General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: My INALIENABLE Rights TRUMP Your SECOND Amendment Rights. [View all]dmallind
(10,437 posts)I can regulate the heck out of the bullets then.
and millions of people can reload the billions upon billions already in circulation using a few dollars worth of equipment and common commodities
THEY aren't in the constitution.
I'm not sure you're qualified to parse the meaning of "arms" in constitutional law. I'm not either of course, but I'd be willing to bet a sound argument can be made that the word entails arms that are...ermm.. armed.
I can also put ten thousand dollar taxes on your gun sales,
And gun buyers can always buy privately and untaxed
shut down the "Garage Sale Gun Shows"
Here I can speak to constitutional law because this one is black and white and settled as can be. No you can't. Intrastate commerce is reserved for the states and the people. Amendments 9 and 10.
, and send the IRS after every single spokesperson for the NRA,
only in an example of turpitude that would have you quickly impeached, and since under 5% of gunowners are even members, and few members probably care much about the taxes of the spokesmen, it would do bugger all if you did. Can't stand them myself, but this idea grabbers have that the NRA is the be all and end all of the gun-owning bloc is rather silly. If the NRA was wiped from the earth tomorrow it would do not one single thing to reduce gun ownership.
or have the FBI go after "gun leadership" as a domestic terrorist organization if I find ONE PERSON supplying training or providing "arms" to "criminals"
Again no you can't. You'd have to use statutes such as RICO which expressly cover only organized efforts not individual action. You can't make the group a terrorist organization for one person's actions any more than Eric Rudolph made Christianity one - and he actually killed people with bombs.
-- all without "taking them away" -- these are just SOME of the "creative solutions" I am coming up with to address RECKLESS GUN VIOLENCE.
Now, if you don't like MY ideas, come up with some of your own, because I AM DONE pretending "this is the new normal!"
None are solutions at all, let alone creative ones. I can at least cover the former much better. Since more than half of the gun murders in the US are gang and drug related, the most impactful idea would be blanket legalization of currently illegal recreational drugs (I use none now, and would use none if legalized). No more turf wars = far fewer deaths. But these folks are primarily minority urban victims so get little attention or fuss. To address the tiny fraction of gun deaths that are big media stories the best solution would be to fully fund and destigmatize mental health care and establish a consistent reporting structure to the NICS database that differentiates between the non-risky, the temporarily risky and the permanently risky patients (never been in or as far as I know needed that care myself). But none of tgose punishes or even inconveniences the nasty gun owning scum you obviously hate so non-starters I'm guessing. How about to go somewhat down that road and still deal with people who are actually a risk, we suggest a 15 yr non-parole eligible adder for serious crimes with a gun, even unfired. Rob, steal, fight, carjack, rape, threaten, assault, whatever with a gun and get 15 yrs added on. that would move most offenders past the peak criminal years and lessen reoffending risk as well as disincentivize armed crime.
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But do you know what all this will do to stop the current bete du jour infinitesimally likely and statistically irrelevant crimes like the movie thing that's got the grabbers all gleefully using it to push their crusades again? Bugger all. Just like any of your "ideas" would. Just like an absolute blanket ban would. Just like anything else you can think of would. Bugger all. Even if we magically could wave a wand and eliminate the existence, history and even idea of guns from all humanity, it would do bugger all to stop the mass murders committed by previously unremarkable people who go nuts. It wouldn't have stopped Kehoe blowng up three times as many. It wouldn't have stopped Gonzales burning seven times as many. According to data compiled by Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, guns killed an average of 4.92 victims per mass murder in the United States during the 20th century, just edging out knives, blunt objects, and bare hands, which killed 4.52 people per incident. Fire killed 6.82 people per mass murder, while explosives far outpaced the other options at 20.82. Of the 25 deadliest mass murders in the 20th century, 52 percent involved guns.
How do we stop these? We can't. The only thing likely to even reduce them is as unconstitutional as regulating intrastate commerce to enforce, but it would be a great help if voluntarily followed. We could stop talking about them, publicizing them, turning their perpetrators into household names and giving them the undivided attention of tens of millions of strangers slavering for every salacious detail. It's impossible of course, but it would do far more to disincentivize such things than making getting guns expensive, inconvenient, or even impossible.