So you like the parts where I offered to improve gun owners rights, but not the parts where I asked for something in return? (kinda joking here, no insult meant)
The problem I have is that none of your suggestions allow us to prevent someone from legally buying a gun and giving/selling it to someone who is not legally allowed to buy it. We have laws against straw-man purchases, but they cannot be enforced because there is a complete lack of accountability for sales, due in large part to the lack of usable records. How do you propose to fix this particular problem?
For the record, my SO owns guns, I enjoy shooting them, and I'm definitely not a "ban all guns" type.
Oops, my bad. For some reason I thought one of the first two bullet points was about additional restrictions on concealed carry. Brain fart. I did outline some compromises in my post, so it wasn't intentional.
Straw purchases are tricky. They do currently get enforced when it's obvious, but you're right that without a registry it's awfully tricky to do. I just think a registry is a very big deal, and requires a significant amount more in return than what you outlined, and I'd really like to see it in a clear give/take amendment to the constitution.
The problem with just implementing new laws is the laws have to stand on their own, so any give/take is subject to being changed down the line. Hence my desire for an actual amendment rather than just a new law.
I'm against the registry because a) the govt does not need more information on our lives*
* The "war on terror" has already brought too much intrusion at the excuse of safety. We have the NSA gathering data on every US citizen and a secret no fly list. I'm against furthering that agenda.
Agree 100%. It would take a very big compromise, and some very strong guarantees in the constitution for me to consider one. Once the registration is out there, it enables so many other regulations and de facto regulations.
A good example is current "states rights" that essentially are given to the federal government, because the government holds money hostage if the states don't comply. Technically the decisions may be up to the state, but the federal government will just bankrupt them if they don't comply. There are workarounds to everything, so the existence of the registration alone is a huge deal.
Ah, sorry about being in violent agreement then. Obviously they can save lives and I'd be a fool to argue there are zero such situations, but given the rarity of such situations and the overall harm from the prevalence of guns, I don't think it makes for a valid excuse to own one.
Yeah that's a tricky position to argue, and isn't my personal view on it so I can't speak to it.
At one point I thought the tyranny angle was reasonable, until I realized I couldn't pin down a bright line that would indicate we were living under a tyrannical government outside of them wantonly rounding up and killing people. By then it's way too late. Outside of that and gun confiscation, nobody seems to agree on when we have tyranny. I mean, in a lot of ways we're not getting better. We have "free speech zones". We have states on crusades to implement laws on thinly veiled religious beliefs. Civil forfeiture allows for and perpetuates horrible abuses. When have we arrived at tyranny?
So I'll ask my favorite question on the topic, as I posted above. When are you going to start shooting members of the government to defend against tyranny?
Well, if Trump starts a secret police that goes around executing muslims in my neighborhood and/or taking them to concentration camps to be gassed, I'd definitely like the option of helping defend them. I can't tell you for certain what I'd do in a given situation, but if you can't imagine any situation where you might like a gun to help you against a tyrannical government, there are plenty examples in history.
Will it ever happen? Probably not. More likely the government will use things like the NSA to gather data and point us all in the direction they want us to go through media influence. I'll ask again, if you were trying to take over a country, would you prefer one that was armed or one that wasn't? If they were armed, would you prefer them to all be registered or not?