriction on drinking alcohol. I don't agree with it and would support retracting that back to 18 years old as well.
Universal Background Checks
Umm... yeah. If we're going to check the background of a person who buys a guy, we should check the background of people who buy ANY gun, anywhere, any time. This one has seemed too overtly obvious to me ever since it was proposed.
Allowing Teachers to Conceal Carry in Schools
FUCK NO. Teachers can do a lot of things and are asked to do a lot of things, but providing armed security should never be part of their job description. And I honestly believe the answer to guns is not more guns. It's most often less guns. This is the NRA and other 'good guys with guns' having vigilante style dreams of saving somebody with their gun, when in reality the teacher would now be a primary target whether or not they were armed, another person that could become mentally unstable would be welcomed into a school with a deadly weapon, and a disturbed violent student would have a target to possibly attempt to take a gun from if they so desired.
Schools became wary of guns, so they put up metal detectors. That didn't work, so they added armed security in the form of officers. Now that's proving to not work and they're proposing arming the teachers. What happens when that doesn't work? Arm the students themselves? Only a good kid with a gun can stop a bad kid with a gun? No no no NO no no no.
And above and beyond all of those reasons, this would't address the gun problems themselves, it would only address the gun problem when it comes to mass shootings in schools. If a disturbed student wants to bring a gun to school and shoot one person, this does absolutely nothing to stop that, let alone stop gang violence, domestic violence, suicide, or any other gun issue.
So if we have a gun problem (gun problems), and these proposed bans won't work, IS there a solution to our gun problems without repealing the second amendment?
I believe there is. It wouldn't be easy, it wouldn't be fast, and it probably wouldn't make any single faction in these gun debates happy... but that's often the sign of a good compromise. Here's the premise that I'm going to work from, and this has to be accepted if we're going to have any possibility of this proposal being even considered:
Responsible gun owners are not the problem.
I have several friends that are gun owners. My brother is a gun owner. I'm a gun owner. One of my friends has children in his home. I have children visit my home on a fairly regular basis. And I believe that we are all safe with our guns and treat them with the respect the require to be safe. So how do we work to make sure all gun owners are just as responsible? We make it difficult to own a gun.
Right now, it's incredibly easy to be a gun owner. I bought one of my guns on a whim. A neighbor had a friend who decided to cell his cheap 1911 and all of it's accessories and wanted to do so at a discount so that it would sell quickly. I'd been wanting a 1911 and had the money... so I bought it. The next day I drove down to the local Sheriff's office and filled out all the proper legal paperwork. Done and done. I had no licence, I didn't have to pass a background check before purchasing the gun, I didn't have to demonstrate or prove my knowledge of gun safety, and I was never asked if I was mentally fit to own a gun (there was the question if I had ever had my right to own a gun taken away on the basis of mental health, but even that wasn't checked as there's no database of that information!).
If I had the intent to do harm with that gun, nothing would have stopped me from doing that harm. If I wasn't responsible, nothing was really in place to check that.
So instead of all these passive background checks that are so porous that many people can get their gun without passing through one, why don't we make these basic safety checks proactive. And honestly, what second amendment activist wouldn't be for something like this. Most people I know that support the second amendment constantly preach about gun safety, so this should be an easy sell.
First, we'd need to make it necessary to have a licence to own a gun. Note that I'm not making any distinction for any particular type of gun. This doesn't just apply to 'assault weapons', or just to semi-automatic weapons, or just to hand guns. No, it applies to all guns. Requiring a license doesn't invalidate the right to bear arms just as the requirement to gain a permit for a protest doesn't invalidate the right to free association.
Now we could stratify these next parts. Make it more difficult to get a semi-automatic pistol, then more difficult to get a semi-automatic rifle, and so on. I personally think that to help reduce the suicide and domestic violence rate though, this needs to apply to all guns. So to get this licence you would need to be properly educated in gun safety. This would be a class set up by a governing body with the idea of teaching all manner of gun safety. Safe gun handling techniques. Safe gun use techniques. Safe gun storage techniques. Safe loading techniques. Safe ammunition handling techniques. There would of course be a test, and this test would not be designed for an easy pass. We've all taken tests that were designed that way. Where 'sample' questions are part of the class and the answer is given. They're multiple choice with three obviously wrong answers and only one correct answer. Where one of the answers is so wrong it barely refers to the question. Something like this:
Is it every appropriate to point a gun at someone without the intent to shoot them?
A) No
B) It's always appropriate to point a gun at someone
C) It's only appropriate to point a gun at someone when it's unloaded
D) Only if that person is wearing plaid
No, these questions and answers would be set up to actually prove knowledge of the subject. If you don't know it and didn't learn it, then you aren't going to properly guess your way out of it. And while the test may only be 40 questions, it would randomly pull 40 questions from a database of over 1000 possible questions. There would be no memorization possible for this test. You either have the knowledge to pass, or you fail it. And the passing level should be incredibly high. Say 85 or even 90%. If you get lower, you fail, and have to take the entire course over again.
This class would only be taught at accredited teaching institutions. It would not be taught by some dude that was certified by the NRA. Understand, I have a lot of respect for many gun instructors. Most of them have the desire to teach their students, but some just want the cash for passing people. And even those with the desire to teach, most aren't professional teachers.
After taking the class and passing the difficult test, you'd then have to go for a practical exam that's separate from both the classroom and testing experiences. In this, you'd put your classroom knowledge into practice. You'd use a gun at a range, and demonstrate how to load it, how to clean it, how to store it, how to transport it, how to render it unusable, and any other technique needed to be safe with guns. You'd have to demonstrate that you can fire your gun safely, but this isn't a target test. You can have a licence and own a gun and be a bad shot with it. So long as you can hit a large target at a fairly close range (say 4 yards), you're good as you can then take a target class if you so desire. And if you fail any of these techniques... you fail the practical and have to start over by taking the class gain and passing the test again. There is no 'do it again'. If you accidentally wave your gun around and the barrel points at someone, you're done. Please exit the building and sign up for the class next week if you so desire.
Once you pass the practicum, you have your licence, right? Wrong. You now have to pass a background check. Oh you'll still have to pass one whenever you decide to purchase a gun, but you have to pass a background check just to get your licence too. But then you're good right? Nope. Now comes the mental health portion.
Now, I'm not sure how this next part would be handled. It would require consultation with mental health professionals as this would ideally only be seeking out a tendency for violence or suicide. It would not be a test of mental health 'fitness'. If you suffer from OCD or dementia, or ADHD, or Autism, or Schizophrenia, it wouldn't count against you in this test. If you suffered from depression or anxiety or PTSD, or Bipolar, all of which CAN lead to violence or suicide, then you'd be referred up for additional testing. But the initial test should be quick and fairly simple.
Then and only then would you qualify for your initial gun owning licence. This licence would be good for one year and then need to be renewed. To renew you wouldn't need to take the classroom education or test again but you would need to demonstrate a refresher of gun safety. Just an equivalent of a couple hours worth of education. This can be as simple as reading a detailed article and taking a simple test afterward. Basically a demonstration that you're taking your gun ownership seriously and responsibly and keeping up on how to handle and own your gun safely. You wouldn't need to do the practical exam again but you would need a certificate from a professional that you can demonstrate some fairly basic safe techniques. These continuing education courses and certificates of techniques are where organizations like the NRA or business like gun shops or ranges could step in. You've already passed the main testing, and these are just showing continued diligence.
The mental health step would be repeated for every licence renewal as continued mental health checkups need to be done. Violent or suicidal tendencies can occur rather quickly so you need to test fairly often. To be honest, I'd like these to be more often than once a year but I think that's putting to much of a burden on gun owners. Once a year, to me, is a compromise.
And finally, you pass another background check.
The current restrictions on gun ownership would still apply, such as:
- Were convicted of a crime punishable by being in prison for more than one year;
- Are a fugitive from justice
- Are addicted to, or illegally use, any controlled substance
- Are an illegal alien living in the United States unlawfully
- Received a dishonorable discharge from the U.S. Armed Forces
- Renounced your U.S. citizenship, if you are a U.S. citizen
- Are subject to a court restraining order that involves your 'intimate partner,' your partner's child, or children
- Were convicted of domestic violence in any court of a misdemeanor.
To own any gun, you'd need to have a licence. Therefore all gun sales would have to go through certain establishments. If you want to sell your gun privately to someone else, you can do that but you would have to take your gun in to such a place and have them check the licence for it's current eligibility and run the required background check. Oh yeah, did I mention the univeral background check? If a gun is sold, then a background check is run.
Now as this would be burdensome to some rural places where there aren't gun shops nearby, there should be a federal facility that's practically everywhere that could perform this service at no or at least a very low fee.
The post office.
Every community has one. It's a federal facility that's already entrusted with some level of security and can enact legal restrictions. They'd simply need a kiosk and a trained employee that knows how to check on a licence status and run a background check.
(I've had to stop and start this post several times d/t health problems, so this conclusion is coming after several days... sorry if it's a little discombobulated)
I guess, in short, what I want to do is keep the right to bear arms but make it take effort. Make it so that you CAN just have a gun for no reason but that it will be prohibitively difficult to both get and maintain a gun licence.
I think I can safely assume that the NRA would oppose this idea. They oppose all gun regulation regardless of intent. I can also safely assume that many 'gun nuts' would oppose this as it would require a gun registry. But people that truly want to defend the second amendment, that want to make sure we have the continued right to bear arms and not simply solve this problem by removing guns from our society entirely, would find this to be reasonable and a true solution. It doesn't try to ban any weapon or demonize a particular subtype of weapon.
I may write more on this as we move forward. I just now realized I didn't even touch upon waiting periods and I'd have to think on it to figure out if this type of solution would make waiting periods obsolete or still needed.
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