. . .
GO1 “Since her shooting, the overtly violent language has abated, yet the underlying violence is still there. In politics and in life.”
GO2 “Here’s a partial solution. There is no centralized or computerized list of gun owners or gun ownership in America.”
GO1 “Except the list of gun owners maintained by the National Rifle Association.”
GO2 “I am talking about the government. Look at the actual process. Before selling a gun, a gun dealer conducts a background check of an individual. If the individual passes the background check, the dealer makes the sale and keeps a record. The record is not sent anywhere and is not accessible and just sits in a file cabinet in the back room of the store. Only if a gun is used in a crime is an effort made to trace the purchase by using the serial number and contacting the manufacturer and then the dealer and then the purchaser. That is the most decentralized and non-computerized tracking scheme in America. The system only allows for the tracking of the ownership of an offending gun not of the names of owners of guns.”
GO1 “And the current system does not require us to surrender any fundamental rights. Look at the rights that have been surrendered in America by Americans without any resistance since 9/11. The USA PATRIOT Act, the detention provisions in the NDAA of 2012, and so on.”
GO2 “The problem is that a troubled soul can go to a gun show and buy a gun. Why arm the goons? Simply require the same background check for any sale at a gun show.”
GO1 “The mayors and the police chiefs know what needs to be done and support the closure of the gun show loophole. Congress should simply implement their sound and experienced judgment.”
GO2 “Gun sales in a back alley are still a problem. The most balanced policy may be to require all gun sales to be conducted by a gun dealer. Gun dealers are all private sector businesses in an industry at the retail level that is among the least monopolized in America. The gun dealers could compete to facilitate the sales and perhaps offer to handle the sale for free with a fifty dollar purchase of gear. That should address some of the problem and satisfy the critics.”
GO1 “Except for the insane irrationality of the NRA.”
GO2 “They are coming around. Institutions change, albeit slowly. Someone at the NRA may realize that adoption of rational and focused legislation undermines the effort to impose irrational and sweeping confiscation. We need to keep guns out of the hands of psychos to allow guns to be kept in the hands of law-abiding citizens.”
. . .
[See the “e-ssays” titled “On Magazines (February 21, 2011),” “Incite, Sarah, Indict? (January 10, 2011),” “O’Bama Arming Industry (November 22, 2010)” and “Gun Control, NRA Style (January 9, 2006).” And “On The Vernal Equinox (March 21, 2011)”]
[February 4 – No War On Iran National Day of Action]
Bumper sticker of the week:
Citizens deserve guns; Psychos do not
