3fgburner

In response to:

The question actually had to do with gun safety. Not one of you addressed that. Do you not think there is a problem?

Let's start with the fact that 2/3 of "gun deaths", are suicides. 22 a day, are veterans. That's not just people with PTSD from recent combat, either. It's older vets, who can't get needed treatment from the VA. It's chronic pain sufferers, who can't get real painkillers because of the War On Opioids.

The "problem", for the vast majority of homicides, is CRIMINALS. My proposal:

Ditch the War on Drugs. Legalize and tax most drugs, decriminalize and mandate treatment for the nasty things like crack, meth, heroin, etc.

Free, and pardon (with full restoration of rights) non-violent drug-possession convicts.

Stop plea-bargaining, and fully prosecute, any repeat violent offender caught in possession of a fiream. Prosecute straw purchases. Yank the license of, and prosecute, rogue FFLs.

Other side's Proposals, and my opinion of them:
Waiting periods: worthless.

Registration: Worthless, and in most cases (NY, NJ, DC) designed expressly to make it as much of a pain in the ass as possible, to own a gun. It's also an enabler for future, planned, confiscations.

License-to-own: Too much risk of arbitrary denial (NY, NJ, MA)

Mandated Safety Course to Own: As long as it's free / taxpayer funded, and not the $300 you have to pay to own a handgun in DC.

How about this? All schools teach Eddie Eagle in elementary school. All schools teach a no-hardware (to soothe the hoplophobes) version of NRA Home Firearm Safety. In high school Phys Ed, everybody gets a pick of Basic Rifle and Basic Shotgun. End of problem.

Semi-auto firearm, and magazine bans: Worthless and STUPID.

No mass shooting has ever been stopped by bum-rushing the attacker while he was reloading. So-called "reloading" stoppages were none of the kind. Rather, the bad guys were trying to clear jams. Pretty much all of the malfunctions were caused by their fancy, "extended", magazines. That's right -- oversize, aftermarket, larger-than-factory mags, tend to be jam-o-matics.

Semi-auto rifle bans are based on a scam. To quote Josh Sugarmann, of the Violence Policy Center (vpc.org) on the subject: " Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms—are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons."

From S.66, "The Assault Weapons Ban of 2019":
SECTION 1. Short title.

This Act may be cited as the “Assault Weapons Ban of 2019”.

SEC. 2. Definitions.

(a) In general.—Section 921(a) of title 18, United States Code, is amended—
“(H) All of the following rifles, copies, duplicates, variants, or altered facsimiles with the capability of any such weapon thereof:
“(xix) Sturm, Ruger & Co. Mini-14 Tactical Rifle M–14/20CF.

(e) Appendix A.—Section 922 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

APPENDIX A—FIREARMS EXEMPTED BY THE ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN OF 2017

Centerfire Rifles—autoloaders

“Ruger Mini 30
“Ruger Mini-14 (w/o folding or telescoping stock or pistol grip)

That's right. The same, exact gun -- the Mini-14 -- is explicitly banned in one section, for having a pistol grip, and is specifically exempted in another section, for having a wooden stock and being a "semiautomatic hunting rifle". The Mini 30, by the way, is a Mini-14 that fires 7.62x39mm rounds, the same as an AK or SKS.

Banning firearms for having pistol grips??! As I said above, it's a scam.

Psychological Testing for ownership: Come up with a 100% objective, accurate assessment that will predict violently insane behavior, and we'll talk.

"Universal Background Checks": http://www.3fgburner.net/ubcproposal.pdf

Note that when people like the Demanding Mommies and others of Bloomberg's Useful Idiots say "Gun Safety", they're trying to re-frame the debate. In their mouths, "Gun Safety" is a euphemism for Gun CONTROL.

ADDENDUM, Jun 2017:
have, since this writing, added a couple of thoughts to my opinion on this matter:

Comparing "Honor Culture", and "Dignity Culture": Honor cultures evolve where there is no rule of law, or where the law is incompetent, unreliable, or untrusted. Basically, disputes are handled by the disputants, via force. In a Dignity culture, disputants go to the Law to mediate. Consider Conan the Barbarian, versus Perry Mason.

Examples: In some cities, the Law is not your friend. It's the enemy. Stop-and-frisk, prison pipeline, predatory policing. Those people who view cops as being predators, won't call the cops. Not to mention, nobody's going to call 911 and say, "That dude just robbed me for a pound of weed." He's going to shoot the robber and take his weed back. In an Honor culture, in addition, to show weakness is to be prey.

Another thought:
I've seen a bunch of articles, and there's lots of literature online, about compassion-based school discipline. Basically, a kid blows up in class. Gets sent to the office. Instead of punishing him and forgetting him, the principal, or a counselor, asks, "What's wrong?" After a few rounds of this, when the kid is about to go off, he raises his hand and says, "I need to get to the office, and talk to Mr ___, like NOW." Reduces suspensions and detentions like 70%. Used in a couple of juvenile-detention facilities in New England, reduced recidivism 60%.

In the "If I could wave a magic wand" department:
In addition to the War on Drugs, I would also put an end to predatory policing. My usual response to a news story of someone suing cops is: "Crush the Department. See it driven to financial obliteration. Take its assets and its budget, and hear the lamentations of the bean-counters."

I'd give the department the option to save itself from obliteration, and have the punitive damages reduced from "destructive" to "painful", by publicly holding a 19th-Century style drumming-out ritual to fire the rights-violating officer. And if the officer shot a dog or other pet, hold a full police funeral for the pet.