An old high school friend posted the following on my Facebook page this morning. Below is her post and my answers to it. Please feel free to argue anything with which you disagree but please be able to justify your argument.
Here are my 20 suggestions for future regulations to ensure a safer environment of our children and our communities:
1. Ban semi-automatic weapons that fire high-velocity rounds and ban accessories that simulate automatic weapons.
2. Limit future purchases of all magazines to 10 bullets or less.
3. Ban and criminalize the purchase and possession of armor piercing bullets and hollow-tip bullets.
4. Raise the firearm purchase age to 21.
5. Limit gun purchases to one per month per individual.
6. Treat firearms like cars — with licensing, registration, and mandatory insurance.
7. Automatically ban people from buying or owning a gun that are convicted of domestic violence or that are subject to protection orders.
8. Increase the penalties across all states for a person (straw man) buying a gun for someone who is banned from owning one to a maximum of 10 years in prison.
9. Establish a database of gun sales and universal background checks.
10. Close loopholes for buying weapons at gun shows.
11. Enhance mandatory background check requirements and standardize them across all states, including for private sales.
12. Make sure the National Instant Criminal Background Check System is built for confidence, instead of speed.
13. Limit concealed permit carry laws to only those states, municipalities, and places of business/worship and that explicitly allow such rights.
14. Pass federal red flag legislation that provide a means for extreme risk protection orders, allowing the police to temporarily take away guns from people deemed by a judge to be dangerous, based on family member or acquaintances raising concerns.
15. Allow the CDC to make recommendations for gun reform.
16. Change privacy laws to allow mental healthcare providers to communicate with law enforcement.
17. Establish and fund a federal gun buyback program that pays people to voluntarily sell without risk of prosecution to local, state, or federal law enforcement their guns and ammunition. Then destroy those guns and ammunition to reduce the number of firearms in the United States.
18. Increase funding for mental health research and professionals.
19. Increase funding for school security.
20. Increase funding for local, state, and federal law enforcement.
The only ones I agree with are the second half of #1 and the last four.
2) 10 round magazines don't really stop anything. The Parkland shooter only had 10 round magazines. It takes less than three seconds to swap out a magazine. So if they limit the size of the magazine to 10 rounds one need only carry more magazines.
2. Limit future purchases of all magazines to 10 bullets or less.
3. Ban and criminalize the purchase and possession of armor piercing bullets and hollow-tip bullets.
4. Raise the firearm purchase age to 21.
5. Limit gun purchases to one per month per individual.
6. Treat firearms like cars — with licensing, registration, and mandatory insurance.
7. Automatically ban people from buying or owning a gun that are convicted of domestic violence or that are subject to protection orders.
8. Increase the penalties across all states for a person (straw man) buying a gun for someone who is banned from owning one to a maximum of 10 years in prison.
9. Establish a database of gun sales and universal background checks.
10. Close loopholes for buying weapons at gun shows.
11. Enhance mandatory background check requirements and standardize them across all states, including for private sales.
12. Make sure the National Instant Criminal Background Check System is built for confidence, instead of speed.
13. Limit concealed permit carry laws to only those states, municipalities, and places of business/worship and that explicitly allow such rights.
14. Pass federal red flag legislation that provide a means for extreme risk protection orders, allowing the police to temporarily take away guns from people deemed by a judge to be dangerous, based on family member or acquaintances raising concerns.
15. Allow the CDC to make recommendations for gun reform.
16. Change privacy laws to allow mental healthcare providers to communicate with law enforcement.
17. Establish and fund a federal gun buyback program that pays people to voluntarily sell without risk of prosecution to local, state, or federal law enforcement their guns and ammunition. Then destroy those guns and ammunition to reduce the number of firearms in the United States.
18. Increase funding for mental health research and professionals.
19. Increase funding for school security.
20. Increase funding for local, state, and federal law enforcement.
The only ones I agree with are the second half of #1 and the last four.
2) 10 round magazines don't really stop anything. The Parkland shooter only had 10 round magazines. It takes less than three seconds to swap out a magazine. So if they limit the size of the magazine to 10 rounds one need only carry more magazines.
3) Armor piercing bullets are already illegal.
4) Since the Columbine shooting in 1999, only three mass shooters, including school shooters, have been under age 21.
5) Limiting gun purchases to one per month is going to do what, exactly. That's still 12 guns per year. And most mass shooters only use one.
6) Driving is not a Constitutional right. Most states require registration of firearms and licenses to carry them. Mandatory insurance would be a source of income for the insurance companies and might help a gunshot victim if he or she was shot by a legal gun owner. If that gun owner was still alive and if the shooting was illegal. Not likely.
7) If a person is convicted of domestic violence, a felony, they are banned from buying guns. If they are the subject of a protection order there needs to be a court order to take their weapons away. Each case is different. Nothing about it should be automatic.
8) Straw purchases of firearms (buying for someone who cannot buy their own) carries a federal penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. (Whoever wrote this didn't research it very well.)
9) There is already a database of gun sales and background checks, if all data is entered properly.
10) The "loopholes" at gun shows are largely a myth. All gun show legal sales require a background check.
11) Enhance background checks how? Name one thing that needs to be done that's not done already. The last few times a mass shooter passed a background check who should not have was due to human error. What law will fix that?
12) Again, NICS is only as good as those people entering the information.
13) Driver's licenses are good in every state even though one state has no idea if the person from the other state is a safe driver. It should be the same for gun owners. What difference does it make what state you're in if you're a law-abiding gun owner? And what difference does it make what state you're in if you're a criminal?
14) If ordered by a judge this is already legal. No need for a new law. The Parkland case proves that many in authority (school officials, police, FBI, etc.,) are reluctant to do it.
15) Gun ownership is not a disease. Why should medical personnel have any say in it.
16) Again - this is already law. If a doctor deems a person a danger to himself or others he/she is allowed to report it to authorities.
17) This is perfectly fine as long as it's voluntary.
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