Australian comedian perfectly sums up why other countries think US gun laws are crazy

Test? Under these conditions:

1. The test is a standard test developed by the NRA.

2. Maximum 20 multiple-choice questions. No time limit to complete, but should take less than 10 minutes. 75% to pass. No limit on re-takes.

3. The test cannot be changed by the state.

4. The test is not required for anyone with a concealed carry license, who is active/reserve police/military, etc.

5. The test is administered by the FFL handling the transaction.

6. No record of the test is submitted to the state; only retained by FFL for record-keeping.

7. The maximum fee for administering the test is $10.

8. The test is on paper, not on any state computer system.

9. If one has a test on record with the FFL, no re-test is necessary for subsequent purchases.

10. The test is for guns only, not for ammunition, reloading supplies, etc.


The "signed statement?" Under these conditions:

1. The statement must be politically neutral.

2. The statement is kept by the FFL, not submitted to the state.

3. Again, ONE TIME ONLY. No "intervals."

That all sounds good with the exception of NRA involvement and the limitation on signing statements. I would consider limiting repeats of the statement to additional purchases, meaning that it's once per gun. Some other non-governmental agency can be established for the purpose of designing and managing testing procedures. Lobbying groups need not apply.

In some ways I wish we had federal gun laws. I here in Georgia have same rights as Forbin in New Jersey and Anc
in Washington. But if we did this, I'm thinking the default would do to stricter, more limiting gun laws versus
more gun freedoms. That's a big gamble!

So I must concede that allowing the individual states to control their own gun concerns as they apply to their own residents
and their concerns is the lesser of two evils.

Paladin has laid out a pretty reasonable program.

I like guns.

Why don't gun nuts ever talk about guns instead of trying to distract by6 talking about other things? Do us a favor and defend guns here and make a thread about drunk driving if you wish to discuss that. The world is capable of making regulations on both individually, and just because some places might be lax on drunk driving does not mean we want crazies and felons buying guns for recreation.

Why? They are literally the authority on gun safety.

These statements aren't contracts. They're advisory and the signature indicates that the signer has received the information. That's it.

Unnecessary, but since these statements are going to be brief and boilerplate, I'd begrudgingly concede.

Again, the NRA is the authority on gun safety. They train more people than anyone. The test would be standardized and non-political. It would be like the safety tests they already administer.

Of the ass?

I think the state should have every right to restrict sale of guns to those who are not mentally competant to deal with them safely. Certainly children and certified loonybirds are two groups that should be restricted from firearm ownership. Intoxicated individuals should not be allowed to carry any gun while intoxicated. On top of this felons should be restricted from gun ownership, but have a chance to have their rights restored after a certain time following the end of their punishment. Also, the guntards have shown that we need to give some form of class showing the legal and safe ways to carry and store guns because stupid people who get shot by their toddler have shown it completely necessary. No, I really do not care that you wish to own a gun with absolutely no restrictions. It is clearly obvious your 3ways lead to two year olds blowing their moms away, and teenagers with autism stealing your guns and blowing away their school. We can do better than that even though you may not be sane or smart enough to own a gun.

First off you could not protect shit in a violent altercation while pissing yourself and running away screaming like ted nugent looking at his draft card. Let us get that straight. You are a cowardly worm and not a hero. Shooting targets does not make your heroic. Take that bullshit and shove it straight up your ass. Your reason here has no basis in reality. If you want to go shooting at targets and pretend you are rambo, that is your choice. If you can handle the safety and responsibility of a gun, and be an upstanding member of the community have at the target range. Otherwise recognize blind fire is dangerous, and you are way to cowardly to look at the enemy. The people around you would like you to know your stray fire is not helping them survive, and they do not need to be killed or injured by your friendly fire.

Yeah, like you were up for a discussion. Dude, you probvably do not want to let everyone know how delusional you are with your heroic fantasies and hallucinations of a discussion on your part. Until you step back into reality and become sane it is probably best we do n ot allow you to have guns. You are far to unstable and clumsy to deal responsibly with firearms.

Much to the contrary, I think that someone who is OK with their responsible neighbor owning guns is far less paranoid than the one who wants to preemptively take them from him at the point of someone else's gun.

*Happy sigh*
I'm so glad Japan exists.

Ah, Japan. You made me love you.

Nobody wants crazies and felons to buy guns for recreation. So how does limiting guns for the sane and law abiding keep the guns out of the hands of crazies?
As far as I know there's not a big ring of the sane and legal selling guns to the crazies. Not much profit in that considering it's a federal offense.
Round up all the guns and melt them down? Then a gun will cost as much as a car! So more criminals will steal cars to sell and use the money
to buy a gun.

Not is you want to buy a machine gun built after 1930 what ever 7nless you have a very rare and almost impossible to get exemption.

I don't think there should limits on what type of weapon or ammo you own.
Is a .458 elephant gun with a sane, safe person behind it any more dangerous than
a .22 revolver in the hands of a crazed felon?

Yeah, but that starts the circular logic.

Anti gun: "America is a murder crazy bloodbath!"
Pro gun: "I need a gun to protect my family."
Anti gun: "You're paranoid."

I support the right to own guns, and I have absolutely no desire to own one myself.

In fact, I've only even touched a firearm once: at a "learn to shoot" event where I learned that I'm a lousy shot. And if that's the last time I ever touch a gun for the rest of my life, I'll be perfectly happy.

You don't have to want to exercise a right yourself in order to support it.

Don't care.

I'm the same for drugs, abortion, and gay marriage.

On a personal level, those freedoms are completely irrelevant to me. I will never need any of them. (Well, can't rule out good drugs.) But that doesn't mean they're not important--perhaps hugely important--to someone else.

Not using or needing a freedom at the moment doesn't negate the freedom's value. I don't run a newspaper or gather political rallies or proclaim religious beliefs, but I would fight to keep the right to do those things for myself and for others.

Those are easy ones, but how about the freedom to marry someone of your gender, to become the other gender, or to own guns. Those are freedoms many people have that they would not exercise, but they also want to give them up just so others cannot have them. Should we tolerate the removal of freedoms that others find icky?

The NRA is far to the right of the American populace.

Even in households where there is a NRA member the overwhelming majority of Americans support background checks at gun shows. #4 in the Pew summary here:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/24/5-facts-about-the-nra-and-guns-in-america/

The NRA of course fights against that with hundreds of millions in funding.

They've backed or instigated laws that completely dismantle the ATFs ability to track guns, for the ATF to manage its own data on gun laws, for the CDC or NHS to investigate gun violence so we can have current stats on how this is implemented, and kept a functioning head of the agency from being approved for more than half a dozen years at the height of its power.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2...-protects-people-who-commit-crimes-with-guns/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-helps-block-data-collection-by-crimefighters
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/20/1366561/how-the-nra-stifled-gun-violence-research/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/no-funds-studies-gun-violence-article-1.1809263

The ability for funding for public safety issues on the matter of guns was just restored last year. However, the GOP is still fighting against it, and any funding will no doubt disappear. Why? Because scientific studies are the same thing as propaganda to people who reject science.
http://www.propublica.org/article/republicans-say-no-to-cdc-gun-violence-research

This allows criminals to get guns, period. The NRA's destruction of even basic information in the information age allows criminal brokers to purchase multiple guns by simply visiting multiple gun stores.
http://www.salon.com/2012/07/23/nra_a_lobby_for_criminals/

But this is typical - they oppose scholarship, they oppose information, and they oppose effective leadership - because they don't care about the truth, they care about their excercise of power. Its AMAZING that people can then say 'they are the experts on gun safety' when they opposed scientific investigation on the impacts of the gun culture. Clearly that's not about safety.

One of the recent studies - people are 4.5 times more likely to be shot if they carry a firearm.
http://www.newscientist.com/article...-of-getting-shot-and-killed.html#.VRQCLPnF98E

Or another in 2013 - there's a nearly 1-1 correspondence with percentage of gun ownership and gun homicides.
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301409?journalCode=ajph

@Paladin:

All of Demi's post is why the test cannot be crafted or administered by the NRA.

Here's the crown jewel of NRA perfidy (though there's a lot to choose from, granted):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiahrt_Amendment

Yes, under the original terms of the amendment, gun traces information wasn't allowed to be disseminated to the Police! Note - this is only guns that were used in violent crimes, all other types of data are offlimits to the Feds.

So if a gun was used in the commission of a murder, the Feds knew about its history, it couldn't be used by the police to find out how the gun got in the hands of the shooter. It couldn't be used to investigate arms sales or trafficking. Or worse yet, a ballistic report matching a known gun previously used in a murder couldn't be tracked to the current owner of the gun, even when the Feds knew who it was! By congressional law.

Backed, of course, by the NRA.

Thankfully that idiocy was repealed in 2008. However, it was the law of the land from 1993 to 2008 - 15 years of complete lunacy.

Now tell me how the NRA is about gun safety.

Good point. I totally support making weed legal but as a gub'mint employee I can't touch the stuff.
BTW I think you might be a "lousy shot" because you never shot before. If you've never
rode a bike you would fall over within seconds.

No we should not. That's why those Nervous Neds who are appalled by Billy McRedneck carrying his pistol openly in the grocery store need to be more tolerant.
A right is a right is a right..........right?

Oh, and this little tidbit. Remember when the NRA's talking point is that it wasn't the guns that were the problem, it was the mentally ill? They pushed for an active mental illness database, remember?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...s-database-thirty-eight-states-have-that-now/

Because its far less damaging to society to have a national mental illness database then it is to have a gun database. Certainly there could be no unintended side effects for that!

Well, guess what? They oppose expanding limits on gun ownership among those adjudicated as being mentally defective. Because of course they do.
https://www.nraila.org/articles/201...oaden-reach-of-mental-health-related-gun-bans

Both at the Federal level, and at the state level:
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_25680316/nra-others-see-colorado-mental-health-bill-gun

They've played this shell game before - they said they would help with legislation to help keep the mentally ill from getting weapons, but demanded a rider that would grant them their weapons rights back if they were no longer in the system. In other words, you pretty much automatically got your gun rights back as long as you weren't currently being detained or recently released.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/us/03guns.html

Maybe.

Excellent post, Demi, and it has been true for decades but the gun nuts have never cared about facts and reality. Ever.

They know facts and reality are not on their side so they just don't care about such things and deliberately try to hide facts and reality. If you are trying to hide information then you know the facts do not support what you are saying.