Take off the blinders, America. Take out your earplugs. Read a little history. Process a few statistics. Apply a little logic. Then do the right thing.
Or, follow the children, and DEMAND the right thing be done by our leaders. Our lawmakers. Our blinded-by-the-$$$ lawmakers. Because we Americans, by a large majority, already know what needs to be done. By an overwhelming majority, we Americans WANT the right thing to be done. It’s nothing more than common sense.
The same common sense that America wisely used to regulate that other life-changing invention that brought both convenience, power, and also tragedy to millions of lives as it evolved and was perfected: the automobile.
{Spare me the ramblings about the 2nd Amendment, please. No one is loading their muskets as part of “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” except for members of the Armed Services.}
So? What’s so simple?
- 1. License the guns. Like we license the cars.
- 2. License the owners. Like we license the drivers.
We don’t give drivers licenses to blind people, or 12-year-olds, or people who have previously killed or injured someone while driving, or demented elders. Yet any one of those people can own a gun. Many mental health issues and any history of domestic violence should be automatic disqualifiers for gun ownership. Period. Owning a gun is not a “need.”
- 3. Limit and license the capacity. Like we limit the operations for special vehicles.
Want to own and shoot a “special” powerful gun? Take a course, be screened, pass a test. Just like commercial drivers, motorcycle drivers, etc.
- 4. Insure the guns and owners. Like we insure the cars and drivers.
The bigger the gun, the more guns you own, the higher the cost. Because, obviously, the higher the risk.
{Spare me the “false equivalency” arguments, please. America had no problem protecting the public from itself when it came to the dangers of a useful means of transportation. We figured it out pretty quick. And a whole new industry and jobs, jobs, jobs can emerge from this sensible, logical regulatory practice.}
- 5. Immediately institute a government funded, (no questions asked?) gun-buy-back program. Then melt the suckers down.
Don’t want to spend the money on licensing or insurance? Don’t care that much about your gun(s)? Have more than you need? Know you can’t pass the “tests?” Easy solution.
- 6. Make the penalties for breaking these laws equivalent to those for breaking the laws driving uninsured, unlicensed, drunk, or leaving the scene of an accident, etc.
This really is simple.
{Sure, some people will not comply. Just as some do not comply with automobile regulations. And those people will be living outside the law, just like those who don’t comply with other regulations. At their own risk, until they hurt or threaten someone. Which, of course, is far more likely than them “saving” someone.}
It’s not rocket science. It’s just logic. Common sense. And it’s way past time we come to our senses.
America has had a blind spot when it comes to this issue for way too long. A blind spot that is covered in blood.
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NOTES AND REFERENCES:
Licensing Cars and Drivers
As the number of motor vehicles reached tens of thousands, state and local governments assumed a new power: authorizing vehicles and drivers. In 1901, New York became the first state to register automobiles; by 1918 all states required license plates. States were slower to require licenses for drivers. Only 39 states issued them by 1935 and few required a test, despite widespread concern about incompetent drivers. Early motorists were taught to drive by automobile salesmen, family and friends, or organizations like the YMCA. By the 1930s, many high schools offered driver education. (http://amhistory.si.edu/onthemove/exhibition/exhibition_8_2.html)
What is the History of the Driver's License?
by Ashley Mackenzie
When the first automobiles were introduced at the start of the 20th century, anyone could drive them without restriction. Just as the earlier carriage or wagon driver needed no license, the first automobile drivers were free to take to the road without the government's permission. Part of this freedom was due to the privacy of early automobile construction--many men and women simply built and attached their own engines to their wagons…
Safety concerns began prompting states to issue driving examinations before licensing drivers. Part of this was due to the increase in the number of cars and drivers. By the end of the 1920s, 75 percent of households owned a car. In 1907, the New York Times published an article entitled "Better Auto Laws Are Now Needed," which reported the concerns of leading automobile experts about accidents caused by drivers' inexperience and carelessness. Because automobiles were new, people were not accustomed to cars' power and often drove too fast or too recklessly.
(https://itstillruns.com/history-drivers-license-5552087.html)
Background on: Compulsory Auto/Uninsured Motorists
Historic Perspective
In 1927 Massachusetts became the first state to require the purchase of auto liability insurance. Since then 48 states and the District of Columbia have followed suit. Such laws usually have the support of the public despite the fact that compliance with such laws is generally poor and enforcement activities are costly. Compulsory auto insurance laws do nothing to protect drivers involved in accidents with drivers of stolen vehicles or drivers from one of the two states where insurance is not compulsory, drivers of unregistered vehicles, the insurance dodger who cancels a policy immediately after receiving a proof-of-insurance certificate and the hit-and-run driver.
(https://www.iii.org/article/background-on-compulsory-auto-uninsured-motorists)
Car Insurance Becomes Law
As more people started driving cars, more accidents started happening, along with more legal disputes.
The biggest issue that came from all of this was that even after fault was determined in an accident, there was no guarantee that the at-fault driver would be able to pay for the costs associated with that accident.
This issue kept growing in severity until finally someone had to step in.
In 1925, the state of Connecticut became the first state to adopt a financial responsibility law.
Under this law, owners of cars had to prove that they could pay for any injuries or property damage they cause to others in a car accident. While there was more than one option to prove financial responsibility, the easiest and most accessible way was by purchasing liability car insurance.
Connecticut’s financial responsibility law only required drivers to prove their financial responsibility after their first accident.
The state of Massachusetts also felt they had to do something about all the car accidents and legal troubles that followed so they, too, established their own financial responsibility laws.
However, Massachusetts’ laws required that driver prove their financial responsibility as a requirement for their car registration. This is what is considered a compulsory insurance law and is what the majority of us now have to face in our respective states (with very little exception).
(https://www.dmv.org/articles/history-of-car-insurance/)
What If We Treated Guns Like Cars? Then We Might Be Able to Enact Truly "Common-Sense" Gun Laws by Trevor Burrus
What if we treated guns like cars?
Cars, after all, kill around 40,000 people per year—about as many as guns—with 2016 being the deadliest year on American roads since 2007. Yet, in general, we regard auto fatalities as an inevitable consequence of allowing private citizens to own and drive cars. As long as cars are going to be in private hands, then there will be car accidents, including large accidents with multiple fatalities. We expect and accept that the number of auto fatalities increases as more people own cars, and we expect and accept that sometimes cars would be misused with tragic consequences.
(https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorburrus/2017/10/06/what-if-we-treated-guns-like-cars-then-we-might-be-able-to-enact-truly-common-sense-gun-laws/#53ebcaae2c73)
Bipartisan support for some gun proposals, stark partisan divisions on many others
BY BAXTER OLIPHANT
Republicans and Democrats find rare common ground on some gun policy proposals in the U.S. Large majorities in both parties continue to favor preventing people with mental illnesses from buying guns, barring gun purchases by people on federal no-fly or watch lists, and background checks for private gun sales and sales at gun shows.
Yet there are sharp partisan differences on several other issues – particularly on whether to let people carry concealed guns in more places and to allow teachers and officials to carry guns in K-12 schools, a new Pew Research Center survey has found.
(www.pewresearch.org/...)
Why the Second Amendment does not stymie gun control
A lack of political will among America’s lawmakers is the main culprit
For most of America’s history, the Second Amendment stood as an uninterpreted relic of the founding era. It was not until 2008 that the Supreme Court gave serious thought to the nature of the right it protects. In Heller v District of Columbia, four justices insisted that the right to bear arms made sense only in the context of a “well regulated militia” of the 18th century. But a majority found the Second Amendment to protect “an individual right to possess a firearm” for self-defence and held that a total ban on handguns violated that right...
To the dismay of the National Rifle Association (NRA), which takes a much wider view of the Second Amendment, the Supreme Court has consistently refused to embellish the constitutional right to bear arms in the decade since the Heller decision. The NRA was particularly piqued in November 2017 when the justices declined to entertain a challenge to Maryland’s ban on large-capacity magazines and semi-automatic weapons, placing AR-15s outside the ambit of constitutional protection. It will not be pleased by another demurral on February 20th, when only Justice Clarence Thomas noted his displeasure with the high court’s refusal to hear a challenge to a Californian law that requires the buyer of a gun to wait 10 days before taking possession. His 14-page dissent complained that the lower court treated the Second Amendment “cavalierly” and that the right to bear arms is a “disfavoured right” at the Supreme Court. Whether disfavoured or legitimately circumscribed, it is clear that the Second Amendment is not the primary obstacle to gun control. If legislators in the state capitols and Congress find the political will to clamp down on America’s millions of powerful and often loosely regulated weapons, it seems there is a constitutional way.