Discussion: Obama Explores Unilateral Steps On Gun Control

Discussion for article #244235

With respect, Mr. President, the single most important thing you can do is to make sure that Wayne LaPierre never repeats his boast from 2000 that the NRA has “a president where we work out of their office.”

I, for one, am sick and tired of subsidizing the gun industry.

A modest proposal: order DOJ to perform an economic analysis of the annual societal cost of gun violence, considering

  • mortality risk, using EPA value of statistical life
  • medical treatments of gun injuries
  • gun-facilitated non-injury crime (i.e., thefts)
  • added policing and courts
  • increased security measures (e.g., metal detectors at schools)
  • lost productivity of businesses
  • lost tourism income because foreign travelers decline to visit US

An excise tax on guns would seem to be an appropriate offset, but would do nothing about the 300M+ guns already in circulation. Tip of the hat to the late Sen. Moynihan, a user fee on bullets would be more effective. The paltry surtax currently levied on bullets to fund ATF, yielding pennies per round, is clearly insufficient. By my rough calculation, something along the lines of $10 per bullet would be a good ballpark estimate for the fee needed to compensate society for gun mayhem.

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It must be liberating to be in your last term and be able to stick this stuff in the GOPers faces. Even simple background checks are too much for these fuckers. I hope he makes their lives even more miserable in 2016

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The National Rifle Association opposes expanded background check systems. The organization’s Institute for Legislative Action says studies have shown that people sent to state prison because of gun crimes typically get guns through theft, the black market or family and friends.

Also, many purchases by criminals are made from straw purchasers who pass background checks. “No amount of background checks can stop these criminals,” says the group’s website.

This is true. But, the other way of looking at the NRA’s study results is that a gun sold to an honest, law-abiding citizen at the beginning of a year is many times (I believe the statistic is something like 10-50 depending on the threshold definition for self defense with a gun) more likely to be stolen and end up on the black market by the end of the year, than to be used in a self defense situation that year, and only marginally less likely to kill someone in the house (via accident or escalated altercation) than an intruder. So, yes, the majority of gun crime and violence in the US is not going to be affected by background checks.

We need to stop lumping unlike things together, though. There is a large body of gun violence which happens because well-meaning people lose control of their guns or lose control of their tempers. There is a smaller but still significant body of gun violence that happens because it is incredibly laughably easy for a mentally unstable person with a history of violence to obtain a gun, and then use that gun to perpetrate violence on friends, family, or co-workers, or less commonly random strangers. That latter set of victims is who background checks can help. Refusing to help them because of the former larger group is like refusing to vaccinate for polio because most people die from heart disease anyway.

Looking at that larger group, though, I am glad that the NRA finally agrees that current laws are nowhere near effective at preventing them. I am glad that the NRA is finally concerned about black market guns - the kind predominately sold at gun shows and through private sellers. Lets work with that. And, the NRA now wants to identify and prosecute straw purchasers, presumably in the only possible way which is a gun registry which links each gun sold to the person who bought it; welcome aboard the rational gun measures train, NRA! Also, the NRA is now also acknowledging that friends and family who supply criminals with guns should be held liable. We can work with that too. It is so great to have the NRA finally acknowledging reality and determined to enact truly effective gun safety measures.

Oh, I guess that’s not what they meant to say.

Yeah, what stood out for me was the ease with which other people facilitate the possession and use of guns by the violent or mentally ill. Theft? Why weren’t the guns secure before they were stolen? Black market? How do they think those guns move into the stream? Family and friends? Who are these people more likely to injure than family and friends? And straw purchasers? They would stand out like sore trigger fingers if there was any follow up on background checks. Alas no financing to prevent any of it.

Much as I love what the President is doing, someone else suggested homeowner’s insurance is the way to go. Gun in the house? Premiums go up. Lie on the policy application and something happens to an innocent person? Prosecute for fraud and deny the claim. Make them pay everything they own, then settle the suit with the victim. Hit these mothers where it hurts - free enterprise.

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Require gun sellers to have hospital admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.

That seems to work to make clinics safer, they say.

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A unilateral bitch slap to the NRA for starters and just for good measure would get the ball rolling quite nicely. How can the President fuck with them and make their existence not a happy one, Presidentially of course, it goes without saying that it would be in classic Obama style.

The idea that so many ‘accidents’ happen daily in this nation with no consequence would be a great place to begin as well. Abuse your gun rights and go to jail.

Then get mean with military type weapons, make them illegal to possess, sell or purchase and follow up on that one hard.
The gun nut that wants to fight back against his own government for governing, DOH!, would most likely break out his assault rifle at which point he could be arrested on multiple charges. If we could criminalize idiocy, then there would be another charge, BOOM!

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The National Rifle Association opposes expanded background check systems. The organization’s Institute for Legislative Action says studies have shown that people sent to state prison because of gun crimes typically get guns through theft, the black market or family and friends.

So we should make it easier for them?

I recall when they were cracking down on smoking at my high school (70s-80s), and people were saying. “well, the kids are going to smoke anyway” (illegally) and argued for a smoking section. My mother’s retort was that kids were going to have sex anyway, but you wouldn’t put beds in the high school.

Seriously, if it stops one death, that’s enough. But it will stop more than one.

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Funny how nobody else can seem to find any data.

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How dangerous people get their guns

See above.

I and a few others here have posited this. It never seems to get any traction on congress however. Perhaps it’s makes far too much sense.

I’m a historian. There has always been an answer to gun control and I ask that you read the following carefully.

Merriam Webster Dictionary: Liberty (an inalienable right as per Declaration of Independence) : " the state of being free;
This lives in the second clause in the front half and so called mistakenly interpreted prefatory clause of the Supreme Court)
“being necessary to the security of a free State” (of mind, think butterflies and bunny rabbits, not Colony).
How is this to be accomplished? With Gun control of course
"A well regulated Militia (not well-regulated as previously discerned and modified to make the third clause fit) A Militia is of course just people and Arms,
which are timeless variables and now we can connect the front and back of the 2nd amendment.
Step 1: A well regulated (Militia)
Step 2: being necessary to the security of a free State
Step 3: the right of the people to keep and bear Arms (these are output variables derived from Arms regulation. The guns are on trial, because a mans motive can never be anticipated, don’t empower it in the first place. This is a check and balance in the constitution, a check and balance against power. Sound familiar?)
Step 4: shall not e infringed. "the gun debate is over. No government or ideological can infringe on this constitutional right to common sense reality based Arms/ Gun Control. It is protected by the Supremacy Clause. It is protected by a 2/3 house and senate vote.
Currently the Supreme Court is in gross violation of the constitution
“the right to keep and bear Arms” never existed.
"the right to self defense , at least from a constitutional standpoint never existed.
The wiggle room has just completely vanished.
If the Supreme Court, Congress or the Senate are in violation of this then they could be charged with High Treason. They would be Arming an internal Army.
The framers knew this would not be endorsed in the 18th or even 19th centuries because it was ahead of its time. Benjamin Franklin crafted this by at least 1752 when James Madison was only one year of age. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay knew of this and fully endorsed it. I read this on Dec 2, 2015 and couldn’t debate English. I could however see how it could have been confused. It was a literal sleight of hand so that it would get ratified by the other delegates who would simply read what they wanted too. “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” was nothing more than a worm on a hook. At no time in 224 years has anyone needed to raise Arms against a tyrant because the real checks and balances are working perfectly.
The lengths that these men went to support and tell the full narrative of history is quite frankly astonishing. It far surpassed politics in their goal of providing the perfect constitution for the future of their nation. The constitution was written to guide human nature , in spite of human nature. It was anticipated that when read subjectively gun violence would increase and one the 2nd amendment would be scrutinized more and more until finally one day someone would crack it.
That person just happened to be me.

If you are patriot or are tired of gun violence share and escalate this. If you just find this “neat” or prefer to keep burying Americans while you keep shooting each other than don’t. I have been working on behalf of these men for over a year and a half.
Here is a letter from Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson dated June 12, 1823. I have little doubt that this is only an essay written under the guise of being a letter. It was only mailed in the sense that it had been archived.
“History may distort truth, and will distort it for a time, by the superior efforts at justification of those who are conscious of needing it most. Nor will the opening scenes of our present government be seen in their true aspect, until the letters of the day, now held in private hoards, shall be broken up and laid open to public view. What a treasure will be found in General Washington’s cabinet, when it shall pass into the hands of as candid a friend to truth as he was himself!"[1]
I have located close to 400 of those privately hoarded letters.
This is the excerpt from that letter which James Madison wrote Sept 15, 1821 which is almost exactly three decades from the ratification date of the Bill of Rights.
“In general it had appeared to me that it might be best to let the work be a posthumous one; or at least that its publication should be delayed till the Constitution should be well settled by practice, & till a knowledge of the controversial part of the proceedings of its framers could be turned to no improper account.” [2]
A few sentences later James Madison goes on to say this.
“the legitimate meaning of the Instrument must be derived from the text itself; or if a key is to be sought elsewhere, it must be not in the opinions or intentions of the Body which planned & proposed the Constitution”[2]
He too is being somewhat aloof as if they had hidden something. Now what do you suppose he meant by “must be derived by the text itself”. Its almost like he is referencing the instrument as being a sentence and asking us to read it objectively, doesn’t it?
As I stated, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” never existed and in it’s place is the “treasure” or the final legacy of the United States Constitution. The 2nd amendment has been re-authored by the biases of men for want of power, but in the context of “Me the People” and not "We the People.
[1]https://founders.archives.gov/do…
[2]https://founders.archives.gov/do…

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I have asked the moderators to evaluate this poster, I think it is excessive to post the same long post in year-old post…