Gun Control

[devonin]

America doesn't have "A Gun problem" it has several gun problems. Mass Shootings, while a problem aren't nearly as big a problem as general gun violence, gun homicide, and guns in suicides.

The biggest problem in the USA surrounding positive and useful gun reform isn't 2nd amendment rights, it's that organizations like the CDC are expressly forbidden from actually conducting research into the issues surrounding gun violence and gun suicides etc. They are actively prevented from trying to discover what kinds of changes would have what effects on the rate of gun use and gun deaths in the US. When they were able to research cars, they developed a number of measures that dramatically reduced the rate of car fatalities. But the NRA is so powerfully against allowing anything that might lead in any way to legislation that limits anybody's right to have as many guns as they want as easily as they want, that it will never happen.

So the real answer to the gun problem in the USA is "Stay away, and hope that enough people who care this much about having guns kill each other off or die of old age that they become enough of a minority to actually be able to act even remotely in the self-interest of all Americans."

For every point that Arch made in the Orlando thread about entrenched cultural norms, the point is made that Gun Culture in the USA is even more thoroughly entrenched than any of the other sentiments he's brought up. An attempt to actually circumvent the NRA lobby and try to get some research done to propose realistic and effective controls on the ownership and use of firearms will almost certainly result in actual civil war in America.

As long as that entrenched culture is present, there's basically no point in talking about gun controls. There are counters inside that culture to anything proposed no matter how reasonable.

I feel like, as gun controls go, none of these are limiting to law-abiding citizens, and all make pretty logical sense in terms of having a better sense of the state of guns in the country and how they are used with a goal to prevent the absurd number of gun deaths each year:

1/ To own a gun, you need to apply for and receive a licence
2/ To own a gun, you need to pass a basic training course in safe operation and handling
3/ To own a gun, you need to register that gun

At that point, I would consider something along the lines of:
1/ If you commit a crime with a gun, and that gun is unregistered or stolen, we add 5 years to your sentence.
2/ If you commit a crime with a gun registered to you, any guns you have registered to you are taken away and you lose your licence to own guns for 5 years.

This is easier, faster, and cheaper controls than are applied to drivers, with weaker penalties for committing crimes with guns than say, driving drunk as applied to drivers. There are arguably more guns per person in the USA than there are vehicles, so applying even a weaker version of the licence and training process for cars to guns seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Banana