I sympathize and respect someone who lives in the inner city and is tired of seeing handguns being as easy to obtain as hairbrushes. I get why that person would want to see guns harder to obtain, and I completely agree.
I also sympathize and respect someone who lives in the same inner-city neighborhood and wants to get a gun to protect him/herself and his/her family from the gun-toting would-be thugs roaming the neighborhood. I get why that person is thankful to have a gun, and I completely agree.
I further sympathize and respect those who live in rural areas, and for whom gun ownership is a cultural thing and a rite of passage. Look, both of my grandfathers were gun owners and hunters; my father learned to hunt growing up in eastern Michigan in the 1950s and 1960s.
I get it.
However, I also get that America is the only developed nation on Earth that has this problem of serial mass shootings. Canada, England, France, Spain, Australia, Germany, Poland, etc. don't have fewer crazy people than America does. They don't have fewer frustrated "ticking time bombs" than America does. They have fewer guns.
Now, some would say that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." I would alter that just a bit to say that guns don't kill people, bullets do. Nonetheless, point well taken.
It is in light of the above that I propose two seemingly simple policies:
1. Barcode Firing Pins
When a gun is fired, the firing pin strikes the bullet, igniting the gunpowder and sending the bullet out to its fate, be that a sandbag or a skull. We have the technology already whereby we can take a bullet and a gun and determine whether a particular bullet came from a particular gun. Why can't we mandate that gun makers place a microscopic barcode on the firing pin of the weapons they well, thereby imprinting the bar code on the bullet? Imagine, if you will, a situation where as soon as the bullet is discovered, we (the people) know which exact gun fired it. I believe that this would go a long way in solving violent crime, and it would not infringe on the right to own a gun whatsoever.
As my grandfather often told me, don't aim at something you don't want to shoot; don't shoot at something you don't want to kill. If you have a problem owning that you shot that bullet, then perhaps you shouldn't shoot that bullet.
Seems pretty simple to me. As an added bonus, it actually helps us delineate between the so-called "good guys with guns" and the "bad guys with guns." Once we find the bullet, we'll know whether the gun owner is a "good" or "bad" guy.
2. Mandatory Insurance Premiums Upon Bullet Purchase
If you drive a car, you have to carry liability insurance, just in case you injure an innocent third party. If you shoot a gun, shouldn't the same liability insurance requirement attach?
Let's say, hypothetically, that my neighbor wakes up to find an intruder in his house. My neighbor then picks up his Saturday Night Special and blasts that intruder straight to hell. The only problem is that he shot three bullets at the intruder, and two of them either missed or passed right through the intruder and wound up in my gut.
Now, assuming I know who shot the bullets, I suppose I can sue someone for the untold damages this gunshot wound to the gut would inflict on me. I support my entire family with my job, but if I'm laid up in a hospital for 4 months, it's a bit hard to litigate, no? What about my exorbitant medical bills? Should I have to bear that cost?
Let's assume for a moment that the shooting was something less noble. Let's say that there were two cars on Moeller Rd., and one of the drivers had road rage. They then shoot at each other, and one of the shots misses and again lodges in my gut. The damages are the same. Do I just suck it up and call that the price of freedom? When I am not a gun owner; I didn't shoot anyone; I didn't do anything to incur this risk?
If the purchase of a bullet automatically results in the payment of an insurance premium, at least there would be a pool of money with which to compensate the very real innocent third parties that are harmed by inadvertent, negligent shootings.
As it sits right now, the cost of such inadvertent or negligent shootings are borne privately by the recipients of the bullets involved in the shootings. Why should they pay? Why not the category of people who have the greatest ability to avoid the harm . . . the shooters.
Finally, the cost of this insurance premium could be directly proportionate to the risk. Perhaps .22 caliber bullets don't represent the same risk that .45 bullets do. Well, premium goes down. Perhaps bullets bought from Store A have historically wound up in cadavers. Well, premium goes up. Along these lines, I suspect the increased cost for one bullet is minimal whereas the increased cost for the person who wants to fire 1,000 rounds/week would (hopefully) be prohibitive.
Conclusion
These are just a few thoughts on what to do about the prevalence of gun violence in our country. I recognize that some people don't think this is a problem. I recognize that others have determined that the best way to address gun violence is "do nothing." I am not one of those people. To detractors, I would say that unless you have a better idea, you don't have any ideas, and talking about how "we need to get God back" in XXXXXXX (insert classroom, govt., etc.) or how "we need stronger families" is not a solution; it is lamentation.
As a final note, I would say this to our elected "leaders." As long as your policy prescription to this problem is "nothing," you have made a legislative determination and policy decision that the lives of those who have died from gun violence are an acceptable price to be paid in service of something (what that something is, I can't begin to imagine).
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