| Chrkeller said: Racial profiling isn't the same as gun control. With all due respect your argument non sequitur. And we should fix both. Using one to block the other is silly. |
I don't fully agree.
Bias in the policing system is an issue inherent to all changes in our legislation which increases interactions between civilians and police. It is not off topic to say "We should be careful about trying to solve this problem by throwing laws at individuals", it is an entirely valid concern. Now, that of course doesn't mean we should do nothing, but we should look at the many points in the chain instead of simply the final one. This is part of the reason I feel point-of-sale laws are likely to be better than possession laws. The implementation issues that come with the latter don't hit the former in the same way. Further, especially when it comes to sales by businesses, this is something that can be regulated by the Federal government, avoiding issues with sanctuary cities and police violence to a large degree.
sc94597 said:
The logic behind allowing Class 3 is that Switzerland and the Czech Republic have similar allowances with very low criminality. This strongly hints that other social factors, like income equality and relative social integration are pretty crucial in reducing violent crime. I can support a 21 year old age limit for Class 2 + in so much as the military also must be limited to 21 year olds or older to join. I think allowing supervised Class 1 for people under 21 years old is fine for hunting and game shooting. I don't think people with substance abuse issues should necessarily be banned because that creates a disincentive to seek help for one's substance abuse problem, but agree about non-felony domestic violence. I think there is some fundamental issue with prisons if they don't actually do what their advocates say they do -- reform criminals. If people don't exit prisons reformed there is something fundamental that needs to change about them, as that is the entire ostensible basis for their existence. See: Prisons: A Social Crime and Failure Personally I think the overwhelming majority of crime is based on people trying to meet their material needs through illegal means. If those material needs are met, the bulk of crimes don't happen. This is what I see as the major difference between the U.S and other developed countries. |
I feel like if we get to a point where we have low crime, we can perhaps allow those Class 3 weapons then, but until that point it doesn't seem to make sense to me.
As for substance abuse, the reason it is included is because it is a strong predictor of gun violence. This operates on largely the same level as mental health evaluations, and the same argument could be made regarding mental health (banning people who wouldn't pass a mental health screening disincentivizes seeking help). However, especially with substance abuse, this is often something that comes with legal consequences if left untreated, so disincentive effects would be less prevalent. Overall, I feel that this is a trade-off that I am more than willing to make. As previously stated, I do believe that there should be a path to being allowed to own a firearm, however I don't know what that would specifically look like.
I agree with your point regarding prisons, however until this issue is fixed, I think this is a key reason why we should not return gun rights to felons after serving their sentence. It may be a long term goal, but it would be reckless to return these rights without first fixing the prison system.
