ILLINOIS GOV. PROPOSES STATE ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN

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81. Regarding my small collection of firearms ...

not a single one.

I see no reason to give up any of them. None would qualify as an assault weapon has they are mostly revolvers and semi-auto pistols designed for target shooting. I do own a bolt action Mauser and a double barreled coach gun.

But even if I owned an assault style semi-auto rifle or several, I would see no reason to turn them in. The idea that gun bans or confiscations would decrease violent gun crime is foolish. Liberal Democrats who dislike firearm owners always seem to want to ban something. Ban evil looking black rifles, ban high capacity magazines, ban ownership of several thousand rounds of ammo.

Such ideas have little chance of ever becoming law in our nation and are largely a waste of time. It may be possible to pass such legislation in some states but not nationwide.

What we need to do as a nation is to insist that the states update the NICS background system with the names of those who have a criminal record or have been legally adjudged as having severe mental issues on a timely basis. This should present absolutely no problem as it is already law.

Then we need to try to expand the NICS system and require it be used for the sale of all firearms including all private sales. This may prove difficult if not impossible because the conservatives will oppose such an idea.

Of course we need to improve our mental healthcare system and those who deal with people with mental issues should be required to report individuals they honestly believe have serious mental issues and might be violent to the proper authorities. Once again this might be extremely difficult or impossible as it might infringe on individual rights as well has mental patient rights to have treatment data held confidential between the individual and his doctor.

Since 80% percent of all gun violence is caused from criminal activity or gang warfare between drug gangs, it would make sense to target such activity. One thing that we could do is to fight the practice of straw purchasing firearms as this is often used to bypass the NICS background check by criminals. I would suggest that anyone who engaged in the practice of straw purchasing firearms for resale to gun smuggling organizations or a criminal should be charged as an accessory to any crime committed with the firearms he/she bought. If a few people who engage in the straw purchase of firearms end up charged as an accessory to murder, the message may get out.

We also need to realize as a nation that our War on Drugs is and has been a TOTAL failure. We need to legalize the sale of some drugs such as marijuana and possibly cocaine in order to much of the profit out of dealing drugs.

To be blunt but realistic, our educational system sucks. It is stuck in the last century and we need to move it into the current century and use technology to teach. Most of our youth are computer literate and enjoy playing games on a computer but absolutely hate sitting in a classroom. I watched my grand children playing World of Warcraft and realized that they were learning far more about economics than they were learning in their high school. Such games could easily be adapted to a school environment to teach history, science or mathematics. The result, in my opinion, would be students better trained to get good jobs that payed a living wage rather than being merely qualified to be hamburger flippers.

My son in law and I were discussing how we could improve gun control laws in our nation today and he suggested that anyone who buys a firearm or ammo should have a license. To obtain such a license the requirements would include firearm safety training, finger printing, a serious background check and a trip to a gun range to prove that the applicant can safely shoot such a weapon. He also suggested an mental heath evaluation but I'm not sure that there are enough philologists or psychiatrists in our nation to handle the load. Of course once an individual obtained such a license he/she would be allowed to buy any weapon he/she wished and carry a concealed weapon if he/she wished.

Of course you and many others who post here will disagree with me and point out that we should simply ban certain firearms and high capacity magazines and this would solve the problem. In a perfect world such ideas might work but we don't live in a utopia. Reality is a bitch. At this time pushing for such ideas is a waste of time and damages our party. In today's political environment such ideas are impossible to implement and would do little or nothing to solve the problem

Of course many of my ideas would be very impossible to implement. That's why in the post that you replied to I compared our current national situation to a Roman galley with uncooperative rowers on both the right and left side of the boat.