S. 649

The Senate has voted to move forward with debate on S. 649, the Senate Firearms bill.  My thanks to the Republicans who broke ranks, allowing this to happen.  I have a few thoughts on gun control.

The position that the buying, selling and possession of firearms should be completely unregulated - the NRA position - is completely ridiculous.  We don't live in a hippie commune with 20 people, we live in a country with 300 million people, and one of the down sides of living in a large society is, like it or not, everything has to be regulated to some degree ... for safety, for efficiency, for common sense.  

The position that any regulation of firearms is pointless because criminals will always find a way to get guns - also an NRA position -  is even more ridiculous.  Using that argument, we should eliminate all rules and regulations, all laws of any kind, because criminals will only break them.  But that isn't really the point, is it?  Laws are made for law-abiding people.  To make them effective, we have to enforce them vigorously and provide severe penalties for those who break them.  

There are two elements of firearms regulations that I consider absolutely essential: universal background checks - easily accomplished with the swipe of a credit card - and limited capacity ammo clips, ten rounds being the max.  Anything less is painfully weak.  We may have to accept something less, as a starting point, but it's a long way from common sense.  

Personally, I don't see any reason to ban the assault weapon.  It isn't automatic - it isn't a machine gun -  and it doesn't fire any faster than semi-automatic hand guns.  The problem is, people who use them see them as military weapons ... and see themselves as soldiers.  This is a complicated issue and has more to do with our violent culture than the gun itself.  We should concede this point in order to get the ones we want.