I think we are at about the most rational moment as can be expected on the gun debate. All gun legislation is dead, the gun nuts are done gloating about it and the gun grabbers are over their disappointment and have resumed a persistent attack on gun rights that had been all but abandoned a few decades ago.
Public opinion on guns has shifted dramatically over the years. There was a time when serious people proposed handgun bans, nowadays noone would dream of it but the gun issue is back on the table.
Would you accept a gun compromise where:
The federal government exerts supremacy to knock out all state and local gun restrictions so there is a uniform gun law across the country.
The federal government repeals NFA with respect to suppressors and short barreled rifles (does anyone think this makes sense anymore?).
The federal government started auctioning surplus select fire M-16s.
BUT,
You have to get a federal gun license (which gives you the right to carry nationwide).
You have to register all your firearms with a national registry.
Neither a gun grabber nor gun nut am I; so I will not comment, other than to wonder why you are limiting conversation to those people on the extreme ends of the spectrum.
The devil, as ever, is in the details. How does one obtain this federal gun license, and how, and what is used, to determine if one is eligible? And what is the national registry going to be used for?
What, exactly, would the nationally uniform gun law be?
What are the penalties for violating this law?
What does it take to get one of these federal gun licenses?
What role, if any, do background checks and/or mental health evaluations play in this system?
What does it take to sell one of my registered weapons to someone else?
What sorts of weapons, if any, are banned for public ownership?
My prediction is that even if everyone involved agreed in general terms to the points you propose (which I think is enormously unlikely), disagreements over these and other details would prevent any kind of majority from forming.
Theoretically, I’m not at all against a firearms user license. After all, they are awfully powerful tools that can easily be used to kill or maim our fellow men with relative ease. But like others have said, the devil’s in the details. My vote would be for a sort of “must-issue” license that would strictly evaluate someone’s mental state and competency with a firearm. In other words, you’d have to pass a background check periodically that would include any mental health evaluations, and you’d have to at least once, show that you understand the firearm safety rules and how to operate some basic sorts of firearms- maybe have separate categories for pistols and long guns.
I’m against the idea of registering the guns though. I’m against it in part (60%) because I have no desire to subject the populace or Federal government to the quagmire that registration of existing guns would be. The other reasons I’m against it are because despite the differing opinion of a lot of people on here, I do think that an armed populace can be an important bulwark against tyranny (10%), even if they don’t necessarily have tanks, jets, etc… and gun registration would tend to counter that because the tyrannical government would know where they are. The final reason (30%)I’m against it is because I think that registration would also easily lend itself to gun elimination through onerous taxation and registration requirements. As in, if they decide they don’t like shotguns, they start charging you an annual tax of $5000 dollars to renew your shotgun registration.
I am dividing the world into two categories. Its open to everyone.
If you pass an enhanced NICS check (which will include restraining orders and adjudicated mental illness), you get a shiny gun license that gives you the right to carry open or concealed throughout the USA (subject to restrictions on carrying in places like airplanes, schools, places of worship, etc.). You can get these at police stations, post offices, the DMV, specially licensed FFLs, etc.
The registry is going to be used to trace guns used in crimes to their registered owner. The majority of gun homocides are committed by someone who shouldn’t have had a gun in the first place. We just need a better method of restricting the flow of guns to these people.
Licensing and registration. Thats it. Thats the compromise.
Just spitballing but…The penalty for having a gun without a license would be a felony and a year in jail. No more guns for you. The penalty for failure to register a gun would be seizure of the gun a fine and a misdemeanor.
Background check.
You need a background check to get a license. Mental health only comes into play if you are adjudicated mentally ill (frequently happens with involuntary detention in a mental facility).
You can do it at any FFL. You can either go there together and just pay a transfer fee (about $30 around here) for the FFL to transfer registration to the new owner.
No more restriction than we have at the federal level right now. In fact we are loosening requirements on suppressors short barreled rifles/shotguns and we are reopening the NFA registry for surplus M-16s.
I wonder why the gun issue has changed so much. Even pretty liberal people I know have expressed interest in owning firearms. Has our country just become more accepting of violent solutions?
Oh yeah, I forgot. The national carry right would require safety class, law and proficiency exams. The right to own would only require NICs check.
We already maintain a national registry of all modern guns, don’t we. Every gun in the USA initially sold after 1980+ can be traced to the point of last retail sale. Every gun sold on gunbroker.com, same thing. What this would do is require retail purchasers to transfer through an FFL when they sell their gun to someone else. It wouldn’t be the hellscape that is required for registration under NFA (six fucking MONTHS to get the NFA paperwork done on a suppressor right now, I guess everyone had the same idea I had).
The problem with this particular slippery slope is that you are effectively saying that you will stand in the way of law A (which you think you can do) to prevent the passage of law B (which you do not think you will have the ability to prevent). If you can politically prevent a registry today, why couldn’t you prevent effective confiscation tomorrow? What is it about a registry that would make this sort of effective confiscation more politically likely to happen.
We’ve had the “defense” of liberty thread here before and its not that I don’t think a couple of hundred good ol’ boys running around int the woods couldn’t give the military a real pain in their ass, its that I don’t think our military ever follows orders from a president who exercises this sort of power against the will of the judiciary, the senate and the house. If the judiciary, senate and house are going along with it, then maybe its not tyranny, maybe you just don’t like the guy in the white house.
But I also say gun nut. I was trying to be equally derisive but if the term offends you, I apologize.
LOL, that place is a little bit of an echo chamber, a lot of those guys really are gun nuts. It would be about as productive to ask this question over at the Brady Campaign headquarters.
Nothing makes you value your rights so much as someone trying to take them away (see, Democratic turnout in places where Republicans tried to suppress voter turnout).
If the government suddenly tried to force me to house and quarter soldiers, then even if I was inclined to do so if asked, I would resist the infringement of my 3rd amendment right if I was forced.
I was talking to one of the guys at the gun shop/range I go to and they have had so many new gun-owners that they almost wish there was a training requirement to purchase a gun (of course they offer these training classes:cool:).
Money spent on gun training classes IMHO is usually money well spent. I did a week long program just outside of Las Vegas a couple of years back and it was a LOT of fun and reasonably priced as far as these things go. The course itself was reasonably priced. Of course they ended up selling me thousands of dollars of firearms that will sit in the back of my safe until the inevitable zombie apocalypse.
Right. I remember when states started requiring cars to be registered in the early 20th century, and then shortly thereafter Harding ordered all the cars confiscated and all the car nuts were put in prison camps.
The need is demonstrated: the government wishes to track guns used in crimes. It may even wish to tax services that the government provides that are unique to guns.
The government already has a registry of motor vehicles. This registry can be used to track vehicles used in crimes. It is also used to assess taxes to pay for roads, bridges, etc. Vehicles are also extremely powerful tools that can be used to kill or maim others (as bump said earlier).
What is your evidence for this? It seems quite contrary to actual experience. We register a variety of things and I have yet to see the Gestapo show up to confiscate anything. The things that the government does confiscate are not registered items.
Most notably, the government confiscated PEOPLE with the Japanese-American internments during World War II. No registration of people was required. Just rounded them up.
In other words, registration does not indicate an intent to confiscate and an intent to confiscate does not require registration.