Nit pick I know. But a LOT of people that lean left (myself included) are gun owners. It is not a Left/right thing.
+1
My mistake, maybe I was thinking of Clinton county, which I remember as having a lot of rural areas and small towns. Anyway, I don’t think it’s any better to take the stance that “Oh, lax gun laws work well in my affluent urban area. The ones who have problems are the ghetto people.”
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My Opinion (not offered for debate, just for POV) is that there are too many guns out there to put the genie back in the bottle, and that if you try you will make outlaws of citizens who would be normally fully law-abiding. Too many people already have plans for boating accidents, robberies, and "I sold that, Dude"s should any Prohibition come to be.
I feel that Prohibition wasn’t the answer to alcohol; tough no-nonsense, no state loop hole sales practices were. Once a common standard is set for the sale of firearms (with correlating similar laws linked to the sale of ammunition or the relevant parts there of) this problem will solve. Personally, I feel that a large part of the issue is the hyper-sensitivity to the “haves” & “have nots”. Joe can have a 30 round clip when he’s just a 15 minute drive from me? Jill can carry a gun in her purse when Jane can’t because of a map’s state line? If a common standard was adopted, it would eliminate this. No one argues that you should be able to drive w/o a drivers license, which involves training, education, practical instruction, and the requirement to demonstrate safety and a minimum standard of competency in front of a certified instructor. I feel that if we took the same seriousness with firearms training to get a license, that when everyone has to jump through the exact same hoops and achieve the same competency to get a license, there will be a lot less complaining about private ownership, and a lot more responsible ownership.
As for whats out there, the old guns…well they last almost forever. All you can really do is adopt resale/transfer regs to put them on the same footing as new purchases. As for whats out there, the ammo, yes, it may take a few years for all the old unregulated ammo to burn off, but for the most part it will in time.
Once again, just my opinion. No one else’s.
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The problem with the Second Amendment is that (IMO) it was very poorly written; there’s way too much ambiguity in it.
Author Kenneth W. Royce has come up with the following “re-write” for the Second Amendment:
I rather like it. 
After reading a lot of these “fixes,” I think people should keep in mind that - ideally - our federal constitution should only be used to limit the government, not the people. When it comes to constitutional amendments, we should not say (for example), “The people are allowed to possess A, B, and C, but not D, E, and F.” It should say, “The government is not allowed to do X, Y, and Z.”
Remind me not to hire Kenneth W. Royce to write anything more important than a shopping list.
The latter implies that the government can do U, V and W, which considering your politics is probably not what you’re going for.
[QUOTE=enipla]
Nit pick I know. But a LOT of people that lean left (myself included) are gun owners. It is not a Left/right thing.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, but you can count the number of right-wing anti-gun people on one hand, as far as I can tell. I lean left, and I have no problem admitting that the vast majority of people who want to ban or otherwise restrict firearm ownership lean the same way. Hell, I’m proud of it.
I don’t even want his shopping list.
Not in this thread, please.
Some people are arguing that the Second Amendment prohibits the taxation of firearms (and presumedly ammunition). Are you talking about restrictive taxation designed to financially inhibit firearms? Or are you talking about any taxation, including standard sales taxes at the same rate you’d pay for other similarly priced purchases?
Before 1968 you could order guns through the mail and dynamite was sold in hardware stores. Then as a result of the radical '60s, conservatives began backing restrictive gun laws. So when it looks like the wrong people are talking armed uprising, kill the pigs, etc., then conservatives will favor gun control laws.
As point of fact, the Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed by Democrats, Kennedy/Johnson Democrats, due to the Kennedy assassinations and that of Martin Luther King. Note the date of passage: October 22, 1968.
[Moderator Note]I don’t care who started it-you both know better than to continue it here.[/Moderator Note]
Keep.
-XT
It was not a debate point, it was a point of fact. Fighting ignorance and all that.
Ok, strayed from the strict “this is a poll and nothing but a poll”. Sorry.
nevermind…
Hi Dave.
I’m in Brisbane too, but I hear gunfire regularly*.
*[I live in close proximity to the Enoggera Army Barracks though - so maybe that’s got something to do with it 
]
Sorry for the hijack - now back to your regularly scheduled thread.
From what I can see, it is a poll where you can explain your answer, like I did. Further debate should likely go into GD.