Beavah

Yah, da lengths we go to try to justify da unjustifiable are a bit hysterical, eh? Wouldn't it be easier to just admit that da NRA advertisement was over the top? I would think that would be preferable to tryin' to justify putting armed federal agents in everyone's home at taxpayer expense. It's just like in Scouting. We put a trained lifeguard in the canoe of a non-swimmer, because da non-swimmer is at higher risk. We don't put a trained lifeguard in every boy's canoe. That's not because we don't believe that every boy should be equally valued. It's because not every boy needs a trained lifeguard hovering over him, and because we don't have that many trained lifeguards and can't afford to hire 'em. And because havin' a trained lifeguard or an armed guard around all the time gets in the way of learning, and privacy, and fun, and life. Beavah

LOL. Gotta love Hollywood! I'll note that da arms used by da veterans came from the national guard armory, eh? They were not personal arms. I'll note that da victory of the "good guys" apparently was da result of having a substantial supply of dynamite with which to dynamite the building. Havin' individuals with guns wasn't enough. So I'm back to "Does the right to bear arms include da same right to easy, untraceable access to high explosives as we currently have for guns?" I get that there's a lobbying group that's well-funded by da firearms manufacturers. What I don't get is why intelligent folks simply repeat this lobbying propaganda, much of it exaggerated, some of it false, without exercising even a little bit of a skeptical filter on it. It'd be like me repeating everything da ACLU says just because they're lawyers, eh? And completely ignorin' that they're lobbyists and more than a bit tunnel-visioned. Just doesn't make sense to me. Beavah

I believe that "NO" one person is more Important than anyone else in this world..person gets armed escorts at tax payer expense we all get it. Yah, so President Obama's kids get armed federal agents stationed in their home. What you're sayin' is that yeh want armed federal agents stationed in everyone's home? At your own expense? Really? Beavah

Beavah, the 23,800 schools that currently supply armed guards today do not do so with federal funds. False. Many if not most of 'em are supported through federal grants through da Community-oriented policing and drug-free-schools federal funding. That's how those resource officers first started to get hired for most schools, eh? If it weren't for federal funding, there would be very few. My son's security is just as important to me as the president children are to him, regardless of the threat level they each live with. Then why aren't yeh payin' for an armed security detail da way the president's children each have an armed security detail? My kids do mean a lot to me. So do all of our scouts. So I absolutely still believe they deserve less protection than da president's children. Because yeh see, with increased security comes decreased freedom, eh? Since our kids don't need da security, I want 'em to have da freedom. Again, you and President Obama are proposing an expanded, expensive federal program without paying for it. When yeh agree to tax yourself to fully pay for da program, then maybe it should be considered. $100 per gun per year, because as da California school shooting showed, havin' only one armed guard in a school means he might not be available when he's needed. And in Sandy Hook yeh had a trained, mobile shooter in body armor in a crowded environment with a high-capacity semi-auto rifle. Yeh aren't really goin' to claim that a rent-a-cop with a revolver taken by surprise is goin' to be likely to stop that, are yeh? It's hardly an immediate and easy treatment, it's a hard-to-implement and expensive cosmetic treatment. Da insurance questions alone are a real problem, as most school liability policies will not cover armed guards. That's why they use local police who are paid by da police dept., not (directly by) the school district. Beavah

One of the issues I have with any new regulations on gun ownership is that Hitler was the first government to have all guns registered in Germany. That way when it came time to confiscate them, they knew where they all were. Wow, jblake47 triggers Godwin's Law and loses da argument in less than a page! Not to rain on your fear of a future imaginary Hitler, but this little factoid is completely false. Don't let historical truth get in da way of convenient fiction, though. It would be so disappointin'. B

Sorry Beavah, but you are dead wrong. I hope as a scouter, you've never told a parent that their child won't be treated with the same care and respect because they aren't as important as another child in the troop. Nope, I haven't, but then that's not what we're talking about here. What I have done is told a parent that if their kid is a weak swimmer, we'll put him in a canoe with a trained lifeguard, as per Safety Afloat. We don't do that for every scout, eh? Only for a scout who is at higher risk. I have told parents whose kid has a bee sting allergy that I will pay for additional epi-pens if their insurance won't cover, just so there are "back-ups" on outings. But I won't pay for epi-pens for kids who don't have a condition, eh? Despite da fact they are not at zero risk, they are at low risk. In other words, to truly treat every kid as equally valued, yeh don't treat every kid the same. Yeh give to each accordin' to his or her needs; yeh protect each accordin' to his or her risks. If yeh want to give every kid an armed guard or a personal epi-pen or a yearly MRI because of your own hang-ups, then yeh have to pay for it. Armed guards in every school is a $10 billion expense. Having multiple armed guards to be able to secure multiple entrances and actually be somewhere they can help and we're gettin' into double or triple that. Not includin' training, union wages, or da increased insurance cost for the school. So are yeh ready to accept a $100 tax per gun per year in the U.S. to pay for that? "Because every child is as important?" Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Hmmm, that kinda runs counter to Obama's claim that all children's lives are important. No, not at all. All children's lives are important, but not all children experience da same risks. Some children with certain medical conditions (like being cancer survivors) receive regular MRI scans because they are at high risk for recurrence. That doesn't mean that taxpayers and insurers should spend the money required to regularly MRI scan every child, even though such a regular scan may catch a rare condition earlier. So we tailor our response to da level of risk. Kids' lives are important, and it's hard to imagine anything as disruptive to a teenager's life as havin' an armed Secret Service detail with 'em wherever they go. I'm sure that any protection is better than the Sandy Hook children who had no protection whatsoever. Da kids in Sandy Hook had a normal level of protection. They had an enhanced 911 system with professional police and EMS a short ways away. Yeh should be careful about the "anything would be better" type of argument, though, I reckon. That "anything would be better" argument can much more readily be used to justify severely limiting firearms, which after all would be much less costly to da taxpayer than paying for armed guards. Beavah

Should our children receive a lesser amount of protection simply because they are the general public? ABSOLUTELY YES. Absolutely my kids should receive a lesser amount of protection because they are the general public. For one thing, havin' an armed security detail is an enormous inconvenience and burden to the President's kids, eh? It's not somethin' most of us would wish upon our children. I really feel for 'em. Those kids and Barack and Michelle Obama put up with it because they know that the kids are a high-value target for bad guys and enemies of da country. For da same reason, funding the Secret Service detail is a good investment of our tax dollars, eh? Requiring our children to live that way when they aren't at high risk is not somethin' many of us would desire. Asking our friends and neighbors to contribute by way of higher taxes in order to give armed guards to our kids who are very low probability targets is completely irresponsible. It'd be like upping taxes to build electric fences around every town to guard against bear attacks. It's laughable. I'm likin' Chris Christie more and more. He has da good sense to call stupid stupid. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Yah, Tawhawk, first aiders are medical pros and da definitive treatment for most injuries that occur in da field. We treat cuts, scrapes, burns, dehydration, hypothermia, illness, stings, bites, blisters, minor dislocations, insulin shock, on and on... in the field, to final resolution or to the point where it's stable and we can have the lad "see your doctor this week." And then a few other things, like simple fractures, we manage da supportive care and transport ourselves. Only a few rare things that are truly threatening to life and limb do we call in da cavalry for. If yeh take kids into the woods and feel yeh have to call in professional EMS for a simple cut or basic dehydration, then yeh probably shouldn't be takin' kids into the woods. What's not completely clear from ramblinrosey's description is whether this is a small cut or a sucking chest wound, but da fact that the boys were back to best pals within da hour suggests it was probably closer to the small cut end of da scale. There have been times with boys gettin' into a fight where I've separated and talked to 'em and that was enough. There have been times with boys gettin' into a fight where I've sent boys home, and talked to parents. There have been times I've recommended professional counselors to parents (for themselves or their boy ). There have been times with boys gettin' into a fight that I've removed a boy from a troop or from Scouting. I've never yet called law enforcement about boys gettin' into a fight, but I suppose I can imagine cases where that would be necessary. Those would be very rare, compared with all da others. As youth group leaders, we are semi-pros, eh? We are holdin' ourselves out to our communities as havin' expertise in this Scouting stuff. That implies a level of comfort and ability dealin' with teenage behaviors. Beavah

Yah, please, please, please can we have a ban on rap music? I reckon that's an option which would gain bipartisan support in a heartbeat. Beavah

Yah, RememberSchiff, I agree with yeh on da 7-round clip bit. I couldn't figure out what NY was thinkin'. This is where the liberal democrat approach starts to run off da rails, because yeh can't write this stuff into laws successfully. Even done as regulation, where at least yeh would have some experts involved and some public comment, it gets really too complex. Da thing of it is, yeh get that sort of stuff when da rest of us become "the party of NO" instead of workin' with people to come up with better approaches. I note the moderate Republicans in NY state all defected, because they didn't want to be associated with da nutters on the right. That probably reflects da honest sentiments of their electorate. I prefer simpler, more conservative approaches like TwoCubDad's liability/insurance approach, as I mentioned. Yeh can have whatever yeh want or feel you need, but you are strictly liable for it and must maintain insurance, which is set by da free market's assessment of da risk. Or yeh can have whatever yeh want, but we tax ammunition of various types equal to the real societal costs. The safer everyone is, the less the cost. Da more careful folks are about who they sell to, the less the cost. Neither requires a lot of regulation, and both encourage responsibility. But if there has to be regulation, it should be as required training and proficiency type stuff. Beavah

Council should have access to trained professionals, as would Child Protection Services. Yah, I always get a chuckle out of this. Childrens' Services agencies in most states are charged with dealin' with child abuse and neglect situations. They tend to be overworked, understaffed, relatively bureaucratic agencies. They are not there to support you in dealin' with an ordinary youth program issue of a lad misbehaving. When yeh call CPS for stuff outside their mandate like this which falls in da realm of "just do your job" as a parent or youth leader, it means they have less time to focus on tryin' to document the kid whose parent is abusing him, and work to get him help. Law enforcement and da courts are there to handle the capture and punishment of criminals, and the general maintenance of social order. They tend to be overworked, understaffed, with much higher priority stuff goin' on. When you call law enforcement for teenage behavior like this, know that you're increasing the response time for someone who may need the police for a real crime, and you're boggin' down da courts with foolishness. Dealin' with kid behaviors and sending kids home to their parents is part of being a youth leader. If yeh aren't up to that, there are other jobs in Scouting that don't involve front-line youth service that yeh should consider. Beavah

And no doubt a lot of those gun owners were Obama voters, Brewmeister. So I'm a gun owner. Always have been, always will be. I believe that in da hands of a responsible citizen, guns are safe tools. I'm also, I hope, smart enough to recognize that gun manufacturers make a profit off of guns used by criminals. In fact, they make more profit from criminals, because criminals tend to get access to more guns, and those guns tend to be captured and taken off da street, resulting in da need to manufacture more guns. The more criminal gun use is reported in da media, the more ordinary citizens want to buy guns. The more folks fear that "guns will be taken away", the more they want to buy guns while they can. So there's an extremely strong profit incentive for da manufacturers of firearms to behave in the way they do, and fund da sort of lobbying that we see. Which is why we see it. That kind of stuff I mostly just dismiss. It's like teachers' unions advocating for more funds for schools and less accountability. Yeh have to stay mentally awake. As a gun owner, while I feel some of these proposals are cosmetic and overall I doubt they'll achieve da goals, they're also not a big deal. Goin' to the range and shootin' off an AR-15 with a big magazine is entertaining for some young fellows, I know, I did it too, but it's honestly not goin' to bother me one way or the other. Tryin' to do things to keep guns out of da hands of criminals and mentally ill people seems perfectly reasonable and responsible. Jailing people for straw purchases which put guns into the hands of criminals seems like a no-brainer. Nuthin' here is a big deal, and while I'm ambivalent about much of it and find things like "national dialog" hysterical, it's stuff I can support. Won't affect me in the least, because I've always been a responsible gun owner. Won't change how I vote, either, since we have other more important issues to address. Beavah

There's nuthin' at all here about government acquiring a monopoly on any type of research. I think one of da things that's necessary to stay mentally wake is to do your own research and become familiar with a topic before forming a hard-and-fast opinion about it. If yeh do that, yeh realize that: Government FUNDS research. Research is actually performed by regular citizens at universities, research corporations, and other places. That's da opposite of a monopoly. Government collects data through data clearinghouses and reporting requirements tied to receiving government funds. Used to be we called this "accountability" in conservative circles before the fall. If yeh receive taxpayer funds, yeh have to report data that can be used to evaluate performance and conditions that the taxpayers are interested in. Receive policing funds, we want to know how you're doin' on crime in your area, so that we can do research on how to better direct our funds in the future. Anybody can use data which has been stripped of identifying information to maintain privacy. This enables non-government funded researchers to explore their own research questions or falsify other work. Da only research where there's a government monopoly is certain kinds of defense department research, like nuclear weapons design. Even that is typically done at national laboratories which are partnerships between da federal government and state universities. So da notion of "government monopoly" is just a fiction, eh? An alternate reality. Da fact is government-funded research has a high degree of oversight from folks across da political spectrum, and tends to be far less biased overall than private sector research, particularly on sensitive topics. What it comes down to is this. Da only reason to oppose research on firearms safety is if you believe in your heart that private ownership of firearms is truly a danger to innocent fellow citizens which cannot be mitigated, and you just don't care. Like cigarette manufacturers, yeh don't want anybody to learn da truth, because if they knew the truth then they might object to your making a profit off of killing people. You're quite right, that is more than a teeny bit of conflict of interest on da gun manufacturers' part, eh? Which is why they might behave like cigarette makers, and fund a lobbying and misinformation effort stunning in its lack of honor. But all of da responsible gun owners I know are honorable folks who recognize that conflict of interest on da part of manufacturers and therefore are smart about it. They support research, because they know responsible gun ownership is safe, and they believe da research will show that. They also are opposed to irresponsible gun ownership and violence, and they are happy to have research which would help prevent or mitigate those things. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Yah, Eagle732, but if we're actually honest we'd admit that sadly da Senate no longer functions accordin' to the Constitution, and uses rules games and anonymous holds so as to require a supermajority of 60 to pass anything. If there's a serious problem with a nominee, have a vote and vote not to confirm. Do it publicly in full view of da nation like an honorable man, and accept the verdict of the majority as per the Constitution. Having nobody in da position for 6 years without da Senate ever voting is not conscionable. Absent genuine cause, the President gets to run the Executive Branch, not da Congress. Callooh! Callay!, creatin' agencies and paying taxes is how we as a people make our voluntary contributions to the $10M and every other thing the nation does. It's a shared endeavor of da citizens, not a game of "I got mine, but I won't contribute to yours!". More to the point, da structure of executive agencies is that we taxpayers pay for experts, eh? We pay for a professional military, and then we let them decide what research to pursue within da research budget allotted. We might set general priorities, but da point is to hire expertise. If the Air Force were suffering tens of thousands of casualties per year through landing gear failure, we wouldn't tell the Air Force "no, you're not allowed to spend research dollars on landing gear, only on jet engines." No different for CDC experts who are lookin' at many tens of thousands of fatalities and injuries per year, and telling them they're not allowed to do anything to investigate it. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Yah, Callooh! Callay!, yeh do realize that that $10M to find root causes is in response to da NRA's request that we look into the violence in society, particularly video games and Hollywood movies, right? I'll grant that from a national research perspective it's not a very big amount of money, and I think pursuin' some of that is unlikely to yield any results, but it was da NRA who asked for it. And I'm in favor of research, eh? Maybe we learn that Hollywood is a bigger problem than we thought, and that will be somethin' that's actually helpful. At least it might give us some guide as to where we should or shouldn't invest more time and money if we want to see improvements. I figure investigatin' the "root causes" of cancer, or car rollovers, or honeybee colony collapse, or any problem that has serious economic impacts on da country is a worthwhile endeavor. B

Practically speakin', with restrictions on medical and law enforcement records, a lot of data can't be legally gathered by private researchers. Without someone mandating common reporting standards across states, yeh wouldn't get usable comparisons between states or districts with different approaches. So yah, in some ways, this does severely handicap research in this area, and does prohibit certain kinds of studies. It's funny how we extol da private sector for its virtues, but what major private sector corporation doesn't do research before it takes major action in some way or another? That would be just stupid, eh? You would never invest your money in a company that wasn't willin' to gather and act on the best data it could. So tell me why it's a good use of our tax dollars? Do yeh really think it's a great thing to be proposing assault weapon bans without any research? Is that good use of your tax dollars? We have 30,000 deaths and far more injuries from firearms each year. It costs us billions in law enforcement and health care. We routinely have research programs for diseases and other things which affect fewer people. But on this issue, nope! We want nuthin' but random uninformed opinion in makin' decisions! Really? That is what yeh consider keeping ourselves mentally awake? Beavah

Yah, thanks RememberSchiff. Here's da full list, split by congressional action and executive action: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/01/16/us/obama-gun-control-proposal.html (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Well as I read it, it's giving more control of our lives to Obamacare. Yah, hmmm.... I confess I read this and had to re-check da title of the thread. I thought I had entered the twilight zone. I'm almost scared to ask... How do things like universal background checks for gun purchases or nominating an ATF director give more control of our lives to a law which allows us to choose from any number of private insurance providers / plans without worrying about being denied for preexisting conditions? Beavah

Yah, I confess I'm a bit frustrated by da news organizations. You would think somebody would put together a detailed list of the proposals. Here's what I think I've been able to figure out so far: ACTION FOR CONGRESS 1. Universal background checks / eliminate the gun show loophole. 2. Ban on sale of clips with more than 10 rounds. 3. Ban on sale of "assault weapons." 4. Ban on possession or transfer of armor-piercing bullets. 5. Federal gun trafficking law with stiff penalties (presumably targeted in part at straw purchases). 6. Request for $10M to study root causes of gun violence (mental health, video games, whatever). I'm fine with #1. #5, and #6. I think #2 and #3 are cosmetic, and da gains in safety aren't worth da cost. I'm ambivalent about #4. I think da better way to go would have been to address responsibility for all gun ownership, rather than micromanaging what type of guns are owned. EXECUTIVE Action 1. Increased prosecution of those who try to evade background check system. 2. Improvements / directed funding to the background check system. 3. Improved access to mental health services (mechanism unclear). 4. Increasing resource officers in schools (presumably through prioritizing existing moneys in the COPS program, etc.) 5. Increasing counselors in schools (presumably through prioritizing existing allocations in the Dept. of Ed.) 6. "Lifting the ban" on research (presumably through routing research funding through an unrestricted source?) 7. Nomination of a new ATF director (dropping his former nominee who has languished for 4 years without a vote). 8. Linking mental health and background check databases. 9. Incentives for states to share data / participate in data collection. 10. Directing ATF to trace weapons used in felonies or other criminal investigations. Some of these come directly out of da NRA recommendations, so it's amusin' to see them hyperventilate about them. Most seem fairly innocuous. I'm fine with 1-3. I'm opposed to #4 because I don't think cops in schools is a good use of the money. I'm ambivalent about #5; while I reckon more counselors is fine I'm not convinced that's a federal issue. I have questions about #6; I'd prefer an aggressive, in-your-face, embarrass-the-heck out of people permanent solution to restrictions on research rather than a work-around. I would have done a recess appointment on #7 three years ago, but I wish they would have folded ATF into the FBI rather than keeping it a separate agency. Overall, my perception is that nuthin' here is a game-changer. It amounts to small changes around da edges, and will be unsuccessful at addressing the major issues goin' forward. Much of it's reasonable, but collectively it will all be a failure as a set of public policies. Beavah

Let me ask a different question Beavah. Is there any legitimate reason to exercise budgetary control over public money? Of course it is. It's also justified to criticize allocations as pork barrel for special interests, or as special privileges for special interests. Especially when da congress critters pushing it are themselves da beneficiaries of special interest funding. That is what we are talking about here. It's really hard to comment on da fear stuff, eh? Folks don't want to fund research out of fear that da research may be "biased" (which in this case seems to mean "the research may provide evidence that I'm wrong"). Eagledad, saying "I don't trust anything coming out of the APA" is like saying "I don't trust anybody affiliated with the BSA." Da APA is a very large membership organization like the BSA is, or any national organization. It contains all kinds of folks. It does not do any research itself, it's just an association of researchers. Da federal government does not fund the APA. Yah, sure, there's good research and mediocre. Just like there's good road crews and mediocre. That doesn't stop us from building roads. Yah, sure, lots of medical research is weak, but as qwazse points out, da weakest is the short-term stuff that is funded by drug companies and medical device manufacturers. Typically it's only da federally-funded research which catches problems in the longer term which (surprise, surprise) did not come out in da studies funded with a bigger conflict of interest. And yet, despite da mediocrity and fear of bias, cancer patients are surviving longer than ever before, and medicine continues to advance. Because of research. These funding restrictions on firearms impacts are even worse than all that, because they not only don't fund research, they block collection of raw data. And do we really think that President Obama is directly interfering with research reports? Really? Da closest we came to that was when a few in the GWB administration were tweaking Climate Change reports, and folks were all over that pretty fast. Most research funded now wouldn't even come out until da next administration. This stuff is the stuff that cements da position of da Republican party as the anti-science, anti-reality party of the past in the minds of the young folks who will be the future. It's just toxic to credibility. Beavah

Other than health and safety of the subjects? One of da most fascinating issues to me is that da lobbyists have succeeded in getting Congress to outlaw both data collection and research on gun safety. As a result, there's no real way to tell if more guns make for less crime, if CCW carriers are safe and help save lives, if "assault weapons" are really a problem. We are left relying on news reports from what many consider a liberally-biased media. JMHawkins in da previous thread complains that it's just because the funding would run through the Center for Disease Control or the NIH. I expect that's because he doesn't really understand how federal grant funding works, where da department just acts as a clearinghouse for distributing grants to non-governmental (private, free market) groups to do the research. The CDC happens to be da agency that maintains the data center for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, but da CPSC is a regulatory agency not a research agency, and doesn't have da expertise to fund research. So all of da funding for consumer products research is funneled through the CDC. That avoids da inefficiency of creating ANOTHER government agency. In da same way, the National Science Foundation is da clearinghouse for stuff like science and math education research, because they have more expertise dealin' with science than da folks in the Department of Education. What JMHawkins is missing is that Congress under lobbyist pressure has systematically prevented all agencies from funding research or gathering data on guns or gun safety. Not just the CDC. That means that nobody is gathering systematic, nationwide data. Researchers are left with state-by-state data, if da state collected any, and usually all of it incompatible with other states. That means that da only people doin' "research" are funded by private, special-interest lobbies or news media outlets doin' expose pieces. Most of da issues surrounding firearms I think there are legitimate arguments or at least things to consider carefully on both sides. I have to admit, that on this particular issue I think this is just stupid and irresponsible. No other important public policy area is devoid of data and research. We want research to guide and inform our public policy choices. What's more, it's a horrifying precedent to allow any special interest group to do that. Imagine the auto makers blocking research on transportation safety, drug makers blocking independent research on the long-term effects of their drugs, teachers' unions blocking research on teacher effectiveness - all because they want to preserve the status quo and their profits. If nothing else gets done, this set of prohibitions has to be lifted in a permanent way. Beavah

Registration has been a precusor to confiscation often enough to warrant concerns about a slippery slope, Yah, hmmm... JMHawkins, I'm a pretty decent student of history. Can yeh name even one example where registration has been a precursor to confiscation in the United States? Or anywhere? We do licensing, background checks and registration for other dangerous things, eh? Stuff like explosives. That has proven quite effective. Registration is probably necessary to make theft for profit, straw sales, illegal trafficking and such more difficult. We register cars because it makes car theft for profit more difficult. Some towns register bicycles for da same reason. The ability to track ownership is also probably necessary for any scheme that dispenses with regulation in favor of personal accountability. You have to be able to identify the person to hold accountable. If yeh aren't a proponent of some scheme of personal responsibility, then yeh open the door to more general across-the-board regulation and control. Da restrictions on research are a matter of law, and cannot be addressed directly by executive order. Here I agree with packsaddle, it's hard not to consider restrictions on research to be premeditated ignorance. It's a bit like da cigarette lobby trying to de-fund research on cigarettes and lung cancer. Da only reason to do that is that you already know what the outcome is goin' to be and yeh want to make money off of killing people. The CDC collects data on every sort of injury, eh? Includin' those dangerous boy scout wheelbarrows. Their mission is public health. But when da CDC gets funding to support research, they put out a call for proposals and anybody with experience in da field can apply for grants in that area. That's the way almost all federal research works, eh? It's done by the private sector, by lots of independent groups with different viewpoints. Da NRA could get grant money to research the effectiveness of education programs, for example. Right now, da CDC and other agencies can't even collect data to make available to anyone, eh? How does that make sense? We hear these stories about how CCW carriers have stopped crime; we have poor researchers suspected of fraud who claim that more guns means less crime. Those theories should be tested. They might be right! Unless yeh truly believe guns are like cigarettes and yeh already know the answer is not going to be to your liking, there's no reason to be afraid of independent research. It sure beats only having pseudo-research put together by one or another special interest. I'm not sure why a tax on ammunition to pay for the real societal costs of firearms is "punitive." Someone will have to explain that to me. Seems like it's just paying our own way instead of expectin' other folks to subsidize us. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

LOL. Yah, OK Eagle732, point taken. It seems to me that what would be a good idea here would be to take this opportunity to streamline and clean up some of this stuff, eh? I am in full agreement that for easily transportable items like cars and guns, some sort of uniformity is in order rather than a lot of patchwork stuff. I'm also in complete agreement that relatively simple, well-thought-out mechanisms are preferable to many pages of picky regulations. So what might that look like? It's not goin' to look completely like cars, because we do allow convicted felons to drive and we might not want that for firearms. One option is TwoCubDad's strict liability/insurance scheme, eh? Owning a potentially dangerous item like a gun is similar to owning a potentially dangerous item like a car. Da liability falls to the owner. Only difference is that for guns, I wouldn't exempt "theft" from liability unless the gun was secured against theft and the person reported the theft immediately. Yeh could buy insurance to pool this risk, but it must have high limits. Alternately yeh could post a surety bond to show yeh are financially able to handle any liability. Having one or the other in place would be necessary to purchase ammo. Then lift most other regulation. Presumably nobody would insure a felon or a mentally ill person, so background checks could go away. Da private insurance market could set appropriate rates for guns of all types, so all the look-and-feel or magazine size stuff could go away. Universal registration would be required to make this work, like what is done for cars. Yeh would still need some stuff in place for straw sales or trafficking, and I reckon there are still a few places we don't want guns to be carried. Training and proficiency requirements could be set by insurers as well. Another simple option in my book would be just to tax ammunition in an amount equal to what is required to pay for all firearms related incidents in terms of medical, accidental or wrongful death or injury, and LEO response and prosecution. In other words, we gun owners pay da full societal cost of guns so that others don't have to. Then lift most of the other regulation. Social pressure and pressure for more training would take care of a lot of things. This is sort of da way things have been going for cigarettes, but da tax is still too low. So I'm right there with yeh about overregulation and da silliness of semi-automatics with "one military-like feature". Controls are best done simply. Now to be fair, there are a lot of people who seem to be lacking in da forethought department, so we'd probably want some secondary regulations, too, in order to help out da folks who don't think far enough ahead about something being not in their own best interest. I'd keep required training and proficiency for different classes of firearm or different uses. I might throw in an eye exam same as for cars, too. Beavah

Yah, sure, but da Continental Army would have really loved dynamite, RPGs, and attack helicopters too, eh? Are yeh sayin' those things are also covered by the 2nd Amendment? Beavah