Attn: American Gun Lovers - The Blessings of Civilization Are Required!

[Atypical Liberal]

88. Yes, buying guns is about money.

So it's all about the money.

I don't know anyone in the world providing arms for free.

1. I think you're going to great lengths to ignore the reality that our current system does a very poor job of inhibiting prohibited persons form obtaining firearms.

How so? I have already said that I support universal licensing similar to what Illinois currently does, with the major difference that the process be opt-out rather than opt-in. Opt-in creates a registry of firearm owners, while opt-out does not. Everything else works the same - you cannot sell a firearm to a private individual without recording their FOID information. Sellers have a highly compelling reason to obey the law because selling to someone without an FOID is a pretty good indicator that that gun is going to be used in crime and will be traced back to the last legitimate owner.

Gun owners may be willing to embrace such a licensing scheme if they know that their anonymity is preserved and especially if they regain the ability to buy firearms through the mail once again.

2. The proliferation of cheap and easy to get firearms certainly does make crime more destructive.

But this is exactly the opposite of what we are seeing!!!!!!

We have the proliferation of cheap and easy to get firearms and violent crime has been declining for decades!!!!

It also ignores the fact that cheap and easy access to firearms helps law-abiding people defend themselves from violent crime.

3. Addressing the root social problems is a lot more difficult than having responsible gun control. It's not the either or that that gun apologists what to make it out to be. Furthermore, many would argue, that by addressing the symptom (gun crime) you ease the suffering inflicted by the disease (hopelessness).

Oh I have no doubt that solving the root social problems is much harder than any kind of gun control. It would be much easier to simply say, "All guns are banned!" This is far easier than passing an edict that "All social problems are banned!"

And again, the problem with focusing on the guns is that you are catching up all the law-abiding people in the net you are trying to cast to prevent crime. That is wrong, and lots of people like me are not going to tolerate it. There is only so much inconvenience that lawful gun owners are going to tolerate in the name of easing the suffering caused by criminals.

Personally, I'd rather tolerate the inconvenience of increased taxes for better social programs aimed at targeting the root causes of crime than have onerous restrictions on firearm ownership.

Ultimately, that is why you are losing and will continue to lose this fight. So long as your policy focus is on guns and affects all gun owners you are doomed, because there are far, far, far more gun owners than crimes committed using guns. We are very invested, emotionally, financially, and politically, in protecting our interests. And we are organized and hyper-vigilant and internet-connected. We are not going to allow people to use the actions of a tiny minority of gun owners to be used as an excuse to do things to the vast majority of us who have done nothing wrong.