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sc94597 said:
Thank you for engaging with the questions I asked. While the bolded works to prevent the future sales of semi-automatic weapons from licensed dealers, how does one reduce weapons already owned from circulating? There are enough guns in the U.S for almost everyone to have two, and plenty of people who have hoarded them. You mention that there can be hefty fines when somebody is found with a weapon without a license. But many people with these particular weapons live in Second Amendment sanctuaries.The likelihood that they would even be reported and/or there is evidence that they own the weapon (since there are no registries) is slim if they live in these counties/states. Buy-back programs would have to be very generous, especially when the price of the weapon suddenly increases if there is no new production. New York for example had a buy-back program with very low compliance. The discussion surrounding race isn't to make an excuse, but to bring it to the forefront that enacting even more strong gun-law criminalization will lead to more inequalities between races. It is only a separate issue if the race issue is addressed before or concurrently to the enactment of the laws. Addressing the race issue addresses many of these mass-shootings at the source anyway. Advocates of gun control as the solution, should be even stronger advocates against white-supremacy because eliminating white-supremacy is the only mechanism in which gun laws can be equitably applied. Having said all of that, I do support a licensing system. The sort of licensing system that is found in the Czech Republic would probably be quite an easy sell. Alternatively, one of the best ideas for a licensing system I've heard is to have multiple different classes of fire-arms based on if they are rim-fire or center-fire, concealable vs. non-concealable, etc, and to couple the license with a nationwide carry permit to act as an incentive for gun owners to become licensed so that they can carry seamlessly across states. It isn't clear to me that this really solves the problem of there being hundreds of millions of guns already in circulation though, although it does solve other problems -- like educating gun owners on safe-storage, accident prevention, theft prevention, etc. |
I did not know about second amendment sanctuaries. Americans are even crazier than I thought... Why is that a thing. Get rid of them first. If you don't agree with the law, you don't create a law free area. Why was this allowed to evolve? Wth...
You can start from the other direction, make gunpowder a controlled substance. Sure, there's tons of ammunition around and you can make your own bullets. Same for alcohol and drugs though. The extra barrier helps.
It seems to work for Czech republic, still only at half the number of guns / 100 inhabitants as Canada. But you're right, there are still far too many guns in the USA. If you look at this table:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
Venezuela sits at nearly 50 gun related deaths per 100,000, USA at 12.2, 18.5 guns / 100 inhabitants in Venezuela vs 120.5 / 100 in the USA. Yet there are no school shootings in Venezuela. Kids apparently don't have access to guns.
Part of the education for a licensing system is to keep guns safely locked away. So it would help. Of course if you want to keep a loaded gun under your pillow because of armed home invasion risk...
You got to start somewhere, so good idea to start with licensing and education. You would think parents would get it by now, but it just keeps happening. If your kid takes your car for a joy-ride, aren't the parents responsible for the damage caused? Do the parents get charged with accessory to murder in school shootings?
It's been tried as involuntary manslaughter
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/14/opinion/school-shootings-parents.html
It is not unheard-of for adults to be charged with child abuse, violation of gun laws or even involuntary manslaughter after children too young to be prosecuted accidentally shoot themselves or other children. But for the most part, adult prosecution for school shootings by children is rare:
Between 1999 and 2018, children committed at least 145 school shootings, according to a review from The Washington Post.
Children used guns taken from their own homes or from those of relatives or friends in 84 of the 105 instances where a source could be identified, or about 80 percent of the time.
Across those 84 cases, just four adult owners were ever convicted of a crime.
“I can’t think of a high-profile mass shooting where the parents were prosecuted,” said Allison Anderman, director of local policy at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Why? Legal experts told The Times that a major hurdle to prosecution is the absence in most states — including Michigan — of what’s known as child-access prevention, or C.A.P., laws, which require gun owners to secure their weapons when children are in the household. McDonald has tried to get around that hurdle by charging the parents with involuntary manslaughter.
And we're back to racism why it's a bad idea
“Given common negative stereotypes about Black criminality and parental irresponsibility, holding parents responsible for their children’s felonies could easily lead to still more racially disparate prosecutions,” he writes in The Washington Post. And because racial minorities are also more at risk for gang involvement, “prosecutors might target Black parents who fail to identify warning signs in advance and don’t intervene before someone gets hurt or killed.”
Get those C.A.P. laws nation wide first thing. The more I dive into this rabbit hole, the scarier the USA gets as a country...
This seems to be the last of that case (delayed)
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/judge-delays-case-against-michigan-school-suspect-s-parents-1.5706275
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/judge-won-t-lower-bond-for-michigan-school-shooting-suspect-s-parents-1.5866627
That was April 19th. So I guess they are still in county jail waiting for trial.
Bullying and child neglect should be taken more seriously everywhere. We had tragic news a couple months ago. A 12 year old girl that used to live in our neighborhood and stayed at our house a couple times took her own life. She swallowed a full bottle or Tylenol and Advil. By the time they found her, her liver had sustained too much damage and she died in the hospital.
It makes you wonder if you could have done more. We called the school years ago with our concerns of how she was mostly on her own. Hanging out at the park by herself not even 10 years old. She was bullied at school because of her weight and ultimately didn't survive the move back to in school learning. I don't know if the parents could have done more, they were well aware and tried to get her more help:
https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/brantford-family-calls-for-increased-youth-mental-health-services-after-losing-12-year-old-daughter-1.5850300
The difference with the USA is, too easy to turn suicide into murder spree suicide. Yet the root cause is the same. Guns don't cause depression, but they do add collateral damage and make it a lot easier to commit suicide as well as accidental deaths.
It's not an easy problem, inequality, racism, bullying, lack of counseling, lack of supervision, class size, school size, it all plays a big part.
