So, there’s a certain breed of … let’s say “gun enthusiast” … who often sports the slogan “Gun Control is Hitting What You Aim At”. Many of them like it ’cause “it totally 0wnz the l1bs”.
These people are wrong.
But they’re not entirely wrong.
I’ve been pretty up-front here that I am in favor of allowing some guns to be stored in the home; in fact I’m in favor of formally-organized state militias.
Since a populace would be wrong to give up all capacity for violence to a State, a weaponless population should not be a goal in trying to solve our problem with mass shootings and other gun-related incidents.
But you should have to prove that you’re capable of storing and using one of these things safely before you get to take it home.
(I’m also in favor of only allowing some legal guns to be stored in the home.)
But seriously, the argument that you have to prove your competence to be allowed to drive a car on the public roads so you should also have to do that to keep a gun around is sensible.
Mind you, the argument that the resulting database of gun owners would be subject to abuse, so having such a program be managed by a distinct arm of the State that only deals with this stuff (like, say, a state militia) is also sensible. I totally wouldn’t trust the local police with a list of all the guns in the county, for example; I’m quite sure that such a list would be immediately used to justify first-contact referrals to the local SWAT team.
Having to prove you know how to keep and use a gun safely before you can take it home from the store will not solve all the problems related to gun ownership and gun culture in the United States. Of course it won’t.
But it will solve some of them.
And it’s the right thing to do regardless.
