Bipartisan Senate group proposes ‘no fly, no buy’ gun measure

[David Horn]

(02-23-2018, 07:51 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Yes, it does involve values lock.  Values locked people tend to remember and make of great importance episodic incidents that confirm their values.  Thus, such incidents are nigh on useless in resolving the question.  A red values person might remember how many well equipped, trained sane folk overcome the lone nut.  Indeed, one of the people who had been in Iraq, who ran towards the explosions at the Boston Marathon incident, came quite to the opposite conclusion to yours.  People have to be trained, equipped and motivated for the good to triumph.  Those who avoid responsibility and being ready for the unthinkable will become helpless victims.

There are relatively few who will listen to either extreme argument, making the good guys ready while putting the bad guys at risk.  I do not doubt you are sincere or intelligent, but there are sincere and intelligent people who have also been there and done that who quite disagree with your selective truth.

In this case, I have no real life experience, but I am inclined to listen to and respect both sides.

Let's skip the subjective and talk objective fact.  We are awash in firearms, and now have at least 5 Million (estimates run as high as 10 Million) assault weapons in private hands.  We don't register weapons in almost all jurisdictions, so who has them is an unknown.  We are also unique in the number of gun related deaths.  We are singular in the number of mass shootings, most of them involving assault weapons.  We are also unique in how we place gun ownership in the category of rights rather than privileges.  None of this is arguable. 

I don't claim to know how this gets resolved, but I do know that failure to bend insures a break point in the future.  There is now an entire generation that has never known a time where school shootings did not occur, and they are the largest generation in our history.  I also know that they are finally getting mad enough and active enough to demand change, though what that will be is open to conjecture.  At some point, this becomes an undeniable force, though I might not be around to see it.  Will they force the issue to the point that the 2nd Amendment is eliminated?  It's a constitutional option if the will is there.  

The NRA has overplayed a weak hand for the past decade or two.  When 97% of gun owners want mandatory background checks and the NRA responds with demagoguery, as Wayne LaPierre did at CPAC, it only increase the anger building on the other side.  If I favored gun rights, I might be looking for a compromise position, but they continue to fight every act as "the first step on a slippery slope".  

Stay tuned.