I live in New Mexico where I could get a CCW permit essentially guaranteed if I spent $100 on a weekend course. I don't have one, because I don't really feel a need for one--but I could get one if I wanted, just like anyone else in the state. I find it abhorrent that in California, you can only get a permit if you're well-connected: see Dianne Feinstein being the only CCW-holder in San Francisco for years while simultaneously pushing for stronger gun control.
Feinstein claims that she no longer has a CCW permit, but that she once did. So while Feinstein once probably had most or all of the CCW permits issued in SF county, that is no longer true.
yeah, WI has some pretty insanely lax gun laws. It took me <30 min to buy my first handgun. I don't have a CCW yet, but it's $150~ and half a days worth of online courses and some paperwork.
The most bizarre thing to me is that background checks aren't required for private firearm sales.
I feel like there should be a waiting period for your first gun, to reduce the risk of someone in crisis buying one. But once you own a gun, the risk of your second gun seems negligible to me.
But yeah, no background checks on private gun sales is insane. No idea why that's legal anywhere.
IMO there should be a mandatory waiting period of 24-48 hours for any firearm, but you should be able to start the process over the phone/online etc.
Alternatively, require training + passing an exam similar to getting a drivers license for owning anything except a manual long-barrel rifle or shotgun. Semi-auto firearms especially should require licensing/training IMO. Restrictions on magazine size or appearance ("assault rifle" lol) are generally dumb and fail to address real problems. I think it's reasonable to know who probably has a gun (ie. through a license program), but I'm generally against mandatory gun registration (though voluntary registration is fine).
Typically speaking waiting periods are about reducing the risk of someone in a crisis purchasing a firearm and immediately using it for harm, usually either suicide or domestic violence. From a public health perspective there is very little increase in danger for someone buying a second gun, especially of the same type. All of the risk is for their first firearm.
IIRC licensing programs for handguns typically have shown promising results in reducing firearm suicide in particular, but they're also unpopular for predictable political reasons. If you're pro-firearm, there is very little difference between "you have to register your gun" and "you have to register to buy a gun".
> Typically speaking waiting periods are about reducing the risk of someone in a crisis purchasing a firearm and immediately using it for harm, usually either suicide or domestic violence. From a public health perspective there is very little increase in danger for someone buying a second gun, especially of the same type. All of the risk is for their first firearm.
This assumes that people don't get rid of firearms or have changes in mental health. There doesn't seem to be much of a justifiable reason to get a gun on short notice, so why not just apply it universally?
> If you're pro-firearm, there is very little difference between "you have to register your gun" and "you have to register to buy a gun".
I'm pro firearm. I'm also vehemently pro education. If you need a license to prove you can safely operate a motor vehicle, you should need a license to purchase a semi-automatic weapon IMO.
I disagree, there is a functional difference between licensing gun owners vs registering guns. One tracks that an owner has gone through training and is authorized to purchase certain types of weapons. It doesn't concretely determine whether they own, or have ever owned a firearm, just like a driver's license does not determine that I own, or have ever owned a motor vehicle (just that I was able to borrow one for the duration of my practical exam). Further, mandatory registration of firearms would include things such as purchase date, serial number, model, location of purchase, etc., which is actually new information that could be potentially used to track and confiscate firearms under certain circumstances. I'd also like to point out that a background check gives more info about the purchase of firearms than a license would. It tells: the date of purchase, the rough type of firearm (handgun vs anything else, at least in WI), and the location of purchase.
You know, I wanted to prove you wrong about the car licensing vs gun licensing thing by comparing deaths and honestly I proved myself wrong basically. For as little as you deal with a firearm on a day to day basis as opposed to a vehicle, their death tolls per year are very similar. The simple fact that we drive 2 ton + vehicles everyday and not kill eachother constantly is a testament to either A. constant use and exposure aids in safety B. gun safety just isn't a thing C. guns are mostly used for suicides and crime
Generally people who are going to make rash decisions and plan them out acquire firearms in any way their allowed. If it means waiting a day, they will do it. Just because some arbitrary law exists doesn't mean it'll delay or prevent the inevitable. With suicidal and depressive types as well. They aren't like homer simpson purchasing a firearm thinking "aww, I'm suicidal now!" They're pretty much at the breaking point if that happens and literally nothing short of imprisonment can stop them.
That’s actually not true. One of the things we understand about suicide is that it’s often an impulse decision, and access to immediate and reliable means of suicide has a huge impact on overall suicide rates. Even moderate barriers to suicide can actually permanently reduce the rate of suicide in a population. It’s been repeatedly shown that when one method of suicide is made harder, the decrease in that method are not completely offset by other methods.
So when we do seemingly minor things like eliminating CO in domestic gas (“head in oven” was a common suicide method due to CO), increasing the height of railings on a bridge, or even making someone purchasing their first firearm wait a few days, this can often have a significant impact on whether someone actually ends up killing themselves. Suicide isn’t at all inevitable like you say.
What you and professionals consider an "impulsive decision," many depressive types have been considering or have considered but never told anybody for a long time. It only seems impulsive to you because it appears to be random. If anybody has any understanding of human psyche when they're depressed, they would know it's something you plan but play pretend to others so they don't suspect you need to be "locked up for your own good," as what tends to happen to people who try to seek help.
Mental health problems don't persist simply because people can easily buy guns and kill themselves. They continue because people are afraid their going to have their liberties taken away simply because they want help.
While I understand what you're getting it, typically your first gun isn't when the crisis occurs. Especially here unfortunately. Plus a lot of gun culture is tied to hunting culture.
I actually gave a gun to the police once cause I didn't want a rifle anymore (it was just a cheap mosin) and I could tell the cop was holding back a grin of disbelief the entire time. $5 bucks says it's in his gun locker right now at home.
How? I truly do not go to states where open carry is a thing, for example. Guns are a controversial topic and I'm not the only one who would rather see them banned than legally purchasable.
That's a reasonable policy position to take. "You shouldn't live anywhere where you think CCW is a good idea" is not a policy position; you're just attacking someone else for either where they live or how they feel about their personal safety. Neither of those are terribly polite, and both are counterproductive towards your stated policy preferences. Nobody likes being looked down on.
It's not okay to accept corruption for a license you personally don't want. The license should either be not available, or shall issue. Anything else is saying "it's fine if public officials get to extort those citizens, because it's not over something I want".
A few years back, we had a snowstorm that knocked out power for 7 days. Knocking out power for 7 days meant our electric well pump didn't work. Our electric well pump not working meant that we didn't have water. We were snowed in with about 6 feet of snow, so roads weren't passable, so I couldn't go and get water, or food, or charcoal to cook the food with.
My neighbor had supplies and was generous enough to share them with me. While we wouldn't obviously wouldn't have died without access to the rest of the world for 3 or four days, it would have been very uncomfortable to endure without any food or water, and that's relative to the discomfort we already had without heat, wherein we literally spent large swaths of the day under every blanket we had, huddled together for heat we also didn't have without electricity.
The next house I bought had a fireplace. We stock wood to be prepared for the unlikely catastrophe of having to endure prolonged absence of electricity.
We put fire-specific extinguishers in our kitchen, our garage, and our basement to protect against the unlikely catastrophe of fire.
We keep 10 gallons of water in the basement to protect against the unlikely catastrophe of losing electricity, and the usage of our well pump.
We keep first aid kits with bandages and neosporin in the bathrooms of our house to protect against knife cuts, or puncture wounds, or glass breaks that draw blood.
We keep a few days worth of canned goods to protect against food shortage.
We keep charcoal to protect against the inability to use our stove, and I have fire-making equipment (ferro rods, a high carbon knife, flints, emergency matches, birthday candles, charcloth) for use while camping or backpacking, but I always maintain an abundance -- just in case.
Many people do much of the above: Almost everyone has a fire extinguisher, or a first aid kit, some canned goods. The government recommends these things, in fact, and there's a run on things like these (and generators, and foodstuffs) before every natural emergency. Many people also maintain gardens for sustainability.
Whether or not those things make people "feel safe" is not even in the same category, but I'd argue that it makes many people feel safe to know that they have their own food and water and heat should the system demand it. You're arbitrarily drawing a line at guns and shaming people for wanting to protect against unlikely catastrophes it may defend against.
The wide availability of guns seems to be one of the major underlying reasons for the evil police. Taking them away wouldn't magically fix things, but it would help keep things from regressing after fixing the more direct problems
>The wide availability of guns seems to be one of the major underlying reasons for the evil police.
What?
Wrongful police shootings may dominate the headlines but they are a rounding error compared to asset forfeiture abuse, discriminatory enforcement, lesser forms of police violence and good ol' influence peddling. For everyone that's shot for no good reason there's hundreds of people who are unnecessarily roughed up, tazed or just have their money taken under color of law (I consider a fishing stop that ends in a BS ticket instead of a warning to be in the latter category).
My favorite is how cops in CA are allowed to buy off-roster guns[0]. Apparently a Glock 19 Gen 5 is just too dangerous for citizens (but a Gen 3 is fine), however cops are allowed to own them personally because ... reasons.
0 - CA has a roster of handguns legal for private purchase and ownership. The list includes every gun that was for sale when the roster was created, plus any gun that meets CA's microstamping law. The second list is exactly 0 guns long; both because it's not clear if it's technically possible, and because gun companies have no interest in playing along. The result is that there are all kinds of arbitrary restrictions on guns based on the date, not anything even vaguely related to public safety. Oh, and guns eventually fall off the roster after a certain grace period, so eventually there will be no handguns legally for sale in CA barring a change to the law or a court case.
