So yeah you can fire a bullet so many different ways, a rusty nail and hammer will do the trick. Isn’t the real problem the frickin bullet?
I swear in Sweden or something, you can take a gun home but ammo is only sold and consumed at the range and not for taking home.
Sure, you can make this a hollistic approach regulating guns and ammo, but the ammo seems to be the bigger issue here. You can make guns easy peasy, but ammo is much harder to manufacture and easier to regulate.
I wouldn’t say ammo is easier to regulate at all. The average gun owner keeps several boxes of handgun ammo and 500-1000 rounds of rifle ammo on hand to start so none of that ammo will be caught by your regulation.
If you outright banned the new purchase of ammo it would take years before the effects are really noticed, especially considering the rush to buy up every bullet on the market before the ban went into effect. Afterwords you’d see gun owners driving to a state without an ammo ban.
If you slapped a max limit on ownership, say you can’t have more than 50 rounds of ammo per gun, that wouldn’t have stopped almost any of the mass shooters in the last 10 years who almost all fired less than 50 shots on their rampages. Not to mention enforcing that law would be next to impossible because you’d basically need a signed warrant to check a house for illegal amounts of ammo or catch them in transit.
If you put a massive tax on ammo combined with a max purchase limit, let’s say 1,000% tax and a limit of 50 rounds per ID card per day, it would be business as usual, just more expensive.
One thing that might be worth exploring would be an ammo purchase registry. Gun owners haaaaaate their names on lists aand fight it tooth an nail on guns, but they don’t have the protection of the 2nd amendment for ammo. Who knows it might have a chilling effect. Or just drive more transactions through the gun show/private seller loop holes.
Winds are blowing the other way: short barreled rifles and shotguns, as well as suppressors no longer go through the NFA process as of like two days ago, so details are in short supply.
I maintain that lists of all kinds are the bigger threat to the country right now. With all the data that has already been gathered it’s just a matter of time before some upstart company tells a government agency that it can play the Kevin Bacon game with their database and produce a list of <trait> that will result in <adjuctive> results. Company gets to keep a local copy of the database because nobody thought about data privacy/protections when they cut the check.
It would; however, put a damper on anyone funding their own training. I doubt anyone’s going from nothing to being a crack shot in 50 rounds, or even 500.
Those are bad everywhere. I wish that court case in DC that decided a defacto ban (on guns) amounted to a for-realsy ban, and was therefore unconstitutional.
I agree with most of what you’re saying. OP asked so I tried to game it out the best I could. Personally I think we need to approach gun legislation like we do cars. License to carry in public, strict rules about thier usage, and automatic max penalties and enhanced charges for any crime committed while carrying a gun (legally or otherwise), which can include losing your carry license.
I would say though that your trainer wouldn’t be thwarted by a bullet ownership limit either, it would just slow down their training. They’d buy their 50, shoot them, then have to buy more all of which could be done at the range.
I broadly agree with you about lists, eventually they will be misused. But the chilling effort would be the point. A chilling effect isn’t universally a bad thing, modern HR practices had a chilling effect on sexual harassment in the workplace, banning nazi symbols had a chilling effect on the spread of fascist ideals in post war germany, etc. In this case the chilling effect of reducing the amount of ammo purchased might be beneficial.
Chilling effects also maintain sundown towns, keep LGBTQ people out of certain places, and the last time I checked nazi symbolism was back in vogue :-(
The USA is big, and not every county/town constablulatory has left the good ole’ boy network behind. You can get on the banned list by doing either the right thing or the wrong thing, and a towns full of grey men who can’t speak up isn’t an attractive future, and it’s some people’s realities. Those licenses to carry have to be approved by the locals after all.
I don’t disagree with the spirit of what you said about max penalties or enhanced charges, but there’ve been some serious injustices to lay down at Mandatory Minimum Sentencing’s feet when it’s been put into practice, and I don’t trust the current crop of people not to misuse it. We can’t even get enhanced charges for misuse of public trust positions right.
You took it wrong or I misspoke; I was talking about the ability for someone to go get practice on their own without having to ask for permission. A box of 50 .22 is like $10 and closer to the size of a pack of gum (or half the size of a harmonica, or whatever size comparison the kids are using these days). I couldn’t justify putting my name on a law that gave Keanu Reeves carte blanche to go train for a new John Wick movie when the average American is under greater restrictions. Where I am I learned from my father and there are ample public lands reserved for the purpose, plus any private land you can convince someone to practice at. Not every place in America has that luxury, though, and not every law is going to fit every place well.
Me, too. Good faith questions and answers are good things. As for strict usage, I think we already have that for the most part. Before adding any more laws I’d really like to see a national agreement on terminology as to what open carry, concealed carry, and all the terms really mean from a legal standpoint. I remember reading stories from when COVID was taking off that folks in California decided it might be time to get armed and didn’t realize what the process there really involves. I doubt there’s a real solid understanding of their gun registry system, either, and that’s without getting into the really weird stuff that’s been on the books.
In general I’m pro second amendment. It wasn’t until commenting in this thread that I realized the firearm used to assassinate Shinzo Abe is probably legal in the US now thanks to the recent NFA changes regarding short barreled shotguns1,2. So, pro second amendment enough to be uncomfortable adding a lot of new legislation that doesn’t seem to understand the underlying technology or what the second order effects might be, but not so second amendment that I’m going to lowe’s when they open to prove a point. I expect someone else will get there soon enough for the clicks, though.