Posted on 11/13/2004 2:34:57 PM PST by neverdem
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Nothing kills Democratic candidates' prospects more than guns. If it weren't for guns, President-elect Kerry might now be conferring with incoming Senate Majority Leader Daschle.
Since the Brady Bill took effect in 1994, gun-control efforts have been a catastrophe for Democrats. They have accomplished almost nothing nationally, other than giving a big boost to the Republicans. Mr. Kerry tried to get around the problem by blasting away at small animals, but nervous Red Staters still suspected Democrats of plotting to seize guns.
Moreover, it's clear that in this political climate, further efforts at gun control are a nonstarter. You can talk until you're blue in the face about the 30,000 gun deaths each year, about children who are nine times as likely to die in a gun accident in America as elsewhere in the developed world, about the $17,000 average cost (half directly borne by taxpayers) of treating each gun injury. But nationally, gun control is dead.
So it's time for a fundamentally new approach, emblematic of how Democrats must think in new ways about old issues. The new approach is to accept that handguns are part of the American landscape, but to use a public health approach to try to make them much safer.
The model is automobiles, for a high rate of traffic deaths was once thought to be inevitable. But then we figured out ways to mitigate the harm with seat belts, air bags and collapsible steering columns, and since the 1950's the death rate per mile driven has dropped 80 percent.
Similar steps are feasible in the world of guns.
"You can tell whether a camera is loaded by looking at it, and you should be able to tell whether a gun is loaded by looking at it," said David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. Professor Hemenway has written "Private Guns, Public Health," a brilliant and clear-eyed primer for the country.
We take safety steps that reduce the risks of everything from chain saws (so they don't kick back and cut off an arm) to refrigerators (so kids can't lock themselves inside). But firearms have been exempt. Companies make cellphones that survive if dropped, but some handguns can fire if they hit the ground.
Professor Hemenway notes that in the 1990's, two children a year, on average, died after locking themselves in car trunks. This was considered unacceptable, so a government agency studied the problem, and General Motors and Ford engineered safety mechanisms to prevent such deaths.
In contrast, 15 children under the age of 5 die annually in fatal gun accidents in the U.S., along with 18 children 5 to 9 years old. We routinely make aspirin bottles childproof, but not guns, even though childproof pistols were sold back in the 19th century - they wouldn't fire unless the shooter put pressure on the handle as well as the trigger.
Aside from making childproof guns, here are other steps we could take:
Require magazine safeties so a gun cannot be fired when the clip is removed (people can forget that a bullet may still be in the chamber and pull the trigger). Many guns already have magazine safeties, but not all.
Finance research to develop "smart guns," which can be fired only by authorized users. If a cellphone can be locked with a PIN, why not a gun? This innovation would protect children - and thwart criminals.
Start public safety campaigns urging families to keep guns locked up in a gun safe or with a trigger lock (now, 12 to 14 percent of gun owners with young children keep loaded and unlocked weapons in their homes).
Encourage doctors to counsel depressed patients not to keep guns, and to advise new parents on storing firearms safely.
Make gun serial numbers harder for criminals to remove.
Create a national database for gun deaths. In a traffic fatality, 120 bits of data are collected, like the positions of the passengers and the local speed limit, so we now understand what works well (air bags, no "right on red") and what doesn't (driver safety courses). Statistics on gun violence are much flimsier, so we don't know what policies would work best, and much of the data hurled by rival camps at each other is inaccurate.
Would these steps fly politically? Maybe. One poll showed that 88 percent of the public favors requiring that guns be childproof. And such measures demonstrate the kind of fresh thinking that can keep alive not only thousands of Americans, but the Democratic Party as well.
LOL! PRICELESS
And they call us gun nuts?!?
oops..
Or full-on firearms training, lots of it, and crime-avoidance training, and how to resist a rape or kidnapping with the help of a sidearm.
Twenty years from now, I would like it very much to be known throughout the Middle East that you may be able to snipe an American from a "safe" distance, but that the very last thing you want to try to do is to kidnap one.
Especially since s'kerry, bless his stoopid heart, had the dumbness to criticize Bush for not pushing for the AWB renewal just before election. Poor guy just had too many things going against him, inluding his 'advisors.' Heh. (Thanks, Clintons, but don't expect us to return the favor.)
"My first choice would be repealing the 1968 GCA, which would really put a kink in state laws that depend on it for definitions and regulatory bases."
You are so correct. Although the import ban of 89 and the 86 machine gun ones need to go badly too.
And retool the 34 NFA a lot too. I'd raise the taxes to $1000 but make it easier otherwise to get things. Perhaps make it a licensed thing like with CCW.
"You can tell whether a camera is loaded by looking at it, and you should be able to tell whether a gun is loaded by looking at it,"
Yeah, I sort of hate to admit this...but I've taken a couple rolls of "film" with an empty camera. I was treating it like it was "loaded", but I couldn't tell until I cracked it open.
FRegards,
The anti-gun whackos ALREADY tried this tactic many times before. Remember when Clinton had his boy, Emory University's (remember the other famous LIER from Emory who wote a FRAUDULENT "history" book on the 2nd Amendment and guns in America?) Dr. Arthur Kellerman on the inside at the CDC? He used junk science and cooked "studies" to help suggest that guns were a major health problem (forget the high number of patients killed through medical mistakes by "doctors" like Kellerman). When called on his questionable "findings" (i.e., a gun in the home is 43 times more likely to harm or kill the owner than it is to harm or kill an intruder - or something as RIDICULOUS as that), he never released his raw "data" for independent, unbiased verification. In other words, he was a lying WHORE for the Clinton/Reno/Schumer/Feinstein anti-gun machine. When dems can't get the licensing, registration, and confiscating of guns done through legislation, they ALWAYS run to the ambulance-chasers, activist judges, and pacifist medical QUACKS in an effort to make an end run around our 2nd Amendment rights. Too bad for them that we are already on to their game, and IT AIN'T GONNA FLY.
Proper musket handling?
Ted Nugent Bump!
That's right. You're getting into their voter base when you start beating up on criminals. Throw them all in jail, and the 'Rats would never win another election.
"keep preaching on gay marriage,more gun laws ,how the military is bad,raising taxes on the rich ,christians are idiots,Then only then will they win.I'm trying to give them good red state advice. Dont forget to knock Nascar fans..."
Don't forget those trailor trash "Wal-Mart Shoppers"
I forgot to add left-wing maggot, inner-city mayors and union police chiefs to the ambulance-chasers, activist judges, and pacifist medical QUACKS that the demonRATS turn to in their incremental march toward Draconian bans on our guns.
This is the same BS socialist approach tried the American Medical Association years ago.
It failed then with a vengence.
Just the same old same old from the the Democrat (gay) party which has NO ideas.
oh yes forgot to mention. Even if the numbers are scraped off, they are still detectable due to the deep indentations of the metal.
Obviosly this poof has no concept of rights or firearms.
What is it about guns and Democrats? They simply are unable to get it. Guns are made to kill and it is impossible to make the gun itself any safer. Gun control has never been about keeping people from accidentally shooting someone, it's always been about taking guns away from everyone. Anyone who thinks Kerry would have been elected had it not been for gun control is an idiot. Had Kerry been pro guns he would not be a liberal. It's about being Liberal, not about the details of liberal issues.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.