I'd say a push toward logical comprehensive background checks and earnest enforcement by dedicated federal, state, and local police working together to enforce existing gun permitting laws would be a great step. It's a move that would not prevent many gun crimes, though. Neither would confiscation. If we tried heartily to take guns away, there would be a period of angst, complaints, and near revolution. It would be hell in a concealed carry handbasket, and there would certainly be a period of extraordinary chaos. Do it yourself machinists would start uber-gun manufacturing plants in their garages. Guns and ammunition would go away into hiding places, but they would never disappear. Enforcement would probably result in extreme right to privacy debates, and searches would become intrusive. Politicians would fall into a crevasse of chaos, relinquishing their legacies to a list of “Twenty-First Century Dictators”.
Or, we could use up our chaos and privacy dividends by engineering a way to study, inquire, examine, and profile every person on American soil over the age of ten about their liklihood of going crazy with a weapon. I know there's a cadre of psychologists and social workers who could take on this job and do it well. There are hundreds of college and university sociology and psychology departments itching to develop a robust process. Their outcomes could probably defuse potential knife attacks, car felonies, bullying, bombings, abuse, and suicides, too. I'm high on the idea of investing the dividend in the kind of crime prevention that would have a chance of working to solve the root of the gun crime problem (which I'm sure lies in the mental health arena).
I'll voluntarily be first in line to be tested. If I'm a nut job, then take my pistol away from me. I promise I won't start any media chaos or whine about my right to privacy. And, if people in my sphere are outed as gun sociopaths, strip them of their weapons and help me keep my family safe.
6 comments:
You are probably going to be called a nut job. How on earth could you hope to vet every person over ten?
How could you vet every auto driver at the DMV? It gets done.
What kind of enforcement agency would be required to make this work? You can't find any Federal managers who can tie their shoes. I guess you're talking about an administration that gives up on politics and takes up the (virtual) bazooka.
What about 30 round clips?
Interesting concept.
My concern with your idea revolves around the fact that psychology is an inexact science. For too long, that discipline has been infested with an almost complete monopoly of liberal thinkers with their own agenda. I fear any evaluation of suitability to own guns would be influenced by that agenda. I am more of a hard science type of guy. I want conclusions based on objective, repeatable fact and on the assurance that what is true today always has been and always will be true.
Israeli TSA profilers do it. I'll bet they use psychological factors developed by some smart science guys. I'm saying profiling is possible, and the evidence is that it's done every day.
Post a Comment