Mr TucTom: I share your concern about overburdening a legitimate gun owner. When we try and address public safety and criminality that should be foremost in our minds.
This seems to conflict with what you said before:
Universal background checks, mandatory locked storage, a higher bar such as a firearms license for gun owners, proper funding of the ATF by Congress, and a few other ideas.
All of these things burden the right (in fact, converting it to a privilege) to keep and bear arms. I think we might disagree on whether the burden is excessive.
Previous gun regulation has usually failed in that regard; witness Chicago and DC as failed examples of "gun control".
Let's examine Michigan as an example of failure. In order to purchase a pistol, one must go to the police department and fill out a 10-question quiz. This usually only take a few minutes at the police station, but must be done during normal business hours; if that interferes with your work schedule, that's unfortunate, but not their problem. Both my brother and my sister were stalled and called back for interviews with police officers. My sister was delayed for a few days.
Of course, she wanted a pistol, because a neighbor had pulled a knife on her and made explicit threats on her life. The officers responding to that call said that they would be willing to take a report, but bungled the details so horribly that I wouldn't have known they were describing the same incident. They also said that they could not offer any protection until/unless the assailant "actually breaks the law." I would have simply given/lent her the pistol, but she did not have a concealed pistol license and could not legally possess the pistol outside of my presence.
Michigan's laws on concealed carry mean that I don't have the option of discretely carrying in hospitals, bars, schools, or a number of other places I might not want to leave unattended firearms in the car (or on my motorcycle) and might not want to risk the attention that carrying openly sometimes brings.
Even with a concealed pistol license, which is an acceptable alternative to a NICS check when buying firearms, I am required to turn over a registration slip informing the local police every time I buy a pistol. When I lived in Marion, the county seat in Osceola was Reed City; that's a ~45-minute drive each way. We used to have mandatory "safety" inspections, and what happened is that we spent an hour and a half in the car, during business hours on a work day, to show our pistols to a county clerk who didn't know the safety from the trigger or how to verify that the pistol was clear.
We need to strike at the core of the problem, which is a far too casual approach to guns in our country.
We need to strike at the core of the problem, which is that some people want to hurt other people. If you remove firearms from the equation, other means of hurting people will supplant them. If you remove the motivation for causing harm to others, it doesn't matter what tools are available to do so.
We should hold gun owners responsible for the firearms they buy. If they are negligent and leave their guns available for theft or other unlawful use, they, too, are culpable in the crime.
Anything which has been stolen was made "available for theft." Should we also charge rape victims for leaving themselves available for rape? Should we fine the estates/families of murder victims for having left themselves available for murder? Guns are a thing, and people who have guns stolen from them are victims of crime. To abuse the courts to further victimize them is unconscionable.
Similar to going out of town and leaving your 14 year old with the keys to the liquor cabinet and the car. At some point we all have to become more responsible.
It seems like you're implying that 14 years old isn't quite to the point where someone should be responsible enough to not raid liquor cabinet and steal a car for a joyride, and I disagree with that.
Case in point: assume for a second that every gun sale is initially a legal one. Given that thousands upon thousands of guns fall into the hands of criminals, we have to look at how that is happening. It's not magic. There aren't little gun fairies stealing guns in the middle of the night.
That's... hang on, let's read that again:
There aren't little gun fairies stealing guns in the middle of the night.
I don't know about fairies, but there certainly are people who go around stealing things in the middle of the night. We call them thieves, and you might be surprised to learn that their activity is not limited to the middle of the night. Whether they happen to also be fairies isn't particularly relevant.
At some point a gun goes from a legal sale to an illegal one. That's one of the things we need to address.
If it's already an illegal sale, one or more people are already disregarding legality in order to conduct it. Do you honestly believe that the new laws will be observed any more closely than the current laws?
And you're right, the criminal justice system is in need of overhaul. I like laws where, if a firearm or other deadly weapon is used in a crime, mandatory sentencing.
I do not like such laws, and I'm no fan of mandatory sentencing. Armed robbery is already distinct from unarmed robbery and assault with a dangerous weapon is already distinct from unarmed assault. Commission of any felony while in possession of a firearm has its own penalties. Mandatory sentencing hinders the ability of the courts to implement a sentence that is most appropriate for the case at hand.
It seems like you have some understanding that criminals do not follow the law, but your solution to that is more laws and harsher penalties. I do not agree with that.
