|
Post by mouse on Feb 22, 2018 11:52:07 GMT -5
"""However, that is not what is being discussed. People are trying to make ‘how’ you care for the gun the issue. If you do not follow the rules for gun storage you are responsible and should face penalty of law, even if the gun is not used."""
I absolutely agree... anyone who does not keep weapons in a secure metal unit should have charges brought against them
so how many times have the gun owners of guns used in fatal shooting faced a murder charge.. let alone been found guity even though they did not fire the weapon but were guilty of leaving the weapon where it could be accessed
|
|
|
Post by men an tol on Feb 22, 2018 16:59:12 GMT -5
Mouse, this has come up before, If you own anything, and another is injured or dies when in contact with it, you are liable for the damage. Say someone walks up your sidewalk trips and falls and breaks a leg, you are liable. If you have a swimming pool in the back yard, the back yard is fenced and a child gets into your back yard gets in the swimming pool and drowns, you are liable, even if the child had to break in to get to the pool. Even if you had a cover on the pool and someone, even a child, was able to get the cover off, got into the pool and died, you are responsible, If you had a party and someone dove into your pool and broke their neck, you are responsible. These situations I’ve mentioned are from actual court cases and the owner of the object or place lost in terms of liability. There was one case where a cabin someone owned was repeatably being broken-into. The owner set up a trap by setting up a gun inside the cabin pointing at the door and it would only fire if someone broke into the cabin through that ‘locked’ door. A person broke in, the gun fire, the person breaking in died and in the court case the person who owned the cabin and set up the trap ended up spending time in prison. Here in the United States, you are always responsible for what you own, including guns and only degree of responsibility is discussed. However, that is not what is being discussed. People are trying to make ‘how’ you care for the gun the issue. If you do not follow the rules for gun storage you are responsible and should face penalty of law, even if the gun is not used. That sounds more like desperate excuses than it does good thinking, Men an tol. Does the NRA give the members pamphlets to use for defense like the Mormons do? I have no idea what you are driving at Dex. This is how liability works in the United States and it doesn’t matter what the ownership entails. Are you saying that I am wrong? If so how? It has nothing to do with the NRA. Whatever the NRA believes or doesn’t believe has nothing to do with court cases and Liability law. Mouse made a reasonable posting and such has been made before, but everything she suggested already exists here in the United States. Are you suggesting that I should not have informed her? I don’t know how the NRA feels about liability in the United States. My knowledge comes from involvement with businesses and their liability exposure and dealing with that with attorneys and insurance companies. I really do not understand what you are driving at.
|
|
|
Post by men an tol on Feb 22, 2018 19:00:46 GMT -5
"""However, that is not what is being discussed. People are trying to make ‘how’ you care for the gun the issue. If you do not follow the rules for gun storage you are responsible and should face penalty of law, even if the gun is not used.""" I absolutely agree... anyone who does not keep weapons in a secure metal unit should have charges brought against them so how many times have the gun owners of guns used in fatal shooting faced a murder charge.. let alone been found guity even though they did not fire the weapon but were guilty of leaving the weapon where it could be accessed Mouse, you are saying that even if nothing bad has happened with the use of a gun, the gun owner is guilty of a crime by not following some law covering storage? Word it a different way, make a law to define a crime of omission, then use that law to arrest this newly defined criminal, why? Because they didn’t store a gun the approved way! That is insane! If the gun is used in a negative way to the detriment of someone, defining liability will include the access to that gun as part of defining liability. That exists, it is part of today’s laws for crime and part of civil tort to define responsibility. To me it isn’t a need to define new law. To me, make people aware of existing law. To me it is making people aware of their existing liability, a liability that exists with whatever they have, an axe, a kitchen knife, a nailing gun, the lawn mower, yes, even a gun, make sure they understand their existing liability.
|
|
|
Post by mouse on Feb 23, 2018 6:11:40 GMT -5
well your laws are not working are they ....I remember two cases of schools shootings.. one was a youth whose mother was the buyer and owner of the wespon and the other was where the father was the buyer and owner of the weapon
in neither case have I read that either of the two owners of the weapons been charged with anything or put in prison for aiding and abetting murder .. and yet in both cases they actually owned the weapons and had obviously not kept them secured.....perhaps I am misinformed.. but if I am not then the laws defining liability are not working
in this particular case the gun owner is not guilty in that the gun was kept under lock and key.. the murderer accessed an other key. so there is no case for the owner to answer... other than from know on make sure the keys are not left lying around
the basics of hat I am saying is sensible action as a preventative... is that really too much to ask ? that gun owners take precaustions against their weapons being used for mass slaughter ... are young people and others lives so expendable that for the sake of a strong cabinet and key the young lives come senconed or as the military put it ..collateral damage ...unfortunate but so what ..
lordy we take precaustions when it comes to health via jabs of all types ...driving we see the car is up to scratch and have insurance just in case......traveling we need insurance against possibilities etc etc but precautions against mass murder cannot betaken
|
|
|
Post by men an tol on Feb 23, 2018 15:38:10 GMT -5
The following link is to a paper from the Law Library of Congress. In part it addresses some of the cases in more detail than the following, however it addresses some of the issues that have been brought up in the forum. You will see in the following summary there are short descriptions of the some of the issues by addressing some case law. Of course none of these are really short and they can seem complex: The first one (District of Columbia v. Heller), fundamentally, the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. confers an Individual Right to posses a firearm, and also found that DC banning of a firearm was not constitutional and; that forcing the gun owner to disassemble or trigger-lock such a individually owned gun violated the Second Amendment. In McDonald v. Chicago a major change occurred in the court’s interpretation of 0f the 14th Amendment by opining that the Bill of Rights Amendments also applied to the State Governments. Following the link will also provide other links to additional case details and support documents. www.loc.gov/law/help/second-amendment.php My point is that some the points we all try to make over and over, have actually been decided through the courts. Overview On June 26, 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller (PDF), the United States Supreme Court issued its first decision since 1939 interpreting the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court ruled that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution confers an individual right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defense. It also ruled that two District of Columbia provisions, one that banned handguns and one that required lawful firearms in the home to be disassembled or trigger-locked, violate this right. The Second Amendment, one of the ten amendments to the Constitution comprising the Bill of Rights, states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The meaning of this sentence is not self-evident, and has given rise to much commentary but relatively few Supreme Court decisions. In cases in the 19th Century, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment does not bar state regulation of firearms. For example, in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 553 (1875), the Court stated that the Second Amendment “has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government,” and in Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 265 (1886), the Court reiterated that the Second Amendment “is a limitation only upon the power of Congress and the National government, and not upon that of the States.” Although most of the rights in the Bill of Rights have been selectively incorporated (PDF) into the rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment and thus cannot be impaired by state governments, the Second Amendment has never been so incorporated. [UPDATE: In McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), the Supreme Court addressed this issue, ruling that Second Amendment rights are applicable to states through the Fourteenth Amendment.] Prior to District of Columbia v. Heller, the last time the Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment was in United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939). In that case, Jack Miller and one other person were indicted for transporting an unregistered sawed-off shotgun across state lines in violation of the National Firearms Act of 1934. Miller argued, among other things, that the section of the National Firearms Act regulating the interstate transport of certain firearms violated the Second Amendment. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas agreed with Miller. The case was appealed directly to the Supreme Court, which reversed the district court. The Supreme Court read the Second Amendment in conjunction with the Militia Clause in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, and concluded that “ n the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a [sawed-off] shotgun . . . has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.” 307 U.S. at 178. The Court concluded that the district court erred in holding the National Firearms Act provisions unconstitutional.
Since United States v. Miller, most federal court decisions considering the Second Amendment have interpreted it as preserving the authority of the states to maintain militias. Several of the post-Miller lower court opinions are discussed here (PDF).
The Supreme Court’s consideration of the Second Amendment this term was precipitated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s decision in Parker v. District of Columbia (PDF), 478 F.3d 370 (D.C. App. 2007). There, the D.C. Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, ruled that three District of Columbia laws regarding private gun ownership - namely a ban on new registration of handguns, a ban on carrying a pistol without a license, and a requirement that firearms be kept unloaded and locked - violated the Second Amendment. The court held that individuals have a right under the Second Amendment to own handguns for their own personal protection and keep them in their home without placing a trigger lock on them. This is the first decision since the Supreme Court decided Miller in which a federal court overturned a law regulating firearms based on the Second Amendment. Following the D.C. Circuit’s decision not to rehear the case, the District of Columbia Government filed a petition for certiorari for review of the decision by the Supreme Court. The documents before the Supreme Court at the petition for certiorari stage have been collected.
On November 20, 2007, the Supreme Court granted (PDF) the petition for certiorari. The Court framed the question for which it granted review as follows: “Whether the following provisions – D.C. Code §§ 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02 – violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?” The briefs on the merits by the District of Columbia and respondent Dick Anthony Heller, as well as amicus briefs by some 67 “friends of the court,” have been collected.
In its June 26 decision, a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to keep and bear arms, and that the D.C. provisions banning handguns and requiring firearms in the home disassembled or locked violate this right. In the majority opinion authored by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court first conducted a textual analysis of the operative clause, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The Court found that this language guarantees an individual right to possess and carry weapons. The Court examined historical evidence that it found consistent with its textual analysis. The Court then considered the Second Amendment’s prefatory clause, " well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," and determined that while this clause announces a purpose for recognizing an individual right to keep and bear arms, it does not limit the operative clause. The Court found that analogous contemporaneous provisions in state constitutions, the Second Amendment’s drafting history, and post-ratification interpretations were consistent with its interpretation of the amendment. The Court asserted that its prior precedent was not inconsistent with its interpretation. The Court stated that the right to keep and bear arms is subject to regulation, such as concealed weapons prohibitions, limits on the rights of felons and the mentally ill, laws forbidding the carrying of weapons in certain locations, laws imposing conditions on commercial sales, and prohibitions on the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. It stated that this was not an exhaustive list of the regulatory measures that would be presumptively permissible under the Second Amendment. The Court found that the D.C. ban on handgun possession violated the Second Amendment right because it prohibited an entire class of arms favored for the lawful purpose of self-defense in the home. It similarly found that the requirement that lawful firearms be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock made it impossible for citizens to effectively use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense, and therefore violated the Second Amendment right. The Court said it was unnecessary to address the constitutionality of the D.C. licensing requirement. Four Justices dissented, each of which signed both of two dissenting opinions. One, by Justice Stevens, examined historical evidence on the meaning of the Second Amendment to conclude that the amendment protects militia-related interests. A second dissenting opinion, by Justice Breyer, stated that even if the Second Amendment protects a separate interest in individual self-defense, the District of Columbia provisions at issue are permissible forms of regulation. The outcome of D.C. v. Heller left some issues unanswered, including whether the Second Amendment restricts state regulation of firearms, and the standard for evaluating the constitutionality of other laws and regulations that impact the Second Amendment right. These issues will be the subject of future litigation. [Update: As noted above, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller applies not only to the Federal Government, but also to states and municipalities.]
As background to the Court’s decision in Heller, below is a selective bibliography listing only some of the substantial literature of books and journal articles on the Second Amendment that existed when that case was decided. Back to Top Books Carl T. Bogus, ed., The Second Amendment in Law and History: Historians and Constitutional Scholars on the Right to Bear Arms. New York: New Press, 2000. Saul Cornell, A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Lawrence Delbert Cress, Citizens in Arms: The Army and the Militia in American Society to the War of 1812. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982. Exploring Gun Use in America. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004. Stephen P. Halbrook, A Right to Bear Arms: State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees. New York: Greenwood Press, 1989. Joyce Lee Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994. Andrew J. McClurg, David B. Kopel, and Brannon P. Denning, eds., Gun Control and Gun Rights: A Reader and Guide. New York: New York University Press, 2002. Robert J. Spitzer, The Politics of Gun Control. 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2008.
Mark V. Tushnet, Out of Range: Why the Constitution Can’t End the Battle Over Guns. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
H. Richard Uviller and William G. Merkel, The Militia and the Right to Bear Arms, or, How the Second Amendment Fell Silent. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002. David C. Williams, The Mythic Meanings of the Second Amendment: Taming Political Violence in a ConstitutionalRepublic. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003.
Back to Top Articles Akhil Reed Amar, The Second Amendment: A Case Study in Constitutional Interpretation, 2001 Utah L. Rev. 889 (2001). Christopher A. Chrisman, Mind the Gap: The Missing Standard of Review Under the Second Amendment (and Where to Find It), 4 Geo. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 289 (2006). Robert H. Churchill, Gun Regulation, the Police Power, and the Right to Keep Arms in Early America: The Legal Context of the Second Amendment, 25 Law & Hist. Rev. 139 (2007). Saul Cornell, Commonplace or Anachronism: The Standard Model, the Second Amendment, and the Problem of History in Contemporary Constitutional Theory, 16 Const. Comment. 221 (1999). Robert J. Cottrol and Raymond T. Diamond, The Second Amendment: Towards an Afro-Americanist Reconsideration, 80 Geo. L. J. 309 (1991). Lawrence Delbert Cress, An Armed Community: The Origin and Meaning of the Right to Bear Arms, 71 J. Am. Hist. 22 (1984). Robert Dowlut, The Right To Keep And Bear Arms: A Right To Self-Defense Against Criminals And Despots, 8(1) Stan. L. & Pol’y Rev. 25 (Winter 1997). Daniel A. Farber, Disarmed By Time: The Second Amendment and the Failure of Originalism, 76 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 167 (2000). Paul Finkelman, “A Well-Regulated Militia”: The Second Amendment in Historical Perspective, 76 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 195 (2000). Pratheepan Gulasekaram, Aliens With Guns: Equal Protection, Federal Power, and the Second Amendment, 92 Iowa L. Rev. 891 (2007). Stephen P. Halbrook, What the Framers Intended: A Linguistic Analysis of the Right to “Bear Arms,” 49(1) Law & Contemp. Probs. 151 (Winter 1986). R. Don Higginbotham, The Federalized Militia Debate: A Neglected Aspect of Second Amendment Scholarship, 55 Wm. & Mary Q. 39 (1998). David Thomas Konig, The Second Amendment: A Missing Transatlantic Context for the Historical Meaning of “the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms,” 22 Law & Hist. Rev. 119 (2004). Sanford Levinson, The Embarrassing Second Amendment, 99 Yale L. J. 637 (1989). Nelson Lund, Outsider Voices on Guns and the Constitution, 17 Const. Comment. 701 (2000) (reviewing Stephen P. Halbrook, Freedmen, The Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms, 1866-1876, Westport, Ct.: Praeger Pubs. 1998). Jack N. Rakove, The Second Amendment: The Highest Stage of Originalism, 76 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 103 (2000). Glenn Harlan Reynolds & Brannon P. Denning, It Takes a Militia: A Communitarian Case for Compulsory Arms Bearing
|
|
|
Post by mouse on Feb 24, 2018 5:21:33 GMT -5
your missing the point Men.... man made laws can and should be up dated......made by man undone by man .... the law is supposed to serve and protect for the betterment of the people not for the betterment of businesses...and vested interests and so far this particular law is not for the betterment of all those who have died or had lives ruined needlessly lives from the old through to the young ...wasted murdered just because centuries ago some men had ideals which were fine then but utterly ludicrous into days world
I doubt any one is asking for a ban because that would be silly and not work... but when even suggesting that weaponry be kept securly then there is some thing very very wrong with the mindset.. that cqnnot understand prevention mind any one who thinks its normal to own an assault rifle or really heavy weaponary .. has to be seriously suspect and is either paranoid some one is out to get them or seriously lacking in self image if they need weaponary to feel the big I am.. my gun is bigger than your gun
strange though that a country which has a down on drugs doesn't mind people being shot.. or perhaps the reality is that the ""right""people do not get a kick back from drugs
|
|
|
Post by beth on Feb 25, 2018 1:50:48 GMT -5
T his is long but oh so informative. Two simple laws could solve America’s epidemic of violence Thom Hartmann, AlterNet
Two simple changes to U.S. law, both things based in other laws that we already know and like, could solve most of America’s gun violence problem:
Treat all semi-automatic weapons in a similar way under the same laws as fully-automatic weapons. Regulate gun ownership and usage the same way we regulate car ownership and usage.
Here’s the backstory and how each would work:
Semi-Automatic Weapons
Back in the prohibition era, before and during the time John Dillinger and friends were shooting up American cities from New York to Chicago to San Francisco, the National Rifle Association approved of two very consequential laws that restricted gun ownership and use. (The NRA didn’t become a lobbying and promotional front group for the weapons industry until the 1970s when the Supreme Court’s Buckley v. Valeo decision ruled that the #MorbidlyRich and wealthy gun-manufacturing corporations could legally buy and own their very own politicians. For nearly a century prior to that, the NRA supported rational gun control.)
The Uniform Firearms Act of 1931 in Pennsylvania was the harbinger of the federal 1934 National Firearms Act, which brought an end to the widespread legal availability of fully automatic “tommy guns,” along with, later, silencers and sawed-off shotguns. But ownership of such automatic weapons isn’t really “banned”—it’s just a somewhat complex process to get permission to own and use them.
First, you must find a local law enforcement officer who will vouch for you and perform a background check on you. His or her signature is the necessary first step to getting an Automatic Weapons Permit, and you must have an absolutely clean record, from a clean criminal record, to not owing any child support, to not having any past firearms violations. If you lie about this, or apply for your permit through a “clean” third party, you and your third-party could both end up in jail.
Then you need to pull together two sets of your fingerprints and two passport-type photos. Plus the $200 “tax stamp” fee for the permit. And get all the information you’ll need on the gun you want to buy, including its serial number and details on its last owner.
Finally, you need to fill out an OMB No. 1140-0014 Application for Tax Paid Transfer and Registration of Firearm form, with such easy questions as category 14:
1. Are you under indictment or information in any court for a felony, or any other crime, for which the judge could imprison you for more than one year?
2. Have you ever been convicted in any court for a felony, or any other crime, for which the judge could have imprisoned you for more than one year, even if you received a shorter sentence including probation? (See definition 1m)
3. Are you a fugitive from justice?
4. Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?
5. Have you ever been adjudicated as a mental defective OR have you ever been committed to a mental institution?
6. Have you been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions?
7. Are you subject to a court order restraining you from harassing, stalking, or threatening your child or an intimate partner or child of such partner?
8. Have you ever been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence?
You also have to provide the government with the reason why you think it appropriate for you to have a fully automatic weapon, sawed-off shotgun, or other “destructive device”:
13. Transferee Necessity Statement: I ___________, have a reasonable necessity to possess the machinegun, short-barreled rifle, short-barreled shotgun, or destructive device described on this application for the following reason(s) ________________ and my possession of the device or weapon would be consistent with public safety (18 U.S.C. § 922(b) (4) and 27 CFR § 478.98).
Karl Frederick, the NRA’s president back when these laws were put into place, was enthusiastic. “I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons,” he said. “I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.” When asked if he thought the National Firearms Act of 1934 violated a person’s Second Amendment rights, he famously said, “I have not given it any study from that point of view.”
The result of the restrictions on ownership of fully automatic weapons (and other “destructive devices”) has been that they’ve pretty much vanished as the scourge on public safety that they were in the late 1920s and early ’30s.
Thus, it’s rare that either automatic weapons or the less-efficient-at-killing-lots-of-people revolvers and bolt-action rifles are used for mass murders. This is largely because the former are hard to buy/own, and for the latter the time necessary to re-cock and re-load presents victims an opportunity to stop a mass shooting.
Remember, the only reason the shooter who tried to kill Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was stopped after “only” killing six people was that he had to replace his 33-shot magazine with a fresh one, and Bill Badger, a 74-year-old man standing near him (whom he’d just shot), tackled him and held him to the ground.
Thus, as the volume of production of semi-automatic weapons has increased in the past 30 years or so, and their price has come down, the older-fashioned pistols and bolt-action rifles have been replaced by a more recent generation of semi-automatic pistols, rifles, and assault weapons.
But if most handguns in circulation were revolvers, and most rifles were bolt- or break-action, there would be far fewer (or at least far less deadly) mass shootings.
Revolvers typically have a cylinder that holds from 5 to 10 rounds of ammunition, and each chamber in the cylinder must be individually loaded. While there are autoloaders and other ways to speed up the process, the gun is still largely limited, at least in an “active shooter” situation, to the rounds in its cylinder.
With a single-action revolver, the gun can’t even be fired until it’s cocked by pulling back the hammer (although a double-action revolver will accomplish this with the first part of the trigger pull).
Revolvers are very efficient killing machines, having been in widespread use since their popularization by the Colt Company in the 1830s, but while they’re great for sport and self-defense (and were police weapons of choice just up until the past 30 or so years), for mass killings they can’t hold a candle to semi-automatics.
Semi-automatic pistols are, in their modern form, a creation of the last century. They use the recoil force of a shot (some also use the exhaust gases) to load a new round into the chamber and cock the gun, all in one seamless and nearly instantaneous motion.
As a result, semi-automatics can be fired as fast as one can pull the trigger, and the amount of trigger pressure a revolver would require to cock the hammer is unnecessary. And, because they don’t have a built-in cylinder like a revolver, the magazine in a semi-automatic that stores the ammunition (some as large as 50-shots) can be quickly replaced.
The rifle side of the equation is largely the same; while bolt-action rifles don’t have a cylinder, they do require the shooter to pull back the bolt between shots, which ejects the spent shell, inserts a new one, and re-cocks the weapon itself. Variations on this include lever-action and pump-action rifles or shotguns, although all require action by the shooter between shots.
Semi-automatic rifles, on the other hand, like semi-automatic pistols, use recoil or gases to reload and recock the weapon, so that shots can be squeezed off as fast as the shooter can pull the trigger. And, because – like semi-automatic pistols – they have quickly replaceable magazines, they’re far deadlier than bolt- pump- or break-action rifles.
Since the vast majority of mass murders of the 1930s were accomplished with fully automatic weapons, tightly regulating who could buy and own them pretty much removed mass murders from the streets of America. It’s time to do the same with semi-automatic weapons, which are the new mass killers’ weapon of choice.
All it would take is amending the National Firearms Act to put any semiautomatic gun of any sort under the same sort of oversight and permitting necessary for fully automatic weapons.
What We Learned From Cars
While there were a number of automobile manufacturing companies in the late 19th century, it was really at the turn of the 20th century that cars became a hot commodity in the United States.
R.E. Olds (I used to live in and run a business out of his mansion in Okemos, Michigan) rolled out the first assembly line in 1901, but it was Henry Ford who cranked the popularity of cars up a notch with his “first version” of the Model A in 1903, and then developed the assembly line to crank out the Model T in 1908.
By 1927, around the time he rolled out the “second version” of his Model A, he’d sold over 15,000,000 cars.
So it was that, around 1915, many states began to notice that cars were killing people. They were being hit on the roads, dying when drivers didn’t know how to avoid running into trees or off bridges, and in accidents with horse-drawn carts and other automobiles.
Which presented the lawmakers of most states with a serious question: What to do to protect the public, including the car owners, from the dangers of death and disfigurement that cars presented?
The answer that most states came up with, and has now largely been standardized across the U.S. and most of the world, was a very simple and straightforward three-part criterion for car ownership and operation.
Establish ownership. In order to be able to manage all the cars coming onto the roads, both as valuable pieces of theft-worthy hardware and to track liability issues, all cars were required to have a Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), which was stamped onto the car during manufacture and followed it until the day it was destroyed or decommissioned. Similarly, the owner of that car and its VIN had to present himself to state authorities and sign a title of ownership, which had to be recorded with the state whenever title was transferred to a new owner.
Prove competence. By the years around 1915 there had been so many fatalities and serious injuries attributable to cars that the states decided they only wanted people driving on public roads who actually knew how to handle a car properly. This meant defining rules for the road, having people learn those rules, and testing them – both in writing and practically in person – to show they truly could drive safely. When people passed the tests, they were given a license to drive.
Require liability insurance. Because virtually all car accidents were just that – accidents – most people who “caused” accidents were at both financial and legal risk. Many were fine, upstanding citizens (in fact, because cars were expensive, most car owners fell into this broad category). And they wanted some defense against the chance of making a mistake and ending up in jail or broke because of lawsuits or the liability costs of caring for people they’d injured. What came out of this was the development of automobile liability insurance, and the establishment of a requirement for it to be carried by all owners/drivers. While most states adopted this requirement substantially later than 1915, it’s now established as a fundamental part of the three steps necessary to drive a car.
Which brings us to today.
These three things that we do for owners of cars are perfect to deal with our American gun problem.
Registration and title – as a requirement rather than an option – would establish a clear chain of custody and responsibility, so when people behave irresponsibly with their guns they can be held to account.
Having a shooter’s license be conditional on passing both a written and a shooting-range test would demonstrate competence and also insert a trained person into the process who could spot “off-kilter” people like the Parkland shooter. Taking a cue from most other countries, we could also require people to prove a need or sporting/safety use for a weapon.
Today, if a car had run down mass-shooting victims, their families would be getting millions from Geico, et al. Because a gun killed them, they get nothing. This is bizarre in the extreme; we all end up paying the costs of gun violence.
These three steps are nothing but common sense, and don’t infringe on the “rights” of gun owners any more than they infringe on the “rights” of car owners. They could even provide a stream of revenue for gun-owners’ organizations that chose to train people to prepare for their licensure test, and/or offer low-cost liability insurance.
Learning From Others
Just like most Americans have no idea that every other developed country in the world has already figured out how to inexpensively and efficiently provide health care for 100 percent of their citizens as a right, so too, most Americans have no idea how all the other developed nations of the world have managed to keep their gun-deaths-per-100,000-people below 0.5, while in the USA it’s over six people killed with guns per 100,000 citizens.
But other countries have done it, and we can learn a lot from their experience.
This is largely the path Australia has taken. After a decades-long series of mass gun-shootings culminated in the 1996 Port Arthur massacres, that nation, in a moment of collective revulsion, chose to require a license to own virtually any type of gun, and to make semi-automatic pistols and rifles as tightly regulated as fully automatic ones.
They also put into place a series of national amnesty and gun-buyback programs, which pulled hundreds of thousands of now-illegal guns out of circulation in that country, while appropriately compensating former gun owners.
It’s still relatively easy for hunters and sportspeople to get pistols or rifles. All they have to do is prove that they are who they say they are, pass a background test, and then prove on an ongoing basis that they’re actually using their weapons for sport, at least annually.
Since the implementation of these laws in 1996, Australia has not yet had another mass shooting incident. In the first years after the laws took place, firearm-related deaths in Australia fell by well over 40 percent, with suicides dropping by 77 percent.
And it’s not just Australia. Every other developed or developing country in the world has more stringent gun control laws than the United States. Which may be why no other such country has the horrific rate of gun deaths and mass shootings we regularly experience.
None of these solutions is difficult. We’ve done them all before in other venues (like car ownership and fully automatic weapons) and they’ve worked fine, and every other developed country in the world has successfully applied them to guns.
We can, too. All it takes is for the NRA to get out of the way, or for American politicians to gather together the courage to stop taking the NRA’s money.
Thankfully, the young people of Parkland, Florida, are doing everything they can to make that happen. They deserve our support.
www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/two-simple-laws-could-solve-americas-epidemic-violence
|
|
josephdphillips
Global Facilitator
January 2015 Member of the Month
Posts: 3,494
|
Post by josephdphillips on Feb 25, 2018 7:48:51 GMT -5
Not just irrelevant, but facile, fatuous and irrelevant.
This person doesn't seem to understand the different between a Constitutional right and a statutory privilege.
|
|
|
Post by mouse on Feb 25, 2018 8:55:49 GMT -5
Not just irrelevant, but facile, fatuous and irrelevant. This person doesn't seem to understand the different between a Constitutional right and a statutory privilege. a reasonable man will ajust to new circumstance... an unreasobnable man expects circumstances to change for him...
|
|
|
Post by men an tol on Feb 25, 2018 9:03:29 GMT -5
Not just irrelevant, but facile, fatuous and irrelevant. This person doesn't seem to understand the different between a Constitutional right and a statutory privilege. You’re correct Joseph. Not only that but everything the article mentioned that is needed already exists, except government force to implement these things. Nor does it recognize that none of these things will make any difference as anyone who wants a weapon can get one no matter the laws. All that will be accomplished is to control the law biding individual. The person who wants to commit violence will still commit violence. The only thing that will stop them is someone with the capability and will to do so. The real issue is not being addressed. It is the person who wants to commit violence that is the point of the problem. More than once I have offered the fact that the largest school mass killing took place in 1927 and did not include any gun and 38 children and 6 adults died. That fact is simply ignored. And you are also right that when the difference between Natural Law Rights and Civil Law Rights are mentioned all sense goes out the window. There is an obsession in this country about guns and it will not end until every gun is made illegal. Of course, the deaths will continue and likely increase.
|
|
|
Post by mouse on Feb 25, 2018 9:49:30 GMT -5
""""The real issue is not being addressed. It is the person who wants to commit violence that is the point of the problem."""
so why enable the violent person.. for the sake of a lock and key ...I and I am not alone in really really don't understand why it is so abhorrent to keep guns etc under lock and key as a preventative mesure and be selective about what type of weaponry any sane and normal persons needs to have.. what is wrong with expecting people to excersise some responsibility in the housing and care of their lethal weaponry the constitutional right to own a weapon would not be harmed yet lives would be saved by having non negociable rules of the safe keeping of weapons.. very similar to what other countries around the world have
|
|
|
Post by annaj26 on Feb 25, 2018 12:00:00 GMT -5
Not just irrelevant, but facile, fatuous and irrelevant. This person doesn't seem to understand the different between a Constitutional right and a statutory privilege. I read it. The person is giving you facts, Joe, not NRA propaganda. For that you can read Men an tol's posts.
|
|
|
Post by annaj26 on Feb 25, 2018 12:09:07 GMT -5
More than once I have offered the fact that the largest school mass killing took place in 1927 and did not include any gun and 38 children and 6 adults died. That fact is simply ignored. Men, you've been trying to push this down our throats in 2 or 3 posts. We see it, we see it, we see it. But in case you didn't notice it is an isolated incident almost a hundred years ago. It was sad but our concern is bringing a stop to what's happening here and not. Right now, guns are relevant and we need to find a way to deal with it. That could mean giving up on our bribed lawmakers at the national level and taking it to the states.
|
|
|
Post by men an tol on Feb 25, 2018 14:23:14 GMT -5
More than once I have offered the fact that the largest school mass killing took place in 1927 and did not include any gun and 38 children and 6 adults died. That fact is simply ignored. Men, you've been trying to push this down our throats in 2 or 3 posts. We see it, we see it, we see it. But in case you didn't notice it is an isolated incident almost a hundred years ago. It was sad but our concern is bringing a stop to what's happening here and not. Right now, guns are relevant and we need to find a way to deal with it. That could mean giving up on our bribed lawmakers at the national level and taking it to the states. It is relevant. It demonstrates that mass killings, any killing for that matter, due not require a gun. A different example is the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building located in Oklahoma City Oklahoma. There, no guns were used and 168 were killed, 19 of whom were children. There are many such examples of mass killings, as well as, single person murders. If we are going to do something to end such killings then we should be looking at causes, however, that doesn’t address the obsession with guns. And so, it is likely that we will have more laws about guns and not at the causes of the violence. Moreover, if legislation is enacted counter to Constitutional provisions that comprise the Second Amendment Natural Law Rights, the Constitution will be weakened so that other Constitutional Provisions protecting other Natural Law Individual Rights can be targeted, we will find it increasingly easier to weaken the provisions of the Constitution.
|
|
|
Post by beth on Feb 25, 2018 14:32:18 GMT -5
Sounds like propaganda to me.
|
|