frm03064

Im all for responsible gun ownership, and reasonable gun legislation. What ive seen in the past month has been neither one... Ive seen gun owners flocking to the stores to stock up on 30 round magazines incase of a "zombie apocolypse"...seriously if you believe in zombies you have no business owning a gun... and ive seen politicians push through legislation that does little more than make people feel better... Fundementally everyone should have a right to keep a handgun or long gun in their home to protect their property, presuming they are not mentally ill or a criminal. I agree 100% with any law that improves the background check process on gun purchasers. Sure, you might have to wait a little longer to buy a gun, but if it keeps a single nutjob or felon from buying a gun, which it does, im all for it. I also have no problem making "straw purchases" explicitly illegal. That being said, only 12% of the guns used in crimes are purchased through a licensed dealer or retailer, so to believe that improving background checks is a fix-all is naive. The overwhelming majority of guns used in crimes are 'street guns'...the purchasers of whom have no regards for any law... If your going to break the most grave law of all, and murder, do you really care if you broke the law when you bought your gun in exchange for crack? Ultimately the best way to decrease illegal gun crime and use is probably to get serious about cracking down on street level drug crime. The two walk hand in hand. As for legislation that limits firearms physically, i tend to fall pretty center of the line on it... Alot of the pro-gun crowd screams and whines over ANY legislation that limits types of firearms. lets face it- THERE SHOULD BE some limit on the weaponry a private citizen can posess. You realistically do not need 30 round magazines, fully automatics or bazookas to protect your property. That being said, i think the 7 round limit being imposed is woefully inadequate and essentially made a huge number of gun owners in violation of the law overnight, simply because the majority of guns are fitted with 10 round magazines or more. The 7 round limit will push gun makers out of new york, leave homeowners with the choice of a bolt-action or revolver to protect their land- both of which are insufficient in my opinion given the types of weapons thieves are wielding, and in the long run of things it will do NOTHING to prevent gun violence or limit its effects. its just a way for the politicians to look like they are doing SOMETHING. Along similar lines, anything that bans a specific gun simply because of what color it is, how it looks or the furniture on it is similarly useless... So what would work?? What is reasonable? The parts about improving background checks, making straw purchases illegal and keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill- thats all reasonable... As for the guns themselves... The limits on them should be simple: No more then 10 rounds, No Fully automatics, No silencers. Bar those three things, anything else is resonable for a responsible gun owner to keep to protect his property and family and to participate in hunting. I just finished reading the president's draft plan on the issue, and i cant believe the amount of money being tossed towards mental health, school counselors, medical research into gun violence, etc.... Theres alot of money being earmarked towards things that MIGHT fix the problem SOMEDAY... when for half as much money they could of put a few cops in every school and FIXED the problem TODAY. as an added benefit you might see less drug crime in schools and have a trained emergency responder in the school to respond to medical emergencies until EMS arrives... If someone is absolutely crazy no amount of voluntary counselling in the world will keep them from killing. but a well trained police officer will everytime.