Let's also take one of Chris Rock's other suggestions very much to heart as well - TAX THE FUCK OUT OF AMMUNITION! Make it prohibitively expensive to fire a weapon. There is nothing at all in the Constitution that says we are the right to cheap and plentiful ammunition. Regulate both gun sales AND ammunition distribution...why is it that we can have laws that govern how much fucking cold medication I can buy in a given time period, but some ridiculously paranoid gun nut can stock pile enough rounds to kill dozens of people at a time??? Why can I be told
A gun with no available bullets for a kill happy rampage is a blunt object.
Last time I checked, no one had ever stormed a grade school and killed 20 kids and 6 adults with a hammer...or entered a movie theater and bludgeoned the patrons to death in large numbers
You want to own a gun?
FINE, but with sensible restrictions on the type and magazine capacity.
You want to shoot it at a gun club where ammo must be purchased and discharged before exiting the premises?
FINE, but with the caveat that the bullets are not allowed outside of the gun club without severe penalty. Stockpiling ammunition in private residences is NOT something that should be allowed legally...
You want to hunt and use a rifle or shotgun?
FINE...but its gonna cost you a whole lot of money, training and licensing to maintain the weapon and you assume 100% liability for damages that may be caused by the weapon while you are its owner.
But, if you get caught with unlicensed ammunition and a firearm, you permanently lose your right to carry.
If you do it again, you go to jail.
If you do it AGAIN after that, then that's a discussion we would need to have regarding success of "3-strikes-and-you're-out"...
As for the argument of whether or not "only criminals would have guns and ammo if you did this", then SO BE IT! That's why we have police....to protect and serve, to keep the peace, to maintain order, to arrest criminals.
We do not have a vigilante force or the posses of the old West to enforce the law. If you advocate for gun rights on the sole basis of shooting criminals, then I sincerely hope you also advocate for anarchy and an abolishing of the police state as well...
That's why we have courts....to adjudicate the law, to enforce compliance beyond just upholding contracts or debts!
That's why we have allowed the government to implement the draconian measures in airports that have us all removing our shoes and using clear baggies to transport hygiene products like mouthwash or shampoo....to, I guess, prevent any 75 year old grandfathers.
And as for the ludicrous idea that your guns are going to protect you against the government, well I don't think any individual stands a chance against a SEAL team or Green Berets or Army Rangers or Delta Force. And even if you DID manage to somehow beat the most intensely training special operations forces in the world, you STILL would not be able to beat a tank or a bunker busting bomb or a simple siege. These nut cases over-estimate their chances wildly, the same way they over-estimate the safety of their guns or their own safety measures to secure their guns.
Beyond those measures, we need a serious re-evaluation of what we do as a society to treat mental illnesses and disorders. There are people who are too dangerous to be free among us. There are parents and schools, siblings and neighbors who are at risk because they do not even know what is wrong, let alone how to treat, improve or control it. Professionals, trained in how to deal with this are needed. It is only through their intervention that such patients can be permanently assisted to humane lives.
We also have a culture that is over-run with death worship. Whether its grisly television and movies or videogames or military invasions and destruction. We sell guns and bullets and restrict access to medicines and doctors. We over pay arms dealers and weapons manufacturers at the same time we under pay teachers, firemen and police. We get what we pay for...
Instead of a world where the heroism and selflessness of the dead teachers and administrators is the ideal, we worship "reality TV" stars like the brain dead idiots of Jersey Shore or Honey Bob-boo...we say its a harmless, guilty pleasure, but its MORE. It coarsens us as a society. It allows the exploitation of human misery to fuel our "entertainment". It makes us more able to raise children who can be exposed to dehumanizing behavior on TV from the cradle to an all too early grave.
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