7463

However, being poor is not a protected class under the 14th amendment.

Aren’t guns quite expensive to buy? Unless you are also advocating that guns should be provided free of charge to all citizens who would like one, isn’t there already a price barrier to the gun-ownership right…?

7464

Thinking of mass shooting as a bug problem, it seems pretty simple:

1 - Take away the guns.
Lots of examples of countries where people don’t have the same access to guns and have much fewer mass shootings. There’s even an example of a country that went from easy access to hard access and it “fixed” the problem, Australia. Guns should be hard to get, you’d need a good reason, etc.

2 - Take away the thing that makes Americans more likely to want to use their guns on other people.
I dunno, look at what makes Switzerland Switzerland or Israel Israel and try and be more like that? Much less well defined problem though, much bigger room to fail, maybe you won’t focus on the right thing that makes those people not shoot each other, assuming there’s even a way that isn’t just be those people, stop being Americans, be Israeli or Swiss.

3 - Learn to live with it.
Accept that it’s part of being American now, harden stuff as much as you can and go on with life. Maybe it’s possible to spend enough money so that kids in well off places won’t ever fear getting shot, and it’s only the poors who die, but who cares about them anyway, right? Bullet proof everything, bodyguards as an entry level requirement for anyone who matters, that sort of thing. Who knows, might work, and you might Robocop or ED-209 your way out of the problem.

Maybe someone has a better view than me, but for me these seem like the choices.

7465

Not especially. Nice ones can be. Most shotguns, for example, are fairly cheap.
Unless you make owning one cost 3-4 times what the gun costs.

Mandatory military service is likely a big part of it. I doubt that’s going to fly in the US, though it would probably cut down on military adventurism when everyone’s kids are threatened instead of other peoples’.

7466

I wouldn’t mind a serious push for smart guns again. I did some quick Googling and it looks like the tech is there, it’s just the lobbying that’s preventing it wider adoption.

7467

But what do you do about the 400 million guns already out there? The answer to that is where the problems really start.

7468

Maybe charge the owners a fee every year they don’t switch to smart guns? They can pay into a national fund for accidental gun deaths or something.

7469

But they’re not free in most cases right? There is a barrier to entry for really poor people.

7470

For a lot of poor rural folk, the cost is acceptable because firearms aren’t disposable items. They generally last for a very long time, if maintained.

7471

I mean this is why the issue has to be addressed on a Constitutional basis. As long as it’s seen as a fundamental right, half the country would rather the country burn then limit that right. It also means that the high bar to regulation is only going to be whatever gun supporters accept - what everyone else wants isn’t going to matter.

Of course that’s how we had to solve the Slavery problem, by basically burning it out of them with fire, because it was their “Right” and they refused to give it up.

I was hammering away on my phone yesterday while driving so probably made a mistake, but i still think the Constitutional path is the right path, and really the only path, to gaining some kind of deeper structural changes. Without that you’re pretty much going to be limited to making the US a Gun Club nation and working with gun rights groups and doing what very small and very limited restrictions they will grudgingly allow.

I mean, they’ve “won” in all senses anyway, to the point where even talking about gun regulation gets people’s stomachs in a knot. No new regulations have been passed in years despite the worst acts of gun violence outside of mafia hits in decades. If anything gun supporters, in a sense basking in victory, need to be placated and appeased and, in their mercy, may grant a regulation here or there. The NRA may be going bankrupt, but that’s because there’s basically no need for it anymore, because it’s won the cause.

7472

A lot of them are effectively heirlooms.

What about historical/antique weapons?

And ultimately smart guns aren’t much of a solution. Most guns used in mass shooting scenarios would still work.

That said the lobbying against them even existing, is stupid on another level. But that’s what happens with the NRA controlling the narrative for decades. Hopefully something replaces them and is rational about things. Get back to safety and training as priorities, not releasing ads saying we shouldn’t have Free Speech and should kill people who disagree with us about tax rates.

7473

Probably, but that’s even less likely than getting rid of the electoral college.

There are a fair number of issues most gun owners agree with anti-gun people on. It’s just that no one ever seems to try to implement them. With the NRA waning, now would be a decent time to try those things. But if you open with “ban AR-15s, make everyone pay a bunch of money” it’s gonna go about as far as you can throw a semi.

7474

I mean the interesting counter-factual is what would have happened in 1860 if slavery was enumerated in the Constitution rather than permitted by proxy. Would the US had been able to ever get rid of slavery in the 19th Century, and how long into the 20th would it have gone on for, and what would have been the cause of its rejection? With Dred Scott extending slavery to have been covered under the 5th, had slavery been a “Constitutional” right it would have been nearly impossible to have ended it legislatively. There would have been no reason to secede in 1860 because there’s no way there would be 2/3 of the states voting against it, so the compromise line would have just been pushed ad infinitum to the Pacific.

I agree this is the realistic path forward. The problem as i said above with gun control advocates is that they often don’t quite understand guns and / or have larger issues in mind. But the problem is that gun rights groups have completely won - not in some compromised way, but a total, take no prisoners victory. That’s not a stable situation, and the purpose of agitating is as much as anything to put some fear back into gun rights groups and make them more willing to compromise. Sitting on the top of the hill, they only need deign to toss a fig leaf of a small restriction here or there down because they want to, not because they have to.

7475

Since the North had conquered the South and basically dictated things to them they would’ve repealed it with an Amendment. I mean, that’s what happened anyway, even though it wasn’t strictly in the Constitution. The 13th and 14th Amendments didn’t happen because the South agreed to them. It happened because they weren’t given an option.

Now as far as secession even happening, that’s an interesting question, but given that the South seceded before Lincoln was even inaugurated, odds are fair they would’ve still done it. One of the big fears the South had was Lincoln was going to make a ton of non-slave states and then pass an amendment banning it as I understand things (I may be wrong, it’s not like pre-Civil War politics is my jam by any means).

The opposite will happen though. As you said, they’ve won. So agitating just lines their pockets and results in you losing elections. Then they push the line back 10 more yards on you.

And don’t think most gun owners are the NRA. The NRA is barely anyone. That said, there are a lot of people who the NRA has trained to react in certain ways and they’ll react as trained if you send out the wrong signals. You can’t reach people with a vested interest in not compromising or changing. You can reach most gun owners. But you don’t open with shit that makes them recoil in horror and vote Republican for the next decade that you can’t hope to pass anyway.

7476

It’s one reason i say that guilt not gravity is the most powerful force in the universe. It would be helpful if we had Biden like Democrats pushing for “sensible” gun legislation while more “radical” gun control groups post smiling faces of dead kids all over red / gun districts saying something like “this is a world without sensible gun control” or some focused group message that won’t trigger the average gun owner into secession and / or occupy Washington fantasies.

Maybe gun control groups can’t do anything, but they can be sure and make gun owners feel guilty in their “fuck your society, my rights, not my problem” attitudes.

7477

Maybe once upon a time, but most are solidly in the “they don’t know what they’re talking about” camp.

And to be fair, they’re often right, which doesn’t help. You need a Nixon to go to China scenario, I suspect.

7478

How is Jason Kander’s political career these days though.

7479

He was suffering from PTSD and depression in 2018, so that kind of derailed things for him.

7480

Sure. Like anything, if you’re lucky, you may have a way to get one for free, but let’s not quibble. You may get a car from a relative for free. You can inherit a building. These are things that may happen, but they aren’t the normal market process. There is normally a cost for acquiring and operating a firearm that the individual usually must front despite it being a Constitutional right. We don’t have a government program to give out bullets, hand out pistols, or pay for range time to citizens.

7481

I’m pretty sure the only reason the GOP hasn’t implemented these is because they couldn’t find a foolproof way to exclude minorities.

7482

That’s pretty rich coming from someone who shrugs and says “there’s no solution” when asked what common sense gun laws look like. You and @tman have no interest in solutions. You’re classic conservatives defending the status quo because you have a slavish devotion to the misbegotten 2nd Amendment and you’re all-in on American gun culture.

I, on the other hand, don’t think there’s any legitimate reason for most people to own guns. The social cost for indulging power fantasies about self-defense is too high, and it’s especially absurd for leisure pursuits like hunting and target shooting. My interest in solutions is absolutely greater than yours, so much so that I’m perfectly willing to cast a wide net to see what works.

Hoo boy.

Hoo boy x2.

Correct.

Please continue to support your case with anecdotes. You’re making an excellent case for better gun laws.

This is the fundamental characteristic of a gun nut. One who responds to every common sense suggestion with an appeal to the 2nd Amendment. Or someone who insists you point out how gun registration would help law enforcement. Or someone who brings up knives in the UK. The arguments are so tired and ultimately so disingenuous. It’s the whole concept of a Trumpian alternate reality in a mini-cosmos, carefully pieced together by the NRA over the last several decades, and reinforced by popular culture.

Fortunately, the NRA is in decline and popular culture is grappling with how it romanticizes guns, especially in entertainment for children. I grew up thinking guns were cool and that, sure, lots of people should probably have them. I don’t think that’s the common perception for kids these days, which makes me kind of hopeful that we’ll be more effectively able to wrestle with this problem and the gun nut alternate reality that’s responsible for maintaining the problem.

-Tom