You all might be interested in the discussion about this topic on a physician web site. There was NO post agreeing with, nor refuting the 2 basic suggestions - total confiscation of all guns or application of the death penalty. Posters offered comments that were peripheral to the discussion, including Biden's suggestion that the Second Amendment is not absolute. The following reflects some of the comments, including my responses labeled as "ME.":
“….. there ARE limits on the second amendment. Some weapons and ammunition have been judged to infringe on the rights of others.”
ME: “ALL weapons have the potential to infringe on the rights of others when used by another citizen. But it is not the weapon doing the infringing. It is the USER of that weapon.”
“Yes but you have missed the point... despite the fact that "It is the USER of that weapon" some weapons are banned. Are you suggested that they should not be?”
“I hope you (and others) can see why we do not bother arguing the specifics of gun safety legislation with the gun nuts that hold that view. We are not "gun prohibitionists". We are not "hoplophobes". Or any other term you make up to define us. We are the majority who want to increase public safety with better gun laws.”
ME: “ As I see it, the “gun nuts” are not against better gun safety. We don't want to be shot at the shopping mall, either. The “better gun safety” advocates are not against law-abiding gun ownership. Both groups therefore meet on common ground, but neither spends enough time dissecting the reasoning behind each other’s objections to the problem.
The difficulty is finding a solution for “safety” that does not grossly interfere with the rights of the legitimate gunowners, and one that substantially affects those who use guns criminally, endangering all of us.
Behind all of this is a hidden agenda by the extreme left who pursue control of our lives by the government. They initiate the discussion by offering legislative ideas that clearly do not meet the needs but grossly affect all law-abiding citizens. When advocates like the NRA use their legislative influential power to challenge these efforts, very few realistic “safety” pursurers investigate the details that are felt to be a negative consequence to non-criminals.
For example, when Shelia Jackson presented her bill, it required any gun owner who even lends a personal gun to another person to report the event to a federal authority, including the time frame of expected use. My immediate reaction was this interfered unnecessarily with my routine of taking my daughter target shooting when she used my .38 Special revolver. Worse, she added a $800 a year mandated insurance policy to be obtained by every gun owner. How does that reduce gun violence by criminals?
In the past, one of the legislators called for a number to be impressed onto every bullet and cartridge case so that purchase could be traced in the event of a criminal act of use. It took me no longer than 10 seconds to think of a scenario where a potential bank robber would go to a legitimate shooting range and simply pick up all the empty brass, then go to a bank, rob it, fire his revolver for effect, and drop several empty cases on the floor, none of which had the same numbers. Now the police trace all of these to legitimate owners who were nowhere near the bank.
Clearly we need a defined goal with any proposed legislation, not just doing “something” because it’s better than nothing. And we need to seriously dissect these issues rather than throwing stones at each other.”
