[Charismatic]

oh yeah lets make it so only the rich can afford to have weaponry, what could possibly go wrong with that.

Seconded.

Wait, everyone who gets a gun has to take a psychological test?

If someone like me can get a gun license and a gun then there is something very wrong with the way we are doing things.

Why? Near everyone should be allowed to have guns. Guns are for protection; some ppl are idiots, granted. But its like with cars, some people abuse them. But why say we should severly limit the rights to cars?

[karajorma]

We do limit the ability of people to have cars. First you must have proved you can drive a car safely in order to get a licence. Then if you do abuse your right that licence is taken away from you.

AFAIK there is no need to prove you can handle a gun in order to get a licence for one. Even many people in favour of 2nd amendment rights think that there should be.

I'm think I understand what you're trying to say, but if the intention of this really was similar to car insurance's, it would cost a lot less. Cars can kill people, too, and they're a lot more expensive than any gun a normal person would own. I feel that a $1 million insurance policy for guns is obviously an attempt to reduce gun ownership without blatantly disallowing people from having guns.

It looks like most other people here have made this assumption too, but it just might be the hostile media effect, I guess.

Might simply be that pay outs for gun insurance would be less common than for car insurance even if they are bigger when they do need to pay out.

That's especially true if the companies only pay for accidents.

[MP-Ryan]

Has nobody realized a VERY simple fact?

$1 million liability insurance costs about a total of $60 a year.  If that.

[Turambar]

I'm required to have car insurance, that's much more expensive than $60 a year.

[iamzack]

If someone like me can get a gun license and a gun then there is something very wrong with the way we are doing things.

Why? Near everyone should be allowed to have guns. Guns are for protection; some ppl are idiots, granted. But its like with cars, some people abuse them. But why say we should severly limit the rights to cars?

I can't have a driver's license. So... yeah. Guns should be harder to get than cars.

[Grizzly]

Why? Near everyone should be allowed to have guns. Guns are for protection; some ppl are idiots, granted. But its like with cars, some people abuse them. But why say we should severly limit the rights to cars?

Guns are for protection, yes. But nearly no-one in the Netherlands carries a gun (Just people who have a good reason to own one, IE people who use them regurlary for a job/for a hobby. And even then you don't get it before you've had the psycho-analylist (whatshisname?) give you the green light), and we have been able to defend ourselves just fine.

[Scotty]

I can't have a driver's license. So... yeah. Guns should be harder to get than cars.

Okay, lemme check this for a second.  YOU can't have a drivers license, therefore.... guns should be harder to get?  Not sure I follow there.

AFAIK there is no need to prove you can handle a gun in order to get a licence for one.

The gun 'right-to-carry' permit is issued only after background checks, waiting periods, and any applicable child protection laws, varied by state.

To put it simply, there is a need to prove you can handle a gun to get a license for one.

[karajorma]

Doesn't that strike you as wrong? You aren't allowed to handle a car until you have passed a test to prove you aren't going to kill yourself or other people with it due to your lack of understanding but a gun is perfectly fine?

[Scotty]

That would be because you don't drive a gun around that you can hit people in.  A car is just a little more deadly when someone who doesn't know what they are doing tries to use them. 

That, and there isn't an amendment in the constitution about 'the right to have a car'

[NGTM-1R]

Doesn't that strike you as wrong? You aren't allowed to handle a car until you have passed a test to prove you aren't going to kill yourself or other people with it due to your lack of understanding but a gun is perfectly fine?

Shocking as it is, on this aspect of gun control I agree perfectly with Kara. You should be required to attend some form of gun safety classes, and also prove you can consistantly hit a target at a range of twenty feet.

[iamzack]

I'm better at shooting than driving. :3

[Black Wolf]

God, more Americans whining about guns. As a nation, you'll grow out of it someday. I hope

[Polpolion]

God, more Americans whining about guns. As a nation, you'll grow out of it someday. I hope

Self-righteous, much?

Doesn't that strike you as wrong? You aren't allowed to handle a car until you have passed a test to prove you aren't going to kill yourself or other people with it due to your lack of understanding but a gun is perfectly fine?

Shocking as it is, on this aspect of gun control I agree perfectly with Kara. You should be required to attend some form of gun safety classes, and also prove you can consistantly hit a target at a range of twenty feet.

This isn't a bad idea, as long as the tests and classes are relatively cheap, considering how it does prevent people who actually want them wouldn't be prevented from having them. Even if people still get around it, at least there would be that many more people who would know how to use them properly. But 20 feet is a little close.  Even at 50, it's kinda hard to miss most targets.

[iamzack]

Are you from the UK, Canada, or Australia?

[Black Wolf]

God, more Americans whining about guns. As a nation, you'll grow out of it someday. I hope

Self-righteous, much?

By definition, yes. And I'm comfortable with that.

[Polpolion]

God, more Americans whining about guns. As a nation, you'll grow out of it someday. I hope

Self-righteous, much?

By definition, yes. And I'm comfortable with that.

Oh. I just said that because that post came across to me as a bit snobby, and I guess I've seen enough people on the intarnet generally being dismissive of America to see that stuff where it's not. To be honest, that stuff is more ridiculous than most of what's actually going on in America, this included.

EDIT: Yeah, to be honest, as a more libertarian person, I'm a bit offended that you're appalled at me disliking these controlling laws and stuff, but I guess your feeling isn't uncalled for regarding the people who just love blowing stuff up. Well actually, it is a bit uncalled for regarding that, too, but not much.

[vyper]

I find it hilarious how most Americans who want to do something about gun crime think the solution is to legislate more.

Why is this amusing to me? Because of the reason they pursue such a solution - they're afraid to challenge the cultural issues that lead to gun crime in the first place.

[iamzack]

I don't promote gun laws to stop gun crime. I just don't like the retardo gun culture.

Owning a gun would do nothing for most people as far as protection goes. Taser gun thingers would be the better route. Not lethal, so people would be more likely to use them.

[Ford Prefect]

America's debate over gun rights always strikes me as a classic case of one of those collectively understood lies; Everyone knows that the real reason they want the right to own guns is because they think guns are awesome, and they know that everyone else thinks that too. Our nation's entire history is imbued with the totemistic fetishization of guns, but unfortunately the sweet, ejaculatory release that millions of Americans experience from the discharge of a firearm doesn't quite make par as the basis of a Constitutional right, so we've all decided that it's actually about the inalienable rights of men. (It is the second thing after free expression, so the Framers didn't exactly make it hard for us to get there as long as we abstain from any kind of smarty-pants hermeneutics.) But whether or not the ownership of firearms is truly a legitimate right in this day and age is irrelevant, because America has a boner for weaponry, and goddamnit, we'll do what ever it takes to frame it as a passable appeal to Enlightenment universals.

It's the same reason porn could never be illegal: Its legitimization is free expression, but its sanctity is in the fact that everyone loves a nice pair of tits. Only the things that are culturally sacred are truly protected. Unfortunately, guns are among those things.

[NGTM-1R]

This isn't a bad idea, as long as the tests and classes are relatively cheap, considering how it does prevent people who actually want them wouldn't be prevented from having them. Even if people still get around it, at least there would be that many more people who would know how to use them properly. But 20 feet is a little close.  Even at 50, it's kinda hard to miss most targets.

Hitting a moving target with a pistol at fifty feet is not as easy as you would think, particularly when people are screaming and running around cluttering up your sight picture, etc. Twenty feet is also, I think, a much more reasonable approximation of the situations in which you would have cause to fire a weapon in self-defense or in defense of another person. It would also discourge people from trying to shoot much further than that subtly, which is probably a good thing considering they may or may not practice regularly and fifty feet is more or less across the average fast-food place, bank, or about as far from the counter as you'd be able to get in a mall and still see it; too many people might end up intercepting a bullet when you fire from that far.