K&B’s instructor Don Alley was invited to be a part of a conversation group about ‘gun violence’ in America. The rules were really rather simple: Be respectful. So far, this rule is holding rather well among the participants.
A big clue-in to the state of the republic can be found in this group. The majority of Americans have no real idea what a ‘right’ is, and believe that the collective mentality is all the justification necessary to limit, curtail, and outright infringe on someone’s rights.
The most unfortunate thing seen so far is the same tired thought process of adding burden to the peaceable gun owners that would have no effect on crime or violence. This most often takes the form of “Should gun owners have to ___________________ before buying a gun?”
The fill in the blank so far include:
- buy liability insurance
- take mandatory gun training
- have to wait (between 3 days to 1 month)
- submit to an intense background check
- demonstrate justifiable need
In all cases, these are infringement. A liability tax is nothing more than a financial burden, and the enacting of it pre-supposes there will be some type of incident requiring it. With this presumption of future guilt and financial burden, it would not only make the poor more vulnerable, it may expose them to greater danger by those willing to commit acts seeking an insurance payout.
Gun training is ALWAYS a good idea. Always. Mandatory gun training, though, is not. By making a mandatory training, the government would then be able to control training fees, access to class times, and testing difficulty to regulate who may own a firearm and who may not. Agenda-driven action can move these variables in the future.
Wait times have not ever been proven to be effective.
Background checks and NICS checks, while an infringement, have not been heavily opposed by the pro-gun community, because we too hope to see violence drop. But with government agencies failing to report many items to the database, the database being fraught with errors, and no real way to seek redress for being put on the database, many oppose a more formidable check. An additional question is why, if it is a background check, are gun data such as make, model, and serial number being submitted?
Demonstrating justifiable need moves the ‘right’ to keep and bear arms squarely into a government doled privilege. Furthermore, it reinforces the notion that someone else may inflict their preference upon others, by the enforcement of their perception of ‘need’.
Hearteningly, though, there are at least a few freedom-minded individuals on this ‘conversation’, slowly replacing ‘fear’ with understanding. In the end, we hope that wisdom prevails, Americans choose freedom, and the fearmongering of the anti-gun agenda is quelled with a majority public rebuke.