WHY does deaths related to cars keep coming up? That is such a straw/unrelated argument. Deaths related to guns is bound to be higher....because car ownership as a segment of the population is going down. With the advent of ride sharing, public transport and generations of kids who are increasingly not wanting the hassle or expense of car ownership it makes sense that accidental deaths will go down.
But the question remains, how does that effect the price of tea in China?
You don't look at the simple raw number of instances to make your argument, you look at the per capita rate. As our population continues to climb, mainly do to illegals, gun owner ship rates and sales continue to climb BUT overall violent crime numbers/rates are falling... How is that? Could it be that the regulation we need is more law abiding persons having guns? Let's face it, criminals will ALWAYS have guns, stolen, black market import, straw perchase, homemade ...the best defense against them in arming more good people. As far as mentally ill, that gets more complicated because there are many anti-freedom advocates that want to see the system abused to cast a net over an ever increase list of "mental health/physical health" diagnoses to block ownership. As some someone ewho works in the mental health system and looked over the DSM 5, it seems there is a diagnosis for you if do anything.....
Freediver, I keep seeing you asking for solutions from others time and time again but do not recall one post of you proposing anything that WE should do...just a lot of circular reasoning and avoidance.
What do I think we should do? What can the government do? In a world free of those who simply want to control us....Government should encourage and actively expand gun ownership.
1.) There should be no cost in obtaining a license or permit to exercise a right. (As a side note, I would love to see law suites over this.) Such costs discourage and block those often in most need of protection, the poor.
2.) Tax credits given to those who seek out and get appropriate safety train in to include classroom based "use of force" theory/policy along with skills based range training. This would be for a certain dollar amount, anything over this , the consumer is responsible for. This credit would be "renewable" every 3 years.
3.) Tax credit given for a storage system to safely keep firearms secure yet accessible. This would be up to a certain dollar amount, anything over this, the consumer is responsible for. This credit would be "renewable" every 3 years.
4.) Basic, developmentally appropriate, non-judgmental gun safety would be taught in elementary school, k-3.
5.)"Polution"/zoning ordnances wold be altered/strengthened in order to not force shut down or relocation of existing ranges or prohibition of new ones.
6.) Those in position to enforce laws, cops, should be well versed on law and not use ignorance or "reported complaints" as basis to infringe, harass or punish reasonably exercising a right when no reasonable reason exists.
7.) Make persons who do use the system to harass such open to civil and or criminal penalty and subject to fines or punishment (jail/loss of job) payable/reponsible by themselves and not a union or municipal "insurance" plan. In other words those who do so are PERSONALLY responsible.
There....you wanted a plan on what we should do to improve the system, that's mine, for now. I'm sure I could add further "common sense" regulations/laws if I give it another 2 minutes of thought... All completely practical and reasonable but wholly unlikely due to pepole in favor of gun control are not in it to save lives, they are in it for control and power and "feeling good".
What would YOUR plan involve?