Notice From My Cold Dead Hands......

If your proposal doesn't appeal to the 35 states who support permitless open carry you're not likely to see any of this improve in our lifetimes (Soon to be 36 states, once Florida passes their permitless open carry bill).

If we actually want to make progress keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people we'll need to try and tackle it without impacting law abiding citizens. Otherwise it's a non-starter in at least 35 states (soon 36) and will be doomed to fail.

So if it makes buying guns harder for law abiding citizens, or puts them on a list, or in any way inconveniences them... It'll go nowhere.

There are solutions that don't do any of that, and that nearly all law abiding citizens would support. The fact that there is nobody trying to do any of that exposes this whole thing as playing politics. Nobody who matters actually cares about real solutions for this. Or if they are one of the few who actually do care, they don't know enough about it to do anything logical.

Again, that would be 36 out of 50 states allowing permitless open carry. Up from 28 out of 50 only a few years ago.

We need to get realistic about how to address violent crime. The current "anti gun" movement is having the opposite impact.

More people are buying guns now than ever before. More women. More minorities. It is now easier to make a gun than ever before.

I can buy the equipment to make an unlimited number of guns for far less than I can buy most new guns.

Relying on gun restrictions is the definition of fighting a losing battle.

 

True. Public opinion can and does change. Over the last several years it's been changing toward more gun freedom than it has changed to support gun restrictions... At least, according to the number of states.

 

What could go wrong? Children are well known to have full control over their feelings and are very even tempered.

 

Apparently Republicans are all for supporting the Police, until it infringes on their right to have children walk around with AK-47's and AR-15's in downtown. Who doesn't feel safer with 14 year old's walking around with AR-15s?

 

I think a more important issue is changing attitudes, there is already a template for this that worked very well. The best parallel is smoking, go back in time 40 years ago and it was pervasive as hell, in all sorts of media, was super fetishized, and all the cool kids and influential people of the time smoked. Fast forward to now and we've almost entirely eradicated smoking, and there's a very negative stigma associated with it. It was a very effective 30 year battle that has given us a template for addressing this gun issue.

First step is not going to be successful if you're trying to ban something that is at the zenith of its cultural influence. Instead what the anti-gun folks should be focusing on is the media aspect, there needs to be a limitation of how the gun manufacturers are allowed to advertise. Again if you go back in time, guns used to be associated with 'law abiding citizens' and hunters. Fast forward to today, and all of the gun manufacturers are advertising in a way that makes you 'cool' or 'manly' it is no longer advertising to the responsible citizen or hunter.

https://www.fastcompany.com/4047757...the-second-amendment-and-american-gun-culture

Just as the NRAA had a multi decade approach to changing the cultural zeitgeist on guns to make it so pervasive, there needs to be a very coordinated campaign to challenge it, and challenge their campaigning that prey on young men who are easy to manipulate. Once the cultural mindsight changes, then and only then will any other sane policy proposals be do-able. If a single event as absolutely horrific as the Sandy Hook shooting can't change the conversation, then no single event can change it over night. It's pretty clear to me that there has to be a change in strategy that is directed at the cultural aspect much like was done in the 90's with smoking first before anything else can change.

 

That's a very logical take, however it's still apples to oranges.

The difference is smoking kills or at least harms nearly everyone who does it, as well as everyone around them. And that is fairly easily proven.

Guns never cause a problem for over 99.9% of people who use them, and even a lower percentage of people who don't.

The benefits of owning guns far outweigh the drawbacks for a majority of Americans. And the worse the police get the more true that becomes for more Americans.

 

I am not advocating for any specific policy, but I do think guns need to be addressed. I am generally a utilitarianist, and I disagree with your assessment that guns outweigh the drawbacks. It is hard to argue that they benefit the majority of people, when there are shootings literally every day.

Yes, there are deeper issues in which need to be addressed, totally agree. But one of the long term things that needs to be addressed is the prevalence of gun ownership in this country. I am not suggesting it needs to be tomorrow, but much like smoking, it needs to be addressed over a decade, or decades to reduce gun ownership, and put more regulations around ownership much like we've done with smoking.

The difference is that smoking regulations is around where you can smoke, and add a tax to it. Same thing should be done with guns, tax them, and require there to be some amount of control over who can own them. From what I recall you, yourself have even suggested this exact thing with having there be some type of permitting attached to a drivers license in which I agree with.

But that's not my point, I am not even arguing that we need to limit ownership or have some kind of national regulation right now. Flat out it won't work because the cultural zeitgeist and fetishization of guns is at it's peak right now, instead what I am arguing for is for challenging that zeitgeist and regulating the advertising of guns so that in a few decades there can be a rationale discussion around how to regulate them. We're a long ways away from that right now unfortunately.

 

Yeah, I totally agree that we need to address our problem with violence. And I agree that if a gun manufacturer is advertising a gun in a predatory way they should be held accountable.

In fact, I think Remington was recently forced to pay out $73 million for exactly that.

I would imagine gun manufacturers will be walking a fine line on that from now on.

And I 100% believe that we should mark the ID of dangerous people and make it a crime to supply them with guns.

I just don't think that restrictions on the general purchase of guns (particularly of law abiding adults) will ever happen in the US. That hasn't even happened for cigarettes even though we can prove without a doubt that they kill far more people (like 10x as many).

The more we try restricting access to law abiding adults the more pushback we'll get.

We can solve our violence problem far faster and more effectively than decades. But in order to do that we'll have to stop wasting political capital on things like gun control.

I just find it incredibly dishonest, and even worse, counterproductive.

 

I hear what you’re saying, and I agree. To be clear though, I am not arguing for gun control right now. What I am arguing for is an effective government effort to restrict advertising for guns, much like the government did with smoking.

I think this is the only thing that can effectively be done right now to make an impact with gun ownership. It won’t change over night, but if these companies weren’t allowed to advertise it would begin changing the culture over time surrounding the guns.

There are certainly policies the government could implement that would make a lot of good. But much like the obvious gun issue in this country, Republicans won’t allow it on a federal level. That means it’s up to states to really do anything of much merit, which is less efficient and leaves a patchwork of competent policy… with giant Texas size wholes everywhere else.

 

Yep, I hear you. And agree with most of what you're saying.

Though I don't think Republicans would be opposed to getting rid of background checks in exchange for IDing dangerous people. I'd love to see that go somewhere.

They would absolutely be opposed to the real solutions though.

 

Who would possibly be opposed to background checks to own a gun? To coach little league you get a background check

 

Let me introduce you to a group of folks called Republicans. If you find that shocking, wait until you find out who they think should be in charge of what a woman can do with her own body.

 

That's not the discussion. If background checks were effective enough to be a significant part of the solution we wouldn't have a gun crime problem in Oregon. But as we've been making the laws more strict we have seen the problem get worse, not better.

We need far more than background checks. And background checks are a sticking point.

My suggestion is a way to get around the sticking points while accomplishing the same thing. And accomplishing it more efficiently, effectively, reliably, and far cheaper, without allowing the argument that anybody's constitutional rights are being violated.

 

There needs to be background checks period. No background checks and just imagine how much worse it would be. No one is saying they solve shit. Obviously it’s a mess and always will be. But if we start letting every felon go buy a gun we are Syria.