Breaking: Parents gave their elementary school kid a gun to take to school.

[ElboRuum]

52. It's called "collective will".

At one point in this country, nearly every adult smoked. Heavily. The health concerns of smoking became known and that began the anti-smoking movement.

It started out small, and it took decades to build, but the collective will was there and it remained. Now the numbers of smokers have dwindled. As a smoker myself, I find some of what I must deal with occasionally annoying, but I can't argue with the benefits to individuals and society at large for taking this stance. The benefits are real and profound.

The genie won't be going back into the bottle today or tomorrow, but so long as the collective will is toward tighter control and access to firearms, that genie WILL be put back in. The fact is that the human cost at the societal level to near absent gun regulation to access and use, at this moment, is too high to for that society to bear.

The problem with all of this is that "responsible gun ownership" should be not just some statement of esoterica, a flimsy platitude offered up by those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. I believe that there are responsible gun owners. However, just saying so doesn't make it so in any given case.

If you want to drive a car in this country, you need to pass a competency test and a knowledge test dealing with the rules of the road. You must pass an eye exam or have the appropriate corrective lenses. You must have proof of insurance, just in the event that you do inflict property or personal damage with your car. There are different classes of licenses for different types of vehicles, after all we wouldn't someone who knows only how to drive a car to get behind the wheel of a semi, would we? When you buy or sell a car, you must make the appropriate records of sale and transfer of title.

In a similar vein, you should have to prove your responsibility to own and use a firearm. Use whatever measures you like, but it is ludicrous that any jackass in this country can get a gun for any reason with a minimum of effort and no proof of competency with regard to its operation or understanding of the law regarding its use. The collective will should be at least the level of burden of proof of responsibility for the ownership and operation of a motor vehicle, something whose incidental capability of lethality is somehow more worrisome than something whose primary purpose is lethality.