If you're saying we should be more restrictive than I've suggested, I'm certainly open to that. I'm just trying to compromise for the sake of hunting and home- and self-defense, the only halfway-good reasons for people to possess firearms in this day and age. Remember, while people like you quibble over this stuff, people are dying and losing loved ones every day to needless gun violence and accidents.
An "intelligent background check" is a check that does not bounce because the bank checked the check and found it was real money instead of fake money. The industry will be against an intelligent background check because there is more money for them in fake checks, quickly deposited by phone and spent, than real ones; fees, fees, and more fees...plus you have to replace the fake money with real money.
Which is a perfectly fine and respectable suggestion to have. In order to do that though the nation has to go through the legal process outlined in Article V to amend the Constitution. Doing what you are suggesting without going through that process is literally against Constitutional Law.
And people will continue to die regardless of what legislation you support. There's really no middle ground here. You either support things as they are, or you support something radical. Not much changes either way. I'll give you this - perhaps we'd all be better off if there were no private ownership of guns in this nation... a big maybe... but then... could've we obtained independence without guns, and could we present an obstacle to governmental authoritarianism and dictatorship without an armed populace? Could our populace serve as an obstacle to foriegn military invasion without firearms? Our 2A freedom is worth it, but that's not to say that there's not a problem to be addressed, or that there's nothing at all to be done about it. We're sick in the cultural sense. That's our problem, the blame lays everywhere. We're divided, not united. The vast majority of our gun crime exists within a community that has it's own unique problems. Even without guns, our sickness will manifest itself. The solution is to address the cause... but even then there's simply no containing the dark side of humanity. Absolute peace and harmony is not a realistic expectation.
Some people are ignorant. You are one of those. But it doesn't even matter any more. Democrats like laws. Dems don't like to enforce laws. So, just give them all the laws they want on background checks, etc and then don't enforce them. Problem solved.
The only "intelligent" system of background checks is one that is free of loopholes - all transfers of firearms having the acquisitions validated, such as the overwhelming majority of Americans support. The showdown between Fake Don and Fancy Pants LaP should be delightful.
We don't have a gun problem, we have a mental illness problem and regrettably there's little that can be done. I think the President's "intelligent" background checks will try to include psychiatric information which is not available now. This is the only part of a background check that could actually be effective. New laws may make some folks feel good, it may give the politicians some cover to say they did something but criminals and crazies don't obey laws.
Nobody pays any attention to Trump on gun control. He talks but does nothing. And even thinking of Trumps a judge of " intelligent" is absolutly hilarious.
My guess is the left will try and throw a posion pill into any meaningful gun legislation, and then claim the President back down on his word. This is the MO of the left at any point of compromise. They will simply refuse to compromise on anything. So tragic
It's tragic that the Constitution is being abused this way. The kinds of weapons we're talking about did not even exist when it, or rather the 2nd Amendment to it, was written. There was no such thing as a mass shooting back then, nor was there a standing army like ours. It was a citizen army armed with much more primitive weaponry, and the kind of one-man slaughter of innocents that takes place today in this country thanks to how the 2nd Amendment is interpreted today was not even possible, let alone prevalent, back then. What is banned and what is not is entirely up to us today, not to some people who wrote ratified an amendment in 1791, when the state of art in handguns was the musket. https://www.ranker.com/list/firearms-in-1791/rachel-souerbry Enough of this insanity!
Wherter they existed then or not is irrelevant. Email, cell phone records etc didn’t exist either. The 1st still applies to them. Well, this is settled law. It is not possible to ban an entire class of firearms. DC v Heller. You would need an amendment to repeal the 2nd in order to do so.
Some psychiatric information is available now, and is used in the NICS checks. If somebody is involuntarily committed to a mental hospital because they are found to be a danger to self or others (a process that involves judges, lawyers, mental health professionals), they lose the right to bear arms.
People were allowed to own cannons then (primarily on their ships). Also, using your logic, freedom of speech wouldn't be allowed on any kind of electronic device, and freedom of press would be limited to hand-powered printing presses that used hand linotyping.
Cannons, eh. Yeah, great mass shooting option right there. My logic is that the technology and the military have changed so significantly that it is no longer reasonable to apply 18th century gun legislation. According to my logic, this legislation must be updated the same as all other legislation is done over the course of time to not only cope with new developments, but to better serve the American people.
The reality is sadly more people (mainly cops) would die trying to get the guns than would die if guns were left out there. I would support restricting future sales of some high capacity weapons, and taxing the hell out of ammo and reloading components and using that tax strictly for mental health availability. But reality is that it's too late to get the guns out of everybody's hands, so we're just going to have to shell out the money for more armed guards at schools and malls.
Can you please rewrite your post with a quill and send it via messenger? You are abusing the constitution!
So its too difficult to get the guns from dangerous people so lets focus on punishing law abiding citizens. How would that prevent murder?
Using a special tax to add security and treat mental illness and make treatment more available may reduce the number of mass shooting. We tax gas because it uses lots of financial resources to maintain highways - if mass shootings are going to be the cost of having a gun culture, then people who use guns should be expected to shoulder the burdens of added security.