Quote Originally Posted by Ciabhán View Post
The thing is Whukid everyone understands the point but it's been made already and the horse has been beaten into a puddle of glop. The inanimate object is not responsible we get that. There are however better and fresher arguments that can be made.

It would be better in fact if you want to equate vehicles and firearms to suggest a similar mandatory training to recieve a license to buy firearms. This license will also be reviewed periodically and will require one to have had a certain amount of hours of continued training to renew. Anyone who can currently legally purchase a firearm and attends the training gets a license. No one is disenfranchised unless they choose to be by not attending the training. It would only apply to newly purchased firearms. Currently owned firearms would be grandfathered and you need do nothing if you do not intend to purchase any.
True, but this is where it gets hairy. Technically, at that point, you're giving the government the control to pick who gets to use their 2nd Amendment right and who doesn't at their whim (if we're to use the DMV as an example), and it completely undermines the reason the amendment was put in place. Is the federal government going to take advantage of this and stop everyone who says something bad about Obama from getting a license? maybe, however i don't think it'd be likely atleast at first. At some point however, the corruption and bureaucratic tendencies would take over and the administration would become a flop while either not really accomplishing anything (See: TSA) or violating the out of everyone's rights (also see: TSA)

Even so, there's nothing to stop private sales going around this license thing without having a mandatory gun registry, which is a REALLY bad idea. The only way this could truly work is if it was in the hands of the state and local governments, which would be a massive cluster since no local government is run the same way as the next.

If we're really going to get serious about bringing the crime rate down and stopping people from going on shooting sprees, we need to open the floodgates for open carry and concealed carry and allow people the right to defend themselves in malls, grocery stores, movie theaters, ect. Does this mean everyone should be armed without any training? no. I'd think that the current CCW permit policies would do just fine, however it's severely limited by where it's legal to use.

Gun Free zones in general would have to disappear or armed guards would have to become the norm. It's a known fact that criminals don't follow laws and Law Abiding Citizens do. The latter aren't going to become crazed lunatics who embark on shooting sprees; the former doesn't give a damn what laws you pass because they won't stop them. At the very least, allowing teachers and professors to CCW would stop the vast majority of school shootings simply because the potential shooters know that their victims may be armed. (is that not the point of shooting up a "Gun Free zone"?)

Some people seem to scoff at the last idea for some reason. Everyone got pissed at the police because they didn't stop the Columbine or Virginia Tech shooters in time, yet it seems these same people are opposed to allowing anyone the right to defend themselves. You can defend your home and vehicle, yet not yourself and fellow classmates while attending college courses on campus?