But pulling shit out of their ass is exactly what Democrats do when it comes to guns...
About a month ago the Democrats had their national convention at at the convention Hillary Clinton said that she refused to believe that there was no middle ground between Democrats and the gun owning community. Well, to answer her call... no... there is no common ground. The reason for that is because Democrats absolutely refuse to and have no interest in listening to the other side. The other side, that has all the knowledge about the issue at hand. Simply put, when one side isn't interested in listening and only wants to dictate, there is no common ground, because there is no middle for either side to meet in. It's "my way or the highway!" when it comes to Democrats and guns, and their way is gun-control.
But lets put that aside for a minute.
Let pretend that we're in a parallel universe, where American politics wasn't hyper-partisan, a parallel universe where Hillary Clinton genuinely offered a seat at the table for the gun-owning community to sit down and work out a solution. Lets pretend Hillary actually gives a damn about the people and what we all think and that she isn't some corporatist puppet with big money's hand up her ass.
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| Let's all sit down together and come to a solution for this. |
First off, I'd axe the following emotionally based laws:
"Assault weapon" bans, gone.
"May issue" concealed carry licencing policies, gone.
"Gun-free" zones, gone.
Locked storage requirements at home.
Ten day waiting periods, gone.
Hughes Amendment to the FOPA, gone.
Before you go shitting a brick and thinking that would be Mad Max the day after, calm down. Nothing will change. Those laws are pointless redundancies, and law, unlike engineering, is not something you want redundancies in. It's best to have one, clear, distinct rule that everyone understands. And we have that.
Murder is already a felony offense in all 50 states. There isn't a single state in the union, a single American territory, where murder is not a serious crime. It doesn't matter, when, how, or where you do it, if you carry out a murder anywhere where the United States government has authority, it is a crime. Even if we got rid of those four laws, if you go onto a school campus and murdered the first kid you saw, you're getting charged with murder and possibly going away for the rest of your life. If life in prison for murder didn't stop someone from going into a place like a school and shooting people, then what makes any reasonable thinking person with a well regulated brain think that a triple digit fine, or a low two-digit prison sentence will stop them from doing what they want to do? On the same token if someone doesn't want to risk going to prison, they're not going to use their gun to blast anyone anyway regardless of where they're at.
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| Oh you went and murdered someone? Here, please have a seat. |
The law on murder already makes all those laws superfluous anyway, but I'll dig a little deeper on why they're crap and why repealing them is the way to meet me in the middle.
"Assault weapon" bans. I've already gone into why this law is crap to begin with and why there is really no such thing as an "assault weapon" here. The cliff notes version is basically two-fold. First, because the definition is constantly shifting, there is no fixed "thing" that is an "assault weapon". Secondly it's a definition based wholly upon a set of cosmetic characteristics. If I paint up my car like a NASCAR racer with sponsor logos and what not, it's still not going to perform any differently. If I put a body kit on my car without doing any modifications to the engine, it's not going to perform any better.
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"May issue" CCL issuing policy. This is just plain stupid and nothing more than mental masturbation. Lets think for a moment. If someone is going to go though the trouble of getting a concealed carry licence and all the hundred+ dollar fees and training, they're likely not going to use their licence to commit crimes, not after what they had to go through to get it. Conversely, if someone is going to go murder someone, or knock off a liquor store, do you really think they're going to go though the trouble of getting a licence to rob a liquor store? Probably not.
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"Gun-free" zones. This probably the dumbest thing on the list. Again, if facing life in prison, if not the death penalty doesn't deter someone from doing harm, what makes you think a lesser offense is going to deter them from committing said violence. "Gun-free" zones are essentially placebos, for the fearful. It doesn't do anything, but it makes them feel better in their head. If someone made the conscience decision to commit murder, they're going to go to the place they choose, to attempt to commit that murder. "Gun-free" zone or not. A "gun-free" zone, doesn't just magically remove guns from existence within the set zone. Here try this experiment. Take a room in your house, any room. Put a sign on the door that says "knife-free zone". Then take a knife from the kitchen, and bring it into said room. See how that works (or doesn't)? Put up a "gun-free" zone sign on a liquor store in a shady neighborhood and see how many armed robberies it stops.
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Locked storage requirements at home. Another law about guns made up by a person who doesn't own any. This can be covered by various laws and torts on negligence. If someone steals an unlocked gun, that buy itself is a crime and ought to be a felony (I'll get to that). If a kid finds a gun and shoots themselves or someone else, that can be covered under a negligence law (if there isn't one, then I suppose we can make one to cover this specific instance). Keeping a gun locked up defeats the purpose of keeping it in the home for self-defense. What, are you going to ask the burglar to hold up while you get your key to unlock your gun? No! So don't be stupid and make stupid laws. Think before feeling! If the goal of this ignorant law is to protect kids, then the best way to do that is to educate the kids themselves and teach them to respect the gun as a weapon. That it isn't some toy pick up and play with and pretend to be Jason Bourne with because he makes it look cool. On this note I wouldn't be opposed to voluntary educational classes that new gun owners can attend with their kids about safe handling.
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Ten day waiting periods. Stupid and pointless if the person has already passed the federal NICS background check and already owns a gun. No different than making someone wait to pick up a tanto blade that he purchased when he already has a kitchen full of large cleavers.
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The Hughes Amendment to the FOPA which bans civilian ownership of new machines guns. Another placebo effect feelings and emotionally driven piece of legislature. The police routinely recover illegally possessed machine guns from criminals, so this has done little to stop criminals from having them. It certainly doesn't help when you have pro-gun control legislators like Leland Yee illegally running guns from Islamic terrorist groups to organized crime to fund their reelection campaigns. Additionally with the prevalence of the 3D printer making a basic submachine gun like the STEN, which the Jewish organization Haganah produced though clandestine methods in the late '40s, would be a piece of cake and render the Hughes Amendment obsolete anyway. Even in Australia, the country that Democrats point to as the gold standard for gun laws is seeing sophisticated homemade submachine guns surfacing among criminal groups. Before you think the government would be able to stop torrent files of the 3D blueprints, ask yourself how well has it been able to stop media piracy? Technology is making this law vestigial, it's essentially becoming a pointless law.
Most crimes aren't committed with illegally had machine guns anyway, and there's also an odd argument to be made that if a mass shooter had a machine gun, the body count may actually be lower. Just watch as Jeremy Clarkson with with an H&K MP-5 sub-machine gun, hit all of nothing with one.
Now keeping that in mind, lets see how quickly it takes for the Mythbusters Build Team to empty the magazines of these fully automatic weapons.
Two seconds, it took them two seconds to empty those weapons. What does that mean? The shooter would need to reload every two-seconds and like Clarkson likely wouldn't hit what they were aiming at. Would people get still get shot? Of course, but it's quite possibly less people would get shot with just spraying a weapon instead of aiming, and there would be more opportunity to jump the shooter during reloads if they have to reload more often.
There's a reason the military trains to mostly use semi-auto mode, and why the M-16A2 and A4 revisions don't have full-auto and only 3-round burst modes. The model the Mythbusters had was likely the Vietnam-era A1, or it could have been a less common A3.
Now I could budge on more restrictions (like a training requirement, if you're going to use that thing in a public place for self-defense you better be able to shoot better than Jeremy Clarkson) on a machine pistol like the Glock 18, or an easily concealed sub-machine gun like an UZI or short rifle like an AKS-74u, but rifles already are rarely used in crime, and that's because a rifle is much harder to conceal. People will notice when you're walking around with one, and you'll look suspicious when you're walking around with one trying to hide it. That isn't likely to change given that an M-16A4 is still going to be hard to hide.
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So lets put down the emotions, and put on the thinking caps instead. This is too complex an issue for feelings to solve. Tell your heart to go sit at kids table, because the brain has adult things to talk about.
Now, what am I willing to give up in exchange for those things?
Training. I've heard calls from some Democrats demanding training as a requirement for gun ownership. Ok, I'll give, anything that makes someone a better, safer shooter to be a good thing. Only thing is, who will provide the training, and how will it be paid for? I'm sure the Democrats would expect the individual gun owner to pay for the training out of their pocket. Sorry, but by virtue of being a constitutionally protected right, that is bullshit. Should people be required to pay to exercise the right to speak in a public place like the sidewalk? Should people be required to pay to exercise their 4th Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures? Should be people required to pay in order to be protected from cruel and unusual punishments? If your answer to any of those questions is "no", then you see why the individual shouldn't be required to pay for the training that is required to exercise a constitutional right. To require the individual to pay the cost of training amounts to a poll tax. So where does the payment come from? I have a few ideas, take it out of money collected from the DROS (Dealers Record Of Sales) fees. Or have the training funded by taxes, if it's being used to train people to be safer with guns, I don't see how Democrats could be opposed to that, if it saves just one child's life from a negligent discharge, then who could oppose that?
The other issue is, who conducts the training? I would say make it a program that is run by the Sheriffs of each county. Have set number of hours required to complete the licence and have courses held several times a week. But most importantly, have it open to everyone since anyone may potentially find themselves encountering a gun, or even having to use one.
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Registration. I'll budge on this one... to an extent. I wouldn't been too opposed to a system in which the seller must maintain a record of sales for their products. BUT, this record of sale, belongs to the private seller. If the government wants to look at it, they need to go get a warrant and even then, they can only look at the investigated person's records, or a particular recovered firearm's serial to find an owner. Collectibles without serials would just be grandfathered in, given that crimes generally aren't committed with them. Of course if the business wants to stay in business, they're not going to put the purchaser's information on blast, given how cantankerous the issue is.
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Mandatory reporting if someone has stolen your gun. I'll budge on this one too. Provided that if the weapon is recovered the owner actually either A) gets it back, or B) receives some form of compensation in the equal amount, I would settle even for a voucher for the police auction. Secondly, once they find your stuff, the police destroys the records of you owning what weapon when you are found not to be in the wrong. Though ultimately, I'd go along with this anyway because if someone jacks me, I want my shit back.
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Other proposals I would put on the table.
Gun thefts are felony offenses. Governor Brown in all his wisdom vetoed a bill that would have made the theft of a firearm a felony offense. The law as it stands, depends on the market value of the gun as to determine the severity of the theft. To put this into perspective, Grand theft is where it theft becomes a felony, and the money threshold is $950. A basic semi-automatic rifle in 5.56x45mm (same caliber as the AR-15) like the Ruger Mini-14 (which erroneously has been called an "assault weapon" in some instances) can be had for $100 less than that. So stealing someone's Mini-14 rifle, amounts to nothing more than petty theft under current law, and what does petty theft get you? A misdemeanor and under California law, petty theft may be punished by a fine of up to $1,000, a term of imprisonment lasting up to six months, or both. Given what a gun is, yes it is a dangerous weapon, the charges for theft of a gun should be much higher.
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This would apply to all laws affecting the Bill of Rights. Any bill that is passed along a pure partisan majority automatically triggers a constitutional review by a neutral third party committee of legal experts. So if a Republican majority passes a law mandating prayer in public schools and the bill passes along pure partisan lines with no Democrats or Independents vetoing for it, it triggers the review. On the same token, if a Democrat majority passes new gun-control, like they have in California, the review is triggered. So who sits on this committee? I'd have it broken up into 1/3 Independents, 1/3 Republicans and 1/3 Democrats.
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Where I would pass stricter laws are, is in the area of punishment. You commit a crime with a gun, even if it's a misdemenor? Jacked up to a felony. You injure someone with a gun in the commission of a crime? Minimum sentencing of 15 years. You commit murder with a firearm? Minimum sentencing of life in prison with the option for the death penalty. If you committed multiple crimes with a gun, 2 additional years for every bullet in the magazine at the time they recovered it. If you committed the crime as part of gang activity 5 additional years of prison for all those involved in the act even if they didn't have the gun. If the shooter commits murder as part of gang activity then all others directly involved in the activity would also face the death penalty.
Mass shooting? Death penalty. Take them out back make them dig a hole, and put a bullet in the back of their head.
I'd have additional laws to cover negligent discharges of firearms. You accidentally injure someone, no prison time, instead 5000 hours of community service, plus a required training course to get your rights reinstated. If you skip out out on service, off to prison. If you get a gun before clearing the course, you go to prison. If you accidentally kill someone, then you get charged involuntary manslaughter or murder under depraved heart/criminal negligence depending on the situation. For example, you have a freak accident/mechanical malfunction and the weapon discharges and kills someone, then no charges. Now if you and your buddy are being stupid with the weapon and accidentally kill someone because you're treating the weapon like a toy, then involuntary manslaughter or murder.
If you're a politician who's convicted of a firearms related crime including trafficking? All firearms related bills you sponsored are rendered null and void, and news of your conviction are mailed out to all registered voters to inform the voting public of your crimes. Lastly, you are barred for life from holding any public office.
I'd leave voluntary manslaughter as is, since when someone commits voluntary manslaughter, they're not thinking with a cool head.
If you commit a crime with a gun or you're just stupidly negligent, you deserve to have the hammer dropped on you.
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But what some of the other proposals that Democrats want to push forward with but haven't gotten passed?
Mandatory insurance. Again, amounts to a poll tax. It essentially forces an individual to pay money to exercise a constitutionally protected right. Should you have to buy riot and civil unrest insurance in the event that your public speaking event sets off a riot, whether you set out to do so or not?
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Bans on semi-automatic weapons. You're asking to ban technology that's been around since the 1890s. This completely side steps the human element involved in crimes and mass shootings where a semi-automatic weapon was the weapon of choice. This is like chopping off a finger to save the hand because you're scared a cut will get infected and get gangrene. You completely side step the issue of bacteria and how it causes infection. May as well ban automatic transmissions in cars because it makes it easier for criminals to conduct a drive-by.
Also, on a practical matter, this would largely be a practical impossibility to enforce with the number of such firearms in private ownership. New York tried to do something similar with registration and banning weapon types, and they only had a compliance rate in the single digits. This isn't Australia, Australifacation of our gun laws isn't going to work here.
Thirdly, Democrats have demonstrated to be completely inept at defining firearms related terms, and that's not surprising considering the level of ignorance that Democrats have towards firearms. For instance what would constitute a "semi-automatic" firearm for a Democrat? Would a Democrat consider a double-action revolver to be "semi-automatic" because it fires one shot per trigger pull?
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Words and phrases like "compromise" and "finding common ground" means that both sides have to be willing to listen and willing to make exchanges. Democrats in California have repeatedly shown that they are no interested in "compromise" and they are not interested in "finding common ground", they're only interested in dictating.
Gun owners have already given up a lot...
...and yet what have gun-owners gotten in return? What have they gotten in exchange from the gun-control side? What? The ability to exercise a constitutionally protected right? Sorry Democrats but constitutionally protected rights don't work that way. You can't threaten to revoke a right in order to extort concessions on that right.
If you really want to compromise, then you need to give up some things in exchange for something else. If you're just out to ban, then just cut the bullshit and say it, because your actions already say otherwise.
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