I am thousands of miles away from the land of mass shootings, about to head out with Marian and a picnic lunch for a beautiful afternoon walking along the Coulee Verte, an elevated park similar but larger than New York's Highline Park.
But don't think I'm not thinking of you. I've been collecting Republican proposals to stop mass shootings, and I have a stern tsk tsk for liberals who refuse to take anything with an R by its name seriously. It turns out they have lots of good ideas:
- Harden classroom doors. It works on airplanes!
- Arm teachers with serious weapons. It works in European airports!
- More and better trained school guards. It works in prisons!
- Hope and pray. It works in churches!¹
- More active shooter drills for kids. It worked during the Cold War!²
Does this seem to you an awful lot like turning elementary schools into prisons? Then you're a liberal who has no respect for the Constitution. Shame on you.
¹Well, not all the time. But way more churches haven't been attacked than have been, amirite?
²No one died from a nuclear war, did they?
*Republicans* say a load of rubbish to sound *important* .
Tough subject. I will apologize up front for the length of this post
#1 - Unlike abortion guns are enumerated in the Constitution. This is a FEDERAL issue.
My proposal would NOT affect law abiding citizens
Here goes
#1 - remove gun permitting systems from local governments. Here in NC the Sheriffs office handles gun permits and there IS a good 'ol boy network. We have seen statements in the past where local sheriffs have said they wouldn't enforce this or that. THIS is wrong
#2 - upon requesting permit the federal agency involved would obtain both criminal and any psychological records for the applicant
#3 - upon purchase, the gin gets registered with that federal agency. Anyone who fails to this AND Fails to report the weapon if it gets stolen relinquishes their gun license.
#4 - any criminal using an illegally obtained gun in the committing of a crime WILL get fingerprinted and their DNA taken upon arrest which are then sent to that federal agency
#5 - the home of any criminal using an illegally obtained gun in a crime WILL BE SEARCHED for weapons upon their capture
#6 - for LEGAL gun owners. Upon their death their guns shall be turned over to local law enforcement. Exceptions to this can be made for antique firearms so long as a licensed family member takes ownership
THIS is the hard one
#7 - unless being carried ANY weapon has to be UNDER the control of the licensed owner - meaning gun safes in use and individual weapons locked. This will allow for night stand storage should the occupants FEAR break ins, but will also force these law abiding citizens to store their weapons securely so their kids or the kids friends cannot have access to them. So you get up in the morning and either put the weapon on your belt or in your purse or you LOCK IT UP.
#8 - ONLY federally licensed gun dealers are allowed to sell firearms. No private sales allowed.
ANY law abiding citizen who owns a gun should be able to follow what I have outlined above. I am a gun owner with a CCP. I am also elderly and would welcome a proficiency test every two years or so to prove I can still handle the weapon safely. A vision test should also be performed at this time.
I do NOT fear new gun laws OR enforcement of current regulations but it should not be left up to the states as this is a federal issue. I have used all sorts of weapons in the army and I honestly don't see any reason for a citizen to possess an AUTO matic weapon of any kind. SEMI auto is OK but magazine capacity should be limited.
None of this will happen UNTIL we get a true Independently affiliated President with the guts to take on BOTH parties extremist wings
A couple of points.
Parents will want to teach their kids how to shoot. Some will even go hunting. The gun owner has to be held liable for the misuse of their guns. I'm not sure how they'll effective secure them when the parent goes back to town for supplies--though one hopes there's another adult there to keep an eye on things.
And I'd throw in a clause that holds companies responsible for the of their goods being transported to dealers. Theft is tolerated as part of the cost of doing business, and it a perverse way, gun theft means more gun violence which means more gun sales.
"Guns" are not enumerated in the Constitution; "arms" are. There is general agreement that the right to keep and bear arms is limited as to the type of arms; even the most dedicated second amendment fundamentalists seldom argue for a right of private ownership of nuclear weapons. There also seems to be little opposition to the prohibition on private ownership of rocket launchers, artillery pieces, grenades, and fully automatic weapons.
It would not be inconsistent with existing precedent and jurisprudence to ban or greatly limit private ownership of handguns and other guns not well suited for hunting. It would not be inconsistent with existing precedent to limit private firearms to a magazine size of one round. In other words, sensible restrictions should not be a problem.
OTOH, given the current SCOTUS, existing precedent is becoming meaningless. It appears that the conservatives actually do conceive of the Bill of Rights as "a suicide pact", contrary to the wisdom of their predecessors.
Prior to Scalia’s creation of the personal right to have guns in Heller, the general understanding of the second amendment was that it referred to a state’s right to form a militia. There was no individual federal constitutional right. Scalia’s idea was that the entire second amendment was one run-on sentence.
That being the case, where outside of dicta do you see any possible limitations on the individual possession of weapons of under kind or under circumstances? Where exactly does the second amendment say that the individual possession of nuclear weapons can be prohibited? Where does it say that convicts cannot possess firearms in prison? The answer is that if you read the second amendment in the strained and dishonest way that Scalia did, no such limitations are possible since the right to keep and bear arms is absolute and cannot be abridged.
You have, at somewhat greater length, restated my second paragraph. Maybe SCOTUS will decide that private individuals DO have a right to own nuclear weapons. On the other hand, Scalia himself once suggested, facetiously I suspect, that "bear" is an important limitation; on that interpretation the 2nd amendment only covers weapons you can carry, which would exclude most nukes but notably would not exclude things like Stingers and Javelins.
Two points:
First, the holding of Heller is that the second amendment is read as creating a personal right to keep and bear arms. And that right may not be “abridged’. There’s no words of limitations that alter the word “abridged” including “bear” or “self defense”. Given the plan language is the second amendment, if you accept the dishonest way that Scalia’s interpreting the amendment, anything beyond the recognition of the absolute right is mere dicta.
Aside from that, technically even if one wants to pretend that the right only extends to weapons capable of being borne by an individual, there would actually be an individual right to “keep and bear” suitcase nukes. So I don’t think it’s much of a limitation in any case.
Second, it’s clear that there’s no restrictions that serve constitutionally possible as to status (convicted person, ex-convict, or avowed noncitizen terrorist, for example) or places where weapons may be carried (prisons, the supreme court’s building, the capital building,etc).
This is the basis of my proposal to demonstrate the insanity of Scalia’s dishonest opinion.
A thing about gun ownership is that it's an intensely focused manly seriousness, that is, extreme banality.
The combination of banality and the imagining of lethal judgment are the key element in the attraction for many.
It's not just utter humorlessness but antagonism to and complete dismissal of both humor and wit. No one else matters when you have your gun.
Bill Gates grows fake cheeseburgers in a peach tree dish made with fake meat that will zap you if you eat real meat because they don't want you to eat real meat,
https://old.reddit.com/r/confidentlyincorrect/comments/v0kz4u/marjorie_taylor_greene_says_bill_gates_grew/
Yes, Marjorie Taylor Greene said that.
Get that woman a concealed carry permit! They are going to be so out to get her!
But, --wait, --if she has a permit --they're going to know she's armed and ready for them --! The Deep State isn't going to take this lying down! They've already called her stupid, what are they going to do next, tell her she's wrong?!!
That would be just what you'd think they'd do, --which means -- !
She makes Herschel Walker look smart.
A vote for her is nothing but throwing a rock through your neighbor's window.
+1!
Wow, I thought your voice to text transcriber (or the one that may have transcribed her words) just got petri dish wrong, but, nope, she said "peach tree dish" quite clearly. She is hella smart. In fairness, though, Georgia is the Peach State, so may be, as far as I know, the GA public school's are required to use the term peach tree dish instead of petri dish.
If they don't I can imagine Republicans are now motivated to pass a law requiring that they do.
She pays no attention at all to anything so she fills in the blanks in what she vaguely overhears with something she likes or whatever motivates her vivid imagination, like peaches or 'the gazpacho police'.
People like this broadcast on all frequencies, receive on none, and should be diagnosably deficient.
She’s just trying to promote her local farmers. She wants dishes to be made out of hallowed out Georgia peaches . …. The crazy thing is, that does sound like something she actually would say.
At least the mass shootings have kicked Ukraine off the front page.
Putin Pals must be happy.
Go NRA!
Russian troops who refuse combat in Ukraine have their families held hostage and threatened with deportation to the far east,
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-hostage-relatives-troops-disobey-orders-ukraine-intelligence-report-1711389?jr=on
Smells like freedom!
America is an Insane country, that's all. The Supreme Court may actually need packing....Already, a sane country, Canada, has added substantial restrictions based not on what happened in Canada, but because they wisely saw how utterly crazy their neighbor was.
Handgun freeze in Canada and five-round limit on magazines
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/31/handgun-freeze-in-canada-and-five-round-limit-on-magazines
See, some counties are Sane, others are Insane.
This is all fairly simple.
Best Wishes, Traveller
The obvious and long overdue solution is universal open carry and body armor in public schools for both teachers and students. And saying "the kids are too little" is no excuse: We spend tens of billions of year on weapons R&D. There's no reason the federal government couldn't fund the development of micro-guns for the grade school set with small hands.
We should be encasing school children in protective cans, like, I don't know, like Daleks, the practical conservative solution.