The Glade 4.0

So as most folks know here I'm both a liberal and a gun owner. As such I've very much felt stuck in the middle with fanatics on both sides of me that are being completely unreasonable. I've been putting a lot of thought into what a reasonable compromise position would be that both helps to address the reality that guns are far to easy for the wrong people to get access to but still allow law abiding upstanding citizens enjoy firearms and support their right to bear arms. As this concerns a constitutional right, I really don't see how this can be solved by the states directly, but only through a national set of laws.

So in a nutshell, here are my ideas.

1. All of the US becomes Shall Issue, meaning that if there is no reason not to give you access you must be provided access.
2. All existing and prospective gun owners would be required to obtain a gun owners license. These would be handled similarly to drivers licenses and have certain endorsements. The base license and each endorsement would have it's own required training and test that would be required to be passed before issuance of the license. Additionally, licenses while issued at the state level they would be federal licenses and would be recognized anywhere in the US, including the carry endorsement. Here are the endorsements:
- Basic License: Manually actuated firearms both long guns and hand guns. i.e. bolt action, pump, lever and revolvers
- Semi-auto Endorsement: Semi-auto firearms both long guns and hand guns
- Full-auto Endorsement: Full-auto firearms both long guns and hand guns
- Military/LEO Endorsement: Military/LEO firearms both long guns and hand guns. i.e. provides access to some military/LEO grade weapons that are currently unavailable
- Carry Endorsement: Allows for legal open or concealed carry in public.
3. All firearm sales are subject to a background check, including person to person sales. Private sales would be handled via a government office (either the police department or DMV) for a modest processing fee to cover labor, etc.
4. All firearms are registered to the purchaser and that registration follows the firearm, much like a title follows the car.
5. Most if not all restrictions on magazine capacity, ammo types and weapon styles are removed. Control is via the licensing process. i.e. if you want to get armor piercing bullets then you need to get a Military/LEO endorsement, etc. Additionally new fully automatic weapons would be made available to the market.

My expected outcomes from these changes would be over the long term a reduction in the overall pool of firearms floating around on the black market. As these would be federal laws, breaking them would be a federal offence, increasing the penalties on criminals. This should especially help address things like straw purchases, which helps to make it harder in the long run for criminals to obtain firearms. Law abiding citizens would have increased access to firearms than they have today and would be able to conceal/open carry in all 50 states while travelling.

That actually would be a reasonable compromise, although I might nitpick a bit over what weapons are grouped together (I won't, since it would sidetrack the thread with minutae).

Reasonable compromise is not possible, however, because the anti-gun crowd sees the process as merely steps to an eventual ban. This has been specifically stated by some of them in the past, and it has actually occurred. (See NYC).

This is simply not a matter of both sides being equal. Pro-gun people are not (generally) against all forms of gun control in and of itself, they're against it because they see the anti-gun crowd as fanatics that will never be happy with any existing compromise and will always demand a new compromise.

Really, just because you're a liberal does not mean you should throw in with the liberals on every issue. I don't throw in with social conservatives on most things even if I agree with them in things like military spending.

Also, I would add to your compromise that if government at any level confiscates a gun, accessory, or ammunition, for any reason other than that they were used in actual commission of a crime for which the person has pled or been found guilty, the government must pay the person confiscated from or their estate the full value of a brand-new item of the same type; or the cost of a like-new item if the item in question is out of production. No depreciation.

As an example, say someone owns four guns and then wrongfully shoots his neighbor during a fight. The gun and ammunition used in the shooting may be taken without compensation; if the government wants to confiscate the others it must pay him. I'd also eliminate the ban on owning weapons for misdemeanor domestic violence convictions, provided the person attends counseling and is certified to be free of substance abuse. (The need for massive reforms in what passes for domestic violence counseling is another topic).

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I'm not sure why you think it's alright to require a license to engage in Constitutionally protected right when requiring photo ID to vote is too onerous...

Edit - DE said everything I was going to say about "reasonable compromise".

That's a problem with being unreasonable about voter ID, not a problem with shall-issue licenses.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I'm not talking about shall-issue carry. I'm talking about gun owner's licenses.

no way
a license to exercise a right that comes from or creator (not the Government).
Tell the Government what I have, no my property is my business

Now on universal background checks I can allow that, same as the gun stores in Arizona use, if you have don't have a CCW premit.
Selling a gun to someone should be a simple matter of making a phone call declaring a firearm transfer, provide the buyer info and they say approved or prohibited buyer. No information about seller or the gun being sold is recorded.
If the purchaser is a prohibited buyer, Ideally the seller would to notify LE to investigate.

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History of the Condom
In 1272, the Muslim Arabs invented the condom, using a goat's lower intestine.
In 1873, the British somewhat refined the idea, by taking the intestine out of the goat first.

I'm thinking of it more as a purchase license than one for ownership, like Leshani is describing. If someone in your family leaves you a gun in a will.. well, that's a way you can get around the requirement but I'm not seeing it as a major issue. Ultimately, people that are determined to get a gun will steal one.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Could you describe the chain of logic that got you from point A (here's my proposals) to point B (these will decrease access for criminals)?

We can address your desire to give a government an exploitable source of revenue later.

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There's nothing wrong with the government having a source of revenue. "Exploitable" is meaningless. Anything is exploitable.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Four words: "Shall not be infringed."

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Yes there is. Government doesn't exist to make money for itself by restricting the rights of the people, it exists SOLELY to protect the pre-existing rights of the people.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Regulating how people exercise a right is not necessarily an 'infringement'.

It is not an 'infringement' of your right to free speech to prevent you from inciting riots. It is not an infringement of your Second Amendment rights to have shall-issue permits, nor to prevent felons from having firearms.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

So one of the reasons that criminals have such easy access to firearms is because in general they are ridiculously easy to purchase for anyone, depending on the state. Further, because firearms aren't registered to particular people there is no accountability to where they go after the initial purchase from a dealer. As a case in point, I recently sold 2 handguns that no knew I had (were gifts from my father in law) and no one other than the guys who purchased them knows that they have them now. They happen to be friends of mine, so I know they won't do anything stupid with them, but they could have just as easily been criminals if I'd wanted to make some extra cash on the black market. Both could have easily passed a background check and any licensing tests.

With the system I'm proposing, there is now accountability on those who purchases firearms. They are registered to that owner, and remain so unless they are reported stolen or sold and the registration transferred to a new owner. And since purchases require a background check, that should drastically reduce the number of straw purchases, especially since violating that would be a federal offense. So we start with making it harder to put more firearms into the black market.

Next, as owning/carrying a firearm would require a license, any criminals would be unable to get a license, and possessing such illegally would again be a federal offense. That should assist in both firearms coming out of the black market pool as well as criminals out of the general populace.

Again, right out of the gates, there would be a negligible immediate effect, but after a few years of fewer firearms getting into the pool and more guns coming out, we should start to see a decrease in the availability to criminals.

All you need to look a to see if gun control actually does anything is look at the city of Chicago.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

I don't believe you are correct. Reasonable compromise is completely possible if BOTH sides are reasonable. I can certainly understand some trepidation considering NYC's past actions, however that scenario would be impossible on a country wide scale. It happened in NYC because you have an overwhelmingly liberal anti-gun city and the appropriate timing for legislation. Neither of these are true for the whole of the US. Were the faintest whiff of such a tact to be taken by congress, the ~50% of the population that own guns would be in an uproar, myself included. Additionally, the SCOTUS has already made it clear that total bans are unconstitutional, so in effect it's off the table.

Frankly it's because of these micro scenarios on both ends of the spectrum that I feel the only way to resolve this in a reasonable fashion would be through federal law.

Not really. Unless you're going to have security check points going into the city (like we do at our borders) you really can't control firearms except nationally. Most of the guns that are a problem in Chicago were likely purchased in Wisconsin, Minnesota or North Dakota which all have significantly more lax laws around firearm purchases.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

How effective was Canada's recent gun registration attempt and what were its costs?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

It seems rather reasonable, and I could trust that you would stick to the concessions "your side" made in the proposal. However I can't say that about others currently in power not to say what a future individual whose motives are less pure could do under the proposals.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

show source for this.

Gun control has nothing to with violent crime, in almost in every case where extreme gun control measure have been taken, violent crime increases.
The President doesn't have executive authority over the second amendment. But then I'm sure you will be pleased to attend his coronation in 2016 after he's spent four years destroying voting in this country.

"Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence … from the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurences and tendencies prove that to ensure peace security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable … the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference — they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."
George Washington
First President of the United States

"The greatest danger to American freedom is a government that ignores the Constitution."
Thomas Jefferson

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History of the Condom
In 1272, the Muslim Arabs invented the condom, using a goat's lower intestine.
In 1873, the British somewhat refined the idea, by taking the intestine out of the goat first.

It's also worthwhile to note that none of your proposals would have stopped the Sandy Hook Shooting

or Virginia tech IIRC

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Well since there isn't an ability to track firearms, it's not possible to source it. I'm relaying my suspicions based on common sense. All you need is some straw purchasers in more lax states/cities and you're golden.

As for violent crime, your both right and wrong. Certainly firearms don't make people more or less violent. They do however, make it much easier for violent people to actually kill people, unless you're going to argue that it's equally easy to kill someone with a knife as a gun.

You'll note that I didn't once comment that my proposed changes would affect violent crime. I said it would make it more difficult for criminals over time to gain access to guns. What that should do in the long run is make it easier for law abiding citizens to be better armed than criminals, instead of the other way around as it is today.

Yup, you're right. Frankly those types of shootings aren't our main problem. They are just the lightning rod that makes everyone think about gun control.

The real problems at in dense urban populations where there are a lot of poor people and drug activity. Gun control is a small part of the overall solution, but honestly probably the easiest to tackle. (and the difficulty of tackling it should tell you how hard the rest of it is) The comprehensive solution is one that needs to address poverty, socio-economic mobility, the war on drugs, mental health and law enforcement.

Most gang guns aren't registered anyway. They are probably usually stolen from lawful owners anyway, and i doubt the gangs are going to register the ones they have.

You can say that those aren't our concern, but If we passed your legislation your party would be back screaming that we have to Do Something About Guns the next time a mental disturbed individual murders a lawful gun ownerfor their guns (or is a lawful gun owner who just snaps)and goes on a shooting spree.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

You don't understand. Yes, the political situation that occurred in NYC is impossible on a country-wide scale, but that does not change the fact that the ani-gun crowd is still trying for it, and that position plus the history of things like NYC's gun registry are what make the image of the anti-gun crowd in the mind of the average gun owner.

Yes, both sides have to be reasonable, but the fact of the matter is that the people whose guns are threatened are hundreds of millions of average people; people who in many cases rely on their guns for food, protection, or both because they're poor, rural-dwelling, and often both, and even if neither, for whom the right to hunt and defend yourself is deeply ingrained in who they are as Americans.

Meanwhile, the other side is controlled by the Brady organization and Handgun Control, people with long histories of never being satisfied with the gun control that does exist.

The average gun owner really does not care if they can't, for example, own a fully automatic weapon. Nor does banning of full-auto weaponry really mean much of anything; full auto is effective only with crew-served weapons and just wastes ammunition elsewhere. This is just one example. Yet the gun-control advocates constantly clamor for ever more restrictions, with the aim of, if not a ban, at least restricting things down to single-shot-rifles and shotguns only, and only with absurd ownership requirements.

Before there can be effective debate and/or compromise, the anti-gun crowd simply must give up their demands for massive restrictions because, while total lack of restriction is unreasonable, the restrictions most anti-gun people want, even if it's only "no semi-auto weapons for civilians" are even more unreasonable. Vastly more.

Anti-gun organizations like the ones I mentioned are the fundamentalists of the gun debate. They are just like Jack Chick or the WBC. In order for people in favor of some form of gun control to be taken seriously, you need to start telling the Bradys and HGIs to sit down and shut the **** up and accept that ownership of weapons is a fundamental right, just like I tell people like Beryllin to shove it beause they make other Christians look stupid. The middle ground isn't between "total ban" and "no restrictions", it's between something like what we had in the Clinton era and no restrictions.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."