What can society do to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally unstable without infringing upon the freedoms of responsible people?

1. Ban the use of handguns altogether except for target shooters, who have to licensed and pass a background check.

2. Ban automatic weapons. there is no legitimate reason for private individuals to own one.

3. Inspect home facilities for keeping guns and require gun owners to use the maximum level of safe storage.

Remember, there are no mass knifings!

Tag every gun produced with an inbuilt radio transmitter so that it can not be removed. create a central database with every legitimate registered gun owner. Bust everyone who is detected with a gun but not registered.
Also what Marina said.

@ragingloli That’s a really intriguing idea! Cops could have gun detectors that would go off within a certain proximity, barring their own guns of course. With RFID technology that is very possible.

@The compassionate heretic
In theory. In reality any electronic device can be deactivated or destroyed. You don’t need to find microscopic RFID chip. Putting the gun in a microwave oven for a short time is just one way to destroy them. Even if that wasn’t the case, you need to be at close range to read a RFID chip.

Well, you could give help and aid to the “mentally unstable” so they don’t feel the need to go out and perform mass killings.

Give weapons to all the mentally stable people so they can kill the mentally unstable people. j/k of course…

If you think you have some fundamental right to own a gun, then so does everybody else. What is “mentally unstable” and who decides? I think anyone who wants to own a gun is a bit mentally unstable.

Either we all have them or no one should have them. I’ll go with number 2.

@tinyfaery I’m solidly in the camp of “what the hell do we need all these guns for?”
I don’t like guns at all.

Guns and people who own them do tend make me a bit nervous, but I’m not ready to write off a Constitutional right. Some small part of me thinks it’s good for the government to know that it’s citizens still have the means to follow Jefferson’s advice that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [ life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness ], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.”

Maybe I’m just a whig at heart.

Background checks for past violent criminal behavior
Mandatory completion of gun safety classes with gun purchases, new or used

Criminals will always have access to guns, the mentally unstable will always be able to get to guns via the criminals so why should responsible gun owners be shunned or pressured to give up their interests in gun ownership so the balance tips in favor of the wrong doers? Sorry but you’re my neighbor and someone has crawled through your window to assault you or your family and you shoot them dead… I’m baking you a cake.

I just wonder where the criminals get the guns from, what are the chains of distribution, what are the sources?.

I can say without a doubt that gun regulation is far too lax in America. They just flow cross the borders into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

Or, we could help those that want to murder with counseling and such.

Ya know, don’t blame the tool…

We can make all kinds of laws and regulations until we’re blue in the face – the law-abiding citizens aren’t the ones we’re really worried about. The people who are a concern are already breaking many laws as it stands, so creating more regulations isn’t doing anything besides making more things for them to ignore.

@Amoebic – A criminal doesn’t actually have to break the law to get guns though. Private sales of firearms don’t have the same regulations as larger gun retailers do, even when they occur within the setting of a gun show.

We can’t. That guy who shot up NIU had a record of being in and out of mental hospitals, but the background checks are a joke. He did not have any trouble buying guns. Even if the background checks worked, most of the nutcases out there have never seen the inside of a psychiatrist’s office. You either ban them altogether, which you can’t do, or you live with the consequences.

A more attainable goal is keeping car keys out of the hands of drunks, but there has been no progress there, either. This is a dangerous country. Sorry.

psyc testing… no autos, no gun shows(they don’t do back ground checks and you can find RPGs at some of those things)

@boots I’m shocked and amazed, but I’m not appalled by your answers to this question. Education is the key to responsible gun ownership. In California, you must pass a test and background check along with a waiting period to buy a handgun. Long guns don’t require the written test, but are otherwise difficult to legally purchase. Even private transfer of guns requires going through a licensed dealer with the same background checks and waiting period as a regular purchase.

To get a hunting license, you must take a class and pass a test (except for military and peace officers, though I wish they were required to pass a test as well because there is a lot of great safety information in the class), even if you only hunt with a bow and arrow.

As @hungryhungryhortence and @Amoebic say, the criminals will still get whatever weapons they want. You see, criminals are not required to pass any tests, nor do they have a waiting period. All they need to do is steal some money and buy what they want (or steal the weapons). Where there is demand, the supply will follow.

@tinyfaery I’ll take choice number 1; let all law-abiding citizens have guns. When the criminals come for you, I’ll be there to protect you.

@fundevogel I was nervous around guns before I got one and learned to shoot it. Again, education is the key. Some states, like Arizona, have excellent State-run gun ranges and training programs to teach its citizens proper and responsible gun handling, free of charge with loaner guns. You should check into it.

@oratio I heard one man (a racist, by the way)brag the he was personally responsible for the deaths of at least a dozen black men a month, because he buys guns as often as he can, and then “loses” them in black neighborhoods. The guns are then used by blackmen to kill each other.

There are also plenty of gun dealers who don’t care who they sell to, and very few of them sell to criminials over the counter, but rather in private. It seems anyone who wants to can get around the law.

There are 1,200 people every month killed by guns in the USA.

@YARNLADY Good post. FYI: I don’t know if you already knew this, but that number includes shootings by police too.

@ru2bz46 I’m shocked and amazed, but I’m not appalled by your answers to this question.

Is that good or bad? Do you agree or do you disagree?

I agree with you that education is absolutely key. I’ve been educated in gun use (for rifles, anyways) and live in a rural hunting area. I don’t know anyone that has had an accident.

@boots Ha ha! I agree. I’m sorry, it’s just that I’ve vehemently disagreed with the last several things I’ve seen you write, so I was really amazed by your apparent acceptance of private gun ownership. I mean no offense at all. :-)

@The_Compassionate_Heretic Yes, it includes all deaths by gun, self-inflicted, by police, against police, accidental, and on purpose.

@YARNLADY You’re in my fluther because you and I seem to be on the same page on a lot of topics ^_^

@The_Compassionate_Heretic : – )

@ru2bz46 None taken. I can be quite “conservative” on a few view points.

@boots I knew there was something I liked about you. ;-)

That is right ban guns, and baseball bats, crowbars, bricks, cars, knives, dish detergent, broken glass, high heel shoes, chicken bones, oh and air.
It is about education and responsibility. Life is not fair and life is not easy. And, I pity the fool that crawls through my window.

@ChazMaz Absolutely. But of the things you listed there, only guns are created for the sole function of hurting and killing people. I am not sure getting a gun, is the solution to the problem that you think you need one.

@oratio in all fairness, some guns are made for the sole purpose of hurting and killing animals.

Which I’m fairly ok with.

In a perfect world I would say you might have something there. But it is not. Putting aside that guns are also used for hunting which is a good thing.
The sole function of a fire arm is not the issue. It is that in an unperfect world, how we go about best defending ourselves is the issue. Even if the form of defense is just a deterrent. If you do not feel safe or secure having a gun. I say don’t get one. Otherwise you would be at risk of harming yourself or others. But plenty of us, including myself, are responsible and understand the responsibility that comes with having a gun.
The only danger of a gun in my home is the person crawling through the window at 3am.
One more thing, like I said, we do not live in a perfect world. As long as there are threats to my country I will also exercise my right to bear arms.
Get back to me when your utopian idea of society is in place.

@ChazMaz Lurves to you.

@ChazMaz Get back to me when your utopian idea of society is in place.
It’s not utopian. I live in Sweden. No one needs a gun here, and we have no castle doctrine. But you might be right. Maybe you need handguns in the US to be safe. It seems that you argue that this is the case.

…guns are also used for hunting…
True. Hunting is very common in Sweden.

If you do not feel safe or secure having a gun. I say don’t get one.
I served in the military as what you might call Army Rangers. I have a good understanding of handguns, assault rifles and and explosives. I just don’t support arming the people to protect it from itself, and I promise that I will never get a gun.

As long as there are threats to my country I will also exercise my right to bear arms.
Who would invade the US with ground troops, and how would you would chase them off with your pistol? Or do you mean that you would fight terrorists with it?

Maybe the question that should be asked is why it seems so easy for criminals in the US to get their hands on guns. Is that impossible to do anything about? Can you do that and still arm people who will lose it, sell it, use it for their own purposes?

Since I am not american, and you are, you have a different perspective. It might very justified to get a gun in the US.

this isn’t exactly my conversation but I’m interjecting anyway.

Who would invade the US with ground troops, and how would you would chase them off with your pistol? Or do you mean that you would fight terrorists with it?

I don’t expect many people in the US, even among those with firearms, expect they would ever need to repel invaders on their own soil. I think the interest in the right to bear arms is more based on the idea that the US was founded on revolution and that should our government become tyrannical it is not just Americans’ prerogative, but their responsibility to fight the tyranny, possibly with guns. At least that’s what Jefferson’s writing indicates to me. It was, in all fairness, trying to give ideological legitimacy to the original revolution, but the sentiment has been encapsulated in our primary governing documents.

Maybe the question that should be asked is why it seems so easy for criminals in the US to get their hands on guns. Is that impossible to do anything about? Can you do that and still arm people who will lose it, sell it, use it for their own purposes?

You’re right, this is the real question. I think it is possible to do much better at keeping firearms out of criminals’ hands. And I don’t think that the right to bear arms means it should be easy to exercise the right. I think the government should make you jump through hoops if you want to own a gun.

“It might very justified to get a gun in the US.”
Yes, you are right. Neutrality (nothing wrong with that) did not keep us and the world safe.

“Who would invade the US with ground troops, and how would you would chase them off with your pistol?”
That was the same argument in 1776. Glad others knew better. And, we have more then just pistols in this country.
Some of us do not believe in rolling over on our bellies.

“Maybe the question that should be asked is why it seems so easy for criminals in the US to get their hands on guns.”
Hand guns have nothing to do with criminals. Read my first post. Get rid of owning guns and only the criminals will have them, and/or they will be in my home with a gun or a crowbar.

“trying to give ideological legitimacy to the original revolution”
Ahhh, so after the revolutionary war, there have not been nor will there ever be the possibility of a revolution? Ok, you live with pipe dream.
History is the story of mans actions and it tends to repeat itself.

@ChazMaz
“trying to give ideological legitimacy to the original revolution”
Ahhh, so after the revolutionary war, there have not been nor will there ever be the possibility of a revolution? Ok, you live with pipe dream. History is the story of mans actions and it tends to repeat itself.

The text I was referring to was written as the American Revolution was beginning, Jefferson had to defend the legitimacy of the Revolution not just to Europe but to complacent colonists. His phrasing justified the American Revolution and allowed for the possibility that the need for revolution could rise again.

Not only does my statement and Jefferson’s not state, implicitly or explicitly that “there have not been nor will there ever be the possibility of a revolution”, both of us were allowing for that possibility.

it would do your argument well if you actually studied the history you like to invoke.

I do read and understand history. What the debate here is and with the gun issue is individuals interpretation of what Jefferson’s intent was.
I do respect your insight.

“The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that… it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”

”“One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.”
-TJ

I tend to believe the slogan that says if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. (look at the drug situation).

I think the privilege of owning firearms, while protected by the second amendment, should be regulated, much like the privilege of moving a ton of steel down a highway at one mile per minute. The individual states should be responsible for this regulation, just as they are for license to drive. Infractions of these regulations should be punishable by fines or penalties, up to and including suspension or termination of these privileges. I believe this go a long way in stemming the illegal firearms trade (As in your example, @YARNLADY), while allowing those of us who would like them for legitimate uses, from sport to security, to enjoy their use safely and effectivly.