You know what else would crash the economy equally quickly? The government suddenly sending out black helicopters and/or physically engaging it's own population in combat... But that's the scenario we seem to be talking about. That would be considered "gun control", and that's been my point the entire time I've been posting... I agree with the programs your suggesting, and for the same reasons as you're suggesting them; but the "political right" conservatives must understand that these are social programs and quit hollering about "socialism", "entitlements" and "Hitler" every 5 minutes. For those gun advocates that are also Republicans, you can't have it both ways. Either you want social programs to fix the issues OR you can complain about socialism, not both. I don't think that demonizing YOU, or any other RESPONSIBLE gun owner is the adgenda any more than putting machine guns in the hands of every kindergarten kid is the adgenda of the pro-gun majority. Of course, there are exceptions on both sides... Feinstein and LaPierre are good examples. For people (like me) who believe guns do more harm than good to our society when they are not treated with care and respect, it's easy to see the harm being done and conclude that guns are not being treated with care and respect by members of our society. Those people deserve to be demonized, just as a drunk driver is demonized. The way to increase care and respect for weapons is by implementing control measures, including training programs and mandated safety regulations (otherwise known as "gun control"). When you speak out against "Gun Control" as a whole, you are speaking out against a wide range of solutions, and choosing to fight on behalf of those folks who deserve to be demonized.
I am speaking out to those who wish to restrict my ability as a gun owner, training does not restrict it educates. I am no political party affiliate, I refuse to side with any side just to agree with one group of people, I am a realist, and an american. I am not religous, the constitution is my bible. There are ways to control gun violence without violating the 2nd amendment any further than it allready has been.
And to top that off, being a realist, I don't consider training gun control, because you are not controlling anyones guns or guns that they are wanting to procure, I consider training firearm education.
The NRA used to offer gun safety training to elementary school children, but the anti-gunners seemed to feel that their children would be safer if they didn't know how to properly treat guns, so they got such training banned. Every gun owner I know of has gone through some kind of training. My home state required hunters to take hunter education courses which included a lot of safety training. They also require training for CCW holders. Since every gun owner I know from that are fits into at least one of those two categories, they have all had training.
Making it mandatory puts a limitation on access to guns, though at this point we're talking somantics...
That's great for every gun owner YOU KNOW... Do they all have gun safes and secure their weapons appropriately? If so, these are not the irresponsible folks that would be affected by the type of gun control I'm talking about... As for kids getting lessons on gun safety and responsible behavior from the NRA, that's a little like having Phillip Morris teach health classes.
The NRA has always promoted gun safety. The left has tried to demonize the group which has only tried to protect the rights of its members. The NRA benefits from more people being responsible with their guns. A better comparison would be having PETA teach pet responsibility, or perhaps a bit closer would be having Planned Parenthood teach birth control techniques.
LOL... PETA... That's priceless. But seriously, I don't think Fox News could be considered any further to the political right, and even they have taken issue with the behavior of the NRA lately.
Logi, at this point, we are talking about the difference between paying for training and providing it at no cost to the end user through taxes from the Government. If you require training, safes, and other things, you create a financial burden on the ultra poor and unemployed. If you don't require it, then there is a sub section of the population that will handle guns unsafely and potentially cause greater harm to their community through negligent discharges and unsafe handling and storage procedures. I do not believe in creating a financial barrier for the poor by requiring a certain number of check boxes in the form of classes and Government approved safety vaults. I also want to educate people about dangerous gun handling practices. A lot of what you learn in a gun safety class can be taught over the internet through youtube videos or something similar. I think that the best want to bridge the gap between your position on mandatory training, and my view of not requiring a financial burden, is to allow people to watch videos online, do an electronic signature that they understood and watched the entire video, and keep that on file as a check box that the require person watched and was at least instructed on some measures that could be taken to keep yourself and others safe around you. Washington requires cable locks to be issued with each handgun purchase in Washington when being bought new from a dealer. Would something like this satisfy the lock up requirement for pistols? Maybe, maybe not. I never use them because I believe that a gun that is locked up and unloaded is as useful as a third elbow if seconds count. But giving the purchasers of pistols the ability to be locked up and proper education is somewhere between nothing and mandatory training and gun vaults.
Same old VPC argument....NRA instructors have taught firearm safety for well over a century Who better to teach it to kids?
Goodie... This is about what societal standards should be in place, not about you as an individual. Feel free to start your own message board that relates solely to you. I'm sure it'll get lots of use.
Let's say three seperate smugglers get busted with vehicles that were registered to you... Do you seriously think you won't have questions to answer? Similarly, if criminals are busted with guns that were last purchased by you... Don't you think the police are going to want to know why guns you purchase keep ending up in the hands of criminals? Pretty self explanatory, really...
I don't think anyone (including the NRA) can say that it's the same organization now that it was "over a century" ago... http://www.newsday.com/opinion/oped/winkler-the-nra-used-to-support-gun-control-1.3865217
There's a significant percentage of the population that could afford to own a car if it wasn't for the costs of registration/smog checking, driver training, insurance.... A significant percentage of the population is STILL angry about Obamacare, because "their tax dollars shouldn't be paying for someone else's health insurance", but they're not going to complain about the government making allowances so that the (often urban) poor can still get their guns? That's an interesting theory, but online training and assessment is somewhat "iffy" in that there is no way of validating that the person ticking boxes is actually the person who gets credit for completing the course... I assume you don't have kids? As for the cable locks, I would say that - if fed through the chamber and barrel of a firearm so that a round cannot be chambered, and the firearm is actually locked TO something, so that it can't be picked up and carried off too easily - it sounds like a reasonable and cheap solution. Not as good as a safe, but better than leaving it loaded on your nightstand for kids to access and or criminals to steal...
I still believe that Obamacare is a bad piece of legislation that expands a crappy healthcare system. That is another debate though. The difference between Obamacare and an online training system is continuing costs vs a fixed base cost with minimal upkeep. After the videos are already made, which could be produced, edited, and hosted for a tiny tiny tiny fraction of what Obamacare will cost, you have no further costs except to update the videos with new information as it materializes. Cars and firearms are the same thing. After the initial cost of the firearm to the individual, the upkeep is zero, ammo is almost zero unless you shoot a lot, and it costs the government nothing. A car on the other hand costs a lot to maintain. The two examples are not comparable. You could make an argument of government supplied cell phones, section 8 housing, or a plethora of government subsidized creature comforts that aren't considered necessary from a survival standpoint. Self defense could be considered a survival tool, not a creature comfort. We could say the same thing about a lot of things. Getting a drivers license requires a birth certificate and a warm body. There is no real way to verify that the person with the birth certificate is the person standing in front of the DMV lady. After the "real" fake drivers license is made, that person with the picture can assume the identity of the person they are trying to impersonate and there wouldn't be any way to prove otherwise unless they have been finger printed, though even that can be masked or changed. The online training is just a check box that the state government already does with hunters education. Compared to what I consider real firearms training, hunters education is a show up while breathing, sit in the class for four hours, get your hunters education card. Nope, no kids. I also believe that you can't legislate morality or common sense. I am a big believer in choice and being responsible for the actions you take. The old axom leading a horse to water comes to mind, so I am big on giving people options, punishing them when something bad happens, but not forcing them to. Personal responsibility is something that I think society in the US has lost. Making it the governments responsibility to do something or another entity that should have done something is pushing the buck and saying "It's not my fault but THEIRs instead" and it is wrong in my opinion. There are some things that must be the responsibility of the government, but forcing an individual to do something when he has not been convicted of a crime, trespass, or otherwise harming another is wrong.
If a criminal won't bother with a straw buyer to make a private purchase - he'll just go to the current owner and buy it. That makes the current owner the straw buyer. Why would a criminal add another person and another $100 to the expense to buy a gun from a private party? More importantly, how many straw purchases are made through private-party sales? A registration program would cost billions of dollars and add a lot of hassle to law abiding citizens. Before you do something like that you need to show that there is at least a very strong likelihood that there will be a very significant benefit to society. Putting this hassle on a hundred million Americans and spending billions of taxpayer dollars just to prevent a few hundred crimes wouldn't even come close to being worth it.
Which is part of why implementing similar requirements for private sales as for sale from a licensed vendor makes sense. Why punish licensed vendors? The point is, if the police are investigating a crime that has been committed with a particular firearm, they should have the ability to determine who the current owner of that firearm is, not matter how many times it has changed hands over the course of years. A lot of hassle? Is it a lot of hassle to purchase from a licensed vendor?
You're right in that this is not the forum for discussing the merits of Obamacare, nor who actually wrote the 'bad legislation'. Whereas this is a valid debatable topic on it's own, I believe that an online course for a technical proficiency like shooting is tantamount to online driver's education training before handing the average 16 year old a driver's license. Given that cars have a high maintenance cost, and firearms have a low maintenance cost, additional up-front costs in relation to obtaining a firearm (training, purchase of security hardware, etc) would have less impact than similar costs for vehicles; so the impact to lower socio-economic demographics is not unprecedented or overwhelming. Not sure that introducing another flawed system can really be justified by pointing out flaws in existing systems... It kind of sounds like you believe we should allow something bad to happen and focus resources on reacting to it, rather than taking any steps to prevent those things from happening in the first place... I disagree. If my kid got injured by a driver while he was crossing the road to his school, I'd currently be very angry at the driver for his mistake. If the speed limit was not reduced, and there were no speed bumps on the road, I'd also be angry at the government for enabling this foreseeable incident to occur in the first place. The government does have a responibility to minimize risk to its citizens AND react when someone increases that risk through irresponsibility or maliciousness. Individuals have the simultaneous responsibility not to negatively affect others through irresponsibility or maliciousness. The two are not mutually exclusive, they are complementary.
Never claimed it was the 'same organization',just they have taught firearms safety for over a hundred years.... And it's called an 'OP/ED' for a reason....
