To the 2nd amendment extremists - you have the blood of children on your hands

[adieu]

58. I'm not a gun nut by any means

I don't own any guns, and rarely have I used one (I did some shooting on a Saturday about 8 years ago).

But the US is so infused with guns that it's hard to determine how to deal with it. It's so unlike any other country in the world that we can't quite model a plan after others. True, Canada has a lot of guns as well, so we can model a plan after theirs.

The problem is not in the laws. The problem is within the nature of the US citizen who thinks the solution to some problems is a squeeze of the trigger. How can one legislate a new national philosophy? Frankly, I see the US as the prime example of a country that really shouldn't have guns available to anyone. Switzerland has guns. Israel has guns. As I said, Canada has guns. So do a number of other countries. (And there are many countries that don't allow personal possession of arms, as well.) It's just that here in the US, irresponsible behavior by gun users, from trigger happy cops or wanna-be cops (looking at you, Mr. Zimmerman), quiet loner types, on-the-edge spouses, to all sorts of other gun lovers.

Yet, even with so many gun nuts, there are even more responsible gun owners, probably a 10-to-1 ratio of responsible to irresponsible. That's not reassuring given that we probably have about 20,000,000 or more gun owners. With a 10:1 ratio, that's 2 million nut cases carrying guns thinking they're John Wayne or Rambo, or there's a potential mugger/rapist at every corner. Even with a 100:1 or a 1000:1 ratio, you're looking at 200,000 or 20,000 nut-cases with a weapon.

How many mass gun deaths is acceptable? That's the question the US citizenry has to ask itself. If we're willing to accept 1 or fewer such shootings a month, then we can craft laws to attain that goal. If we're willing to accept no more than 1 per quarter, then we can craft laws to attain that goal. Then, over time, we can see if we can meet those goals. To say no shootings from now on is an impossible goal to reach. Even in such a pacific country as Norway, such shootings do occur, but much more rarely.

We also need to randomly choose some states to be test states and choose some other states as control states. In test states, we implement specific gun laws to see what would happen. Whether crimes go up or down, whether shootings such as this go up or down, and compare them to control states. Some of the test states might have to implement rather draconian (for the gun-lovers, personally, I don't really mind) laws such as confiscation of all arms, to be held at a local armory. Weapons can only be checked out upon request (for hunting or target practice or sport). The test could take 5 to 10 years to complete. Such a test should validate or invalidate a lot of the rhetoric that goes on about how gun control should or should not be conducted.

Of course, I'm sure various factions would love to game the test: cheat, rig the findings, cause mayhem in gun-controlled states (by bringing in guns, giving them to people to shoot about, etc.). That would have to be controlled as well.

I wonder if the United States will ever wean itself of guns.