Posted: Jan 17, 2018 4:44 pm
laklak wrote:The nicest thing about owning guns is knowing that I have the means for a quick exit if necessary. Well, assuming I don't stroke out or dement or otherwise lose the capability to do so. Ain't gonna be pretty for whoever cleans up the mess, but I've promised Mrs. Lak I'll do it in the garden where she can just use a hose. The second nicest thing is knowing I have the means for someone else's quick exit if necessary. Subject to the same constraints as above.
Registration and licensing, sure, why not? The oliphant in the room is how you gonna find all those pre-background check ones? Now, the Feds claim they don't keep those background check records, but I'm skeptical, so they know about two of mine (plus there's the concealed carry license). The others aren't on anyone's list. I've no idea how many of the estimated 300+ million firearms in the U.S. fall into the same category, but I'm betting it's a substantial percentage. With approximately 125 million households in the U.S., how you going to find them? House to house serach? Somehow I can't see them looking in every septic tank or tearing up every couch. I've heard suggestions that we restrict ammo sales to only registered owners, but that's a bit of a red herring too. I'm not considered even an entry-level gun nut by my true gun nut acquaintances, but I've got several thousand rounds of ammunition stashed. Some of them have, literally, 10s of thousands of rounds. All with no records of any kind. No matter how you slice it you're not getting rid of them easily, particularly since most of the aforementioned true gun nuts would go out in a hail of bullets, taking a few Gestapo ATF agents with them.
There are some measures that can be taken. They aren't popular for some reason. NPR seldom talks about them on the days that they declare 'all massacre news, all day long' (they actually did that after the Las vegas thing). I know of a several guys that have cracked their brains into oblivion. The police arrest these guys about twice a year. They put them in a cell and wait for some prescribed time and then just let them out. Now granted these guys probably made felony status at least once and even if they could pass a background check they couldn't fill out the forms and they would NEVER spend money on a gun. They need that money for crack. But they still could find guns.
If we actually paid attention, trained the fucking police to see mental illness when it's writhing on the floor in handcuffs before their eyes, and got these people into hospitals instead of cells... Just maybe.