Wayne Doubletree Resident ( 138.26.199.131) on 11/7/2017 - 9:09 a.m. says: ( 259 views , 14 likes )
"Solution to the gun problem (insofar as one can exist) . . . "
Edited by Author at 11/7/2017 - 9:58 a.m.

1.  END THE DRUG WAR!  The drug war contributes to a great many of the gun deaths thru gang violence and such.  Beyond the direct contribution, it also indirectly contributes by tying up the courts and law enforcement with enforcing laws that contribute to their bottom line (civ forf) and to their egos (trotting out seized drugs, military equipment, and dogs).  Get the judicial system and the cops back to dealing with violent crimes that occur beyond the desire to smoke pot and take heroine.  Free up the resources to deal with tracking domestic abuse and other violent crimes.

2.  Allow the CDC to research and report on gun violence as it should be as a human cause of death.

3.  Suicides and other mental health issues contribute to much of the death.  Somehow find a constitutional way to bridge the gap between rights and allowing/encouraging/forcing people to give up firearms when in such a state.  Treating mental health as a health issue would be helpful.  This one is the hardest I think.

4.  End the loop holes for background checks.  All gun transactions should be checked (locally - sheriffs), background (national database) and mental health (very tough . . . I dunno).  All people obtaining a gun should have to take a training course and be certified.   We don't hand out weapons in the military without training them.  The more dangerous the weapon (capacity, distance, etc) the more onerous the certification and training.  Of course this means enforcing the existing laws . . . which we don't seem to be doing.

5.  Don't expect gun violence to disappear.  Expect any of these measures to be like enforcing seatbelts.

IMHO the only one of these things that could violate the constitution is the mental health thing . . . It was never intended that citizens would have access to guns without a duty involved.  That duty is at most to die in the service of your country . . . at least to be trained and certified for their use. 
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"The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to — for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well — is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen."