RE: Guns: A deal Trump can do
Civil Liberties
The civil liberties side of what I said comes from first hand experience trying to help one of my sons who is a drug addict. In many ways it is similar to a mental illness. I know we would have had a much better chance of helping him if the privacy laws enabled us to find out exactly what the situation was with him. He certainly would have benefited from being forced into a drug rehab program that he could just not walk out of.
What I learnt was the system stops the family and friends, who love the individual the most, from getting the individual the help they need.
It should not necessarily be the case that this leaves a lifelong mark on their record - the goal is to get them the help they need (even when they are not in a mental state that enables them to see it) and have them emerge as a healthy member of society.
The Florida School Shooter had lots of people raising a red flag - but nobody could get him the help he obviously needed.
It probably helps to think of this the way you would help a drug addict. The goal is to help the individual and stop them hurting themselves or other - not to take your guns away from you.
Storage
Could you forgive yourself if your son took your guns and killed a bunch of kids at his school (and probably himself). It has happened and that is why storage is important.
Drugs
I agree and the drug companies should be responsible for those studies as part of the FDA approval process. They should also be required to take action if evidence emerges after the drug is available on the market.
Periodic background checks
Circumstances people find themselves in change. These checks should be quick and not an undue burden.
I hope you are right about:
'Reworking drug laws, violent offender sentencing and release, and domestic violence convicts prohibited possessor enforcement addresses about 97% of the basic motive for gun homicides.'
and if you are - lets get it done.
Thanks for making me think through these issues - I appreciate the time you put into formulating you post.
Let hope the powers that be find a solution that works.
Thanks again.
Drug addiction essentially is a mental illness and should be treated as such. The money put into the War on Drugs would be far better spent on addiction treatment, counseling, and prevention. Decriminalization and taxation would further supplement funding, and law enforcement and the judicial and prison systems would have a lighter burden and could focus on violent offenders.
I can accept a temporary ban on rights, if due process is still followed, if it is truly temporary. In most states it's not and efforts to create a system for reinstating rights in exchange for federal funding for NICS enforcement have been voted down consistently by the Democrats.
The thing is though, any restriction of rights must be as narrowly focused as possible otherwise it does end up "taking my guns away" or the guy down the street, or some dude I've never met. Life is precious. So are our civil liberties. There's a reason our country was founded on giving up our lives before giving up our liberties.
Of course safe storage is important. Like I said, I support the free trigger programs. I support tax breaks or credits for safe storage equipment. I support safe storage education.
I do not, however, support mandatory storage laws. For one, they're literally unenforceable until after they've already been broken without incredibly massive government intrusion into our homes. If you think NICS is ineffective then apply that principle to a law that requires active physical participation and inspection by LEOs. Second, we don't punish the victims of a crime, let alone expect those victims to report that they require being punished. And mandatory storage laws have already been addressed by SCOTUS and are unconstitutional.
I can accept reasonable burdens on drug companies. Stifling research and development doesn't help anyone.
If I've passed a background check to buy the firearm then yes, being required to do so over and over again is a burden. We assume innocence, not guilt, and the burden to enforce prohibited possessor laws lies with local law enforcement.
And do you really think someone who has broken the law to the point of being a prohibited possessor is going to have qualms about hiding their guns before they attend this predictably scheduled background check?
It's also entirely unenforceable without a national registry, which is just a nonstarter to begin with. You wanna see gun rights groups go full bore, then propose a registry. But without one, how am I identified as having firearms in the first place? How does law enforcement know I still have them or legitimately got rid of them at the time of my scheduled background check? And again, this is another system that both places further burden on a system that already fails regularly.
And drug and gang violence, repeat offenders, and domestic abusers account for almost all gun homicides, per the FBIs universal crime report.
The solutions to gun violence barely, if at all, involve guns except in the most remote of terms. These solutions also require profound and expensive changes to deeply rooted systems that require prominent and incredibly influential individuals and industries to admit they're wrong and accept change. That's never going to happen if the immediate, instant, and effectively distracting reaction is always GUNS ARE BAD.
That is one of the reasons as I put first two of the basics:
Because I agree with you that a lot of gun deaths occur in areas of high crime where the government is not doing their job and arresting criminals.
Thanks again for engaging with me in this discussion.
No problem. Thank you for being reasonable. :-)