Comment Re:Safety first? (Score 1) 410
What's not a mystery is that, in the US, firearm-related accident rates are plummeting as legal gun ownership steadily increases. Parents are teaching their kids safe handling, and those kids aren't involved in tragedies.
Yes, but firearm-related accident rates are dramatically higher than anyplace else in the Western world due to easy access to firearms.
I'll frame my feelings on this subject this way:
1) The Supreme Court has made it resoundingly clear that the Second Amendment gives a broad personal right to own firearms. Even if I believed in gun control (I don't), it would be unconstitutional, and unless a ban was in place everywhere (see below), piecemeal bans do nothing but punish law-abiding citizens.
2) There are large swaths of the United States where hunting, shooting at animals that eat crops, etc. are regular parts of life. A blanket ban everywhere would be really incredibly dumb, and, oh yeah, unconstitutional (see above).
3) 99.999% of legal firearm owners are not a threat to me or anyone else. It's that last 0.001% that ruins it for everyone.
4) I think the argument that guns protect personal freedoms is pretty much pure poppycock. The State has you outgunned. Deal with it. Concern with being voted out of office weighs in the minds of most politicians 1000x more than fear of civil uprising does.
5) All these things being true, I find it a little unnerving that any space alien off the street can walk into a store and buy a gun. I would really prefer that some sort of licensing be set up. I don't really want to restrict anyone's right to own a gun any more than I want to restrict anyone's right to drive a car. I'd just prefer a speed bump be set up to demonstrate that you're somewhat competent to handle a gun, not bare-wires crazy, and to insure that someone's right to bear a gun goes away when they think that an appropriate use of their Second Amendment rights extends to shooting their rifle in the air during Halloween or the Fourth of July in my crowded urban neighborhood.
I got a license to drive a car over 20 years ago. I rarely even think about it. I follow my end of the deal, don't get liquored up before driving, and don't try find out if my car will really go up to 140 on I-90 at rush hour[1], and everyone's cool.
The ability to do common-sense regulation of firearms seems to get clouded by these slippery slope arguments that today it's just a license, and tomorrow they're going to come and take your guns away.
[1] That's what God made Eastern Washington for! And yes it does!