I think that gun control needs to be made a major issue in America. I think the Democratic Party should use the state constitutional amendment (the way neo-cons did with gay marriage) to restrict guns in states where the NRA is weaker to show that doing so can profoundly effect public safety and crime in a way no study can. Perhaps in liberal leaning states like California and New York, home of some of the biggest cities for gang crime, we can ban all fully automatic weapons and make carrying a concealed weapon illegal for anyone except the police.
These laws relating to firearms control should parallel driving laws. Why shouldn’t guns and cars both be considered as dangerous possessions that must be owned only by responsible people? Cars are much more necessary for in people’s daily lives getting to work, grocery shopping, picking up the kids from school are tasks many people must have cars for while there is no daily task a gun is needed for. How many fewer violent crimes are committed by people with a car as their weapon than with a gun?
There should be tests and training for the license to own a gun the way there is for driver’s licenses and while these tests are being evaluated the gun buyer should wait. There should be a limit to the number of guns a person can purchase. There should not be a gun show exemption, like there is no auto show exemption. I think all criminals who commit gun related crimes should not be able to own any firearm for at least 1 year after they have served their sentence for their first offense, five years after their second offense, and after their third strike they should never be allowed to own a firearm again. The offenses that would invoke these bans would include owning a fully automatic gun and breaking their own gun probations.
We need to get guns off of the streets and out of the hands of criminals and I think gun owner’s who own their weapons for self-defense would be glad to see restrictions placed on guns that will keep them out of the hands of the people who would be attacking them. There should be a waiting period if only to protect the Americans who every year walk into a store like Wal-mart when they are terribly depressed from losing a job or a broken marriage, buy a gun and take their own lives.
I don’t want to take guns out of the hands of hunters, or people who feel safer with a gun in their home incase there is ever an intruder. But I do not think these people will be effected by placing a few restrictions on guns that may keep the criminals and intruders in their homes from carrying a firearm. |
