Air-tight defence

I just think we need to clarify this: If you ever see a person with the face like the one Denmark has in the first panel, at the prospect of holding a gun.

DO NOT!... And I repeat: DO NOT GIVE THAT PERSON A DAMN GUN!.

Denmark probably shot Sweden on purpose, out of habit!

Ah yes the Viking horns. Whenever we wear them, you can throw all seriousness out the window. It's like a mark of self-parody.

Just thought, North should probably not wear a Christian cross. Because you know... his time was before the White Christ really.

@atreju I think its just a combination of the flags and is not related to religion.

@atreju, maybe it's a circle-cross, but we can't see the edges. Circle-crosses are universal.

See, if proper gun safety training was part of the police academy training, they would have already BEEN trained to know how to use them safely and properly. You don't give a car to someone without making sure they have been properly taught and certified. And certification would indicate who has had specific training for which specific guns. A rifle is different than handgun.

@CaliforniaAmazon Aaaand this is why I say the US should license guns like vehicles, and everyone should be able to get any gun for which they pass the written and range tests at "The Department of Firearms." Or whose crew passes it, in the case of weapons practically impossible for even the most competent person to responsibly operate alone (e.g. artillery, tanks.) Think of it this way: In addition to written and road tests, a drivers license requires regular eye tests, but any blind person with a clean criminal and mental health record can buy a gun everywhere in the US. I used to make that statement hyperbolically until I read an article last year about some bunch of protesters defending the right of blind people to have guns, on the grounds "they can just aim where they hear!"

@JOL
Only one problem with that. Who gets to decide the criteria of competency in the test? In some places you practically have to be a cop, a retired cop, or a friend of the mayor to get to carry, or just keep in your home, a gun. If the DMV were worked out with an eye toward preventing anyone, (except a few Important People, or their chauffeurs,) from ever getting behind the wheel of a car, would you be behind that?
It's one thing to say we need better safety, but many of the people who are saying we "just need" a "little" more safety are trying to hamstring ownership, carry, and legitimate use, (including self-defense,) behind so many restrictions that no one has the time, patience, or finances to seriously pursue it.

@SeanR The Constitution tells us who gets to decide the criteria:

"The Congress shall have the power... To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress...." (Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 16)

Congress sets the criteria, which states ensure are met.

Note also that 10 USC Subt. A, Part I, Ch. 13, § 311 defines "militia" as "all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard."

I do not know which places guns are restricted to past/present cops and friends of municipal government officers, none are in the US since McDonald v. Chicago, because the SCOTUS incorporated the Second Amendment onto the states (and even CITIES) along with all the other Bill of Rights provisions previous SCOTUS rulings applied to states via the Fourteenth Amendments Due Process Clause.

This is not as complex as the competing minority fringes make it. For all the sneers about "disarmed" European citizens, per capita gun ownership is higher in most European countries than in almost every country EXCEPT the US, yet those same countries also manage some of the worlds lowest homicide rates: Because guns are strictly REGULATED (as if for a well regulated militia) but FREELY AVAILABLE to ALL who abide by those regulations. None of this nonsense about needing to let people sell shotguns out of the back of their pickup without checking whether customers have rap sheets, lest that somehow deny guns to customers with NO rap sheet. Likewise none of this nonsense about broadcasting commercials telling four-year-olds to beg their parents for child-sized rifles firing grownup .22 shells.

A short drive from where I type lies an unsupervised Norwegian range where anyone can show up any time, raise the warning flag and start shooting: But criminals, lunatics, children and everyone who does not know how to safely maintain and operate a gun are barred by laws against such people having a gun in the first place. This is what happens when the public refuses to let the "guns for all" and "guns for none" radical fringes dominate gun policy discussions to the exclusion of the rational majority too justifiably frightened of both radical groups to allow ANY change as long as one or the other of them would dictate it. Better the flawed status quo than the far worse opposing extremes on offer.

Bottom line: I fully support any gun ownership by everyone competent and no one incompetent, and with equal fervor. The US Code defines the militia as pretty much every law-abiding adult citizen, while the Constitution expressly empowers Congress to regulate (or "discipline") that militia and the states to maintain that discipline. The highly variable nature of US gun policy is a good example of why there is no state right to decide who gets what CIVIL rights. Likewise abortion, another issue where radical fringes ensure laws in some US states are far more but those in others far less restrictive than Europes. For an even better example of why states rights trump federal authority but not individual rights: Slavery. The Bill of Rights made the heirarchy quite clear: Federal authority>state authority>individual authority, but individual rights>state rights>federal "rights."

@JOL
I'm not prepared to argue with you on most of these, and hope you're right. I've not checked to see how Illinois, California, New York, New Jersey, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia have reacted to that legal defeat.
My brother was stationed in Hawaii a few years back, before the verdict. Hawaii has had CCL for awhile, but to hear him tell it, it was pretty much you had to be a celebrity to qualify. I've heard similar for California.
Yes, since Illinois was forced to allow for CCL, every state has had CCL for its citizens, in theory.
It's why I used the word "practically".
As you might guess, I live in one of the "shall issue" states, and hope never to be forced to reside in a "may issue" state.
I've heard New York's CCL application process is particularly onerous. Maybe that has changed, but I wouldn't bet on it.

As for selling guns out of the back of a truck. There are two things wrong with that argument. If you sell a gun, you better remember who you sold it to; Someone remembers selling it to you. The gun store it last passed through has official records on who it was sold to. Even the "gun show loophole" hasn't been more than a theory for most of the years since the instant background check was implemented. The first year it was in effect, I saw a few dealers with signs on their tables saying "private collection", indicating they weren't doing the newly implemented background checks. Not since. Nearly all the booths at a gun show are licensed dealers already, who abide, and have to abide, by the law that says they have to run the check. Everyone else does so because who wants to be the guy who sold a gun to a madman? Doing so knowingly is already a crime, whether or not you were obligated to check with the FBI first.

Criminals and former criminals are already barred from buying guns. Whether or not this is appropriate is questionable. We seem to have created a new underclass in our ex-con population, to replace all those former underclasses we're no longer allowed to give the really rotten jobs to. I sometimes think it was subconsciously intentional. Owning a gun is just one more thing they can never again do, along with voting, or getting employment in certain fields, (or easily getting employment in any field where HR does even a cursory background check.)

Finally, while you cited the body of the constitution, I'll cite the classic for this topic, the 2nd amendment. It, like most of the rest, is a restriction on the government, forbidding it from abridging the right of the people to keep and carry weapons. That amendment was tacked on, along with the other original nine, to appease the anti-federalists, and as such, means the language of the main body isn't to be interpreted in a way that would allow the federal government to disarm the populous, just because congress has decided an unarmed, or poorly armed, populous makes for a more ordered militia.
Not that the congress has ever let a little thing like the constitution, or the spirit of the document, get in the way of writing laws that sidestep its intent.

As an aside, frankly, that may be the "easiest" way out of our prison overpopulation addiction. Declare that ex-cons only count as three-fifths of a person when determining representation. See how reluctant states are to incarcerate so many, when it means they have fewer congressmen as a consequence. I wonder how well that'd play?

@SeanR Yeah, concealed carry is difficult to impossible in about half the states: Because the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear, not keep, bear and HIDE. Concealment remains a purely offensive advantage as surely as when Old West residents considered everyone with a hidden gun a would-be assassin. That is another way the issue has gotten very screwed up since that shooting in Killeen back in the '90s: Instead of open carry being the default and concealed unacceptable, now it is increasingly the other way round. There is nothing wrong with every competent person having a gun, but also nothing wrong with insisting everyone else KNOW about it when they carry that gun in public.

The gun show loophole is no theory, but documented fact: A poll just LAST year asked gun owners if they had EVER had a background check; 46% said "no." In other words, 20 years after "mandatory" "universal" background checks became, US law, HALF OF ALL GUN OWNERS HAVE NEVER HAD A BACKGROUND CHECK. So what if a store remembers selling you a gun: Unless you're a federally licensed dealer you have no legal duty to do a check on anyone you sell it to; if they commit a crime with it, that is their problem (and their victims) not yours. Note the "federally" part; state licensed dealers have no duty to do a background check unless their particular state requires them.

As for felons as underclass, if that is a problem it is far bigger than guns, for reasons including (but not limited to) those you cite: Neither jobs nor votes have anything to do with guns, but felons are denied many jobs and all votes. Some states now fully restore rights of felons who complete their sentence (though not always immediately.) I personally feel everyone who remains a threat should remain in prison, but no one who has paid their debt should be forced to CONTINUE paying more indefinitely. Regardless, it should go without saying anyone who cannot be trusted with a vote cannot be trusted with a gun; they should regain gun rights along with all their other rights or not at all.

The Second Amendment in no way conflicts with, but rather complements, the Constitutions express empowerment of Congress to "discipline" (i.e. regulate) militia. If the men who framed both felt regulating militia infringed gun rights, why does the Second Amendment EXPLICITLY state "a WELL REGULATED militia" as its chief motive? That motive does not make militia the sole justification for guns, but does mean regulating the militia does not infringe gun rights, and since the militia is every law-abiding able-bodied adult citizen, that means Congress has the express constitutional power to regulate gun ownership and use by all of them. It cannot proscribe guns, but has both the power and duty to prescribe gun ownerships additional individual duties.

For the aside, no state (nor majority of them) will ever shrink its own House delegation by passing a law (nor otherwise.) The Fourteenth Amendment already denies states congressmen in proportion to the number of citizens denied voting rights because of race, yet many states challenged the Voting Rights Act with impunity so they could bring back poll taxes and literacy tests a half-century after the Twenty-Fourth Amendment banned both.

Think of it this way: The Fifth Amendments Due Process Clause says (in part) "No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The flip side is that due process CAN (and often does) revoke ANY citizens liberties up to and including their right to life, else those large prison populations and executions that have been accepted throughout all but a few decades of US history would be unconstitutional. Now, if due process can institutionalize criminals and the mentally incompetent, and deny the latter voting and contract rights even when it does not deny them freedom of movement--if it can legally and CONSTITUTIONALLY revoke the most heinous criminals LIVES--why could it not constitutionally revoke generally enjoyed gun rights from specific groups disqualified?

We agree on both the Second Amendments validity AND that some people should still not have guns, which raises the question you asked: Who decides how to identify those "some people"? SOMEONE must, and the Constitution tells us whom, fully consistent with its Second Amendment; ensuring a well regulated militia by in turn ensuring the peoples right to keep and bear arms does not prohibit disciplining the militia. Regulation is not restriction; throttles REGULATE engine speeds, but only Thermodynamics RESTRICTS them.

@JOL
You miss the meaning of "regulated", as it was used in the 18th century.
A decent paraphrase of the 2nd amendment today, would be. [as we need a militia, (by the definition you cited earlier) that is in good working order, no one gets to touch the right of the populous to possess and carry weapons.] It had nothing to do with the government managing the militia directly, but rather with the militia running like a well oiled machine. In this case, it's not the throttles that are regulating the engine, but rather the distributor and points, timing belt, and cam shaft, at least on older style engines.
But regardless, regulation by the modern definition becomes restriction very quickly, when the regulating agencies so desire.

To revisit voting, which you've touched on. Setting up mandatory training in order to purchase a gun, while fine in theory, opens the door to the same abuses that were perpetuated on "undesirable" voters. Imagine a "gun test" that requires you to have completed, not 10 hours of marksmanship and 4 hours of instruction, followed by a 20-question test, (to make sure you actually listened to all the things you do not do,), but rather one which requires you complete 36 hours of classroom instruction, at going college rates, (that's about a 2 hour semester course,) and a similar test that's 20 pages long, with 95% the minimum passing grade? That's the problem. I'd love it if every gun dealer made it a standing policy that no one gets to buy a gun until they demonstrate they know how to hold it properly, hold it responsibly, and put bullets in the general vicinity of the target downrange, (most gun dealers I'm familiar with do have indoor ranges,) but a law requiring that would be leveraged to disarm most people in very little time.
It SHOULD go over about as well as requiring all prospective voters to show a high school diploma, or equivalent, be able to read at a 6th grade level, and have passed a basic high school civics course...which isn't allowed because the laws that were passed like that, which make sense on the surface, were used to disenfranchise blacks, rather than verify they knew how to read, about the voting process itself, and the mechanics of the government.

P.S. Where did you get that 46% number? I have three things to say about it.
One. I was wrong about all FFL purchases going through the FBI. I found a map on an FBI page that shows which states use them exclusively, which use them for some purchases, and which ones keep it all in-house, (state government.)
Incidentally, CA is on the list of states that keeps all checks in-house, oddly enough. As is CT, IL, and NJ, but not NY, yet also TN and UT. Make of that what you will.
Two. At least a decade ago, the instant check amounted to the dealer reading off your name and DOB to an operator, agreeing with a bunch of things, thanking the operator, hanging up, returning your drivers license, and asking how you want to pay. As it is this transparent, I'm wondering how many people never realized they had been through the check. It was certainly easier than filling out the form that promises you're not a straw purchaser. Just sit back, listen to one side of a conversation for a few minutes, and you're done.

P.S. Can you provide a Youtube link to a commercial selling .22s and aimed at kids? I'd love to see one, as I never have.

P.P.S. it would be a vanishingly small portion of your 46%, but if you already have certain certifications, such as a CCL, you don't have to get an additional background check at the dealer. This is especially true if you purchased a gun first, then got the CCL with it, though not necessarily so, if you borrowed your friends firearm, so you could get the cert first, then the gun (at least here, there are 3 levels, and being certified to carry a semi-automatic clears you for both a revolver and a derringer, so even if you Intend to carry a revolver, you're well advised to get certified on the automatic, anyway).

@SeanR How was "discipline" used in the 18th Century? The way the Constitution used it to empower Congress to set and states to maintain militia "discipline." That denies no one ANY right, so does not conflict with the Second Amendment prohibition against infringing gun rights. Planes, trains and automobiles have been regulated for a century without once restricting possession: But owning and operating them legally requires demonstrated ability to do so responsibly, because they are as lethal with incompetent and/or reckless owners as they are useful responsible ones.

The voting comparison fails because the Constitution does not expressly give Congress the authority and duty to "discipline voters," states to maintain that discipline nor cite that discipline in an amendment gauranteeing voting rights: It leaves all elections standards to states, except for requiring all national elections be simultaneous.

The 46% of gun owners who have NEVER had a background check comes from this poll aggregator. Scroll down to the CNN/ORC poll from April 2013 (my memory erred; it was not 2014) and it is the penultimate question. Even more interesting (and revealing) are two of its earlier questions asked of all respondents (i.e. gun-owning and otherwise: )

Requiring gun owners to register with the state or local government and provide a set of fingerprints For: 66% Against: 33%

If the federal government does create a national list of people who own guns, do you think the government would use that information to take guns away from people who own them? Yes: 66% No: 32%

So 66% of people want mandatory gun owner registration AND believe government would use it to take their guns: US gun policy has become THAT irrationally contradictory since we let dueling extremist minorities hijack the discussion to exclusion of the vast rational majority. To the specific points:

One. Different states using different background checks even for FEDERALLY licensed dealers, and not obligated to use ANY for state licensed ones nor unlicensed sales, perfectly illustrates the problems magnitude, and the urgent critical need for UNIVERSAL background checks so we no longer have HALF OF ALL GUN OWNERS WHOLLY AVOIDING BACKGROUND CHECKS.

Two. Most people have enough snap to realize that if someone takes their license and starts reading their name off to someone on the phone they are being checked out, but one of the favorite arguments against universal background checks is that existing ones are supposedly intrusive and tedious: How can something be tedious, intrusive and UNNOTICEABLE?

Three. Rick Perry moment? ;-p Ironically, even one his recent objection to gun regulations stated TRAINED responsible owners (emphasis mine) are no threat to anyone; implicit in his statement was that all gun owners are trained and responsible, but we know that is not the case and that there are no laws requiring it. Hence the irony: Perry is 100% correct trained responsible gun owners are no threat to anyone, yet strongly opposes the SOLE means of ensuring gun owners ARE trained and responsible.

Here is that YouTube video of Crickets My First Rifle commercial "targeting" kids. It gets right to the point:

8-year-old (maybe) kid: Hey, where ya goin'?

10-year-old kid: To shoot my new Cricket rifle!

8-year-old: I wish I had one....

Save Christmas: By your toddlers pint-sized .22s--they even come in pink for girls! If you had not already, you may have heard about those rifles during last years cases of 4- and 5-year-olds killing their toddler siblings or friends with their new present. This is why BB guns were invented; pardon my saying so, but when one gives a pre-schooler a .22, what inevitably follows is not a tragic "accident," it is felony child endangerment.

People who avoided ADDITIONAL dealer background checks because they had a PRIOR CCL check would not say they had NEVER needed a background check to get a gun. Again: We already agreed only trained people should have guns; how do we get that without legally requiring it? Hope...?

@JOL
I don't feel discipline applies in this case, If it did, I think it'd involve a short <s>trial</s> court marshal, and a long rope. We're talking about what citizens are allowed to have on their own, not when acting under the orders of the government. Again, the 2nd amendment was tacked on as an assurance to the doubters that the federal government wouldn't "discover" the ability to lock up all the guns.
Kind of like they "discovered" the ability to force the states to post 55mph signs. Or they "discovered" (for a while at least,) the ability to restrict the possession of guns within some arbitrary radius of a school, (do you KNOW how many schools are situated on highways?), based on its potential impact on interstate commerce.

The voting comparison is to show that the government will use any lever in its arsenal to enact it's goals. If it has a lever that says it can set the standards required to vote, it'll set those standards to prevent "undesirables" from voting, while not ticking off the "good people", (hence, grandfather clauses). If it has a lever that says it can require all prospective gun owners demonstrate good marksmanship and sense prior to possessing a gun, it'll eventually set the requirements so high only Annie Oakley and a lawyer could pass it. One for each half of the examination. They might also go so far as to limit the evaluations to centralized locations that would require most prospective marksmen drive some five hundred miles on average in order to attend, on a Wednesday, between the hours of 9 and 3.

I found your CNN poll. I am frankly surprised they could find that many people who have apparently never purchased a gun in a gun shop or gun show. This is why I wonder if, somehow, the new buyers somehow missed that they were being given a background check, or what it entailed. I'm seriously wondering, if the respondents were answering in ignorance of the nature of some minor thing they had gone through.
Of course, they could be largely young adults who got all their guns under the Christmas tree, or baby boomers who haven't bought a gun since before the Clinton administration, but I'm suspecting ignorance of what a background check is, is a larger factor.

Your comment on 2/3rds vs. 1/3rd suggests you might not have considered that they may not be the same 2/3rds. If 1/3 is wholly trusting of the governments motives, and 2/3rds feel the government would use that data to confiscate guns, that 2/3rds who feel such a list SHOULD be made could be split 50-50 between those who trust the government not to do such confiscation, and those who want such a thing to happen.
Then there are those who are somewhere in the middle, who have been convinced by the popular media and some parts of the government that guns that look superficially like military arms shouldn't be available for private ownership (because Diane Sawyer and Hillary Clinton told them so, and they never lie), but delude themselves into thinking "normal" guns wouldn't be next to be confiscated.
Remember, that compromise is both the art of finding a middle ground between two parties, and also the practice of making something more prone to failure, generally in your favor. You compromise on dinner, but you compromise a wall.

Rick Perry moment? No. I just trust gun shops to look out for their own interests, and incidentally mine, more than I trust the federal government to look out for the interests of gun owners or gun dealers. While I'd PREFER everyone seek and get the training to be safe, I would rather not have that imposed upon this community from on high, as I fear it would fairly soon be abused to the point of a virtual ban.

Found the video. Watched the video. Do you honestly think that ad was aimed at kids? Why shouldn't parents be encouraged to pick up such a thing? A new shooter has to learn some time and under the guidance of a parent is far superior to figuring it out for themselves based on Hollywood misconceptions and urban lore.
Oh, and in comment on the joker who said parents should teach their little ones to count rounds.
No. Just, No.
A. Gun. Is. Always. Loaded.

How do we get a legal requirement that doesn't get used to cut the spirit right out of the 2nd amendment protections? Pray?
Incidentally, that map I found?
I'm not saying it's impossible to do, but it'd be a herculean task to arrange.
The page with the map I mentioned, had a lot of other interesting information around it. One of the datums was the availability, which has consistently been above 97%. That is, better than 97% of the time, a dealer calls in, they get an operator, (or a working web page.)
There was a line in the law that assured that. One that said, if the FBI manages to fail to reply within a certain number of working days, the dealer can go ahead as if the background check came back clear. So the FBI was strongly encouraged to have a system that created the fewest delays rather than being encouraged to clear the fewest possible.

P.S. Find me the law that creates the ESRB, MPAA, or the (now defunct) CCA.
All three regulating agencies were formed by the interested parties to STAVE OFF government over-regulation. MPAA for movies, ESRB for games, CCA for comic books, while it existed.

@SeanR Discipline applies here because 1) the Constitution expressly authorizes and requires Congress "discipline" the "militia" and 2) federal law essentially defines "the militia" as all law-abiding adult citizens. Remember, that was the POINT of the Minute Men, Second Amendment and all the rest: That citizens must not be wholly dependent on the aid or mercy of government-monopolized miltary force during foreign invasion or domestic tyranny. That is why the Constitution expressly empowers Congress to set militia discipline, but reserves its maintenance and officer appointments to states. Self-defense, hunting and all the rest are valid aspects of Second Amendment rights, and nice perks, but the GOAL is a citizen militia, which is right, proper AND CONSTITUTIONALLY SUBJECT TO CONGRESSIONAL DISCIPLINE. Again, the Second Amendment not only does not conflict with that, but reiterates it by citing "a well regulated militia" as the Second Amendments motive.

It is important to remember the same Founding Fathers whose insistence on citizen rights to arms began the American Revolution at Lexington and Concord also drafted the Constitution in response to Lexington veteran Daniel Shays abusing his gun rights by threatening the US itself. When another group of tax rebels tried the same thing after the Constitutions ratification, President Washington himself rode out at the head of a federal army to stop them. That ought to make clear that the Framers never intended the Second Amendment as carte blanche for every criminal, lunatic and child to have a gun regardless of how they might use or misuse it. Congress' constitutional authority over militia discipline was so great, and the militia so inclusive, that the Second Militia Act REQUIRED all adult citizens have guns to remain always ready for immediate militia service, and Framers who accepted and publicly endorsed the constitutionality of that Congressional discipline of militia included Secy. of State Thomas Jefferson and Vice President John Adams (the fathers of US liberalism AND conservatism, who agreed on virtually nothing else after the Revolution) and President George Washington. All that happened AFTER the Second Amendment was ratified, so either Congress' Article I authority and duty to discipline the militia remained intact, or the Framers running the first US administration blithely ignored the Second Amendment they and the states had just ratified. The Second Amendment is not, and was never meant to be, each citizens excuse for an impromptu violent revolution over every parking ticket.

No federal law requires a 55 mph speed limit, but receiving federal tax money to maintain state roads did--for about a decade; then states began calling the federal bluff and restored their speed limits to whatever each chose. The feds folded because they had no way to force state compliance, and would otherwise have faced growing outrage from state citizens denied federal funds they in part provided. Presto: No more national 55 mph speed limit; national gun confiscations would make that look like a walk in the park.

Whatever the voting comparisons goal, it still fails because the Constitution expressly authorizes and requires Congress discipline militia but does NOT do the same for voting. The sole exception is the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee all citizens CAN vote, but even that congressional authority was ignored until ANOTHER amendment and three more federal laws were passed. Far more importantly, denying black citizens voting rights was not the act of some anti-democratic government tyrant, but a demand of the overwhelming majority of "We, the People" in those states: Government simply obeyed the command of its master (i.e. the public.) As to regulation being the thin end of the wedge: Talk to the Framers, because they disagreed when they wrote the Constitution with a congressional mandate to discipline militia, then added a Second Amendment that states enabling that militia as its sole purpose. That may be an argument for a NEW constitutional amendment, but affirms no existing one.

Most people who dispute the infamous "40% gun loophole" stat would be surprised to learn 46% of gun owners slipped through that loophole, hence the citation. That surprise does not change what actual gun owners said when asked. If it remains as trivial as you recall (and, truthfully or not, others who regularly buy and sell guns have told me it is now FAR more involved) there is no harm in making it UNIVERSAL; if it is as onerous as its opponents claim we can be sure the 46% of gun owners who said they NEVER got a background check would know if they had.

I realize the two-thirds of poll respondents who support registration need not include the whole two-thirds who think that would cause confiscation, but half of either is the LEAST the other can include, even if the 66% who said yes to the second includes all the 33% of people who said no to the first: Another 33% had to come from somewhere, and only one other source exists. Yes, many of those are anti-gun, but that simply means the majority supporting owner registration includes many who doubt it would cause confiscation AND many who think it would but do not care: Either way, there public support for registration is overwhelming enough to send an a constitutional registration amendment to the states (but not quite enough to ratify it, especially not on a state-by-state basis.)

The "Rick Perry" comment was a half joke and half an excuse to cite his recent comments about "trained gun owners" being safe: You said, "for three reasons," then listed 1, 2 and "Oops...." ;-p But the point was that Perry is right trained gun owners are no threat: So why not mandate training to ensure all are safe? Because people who support univeral training "in principle" but CATEGORICALLY oppose it in practice assume it would make gun ownership impractical? As has happened with background checks that are non-universal, and mooted unless the FBI responds within a few days?

Yes, I think the video with one kid proudly showing off his gun to another saying, "Wish I had one.... " was aimed at kids: The whole premise is the classic "whine at your parents about all your friends having one until they buy it" pitch. It tends to incredibly annoy parents, so they probably were not the target audience. Yet parents should be actively discouraged from picking up such a thing for the reason previously alluded to: Because a toddler or elementary school kids first introduction to using weapons should not be lethal force any more than their first introduction to using vehicles should not be a stock car. Generations of US kids have gotten BB guns and bikes for Christmas for a very good reason; as a ten-year-old, learning the "just because you did not mean to shoot it does not make it any less dead" lesson from a BB guns effect on a bird was shaming and somewhat traumatic, but better than learning it from a .22s effect on, say, my dad.

How do we get a legal requirement that does not nullify the Second Amendment? As the Framers constitutionally stated: Congress regulates gun ownership duties and the states ensuring gun owners comply. If Congress has militia regulatory authority to make the whole militia (i.e. all law-abiding adult citizens) buy guns, it certainly has authority to make them prove they both have the gun and the training to use it competently. People have every right to dispute that, but let us not pretend it is about "protecting the Constitution:" Defying the Constitution does NOT affirm it.

As to government disarming the public: The fact the law says background checks are mooted unless the FBI responds within a few days demonstrates how unlikely it would be to try, and how impossible success would be. The Second Amendment remains a real and valid thing, but the minority notion it guarantees every strangers right to buy any gun from any other stranger with no questions asked is not only false but undermines popular support for the Second Amendment. No gun rights advocate can afford convincing undecided voters the Second Amendment is a blank check, so all gun rights advocates should stop implying it is.

Bottom line remains unchanged: We both explicitly said untrained people should not have guns; since the Constitution authorizes and requires means to ensure they do not, there is every constitutional reason we should use it, and none that we should not.

@JOL #9396803
Ah. The perils of editing as I go, in a window that only shows six lines of text.
The original third point was wondering just how many of those 46% were over the age of 60, and hadn't bought a gun in 20 years, or hadn't gotten a second gun since they were given one that Christmas they turned 16, (or 14, or 12, or whatever). I ended up cutting it in that message because I couldn't think of anyone personally who fit that description, but didn't change the number of points I'd intended to bring up. Plenty in that age bracket, but they've all added to their collections in that span of time as far as I know.
I also didn't want to raise the specter of the grey-area, as I understand it, of buying a gun for a close family member. Is it a straw purchase if everything the kid owns legally belongs to you anyway?
Later I included it, but as one that likely didn't contribute significantly.

I still don't think that ad was aimed at children. For starters, the narrator speaks to the parents. Further, I don't think it could be shown on network TV, leaving cable, and the only channel I can think of that it might have run on is aimed at adults. While I don't watch a lot of television any longer, I have doubts I'd find many kids programs on the Outdoor Channel.

My point on the NICS deadline was that only because the law included language preventing them from just losing the information, and thus denying people the ability to make purchases, do they have the promptness they do have. Had that line been omitted from the language of the law, we'd very likely have administrations where the phones were deliberately undermanned, in an effort to throttle gun purchases.

One reason the background check was unwelcome, when it was passed, was it means, for a moment, the government does know who is buying a gun, and can at least count how many times a person has bought a gun, thus making a decent estimate about how many guns they likely own. It gives them the information they need should they decide, at some future date, to institute a confiscation plan. "Invisible" guns, while I don't think they're as common as you seem to believe, are a hindrance to such confiscation because the government can never know if they got them all.

And finally.
Bottom line, while I am comfortable with the CURRENT state of affairs, I see the scuffmarks in the sand where that "bottom line" has been adjusted over the past century, and I don't want it to creep anymore toward the virtual loss of the 2nd ammendment.
I'd rather a voluntary system, without the power of law behind it. In place because the stakeholders agree it's better than getting the government involved, and policing each other through loss of reliable access to new wholesale stock.
Remember, there was a day when the gun a farmer bought for himself was in every way equal, or even superior, to the gun the professional soldier would be issued. That hasn't been true for some time. (Superior? Well, the soldier's gun was made by the lowest bidder...)

Alternately, we could go with mandatory drill on Fridays. Institute marksmanship class in high school. That'd never fly, though. It'd demystify and de-demonize the firearm. Something I'm convinced is deliberate. (Why else would suppressers, some times known as "silencers", be restricted? They reduce a loud, bone rattling BOOM to a still noticable, but less gut shaking bang. They make a gun less scary sounding.)

P.S. Try exercizing your constitutionally guaranteed right to openly bear arms in New York's Times Square or on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I bet you don't get far.

Denmark looks way too excited to have a gun.

But what's more concerning is that Norway is missing in the last panel. DENMARK WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!!

@amypisces Norway's not there because nothing happened to him. If you look closely you can see Sweden's been shot in the arm

@SchrodySweden

That proves nothing unless the gun was only loaded with one bullet.

@Hinoron if norway was dead denmark would have been sad

@SchrodySweden

Hmm. Alright, fair point.

@SchrodySweden dude he's *pointing a handgun at his eyeball* and if that's not an indicator of acute sadness i don't know what is

@moofemp well, clearly you haven't heard of the cartoon staple where the idiot character looks down the barrel of the gun to see why it's not firing

@SchrodySweden hey don't call poor denmark an idiot!

@moofemp I'm not, but the point of the comic is he doesn't understand how guns work

@amypisces OH SHIT I DIDNT EVEN REALIZE! LMAO X'DD

Grandpa Nord's flag should be the hammer of Thor, or a raven.

Viking style.

O_o

That's not a defense. You make sure the recipient knows the four rules before you let a person touch the firearm, anything else is asking for trouble.

@rosignol Is that a vote for mandatory pre-purchase training (and certification it WORKED)? How dare you, sir: The Founding Fathers gave their lives for every deranged homicidal toddlers right to keep and bear arms whether or not he knows which is "the shooty end." ;·p

I thought it was that seldom remembered British Island.

Old north should be the Norrland flag, they are fucking nuts and have more guns per capita than any US state or even Russian oblast. The Non-talkative miscreants and miserable sods of Europe who rather f**k a newly shot bear than a human woman.