Tremendously lazy take even by your standards of posting tweets as tacit endorsements of your own opinion.
you didn't include the portion the precedes the paragraph above: Missouri prohibits “recklessly” selling, leasing, loaning, giving away or delivering any firearm to a person under age 18 without the consent of the child’s custodial parent or guardian.1 Missouri also prohibits anyone from violating the federal law prohibiting anyone from selling or transferring a handgun or handgun ammunition to a person under age 18.2
wrt the assault weapons ban, how are those defined, and does the ban include their manufacture, importing, etc? or just a ban on sales/possession?
In addition to all of that, here's an easier and more effective plan: Hold sellers and manufacturers financially accountable, just like bar owners and bartenders are accountable if a drunk kills someone by driving. So if you sell a psycho a gun, or a modification or upgrade (clips), or ammo, they go out and shoot someone, you can be sued. That is going to drastically change the dynamic from gun shows to gun stores to individuals. You want to be free and have a gun? Cool. You want to sell it? You're sharing responsibility. How can anyone argue against that?
https://www.axios.com/2023/12/28/us-murder-violent-crime-rates-drop 2023 saw a 12% decrease in murders from 2022. Before covid the country was seeing a steady decline in the murder rate. Mass shootings are a unique problem that no doubt is largely tdue to the increased availability of assault rifles. Democrats should stress, that, because the truth is in the numbers. The weapons are designed for killing a bunch of people It probably wouldn't make a difference but they need to stress it. Get numbers on how many people used an assault rifle for self defense, it's probably a small percentage
Full ban on import, manufacturing and ownership. The list of prohibited weapons consists is defined in legislation and is updated semi-regularly. I believe it was most recently updated in 2020. Now not all of Canada's rules are great and the Trudeau government has actually done some really dumb virtue signaling with recent gun legislation but the overall framework is quite good. If you exclude the US, Canada is actually one of the most gun friendly countries in the Western world but the restrictions are enough to keep homicide rates low and more importantly the rules do a good job of preventing mass shootings. If you're looking for a balance between the ability to own firearms and safety, I really think Canada is the best model. European countries have even stricter rules that I dont think would ever fly in the US. But Canada has managed to maintain a relatively healthy culture for sport and hunting while preventing most of the problems that you see in the US.
All of these questions presuppose that the solutions to the problem of ubiquitous and easily-accessible guns aren't already modeled all over the world: limits on ownership, licensing, bans on types of weapon (x rounds per minute = civilian ban), etc. To pretend they aren't obvious is myopic, but maybe that's unavoidable for a uniquely American problem. It's the same bad faith argument made by conservatives who claim they want to expand medical insurance access without involving government coverage: they'll say that they can't live with the trade-off (higher taxes or bans on types of guns) so the problem must continue. Just because the problems are uniquely American-made doesn't mean that solutions need to be, too, when everyone else has this figured out. The conservative legal movement has forced us all into this militarized hell because of its insistence on "adhering" to what the Framers thought about this issue. What that fails to address is that the Framers' state of mind only pertained to what they knew and they could not have foreseen the technological advances made in weaponry. It's funny how originalism always arrives at the favored policy outcomes of conservative politicians. It's all one giant shrug to context. The fine folks at the Federalist Society also tell us that there can be no limits on exercising the Second Amendment, but that reasonable restrictions on the Reconstruction-era voting amendments are fine. Why do I have to register to vote x days before an election in order to exercise my right? Why do I have to use an electronic machine if I prefer a paper ballot? Why do I have to vote in a pre-determined place? If my second amendment rights are absolute why can my 14th, 15th and 19th rights be abridged?
As long as you had a sensible statute of limitations, the only real argument would come from those who sell guns, b/c they skate totally free right now plus the standard "slipperous slopes!1!1!!" drivel. "Today, I let them hold a seller partly responsible for a massacre, and tomorrow... (checks notes, scratches head)... they take alls our gunz!" To make it an easier sell, you could have a relatively short window of responsibility. Even like six months. I don't think if you sell a gun in 2020 you should necessarily be held responsible for the mental collapse of the gun owner by 2024, for instance.
you'd need to define "psycho" somehow; there can't be blanket liability for gun sellers. if a purchaser passed the background check (however that is defined), then the seller should not be held liable. one approach might be to make gun store, at least for certain classes of weapons, state stores, just like many states still sell alcohol via state owned/licensed liquor stores. that would shift the liability to the state, which presumably has a vested interest in only selling to non-psycho buyers. I would like to see some stats on how many mass shootings are committed by legal gun owners.
77% of those who engaged in mass shootings purchased at least some of their guns legally, while illegal purchases were made by 13% of those committing mass shootings. https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles...-details-half-century-us-mass-shootings#note1
from the article, here's the entire paragraph, which contains some additional interesting stats: Notably, most individuals who engaged in mass shootings used handguns (77.2%), and 25.1% used assault rifles in the commission of their crimes. Of the known mass shooting cases (32.5% of cases could not be confirmed), 77% of those who engaged in mass shootings purchased at least some of their guns legally, while illegal purchases were made by 13% of those committing mass shootings. In cases involving K-12 school shootings, over 80% of individuals who engaged in shootings stole guns from family members.
Why can't there be a blanket liability? These are weapons, bro. Not collector's items, not toys, not trophies. They are made to kill.
why would someone be liable if they followed the law in selling the weapon? both the weapon was legal, and the buy passed all state mandated background checks. where's the liability? the bartender is not liable for serving alcohol; he's liable for serving someone who is visibly intoxicated.
I think you're onto something here. I agree with @B-Bob that there should be some sort of statute of limitations on liability. The Uvalde shooter, for instance, bought his weapons and ammo right after his 18th birthday and one week before his attack. Based on your metaphor, he was definitely still "visibly intoxicated" and it's insane that there were no checks placed on him by the state of Texas from acquiring those weapons. Anyone buying a weapon before they are allowed to buy a beer should be forced to go through firearms safety classes. Maybe one of the "good guys with a gun" can observe them and listen to their motivations during a class before signing off on a purchase. These kids aren't savants either - background check should include a scan of their social media posts. The Uvalde and Parkland shooters both left long and obvious trails of posts where they talked about wanting to kill people.
Although I do think a time limit between item sale and use for a crime is fair, this rabbit hole bureaucratic bullshit is how laws get held up (which is exactly why @basso keeps throwing them up). Nothing is ever perfect because you can zoom in to the nth degree and always find faults. Done beats perfect. Put the laws in place, let the courts decide.
Stats really do not matter. Being impacted does matter. Gun violence is becoming a national health crisis. If you want change, people's lives have to be impacted. Emotions and fears can drive change. It's going to eventually happen. I'm on the boat that when it happens, it can be sudden and drastic, not slow.
