All these rules are pointless, because NRA types are bitterly opposed to this simple rule:
Do not allow drunks, idiots and maniacs to have guns.
None of these types are going to pay the least little bit of attention to rules 1-4.
Come up with an objective, zero false-positive test for same and I’ll go along with that.
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good:
For drunks, more than one DUI conviction or more than two drunk and disorderly convictions
For maniacs, an official diagnosis of psychosis (not neurosis) by a licensed psychiatrist
Idiots would be the difficult one to quantify. Many of the really sad, stupid, idiotic gun deaths are caused by persons of normal intelligence: the man who shot his neighbor because she was standing on her back porch and he mistook her for white-tailed deer. Most of the “I didn’t know it was loaded” crew that are the topic of this thread are probably of normal intelligence, but have behaved idiotically with guns. The actor who killed himself while demonstrated that a gun loaded with blanks couldn’t hurt him also qualifies. An intelligence test would not do the trick, offhand, I can’t think of any practical way to weed these people out from normal people. I’ll give it some thought.
We could of course make the penalties for shooting someone accidentally under idiotic circumstances more severe: the guy who killed his neighbor got away with it without any jail time. I don’t think penalties like that would stop idiots, they typically do not think about what they’re doing when they do it, but it might deter the idiots who commit crimes from repeating them. Donald Rogerson didn’t even lose his hunting license or spend a day in jail. Everybody says he’s a nice guy, a nice guy who just happens to have killed a woman in cold blood. Saying you’re sorry shouldn’t get you off scot-free from shooting someone to death.
What you want is to know that the gun owner will behave responsibly even under stressful situations. That can be evaluated, but it requires a lot of resources. Consider the the training for pilots. They don’t just give pilots a checklist, show them the plane, and let them fly. There is extensive classroom work and in-flight training with an instructor. The instructor will create stressful situations to see how the student reacts. This way the instructor can evaluate how the student would react in a real failure and it gives the student experience so they don’t flip out when it happens for real.
You could do something similar for gun ownership. Put them in stressful situations designed to see how they would or wouldn’t use the gun. If a hothead pulls out the gun every time the instructor criticizes him, then he wouldn’t get a license. But it would also reinforce the right behaviors so that when the owner is in a stressful situation, they use the gun responsibly.
Sorry, I misunderstood you. If that’s what you meant, then we agree. The only problem, like I said, would be dealing with the dumbass students. (Think about some of your former classmates) If you could manage to get a gun that doesn’t actually fire, then it might work.
I would also imagine liability would be a big issue as well. (That’s what’s behind zero tolerance – the schools don’t want to be sued if something goes wrong. It’s a stupid policy, but it’s all about CYA at all costs. Even common sense)