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Thanks, Drew.

The notion of correlation and causation is a very, very important concept to focus on.

Too much of what poses for analysis is just a misguided round peg and round hole correlation — wrong peg in wrong hole.
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Similar to the boss I am an NRA member, and also a concealed carry license holder and avid hunter, but who doesn’t always agree with the dogma spewed by the NRA. As specified at the top of the post, the reason for my absolute opposition to the current nonsense proposed by Senator Feinstein, is that the intent is not to make anyone safer, but to lay the foundation for firearm confiscation. The amendment doesn’t say the “privilege” to keep and bear arms, it says the “right”. Until 2/3 of both houses and 38 states agree that it should no longer be a right, it should be respected as such.

I’m a little disappointed that the safe bastion of gun control that is Washington DC was left of the list of examples. Perhaps we might look at the entire circumstance with different outcomes in different areas: strict gun control in some areas, and very little in others, yet no clear example of one being more effective, and ultimately realize that we are focusing on the wrong variable in the equation. Liberals will cite the example in Britain or Australia, while conservatives will cite Switzerland; what both sides continually miss is a basic law of statistics: correlation does not imply causation.

I’m all for having a reasonable discussion on our firearm laws as they relate to violence on two conditions:
1. This is not the only variable in the equation to be discussed
2. The discussion is reasonable, which means we stop trying to ban things until we clearly explain what the desired outcomes are, can articulate how the proposed path gets us there without serious unintended consequences, and what happens if this path doesn’t pan out

…getting off soapbox now

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Hey, Mike. Thanks for commenting.

There is a bit of history as it relates to the national background database and the ACLU. I do not know all the details off the top of my head.

What I am advocating is a mental health registry to break the nexus between mentally ill folks — actual or profiled, I don’t care — and unauthorized access to guns of all kinds. This is the “massacre” solution.

In the age of Big Data, there is absolutely no impediment or hurdle to acquiring data for all transactions. Amazon does $55B — 10% of all Internet transactions — annually easily and seamlessly.

There is no reason not to obtain all gun information and a register of “no soup or guns for these crazy people”. They can appeal after they are identified and before they try to buy guns.

The problem with the insurance approach is that criminals are already breaking laws and they will not be impacted by a new legal requirement. Take NYC and Chicago — both essentially outlaw all handgun ownership of any kind — and yet, they will have 400 and 500 handgun deaths in 2012 respectively.

When folks are not adhering to existing laws, there is little expectation they will respect new laws. This is a pure law enforcement challenge.

I would think there is some merit in having the gun manufacturers at the table either directly or through the NRA.

The Constitution has a methodology for its amendment but it is not going to happen. In the shadow of the Second Amendment, there may be room for many good and useful and potentially effective modifications if folks can engage face to face — example, gun buy back programs.

This is going to be a crawl, walk, run progressive evolution and not via fiat or plans like Sen Feinstein’s which will just arouse passions needlessly.
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This does not sound very encouraging to me.

Second, rather than have law enforcement trolling through millions of transactions looking for weapons and ammunition purchases, many of which could be made in cash and thus not pop up on a national screen, why not simply require such purchasers to provide proof of liability insurance? let the insurance industry determine the risk and create riders for homeowners or renters (or auto) policies. You could offer discounts for gun locks, attendance at (NRA-sponsored) training, low use (once a year hunters) or age of weapon, etc. Don’t ban anything, just make the insurance costs reflect the various levels of lethality, likely use by the owner, etc., This is the kind of private sector solution a red car should like.

Third, take a look at the NRA’s 2010 form 990. (http://archive.org/details/NationalRifleAssociation2010IrsForm990). While 2/3 of its revenue comes from dues, one third appears to come from unnamed parties. I bet much of this is contributions from the firearms industry. While the NRA does have a wide variety of views among its members, it may be more concerned with keeping the corporate cash flow coming in, which may make it choose positions that are more likely to appeal to those folks over many of the rank and file–the total number of firearms is indeed increasing in the US, but the total number of owners is declining–so if you were an organization making a bet, which direction would you go? The 990 offers some other interesting insights into what the national NRA does–not much seems to be spent on safety training, but perhaps this is indicative of local chapters doing this for free rather than being paid for by the national organization.
I won’t comment on Sen Feinstein’s bill, which we all know has no chance of passing in its current form.
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As a NRA member myself, I can assure you that there are a lot of different viewpoints within the NRA itself that are not articulated by the leadership. I wrote a letter the other day to Wayne Lapierre expressing these same views and received a nice reasonable reply.

While I do not think the NRA deserves the public demonization it has suffered at the hands of the liberal left, the NRA does not speak with Papal infallibility and their positions will continue to evolve in accordance with the situation and with the views of its membership.

The NRA is the most powerful force for gun training, education and safety in the US. That is their real mission. If you take an NRA gun safety and marksmanship course, you are receiving the best training possible second only to the military.

It would be fair to say that everything about gun regulation — in particular, the nexus between mentally challenged folks who are not capable of rational decision-making and guns — is being re-evaluated today and why not?

Still it is places like Chicago — 500+ murders by handguns this year — and New York City — 400+ handgun murders, a record low BTW — which really merit our closest attention. Often places which already have the strictest possible laws in the country.

A clever person would allow the NRA — with its noted expertise and political clout — to take a leadership role in picking the low hanging fruit of gun regulation.

To make the NRA the enemy when dealing with what in the short term may be a mental health issue is not very smart.

The Big Red Car is not defending the NRA’s views on anything but mining its knowledge to find solutions that are realistic and useful for society.

Thanks for writing, Mike, and Happy New Year to you and yours!

JLM