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If that were to happen then in 30 years many would be functionally inoperable. In a few more decades more or so many more. Eventually what remains are historic with functional obscolense, relegated to collectors or museums.
The country was awash with repeaters and pistols 100 years ago, not many are serviceable today.
Logic has to follow a logical conclusion to the hypothesis.
My logic dictates that 100 years ago we didn't have CNC machines at the disposal of tons and tons of people, not to mention that we are on the cusp of 3D printing with incredibly durable metals and plastics. All of the guns you see today can probably be kept functioning for decades to come, if not literally forever based on todays available technology.
I'm not arguing for everyone on flights or everyone in classrooms to carry guns. A select, willing, and trained few. Put the question in the head of potential criminals and crazies that they might see a bullet come back at them, and you probably eliminate at least a few attempts. Isn't that a part of the goal? Eliminate as many attempts as possible?
Your argument has appeal. But some of my concerns are:
Will the teacher cause more casualties with crossfire?
Will the police be able to distinguish who is the bad guy and who is the good guy in a shoot out?
Who polices the teacher if the teacher has mental health issues?
What if the teacher is negligent in handling the firearm?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by man4857
You don't "ban" guns. You prevent the sale of guns by taxing them very high to discourage them.
Then you offer tax incentives for gun buy backs. If the government offered you $500 for every handgun you give them will you? 1k-2k for every rifle? Most people will. This will drive up the price of existing guns in which the owner will want to make a profit off of. So all it does it gets sold to the highest bidder until most have turned their guns in, and the price of the guns on the market is so extraordinarily expensive, it's impossible for anyone else to buy the gun.
There you've solved the problem.
The problem with guns is that there are too many moving parts. Guns pose a hazard depending on if someone can use them right. If not, it can be lethal and kill lots of innocent people. The more guns you have, the higher chance you have of the hazard happening... hence reduce the hazard to as close to 0 as possible would be obviously better.
Where is the money coming from for that, when people whine about paying for the wall?
You forgot to mention one thing: TSA! You and your luggage go through metal detectors and heavy screenings to make sure no weapons are being brought into an airport and onto a plane. You can ban a gun on an airplane because there is heavy federal enforcement by highly trained TSA and counter-terrorism officers that prevents the gun from getting onto a plane. How are we supposed to implement that in real life? Metal detectors at every school door, movie theater, mall?
Remember, schools are GUN-FREE Zones. Yet, that hasn't stopped a monster from unleashing evil on innocent students. They choose soft targets because they know no one will be able to protect themselves.
We can start by changing our laws on assault style weapons and the ages they can be bought. In addition we focus on mental health and awareness issues.
You don't "ban" guns. You prevent the sale of guns by taxing them very high to discourage them.
Then you offer tax incentives for gun buy backs. If the government offered you $500 for every handgun you give them will you? 1k-2k for every rifle? Most people will. This will drive up the price of existing guns in which the owner will want to make a profit off of. So all it does it gets sold to the highest bidder until most have turned their guns in, and the price of the guns on the market is so extraordinarily expensive, it's impossible for anyone else to buy the gun.
There you've solved the problem.
The problem with guns is that there are too many moving parts. Guns pose a hazard depending on if someone can use them right. If not, it can be lethal and kill lots of innocent people. The more guns you have, the higher chance you have of the hazard happening... hence reduce the hazard to as close to 0 as possible would be obviously better.
Hmm, so $500 to $2K per gun? You realize that with 300+million guns in this country that would cost HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars to accomplish? Meanwhile the entire budget of the TSA is about $7.5B. So trying to buy everything back for hundreds of billions which would fund multiple decades of expanding the TSA budget? Sorry, but that doesn't seem logical at all to me.
Hmm, so $500 to $2K per gun? You realize that with 300+million guns in this country that would cost HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars to accomplish? Meanwhile the entire budget of the TSA is about $7.5B. So trying to buy everything back for hundreds of billions which would fund multiple decades of expanding the TSA budget? Sorry, but that doesn't seem logical at all to me.
Dude, those are just EXAMPLES. The money would obviously be valuing the different guns differently.
Look up various gun buy back programs across America, it went for as low as $200 a piece.
Even if you assume that it'll cost $750 each to round up all 300M+ guns, that's only 225B. That's barely even a sliver of the tax reform bill. You think it can be done? Oh yeah, only if you have the will to do it.
BUT in the process, you spend less on law enforcement (they wouldn't need SWAT teams, and equipment and such), you spend less on ATF, you spend less on metal detectors, etc.. etc. etc... those all save money.
And most importantly, less shootings occur and massacres are virtually impossible.
Your argument has appeal. But some of my concerns are:
Will the teacher cause more casualties with crossfire?
Will the police be able to distinguish who is the bad guy and who is the good guy in a shoot out?
Who polices the teacher if the teacher has mental health issues?
What if the teacher is negligent in handling the firearm?
Do we want our schools to be armed fortresses?
What if the student is suicidal?
What if a teacher overreacts?
Just some concerns.
You can absolutely over "what if" every scenario, but I'd simply argue that if a grown adult is allowed to be alone for hours a day, unsupervised with minors, then they should probably be trusted to carry a firearm.
Of course you will find teachers that have been caught in sexual and other abhorrent situations with students, but you cant live by catering to the most extreme examples. Those teachers are already performing illegal activities and should be flushed out of the system.
I can't imagine it would be too hard to notify first responders of simple information to prevent the good guy vs. bad guy issue. I mean as long as they are first notified that the suspect is of x,y, and z characteristics, simply do the same for known armed teachers, no? Notify them that Mr. Jones who teaches on the first floor in the second room on the left is a 5-10 40 year old black male with grey hair, have a picture on file to send to first responders en route. Does this make it a 100% error free situation? Absolutely not, but that isn't the goal, as long as you do something that reduces the chances of error significantly, I think its a big win.
Again, its easy to shoot down possible solutions with blanket statements, but we are better than just a binary solution here. Everything we value in society has the threat of violence against anyone that seeks to steal or destroy it, there is no reason not to consider the same here as long as the situations you outline are given equal thought in order to minimize bad outcomes.
Dude, those are just EXAMPLES. The money would obviously be valuing the different guns differently.
Look up various gun buy back programs across America, it went for as low as $200 a piece.
Even if you assume that it'll cost $750 each to round up all 300M+ guns, that's only 225B. That's barely even a sliver of the tax reform bill. You think it can be done? Oh yeah, only if you have the will to do it.
BUT in the process, you spend less on law enforcement (they wouldn't need SWAT teams, and equipment and such), you spend less on ATF, you spend less on metal detectors, etc.. etc. etc... those all save money.
And most importantly, less shootings occur and massacres are virtually impossible.
OK, so your initial proposal was a low end of $500 per gun, and suddenly someone calls out thats not going to work and "thats just an example" and now you decide to research about it maybe being only $200 per gun? Thats part of the problem,here. Knee jerk "solutions" that arent even thought out.
As for it being "only" $225 Billion, thats absolute insanity when as I pointed out that the entire TSA budget is only $7.5 B per year. Even if implementing TSA style security at school caused the TSA budge to double (which is probably an over estimate) thats 30 years of protecting our schools.
You are also assuming that all of the crazies that want to eventually shoot up a school, business, or government office are going to participate in this, which is a HUGE assumption. To say massacres will be virtually impossible, you are just lying to yourself AND also assuming nothing like suicide bombs/vests or other weapons will ever come into play.
Very good article and I agree with it, I also am in favor of increased training to get carry conceal permits. But it will have to come down to a national standard.
The one overwhelming facts that are over looked by each one of these events are as follows: Two actions are absolute when a murder is committed. 1.) A Person was murdered and 2.) another person is the one who committed the murder.
In more than one country when you have strict gun laws, but still have large violent crime issues, the method for the crime is all that has changed. not the end result.
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