gaseousclay said:
for example, is it unreasonable to require new gun owners to take a mandatory safety course and test to prove their capability with a firearm?
If the problem is random screwballs shooting up schools, what would this proposal possibly accomplish toward alleviating the problem? Don't forget, Connecticut already requires firearms safety training to get a carry permit OR an "eligibility certificate" (I think that's what it's called). The shooter at Sandy Hook didn't own the guns he used -- and he WAS trained.
Next suggestion?
Is it unreasonable to regulate private sales, so that gun buyers would have to go through a business with a legally held FFL?
Private sales of handguns in Connecticut have to be approved by the State Police even if they don't go through an FFL. Private sales of long guns don't, but many people in Connecticut don't know that and call them in anyway. Nancy Lanza's guns were ALL purchased legally.
But, again ... Adam Lanza didn't buy any of the guns he used. He stole them from his mother.
Next suggestion?
Is it unreasonable to require new gun owners to have some sort of safe or means of safely storing their firearms out of reach of others?
It has been fairly reliably reported that Nancy Lanza kept her guns under lock and key, even though Connecticut law didn't require it because she had no children under the age of 16 in the house.
Now what?
Your "reasonable" suggestions were all in place and failed utterly to accomplish anything at all. The most reasonable thing we could do is to repeal about 90 percent of the gun laws already on the books and allow people to take responsibility for their own protection. If schools want to act
in loco parentis, then the schools had better accept responsibility for protecting our kids as well at school as we do at home and in the streets.
zincwarrior said:
Translation: if its a program designed by the state of Texas I'd be ok. If its a program designed by the state of Illinois I'd be gravely concerned.
Actually, a lot of folks in other states (including me, and I'm originally from Texas) find Texas' requirements to be obscenely costly and burdensome -- especially the requirement to undergo the live fire course again every time you renew your permit. Seriously -- what's the TOTAL investment, in both dollars and hours, to get a first carry permit in Texas? Is that fair? Should you have to invest that before you are allowed to exercise a Constitutional
RIGHT?