plenty on FR have chimed in, trust me. And i do appreciate your articulate and thoughtful response. I am listening and taking it all in. You speak of laws we already have restricting ownership to felons, etc. but in the ultimate FR world, there would be no waiting periods, no laws whatsoever for ANYONE, criminal past or not, on gun ownership. So that doesn't fly in the face of all of you who think the current gun laws are too restrictive. Of course there should be laws.
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Welcome to Free Republic. IBTZ.
Yes, but then there's the real world. The more vocal that complain, should not be construed to represent those that acknowledge the compromise that exists. The point of the thread is that the right is in jeopardy of being rendered extinct altogether. The govm't has the right to enforce attainder and to do so, with respect to commerce, so criminals are not able to buy guns. The essence of the threat posed now, amounts to applying the attainder to everyone, which ultimately means only the govm't, and criminals will have guns.
Thanks for the comment in your reply.
Laws should focus on consequences & responsibility, not pre-emption.
If some thing or behavior is reasonably understood to be an imminent threat of grave harm, regulation thereof is reasonable.
If way more than 99% of the time it isn't a problem, regulation is unreasonable.
To your examples:
- Waiting periods are useless in nearly all cases, as practically all the time there is nothing to avert, and other equivalent options are usually available if there is. I know one excellent store which had to close because waiting periods were intolerable to customers (people would drive far to shop, but having to come back days later to complete the purchase was just too obnoxious).
- Most criminals get their guns illegally. That getting them is illegal doesn't stop them (that's...um...why they're criminals). Most gun control laws just annoy the law-abiding, doing nothing to stop criminials who simply ignore them & buy elsewhere.
- A lot of "felonies" do not warrant loss of rights. Simple possession (as in: stuck in a box in the back of a closet) of an $18 30-round M16 magazine (very common & legal in most of the USA) is a felony in NY. Should Constitutional rights be lost thanks to simply owning a small metal box with a spring?
Upshot is: if we go thru the laws many people think we should have, analysis will reveal that they do little good in preventing crime & harm, and do much to annoy the law-abiding or set them up for victimhood. Current gun laws ARE too restrictive, severely misguided, doing more harm than good. Of the 20,000 on the books, only maybe a dozen or so should remain. And yes, I have comprehensively studied the relevant federal and NY laws, and examined those of other states. I'd be happy to send you a copy of the complete gun laws of the entire country (have an extra copy) - read all several hundred tiny-print large-format pages in detail, and then tell me with a straight face that "of course we need all this" (hint: you won't).
Much that many people think intolerable punishable behavior is at worst harmless and often extremely helpful. What the ignorant consider terrifying is often what the knowledgable consider reasonable and normal - and wish the ignorant would stop being so annoying about.
What we DO need is appropriate consequences for irresponsible behavior.
Thing is, it's so much easier to enforce laws on the reasonable & compliant than it is on the dangerously irresponsible.
If someone is adjudged to be too dangerous to be loose in society with a firearm, is he any less dangerous with a knife? With a car? With a functioning set of hands?
Keep violent felons in prison, where they belong, and make it easier for the dangerously mentally ill to be confined against their will, and suddenly the "need" for "common sense" gun laws is less obvious.