3rdPersonPlural wrote: ↑Sat Jul 20, 2024 11:52 am
I posted this here in 2019 and I still think it's a really good and workable idea.
Responsible Gun Aficionados regulate their community of Gun Owners and have real responsibilities as well as real authority.
The Government stays out unless invited in by the local gun club/militia
Transfering. licensing, and registering firearms ends no more complicated than it is for automobiles.
Every community has a state funded and militia managed range where members can hone their skills and show off their collections of military hardware.
3rdPersonPlural wrote: ↑Wed Sep 04, 2019 6:59 pm
I actually thought about this a little bit:
If you want to be a good guy with a civilian firearm:
1. You register your civilian ‘home defense’ weapon(s)
a. How? The ballistic fingerprint of each of your guns needs to be registered with your local police through your local militia (club), and State and National law enforcement needs to have access to this
b. Why? Because when a bullet is found lodged in someone, or casings are found near where he was shot, the police should have a way to find out who shot him. Shooting people should not be a Constitutionally protected pastime.
c. Isn’t that expensive? Yup. But it is the cost of separating the responsible gun owners from the nuts with guns.
2.
You re-license them periodically
a. How? Confirming the ballistic fingerprint. It’s like registering your car periodically. This is the cost of having an appliance that can actually kill people
b. Why? With frequent usage, a ballistic fingerprint changes. Let’s keep current.
3.
3. You insure them for liability
a. How? Just like your car or your boat. If it can harm people, you need to be insured against claims. If you have other assets you know how this works.
b. Why? I suspect that if someone is fixing to shoot someone and knows that he’ll be found liable because it is his firearm, he might just kick the guys ass instead. If his firearm goes missing, he’ll report it stolen so he can waive liability PDQ.
4.
You keep your home defense weapons at home
a. Why? I have no problem with a guy having a pistol or shotgun to defend his abode. I get nervous when a guy with a pistol takes it out with him to give him courage.
b. If you are a jewel dealer or security operator, sure, you can bring your home defense system with you. With insurance costs and such it might just be cheaper to hire a bodyguard. I dunno, but I don’t want oblivious people wandering around posing as responsible gun owners because they are paranoid.
5.
If your insurance or registration lapses, you have to turn your firearm in to the local militia.
a. Yeah, if you’re an irresponsible gun owner, you should not keep guns. Even the most ardent NRA guy agrees with this.
6.
You pay a steep tax on bullets you bring home.
a. Bullets you shoot at the range or during militia (club) training are tax free, but bullets you bring home or buy online have a dollar-apiece tax. The underlying cost of the projectile is more, too, as
b. the bullet manufacturer has liability if the bullet is sold to an owner of an unregistered weapon. This should increase the customer oversight from the bullet manufacturers
7.
If you shoot a bad guy in your home, using a properly registered and fully licensed firearm, no one will confiscate your firearm or drag you though the mud more than if you had stabbed him. Firearms as a home defense option are respected option.
If you want to be a good guy with military Firearms
1. You register your military weapon
a. How? The ballistic fingerprint of each of your guns needs to be registered with your local police through your local militia (club), and State and National law enforcement needs to have access to this
b. Why? Because when a bullet is found lodged in someone, or casings are found near where he was shot, the police should have a way to find out who shot him. Shooting people should not be a Constitutionally protected pass-time.
2.
You re-license them periodically
a. How? Confirming the ballistic fingerprint. It’s like registering your car periodically. Cost of having an appliance that can actually kill people
b. Why? With frequent usage, a ballistic fingerprint changes. Let’s keep current
3. You insure them for liability
a. How? Just like your car or your boat. If it can harm people, you need to be insured against claims.
b. Why? I suspect that if someone is fixing to shoot someone and knows that he’ll be found liable because it is his firearm, he might just kick the guys ass. If his firearm goes missing, he’ll report it stolen so he can waive liability PDQ.
4. You keep your military firearm at a licensed gun club sponsored by your local militia
a. We need some sort of oversight. But not government oversight. Responsible oversight by the local responsible gun owners is less objectionable than Federal oversight.
b. I’d rather have a board of local firearm aficionados disarm a group of evil-doers than a crew of federal agents. Keep it local. If oversight lags, the local militia is by default responsible and after their insurance pays out, their premiums will rise and the club fees go up and their officials may have to be recycled. Nobody wants higher fees. No official wants to get recycled.
5. You pay a steep tax on bullets you bring home.
a. Bullets you shoot at the range or during militia (club) training are tax free, but bullets you bring home or buy online have a dollar-apiece tax. The underlying cost of the projectile is more, too, as
b. the bullet manufacturer has liability if the bullet is sold to an owner of an unregistered weapon. This should increase the customer oversight from the bullet manufacturers
If you are a bad guy who uses guns:
a) Whenever someone is shot by an unregistered weapons, the full weight of the State and Federal law enforcement assets are brought in.
b) Any ‘understanding’ you have with local cops and legislators no longer matters.
c) Your operation, if you are also a bad guy commercially, is likely to be compromised.
d) Your financial assets are impounded and made available to the courts.
e) Using an unregistered firearm to shoot someone puts you in jeopardy of RICO prosecution
f) Your local militia is interrogated as to why they didn’t register your operation as an exempt group. Or register you. Now you have responsible gun owners and probably the NRA asking questions along with the law enforcement teams.
If you are a good guy who objects to the oversight:
a. Your local militia (gun club) is tasked with bringing you to heel. This is not much different than your local NHRA rep refusing to let you run a Stock Demon on a sanctioned DragStrip. If your car runs the quarter in under 10 - you need a roll cage. If you have a civilian weapon - you need to register it.
b. At least the first line of inquiry is not the government or some NGO like “Moms of School Shootings”.
c. Will this work? Well, the Porn industry, which has the First Amendment as umbrella cover, went ahead and ‘self regulated’ to keep Gummint regulators from stepping in. The ammo-sexuals need to see the handwriting on the wall, and re-establish Militias to regulate responsible gun hobbyists.
Who pays for all of this? Well, the responsible gun owners end up paying for it all, right? But I’ll bet that the taxpayers will be happy to write a big check to help make this shooting nightmare go away. Let’s pass a bill that:
1. Establishes and funds a ‘Local Militia’ in every community of 100,000 or so. This includes a free shooting range, tax-exempt bullets to shoot, a registration facility, a Military Firearm storage facility (armory), a computerized registration system, and a paid board along with salaried managers.
a. This militia is responsible for registering and accounting for every firearm in their district. Military Firearms must be kept at the militia armory. Owners who refuse to comply with the Militias directives must be referred to government authorities. The militia is to be the voice of responsible gun owners.
b. The militias fixed costs are covered by a legislated federal bill
c. Unaffiliated local dealers may remain open, of course, but must comply with Militia directives as per sales registration and licensing of all weapons in inventory. License transfers are monitored by the Militia Board.
d. A local militia must be responsible for (and insured against)
i. All firearms in their district
ii. All gun shows in their district
iii. Unlicensed weapons in their district
iv. Un-taxed ammo sales in their district
e. Insurance costs are covered by member fees.
2. If society crumbles then the Militia may release all armory weapons to members in good standing to resist, defend, or whatever. If society hasn’t crumbled after all, the insurance policies of the Militia and the individual members who went out and shot people will cover liabilities and the premiums. As well militia dues, will have to go up to cover the costs. People who drop off the rolls will be investigated.
3. If a militia member (by default, a gun owner or people with access to their weapons) starts to go off the rails, The Militia brass must disclose this to the government authorities. Such disclosure will trigger investigations, but will transfer liability from the militia to the individual member.
Wait, I’m confused. Keeping and bearing arms is a Constitutionally protected RIGHT. This wish list assumes downgrading and mistreating that right as a privilege. Hmmm. We’re going to need a constitutional amendment for your desired downgrade. Lucky you, our government does have a procedural framework in place to allow just that. Until that time, however, your list is moot. Appreciate the effort, sentiment, sincerity, but, sorry, hard pass. I think you’ll find about 85,000,000 (low end estimate) of your fellow countrymen and women feeling the same as I do. I get to jump through a hundred hoops, spending time and money, to end up right where I already am: a responsible, law abiding citizen gun owner. Just to be clear, myself and my firearms aren’t part of the problem other posters here are now suggesting it’s my responsibility - and that of my “crew” - to fix.
In a more recent post on this thread, you write "I propose that gun owners self regulate and accept liability (with adequate insurance) for their dangerous toys." I'm not sure how you came up with guns as toys, but I propose that my current self regulation is beyond adequate while at the same time being none of your business. I'm sharing some numbers below to illustrate my point.
How do many responsible gun owners feel? Like every time they bring forth data and strategies which could make a real difference, and provide unifying common ground, they get poked in the eye with a stick and are told they have a sickness, or are extremist, or they like carnage, especially kids, especially at schools. Get poked enough times, by people who are reasoning with emotion not facts, and, well, you stop dialoguing because there doesn’t seem to be any real or sincere interest in problem mitigation.
Let’s take a quick fact based look at how I come up with the outlandish claim guns and gun owners aren’t situated at the root cause and thus solution set for the violence perpetrated with guns problem in America. I’ll utilize the most recent data available about criminal gun murder, and all murder, in America. Can we agree that in terms of violence, murder is the most extreme manifestation?
2023 estimates are as follows: 85,000,000 firearm owners in America. 400,000,000 firearms owned. 25,000,000 AR platform rifles owned (1 of every 16 firearms).
2023 FBI statistics (made public a month ago) on Mass/Active shooting events: 143 incidents. 105 victims. 16 of the incidents had AR present.
2023 murder in total in America: ~20,000 utilizing every method from hammers to fists, knives to handguns to long guns. All long guns (bolt action rifles, shotguns, Semi-automatic rifles including ARs) account for less than ~500 murders every year - year in and year out.
That’s the data, let’s crunch the numbers.
In 2023, 0.00000064% of AR owners in America committed a mass/active shooting with their AR rifle. In other words, 99.99999936% of AR owners behaved in a peaceful and law abiding manner with regard to mass/active shootings in America in 2023.
In 2023, blaming EVERY long gun murder in American to ARs (just for fun, and because they are black and scary and Biden suggests you need an F-15 to beat one), we have 0.00002% of AR owners committing murder. In other words, for all long gun murders in America in 2023, 99.99998% were not committed by AR owners.
Let’s do guns in general. Let's blame all ~20,000 murders in America in 2023 on firearm owners - ANY kind of firearm. In doing so, we end up with 0.0002%. In other words, 99.9998% of all gun owners in America did not commit murder in 2023.
Extrapolating murder data to firearms themselves, 99.99995% of all firearms in America were NOT utilized to commit murder in America in 2023.
Based on all of the above, which rings more true? “It’s the guns”. Or “It’s not the guns, so maybe we should focus on other vectors for mitigation of criminal violence and gun perpetrated criminal violence in America”.
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Yet, like clockwork, when it was learned the Trump would be assassin utilized an AR, well, let's never let a tragedy go to waste. Renewed calls for AR bans are at a fever pitch. Biden doing his “angry Biden” schtick. Gavin doing his gun Gish gallop with petitions on X. The list of usual suspects goes on. And anyone who doesn’t agree is a sick and twisted and sociopathic extremist. That’s a productive way to move needed dialogues forward!
What’s truly baffling is after Sandy Hook, President Obama put together a task force to assess “What can we do to prevent these types of events?” Joe Biden was on that task force (not sure if he even remembers, to be honest), and I have yet to hear him talk about the “playbook” of action recommendations which resulted, and brought a more coherent multi-discipline approach to the table for mitigation. Hint: specific types of firearms were very low on the totem pole of recommendations, and mostly because:
One strong recommendation was for the press and politicians to stop inspiring AR copy cat usage by NOT doing what they have been doing nearly non-stop for the 11 years since: Vilifying and fetishizing ARs, thus making many who plan to perpetrate mass public shootings purposely choose ARs because they realize doing so will get them more press after they go to the great beyond. Guess we can tear that page out of the playbook. The press and our leaders, with their examples being followed by the populous, are contributing negatively to the issue they are red faced screaming and blaming others for causing. What a sad, shameful irony.
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It’s not incumbent on me or “one side” to “do something”. It’s actually incumbent on our leaders to stop with their divisive, toxic, and fruitless base pandering when it comes to ARs and gun ownership in general in America by those law abiding among us.
Folks here do understand the last AWB didn’t prevent ownership, use, or trade in already owned ARs for its decade long duration? No NEW manufacturing could occur during the ban, which by the way listed 600+ specific makes and models of semi-automatic rifles as specifically exempted. At the onset of the ban 1% of guns manufactured in America were ARs. The ban was allowed to sunset because studies by the government itself failed to verify efficacy. Guess who tried to bury those research findings? Today, almost 25% of guns manufactured in America are ARs.
If an AR ban is implemented today, and with 25,000,000 currently in private ownership, what’s the plan? Making ownership a crime this time around? Confiscation? Please refer to my numbers above - those one's that start with 99.999% - and decide if you think the nuclear rift which would ensue would be worth it. Are we ever going to talk about criminals? Or all of the mitigation and off-ramping/interception strategies which are gathering dust while our President threatens law abiding citizens with F-15s?
Maybe, just maybe, when we finally decide to put heads together and go targeted and surgical - focusing on the root causes of criminal violence behaviors for effective solutions - new and brighter days will dawn. The law abiding among us would be mighty grateful, and fully on board with something along those lines.
In the meantime, sorry, I have no interest in jumping through hoops to assuage the fears, enmity, and misguided desire to curb a right I am peacefully and responsibly exercising. None whatsoever. I will make an educated guess about 85,000,000 of my fellow citizens feel similarly. That being said, I acknowledge your right to express your opinion, and respect that opinion, despite my deep seated opposition.