Charles Blow on Gun Reform: "Beto O'Rourke is rare among politicians for speaking honestly"

[liskddksil]

Beto O’Rourke has easily emerged as my favorite presidential candidate on the issue of gun control.

He has done so because he is speaking openly, passionately and honestly about what he would like to do to stem our epidemic of gun violence, a stance that is surprisingly rare in my estimation.

I long ago tired of hearing politicians who are supposed to be in favor of smarter gun laws and reducing American gun deaths and injuries pull their punches so as not to upset the gun lobby and gun lobbyists.

Among other things, O’Rourke’s “gun safety” plan includes declaring gun violence a public health emergency, creating a national gun licensing system and registry, requiring universal background checks, implementing red flag laws and banning “the manufacturing, sale and possession of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.”

Other candidates agree with some of these proposals, and others have additional ones, but I like the full-throated way O’Rourke responds to being challenged on this front.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/opinion/beto-orourke-gun-control.html

[Hoyt]

1. Like O'Rourke's position too. Rather than buyback, though, and assuming

we have to pay anything to gunners who made a bad investment, I’d require them to trade for a shotgun, bolt action hunting rifle, single shot sniper rifle, etc.

Screw letting gunners profit from a problem they helped create and prolong.

[dalton99a]

2. Kick

The people resisting regulation say that any new legislation is a slippery slope for an aggressive agenda to massively restrict guns. I say my great desire is to thoroughly hose that slope with oil.

Even in the radical District of Columbia v. Heller Supreme Court decision in 2008 that established the right to bear arms as an individual right, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion:

“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

Guns can be effectively and constitutionally regulated in this country. People who want to do so should be upfront and honest about how far they truly hope to go in that regard.

[Oppaloopa]

3. Mandatory gun insurance with very high rates for assault weapons . Like a DMV for guns.

[BigmanPigman]

5. I was wondering if we could do that too.

[Skittles]

4. Charles is correct

the other candidates offer lip service