None of these have been enacted as the nation heads toward the end of another year of almost 100,000 people shot or killed with a gun. There’s been a hearing for a worthy Senate bill that strengthens the background check and applies it to all gun sales, but the House is poised to swat it down. The gun lobby, fairly crowing, claims the spike in gun sales is because more people are feeling the need to protect themselves — even though the latest F.B.I. data show a 6 percent drop in violent crimes. A raft of studies have found that the presence of guns greatly increased the likelihood of homicide and suicide in households.
Instead of cowering before the gun lobby, political leaders in both parties should be treating the annual gun death toll as a serious public health and moral problem. Polls show the public is wiser than many politicians on the gun issue. Protest candlelight vigils organized by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence are being planned nationally for Jan. 8, the anniversary of the Tucson rampage. Nearly 30 cities and towns have signed up, proof that sensible voters are demanding stronger protection from gun violence.
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 
Sigh.
Why not focus on the illegal use of guns?
If you want to protect me from gun violence, can you do that without taking guns away?
Do it the same way that you protect me from drunk drivers- without taking away cars or alcohol.
Dale,
OK. I will take your point about guns for the sake of this next proposal.
What if all bullets were coded and that anyone who purchased ammo could be tracked backwards if one of those bullets was used in a crime. In other words when you buy ammo there is a record of what ammo you purchased. There is the technology to be able to do this. Everyone could have their guns, but there would be a greater ability to track down crimes that are committed with guns.
What say you?
So what if the gun was stolen and I didn’t know it and ‘your ammo’ was used in the crime ‘he committed’?
Opps! “I didn’t do it. Honest your Honor.”
skip.
I am 100% on board with that idea.
Ah, the old “micro stamping” idea. Doesn’t work with revolvers (no dropped casings), doesn’t work with most semi-automatic firearms as the parts that can be used to stamp shell cases are easily replaced or sterilized without hindering function of the firearm, doesn’t work for those that reload their own ammo, doesn’t work at the manufacturers level because there is no way to create such a database for the billions of rounds sold to millions of Americans every year. Never mind the billions of rounds that exist in the surplus market from overseas. Enforcement and accountability, both required and neither are practical for such technology to be considered viable.
I will let the professionals determine the weight of this idea. Many have already come out in favor of it, and why it can work. For the naysayers, there are ways to make it work. This way at least we can get started on solving a national epidemic.
http://www.ammocoding.com/
There are 91 unique characters on a standard computer keyboard. The ACS technology uses these characters in five, six, or seven columns. Typically, ammunition comes in boxes of either 50 or 20, and all bullets in a box will be coded alike. There are 12 common handgun and assault weapon calibers. This means that ACS can accommodate over 21 quadrillion unique bullet codes. Since it is estimated that there are approximately 10 billion bullets sold annually in the United States, and 20-30 billion bullets sold worldwide annually, the ACS has the capacity to keep pace with the current rate of sales for decades to come.
Glad you gave credit where it was due even if you didn’t (or couldn’t) address the rest of my post. Here’s something else for you to think about. Russ Ford, one of ACS’s principals, gave one of his reasons for pushing the adoption of this technology was that it would be a major step in nationwide reciprocity of CCW permits. How does that square with your ideas of gun politics?
Possession of firearms is a genuine dilemma for America, and more than likely one which will have no resolution anytime soon. Both sides of the issue have very solid arguments for their respective positions, and it’s actually pretty easy to agree with both in principle. The root of the problem lies buried in our multiculturalism, which in our time cannot even be rationally discussed without raging accusations spewing from every subculture against the better judgment of the majority.
And there’s no practical way to prevent the growing spread of personal firearms either when just the effort, or actually just the mention of considering an effort, would serve only to create a boom in the demand. Billionaire dope thugs would love nothing better than to set up a manufacturing facility in a cave somewhere in Mexico, and churn out clones of whatever the market wants by the hundreds per day at $500 – $1000 a pop, moving them through the same network they already have set up for their other “products”.
There are answers, and most of us know what they are, but the consequences of taking the needed actions would be unacceptable to most of us, at least at present. And simply passing more “laws” will do nothing but create more laws, to be added to the ones we now are afraid to enforce. So we’re just going to force the problem onto the next generation, because that’s the newest Modus Operandi of dealing with these increasingly divisive and potentially dangerous problems. It’s a bit like passing the torch into the hands of the Arsonist, because we’re unintentionally programming our youth to live with the situation as it worsens. Sort of like the Highschool biology experiment of putting a frog in a pan of cold water and then slowly raising the temperature until it becomes so hot kills him, but yet he never attempts to jump out of the pan.
I see no reason for optimism.
I have always said that it is NOT possible to legislate common sense or morals.
There are way too many laws on the books attempting to do just that.
It’ll never happen but I think that for every new law on the books two old laws ought to be eliminated. It’ll start with chewing gum in public, riding a bicycle, tossing snow balls, or some such nonsense and eventually work it’s way toward the more intrusive laws.
We had a Gun Show in Green Bay this weekend. The news said record sales of the ‘smaller gun, for easy concealment’ were the big sales. Many gun dealers around here have back logs and are awaiting shipments of hand guns for eager customers. A lot of women are signing on. Yep, there is something about that women. She’s packing.
skip.