"It's always too soon to talk about gun control"

[hazard]

No need ever since the Napoleonic Wars?  We were still expanding westward at that time, and leaving aside what we did to the Native American peoples, that was some hairy shit.  At that time it was considered an absolute necessity to have a several guns - mostly pistols, a couple of rifles, and a shotgun for when shit got real up close.

You've heard the expression, "God created man and Sam Colt made man equal"?  That's pretty much it in a nutshell.  And it didn't help matters any that in places where you didn't really need a gun for protection (say, New York City) you had people selling penny dreadfuls telling about outrageous tall tales of gunmen, lawmen, and 'indians' in the 'Wild and Untamed' West.

So, that's where our fetish comes from.  From the aggressive marketing schemes of people like Sam Colt combined with a very real need for personal protection, and the romanticisation of that culture back in the Eastern USA.  (Later on, the Prohibition would do us absolutely no favors on ANY front.)

Then why is it that Canada, under pretty much the same constraints, has such a different gun culture?

Ooookayyyy, what does rapid communication have to do with this?

The purpose of the electoral college and the way representatives (Senate and House both) are organised has everything to do with communication capabilities. In the time where communication between a representative and their people would take days at minimum and often weeks or months for the furthest stretches of the nation a mostly independent representative that acts on the behalf of the people of a given region is sensible, especially with sensible enforcement of anti gerrymandering regulations.

In a system like this swing is not a flaw; it's a good thing if a given electoral district can be relied upon to be unreliable in its loyalties to a given party or candidate, as it makes sure that they have to pay attention to the people's concerns.

However, with greater communication capacity and especially with mass communication capacity that can reach the entire public in a day or less there is gain to be had in breaking up the electoral system, at least a little. Senators appear to be the representatives of the State they come from; that can remain, so simply turn the Senate elections into a two seat election on the State level (perhaps by choice of the State selected by the governor, selected or elected by the State Senate, or elected by the people), and abolish the electoral district system as anything other than a way to unify voting administration for the House of Representatives. Let the House represent the entire people of the United States.

This will inherently break up the old two-party system in at minimum the House because suddenly it's no longer a first past the post system.

You keep missing the point I am trying to make here.

This is a democratically elected government.  And every government under it, from the State down to the smallest school district, derives their power from We, The People.

Yes, the States are responsible for organizing a militia.  But the idea was that the people of that militia would be supplying their own firearms.  And why not?  If you have your own gun and know how to use it effectively, then why train with a weapon you're not familiar with?

And on top of that, people here in the USA are permitted to form their own militias without any backing from the state.  They merely have to be registered as a militia within that state, and they're good to go.

This does not fit what I'd call a 'well regulated militia' as required in the Constitution. Using your own weapons is one thing (if a logistical nightmare if there's enough different munitions types), but only needing to say 'we're a militia' without any check to see if they're competent and/or willing and able to obey orders in case of an emergency?

Look.  There's something you NEED TO UNDERSTAND HERE.  The vast majority of gun owners here in America?  They are precisely what you want here.  They are sober-minded, responsible, and exceedingly well aware of the harm their guns can do.

You just never hear about these people because THEY DO NOT DO ANYTHING THAT IS NEWSWORTHY.

For every person that commits a crime with a fire arm or accidentally hurt themselves or another person with one, there are at least a hundred more that are perfectly good people who would never do an evil or careless thing with their weapons.  They keep their guns locked up, they keep track of their ammunition, and they practice with their weapons on a regular basis.  And you never, ever hear about them for that reason.

Then the main problem, from what I can see, is that these responsible gun owners either refuse to or can't control the national conversation on gun ownership. Not helped by the fact that the NRA, which does control the national conversation, is firmly in support of the crazies.

That there's a silent majority that opposes or at least condemns the craziness is nice, but if they're silent nothing changes.

Well, here's the thing.  By and large, the people who sell and buy guns through a private transaction?  They want to make absolutely certain that the other party is on the level with them.  Mostly because there is very real danger involved.  A good friend of mine does this, and she has her wife (not a typo) cover her with a hunting rifle from under cover some distance away.

In highly conservative Texas? Well, good for them.

Yes, that is something you can do here - at least in Texas.

Well, if this is the sort of precaution you need to feel safe enough to conduct a gun sale, you've got a problem.

I've actually given some thought about how to make this safer.  For any and all weapons sales not involving a shop, we can have it so that you have to apply for a temporary permit to sell and/or purchase firearms.  This would involve a digitized background check system, and provide as permit number.  Prior to meeting, the two individuals can exchange permit numbers and check online to see if the permit is good (they would only be good for a very short time - say, one week).

This tells each party that they've not only passed the background check, but also that they are highly unlikely to cause any problems.  (Such as pulling their gun on them and demanding all their goods/money.)

Given that apparently the situation is felt to be dangerous enough to warrant armed back up; it would also be an option to require all such sales to be done either at the local police station, or otherwise in the presence of a law enforcement officer.

That second bit is more what I'd like.  Simple, direct, and cost-effective - which is exactly what we need right now.

Oh, the insurance companies will kick and scream.  There would be a lot of people put out of work.  But these would mostly be cube-farm jobs, and American culture has been reviling that sort of thing ever since Office Space came out in theaters.

They are still people with jobs whose jobs suddenly disappear. It's a concern.

That said, just tossing the entire thing under a single payer insurance system won't be enough. Hospitals still charge exorbitant rates for their services, those need to handled, as well as pharmaceutical companies who do the exact same thing. Of course, such companies I implied would be hit with 'charge reasonably or lose your patent' stuff. That would for those companies be a major loss of income.

Another possible measure would be restricting consumer targeted advertising and limiting how much companies can reward or punish health care providers for using or not using their products. It's one of the ways that pharmaceutical companies pressure doctors.

I seriously doubt all of that.

And besides, I strongly feel that if your business cannot afford to pay a living wage to its employees, then you really shouldn't be in business at all.  It's harsh and cold, I know.  But I would be willing to make certain concessions, such as a lower minimum wage for youths (which is like 50% of McDonalds employees), and maybe even a way for small businesses to opt out, but only on a strict case-by-case basis.

A lower minimum wage for youths is actually useful in another way; young people that don't get paid enough to live on are more likely to stay in school. That said, always enforce the minimum wage, even for small businesses. Otherwise you'll see small businesses pop up everywhere as large businesses create small businesses to fill their needs for personnel at ludicrously low wages.

Besides, people are so quick to forget that the money paid out would quickly come back into the economy.  Even better yet, you'd have a lot fewer people on welfare, which is money that the State and Federal governments can put to use elsewhere.

Including by lowering taxes. Or by rebuilding much of the infrastructure that's falling apart.

Here's some stuff that supports what I'm saying: <snip>

However, once again they don't even bring up the fact that these people would start buying goods and services immediately with their money.

You misunderstood my argument.

I'm not saying 'minimum wages don't need to be raised,' I'm saying, much like the Demos article, that 'the minimum wage in one location is not necessarily equal to the minimum wage in another place.' Let me cite another website, Numbeo, that compares cost of living in 132 cities across the US. The most expensive city to live in (New York) is established as the baseline, and all other cities are cheaper. In the cheapest (Athens, Georgia) the cost of living is only about 60% the cost of living in New York.

Because of this, a minimum wage that would cover the cost of living in one city would either fall short of covering the cost of living in the other, or be far more than needed. This will impact, greatly, the viability of the exact same stores with the exact same products with the exact same prices in similar locations. Tailoring minimum wages to the local economy would be much better for the economy than a flat declaration of what the minimum wage must be across the entire USA despite the fact that there's vast differences in regional economies.

Not that kind of trickle-down economics.  What Trump is doing right now is that he's giving money directly to the Upper Class.  What I want to do is lessen the taxation of the business itself - the money that gets taken out BEFORE they pay out the dividends to the investors.

This will increase the profit margins of the business so they are more likely to expand.

However, I would put the hammer down on things like bonuses, exceptionally large salaries, and capitol gains - close up all the loop holes so they can't just pat themselves on the back for getting free money from the government.  You want to make money, THEN HONESTLY MAKE IT, DAMMIT.

Then they will award themselves with more shares and thus more dividends instead of necessarily investing in expansion. What you need is a graduated income tax that taxes all income, including from bonuses, large salaries, capital gains and dividends.

That's pretty much what I mean.  This whole thing with killing net neutrality will permit ISPs to dictate what businesses get their customers as consumers.  As well as force businesses to pay a premium to make sure their website has enough bandwidth to support their business effectively.  I mean, honestly?  The only business that's going to benefit from the loss of net neutrality is going to be the ISPs themselves.

Pretty much. It doesn't help that the US network system is wholly owned by the ISPs and ISPs don't share their networks. If you live in a certain place you usually have access to only 1 provider, especially in more rural regions.

Again, that's exactly what I mean.  Any sort of monitoring at all would require a court order, just like wire tapping phones before the September 11th attacks.  You had to provide legitimate probable cause to a judge, and that judge would decide if it was a good enough reason for that privacy to be violated.  I want to get us back to that.

Besides, the surveillance they do now?  Not a single conviction out of all that.  There was one that it might have helped with, but there was already sufficient evidence before going through the metadata recordings was even thought of.

It is pointless and nothing more than a money sink that makes us look more like a police state.

You mean be a police state. There's a lot wrong with US law enforcement that needs to be dealt with.

I prefer to think that the USA has a very nasty and malignant form of cancer.  It is going to require all forms of treatment, but if that treatment is provided then the prognosis is hopeful.  Otherwise...  I worry it will soon metastasize and our government will turn into a zombie being puppeted by the 0.1% wealthiest people.

And you know what we do with zombies.

Well, let's hope it won't come to that. It'd mean US isolation from the world for at least a generation as it sorts itself out, and while I hope the EU would rise to the occasion, it'd still mean effective dominance by Russia and China on the world stage. And I trust those two a lot more for exactly the wrong things and reasons.

Okay, touching on this again...

I would have it so a mentally unstable person would not be able to purchase firearms, but the sticky part is when they already own firearms.  In which case I would have them stored - either in safe deposit boxes or secure commercial storage (whichever is more viable due to the size of the collection) in said owners name, paid for by the government, and sealed by a court order that may only be broken by another court order based on the word of the doctor treating the owner.

Look, if you must provide a government measure to do this don't source it out commercially.

Commercial organisations care about their profits. If this means that they can make more profit by skimping on security and having half their stored goods disappear without anyone caring they will do so. Because noone will care and it makes them more money. Instead, store it in a government facility and regularly and properly check up on those items.

You may be noticing I'm a fan of big government. Mostly, this is because it's generally easier to force accountability on a government than on a business if you have no choice about a provided service or good.