Fire with Fire
I know asking Democrats to do, well, much of anything useful is a BIG ask these days. But if I may propose a few ideas that they could consider. You see, the other day I was thinking about how hard it has been to pass any kind of meaningful gun control in America. Guns are very dangerous things. Just owning one increases the risk that you or someone you know will die via gunshot. Plus you’ve got mass shootings, etc. We need to do something about guns. The tricky part is that gun ownership is enshrined in the Constitution (it really isn’t but whatever). So how can you restrict, or eliminate, guns while still maintaining the people’s right to own one?
Luckily, Republicans have already given us a pretty good roadmap to deal with this. When SCOTUS ruled in Roe v. Wade that women had a right to get an abortion, they essentially said that it was unconstitutional to restrict them. They would say the same if Congress tried to outlaw guns. What did conservatives do about this? Did they shrug and say “oh well, women have the right to control their bodies so let’s move on to something else”? LOL nope. They got clever. Devious, you might say. And we can do the same with guns.
The whole idea behind the new spate of abortion laws isn’t to outlaw them. That would be unconstitutional. Rather, the laws seek to make abortion functionally outlawed, meaning that while abortion remains legal in their state it would be so hard to actually get one that virtually none would take place. That’s what we’re going to focus on: not banning gun ownership but making it functionally impossible to get them. That way we can avoid any sticky Constitution questions.
The first thing we can do is institute and expand what 10 states have already done: waiting periods. The average right now is somewhere between 7-10 days. That’s not enough time. We need a nationwide waiting period of, oh I dunno, say 15 years. Yep, that should do it. Do you want to buy a gun? It’s gonna take 15 years to get it. Hey, nobody is preventing you from getting a gun! It’s still perfectly legal to own one. It’s just that we want you to think it over. Take some time. Consider your options. Owning a gun is a lot of responsibility. We’re a party of personal responsibility and if you wanted to take that hunting trip next weekend with your pals you should have planned for that ahead of time. You knew about the 15-year waiting period. That’s on you.
The next step we can take is bumping up the requirements for people who sell guns. No more of these back-alley gun sales at gun shows and whatnot. That’s too dangerous. Let’s stop that right away. Instead, I think it’s important that we protect the life of the gun buyer by ensuring that the person selling them the gun is qualified to deal with any issue that might arise. That means the highest level of training should be required. No more weekend classes with a former Jarhead. Nope. We need YEARS of instructional knowledge in gun safety, marksmanship, and proper techniques in order to satisfy this requirement. And since guns sometimes (not always) lead to gunshot wounds, I think it would be prudent for every gun store to be within a 30-minute drive to a hospital. It’s the sensible, safe thing to do. Again, we care about protecting the lives of gun owners.
OK, so we’ve made it safer to buy a gun by requiring the sellers to be experts in their field. And we’ve made it so people have a chance to consider if they really want a gun or not. But what else can we do? He’s not a conservative but Chris Rock actually gave us a pretty good idea already:
That’s right, bullet control! Doesn’t say anything in the Bill of Rights about bullets. Just arms, which we are interpreting as the gun itself. Buy all the guns you want. But bullets? I think we can probably put a yearly cap on how many bullets you buy. 10 oughta do it. I mean, if you’re that bad a shot that it takes you a dozen bullets to bring down a deer then maybe hunting isn’t your thing to begin with. And as far as intruders go, self-defense really shouldn’t need much more than that. But let’s also have a bullet tax. $1,000 per bullet that goes directly to funding gun safety education.
We can do even more though! Have you heard of the Hyde Amendment? It’s a provision that’s been included in every Congressional budget since the 70s. In essence, it says that no federal tax money can go towards abortions. Now, of course for people who are poor and rely on government healthcare, this is a real bummer because they might have the need for an abortion and yet can’t afford it. So the provision only serves to hurt working people. Rich folks have and will always be able to get safe abortions. But again, conservatives have thankfully given us another path towards gun control.
No federal money can be spent on guns, gun ownership, or anything that contributes to gun violence. Again, we’re doing this because we care about people — not to restrict gun rights. How would this work? Well, for starters, that means no more federal equipment, vehicles, or weapons can be given to local police. It’s just too dangerous and unfair to those taxpaying Americans who staunchly support pro-life causes like gun control. Would Jesus want the Mayberry PD to have a tank? I hardly think so. Cops will just have to figure out something else to get their weapons. I had considered extending this ban to the military and making the armed forces something of a “bring your gun to work” type structure but I think we’ll only enforce it on American soil. Troops overseas can have access to government-funded guns but the ones here have to fend for themselves. Want to join the military but don’t own a gun? Well, I guess you should have thought about that beforehand. Again, we believe in personal responsibility.
And how will we enforce all these new laws? Again, Texas has shown us the light:
Bounties baby! LOADS OF ‘EM. See, the reason why Texas designed their abortion law the way they did was to prevent SCOTUS from overturning it. It’s complicated but basically what the Texas law does is turn over the process from a criminal one to a civil one. That means that while the government can’t necessarily jail you for anything, a private citizen can sue you for breaking the law like you would with a car accident or sexual harassment lawsuit. So let’s roll with that idea. $100,000 bounties for violating the laws listed above. Sell a gun to someone without being trained properly? That’s $100 grand. Drive someone to go buy a gun from that illicit seller? $100 grand. Fail to report someone selling black-market bullets on your website? $100 grand.
Again, no one is saying you can’t own a gun. You absolutely can. Will it be hard? Sure, but with something as important and precious as gun ownership we can’t be too careful. We’re doing this to protect legal gun owners across the country. Not to punish them! We LOVE gun owners. We just want them to be safe and have enough time to think about what they are doing. That’s all.
I think these proposals would work. And if someone challenged them and brought them to SCOTUS then we kind of win either way. If the court were to strike them down then we’d have precedent on which to sue for abortion rights. If they don’t then we get real, meaningful gun control. Win-win baby!
If we’re going to make any progress on liberal causes in America we have to stop bringing flowers to a gunfight. We have to get tougher, meaner, and bend the rules until they break. We have to start fighting fire with fire.