Liability Insurance

Stealing an idea I heard in an MSNBC interview the other day - a Democratic strategist (whose name I've lost track of) suggested that, since we require automobiles to have insurance, why shouldn't possession of guns call for the same thing?

Automobiles require liability insurance in case the driver brings harm to others through his actions. The insurance industry evaluates risk on an individual basis, as per someone's  history and medical conditions, among other things. The cost of the insurance for a given driver can be prohibitive if that person is considered too high a risk.

When I substitute "guns" for "automobiles", and "gun owner" for "driver" in that paragraph, it still sounds pretty sensible. When we factor in mental illness as part of the insurance cost criteria, or when we consider the liability potential for ownership of an assault weapon, it's easy to imagine a self-regulating marketplace that brings some sanity to the debate.

As conservatives will suggest, let's put our faith in free markets.

Self-Defense Gun Use

From this article; please visit that site for details from this Harvard study:

• Guns are not used millions of times each year in self-defense
• Most purported self-defense gun uses are gun uses in escalating arguments and are both socially undesirable and illegal 
• Firearms are used far more often to intimidate than in self-defense.
• Guns in the home are used more often to intimidate intimates than to thwart crime. 
• Adolescents are far more likely to be threatened with a gun than to use one in self-defense.
• Criminals who are shot are typically the victims of crime (NB: i.e. they are not shot by law-abiding citizens in self-defense)
• Few criminals are shot by decent law abiding citizens 

For Moms

One Million Moms for Gun Control:

http://www.facebook.com/OneMillionMomsForGunControl

Moms Rising:

http://www.momsrising.org/

Please, take a look.

Things to Fix

Twenty 6- and 7-year old children were murdered by an assault weapon with high-capacity magazine clips by a socially withdrawn individual with a mother who was not only a gun advocate but apparently didn't take rational precautions to keep those weapons safe; doctors who offered advice around how to keep weapons safe in one's home were for a short time considered criminals in Florida.

That's just a short list of things we might consider fixing.

Keep Children Safe with Guns at Home

From this article, by the American Academy of Pediatrics:

Gun Safety: Keeping Children Safe

Research shows guns in homes are a serious risk to families:

• A gun kept in the home is 43 times more likely to kill someone known to the family than to kill someone in self-defense.
• A gun kept in the home triples the risk of homicide.
• The risk of suicide is 5 times more likely if a gun is kept in the home.

Advice to parents:

The best way to keep your children safe from injury or death from guns is to NEVER have a gun in the home.

• Do not purchase a gun, especially a handgun.
• Remove all guns present in the home.
• Talk to your children about the dangers of guns, and tell them to stay away from guns.
• Find out if there are guns in the homes where your children play. If so, talk to the adults in the house about the dangers of guns to their families.

For those who know of the dangers of guns but still keep a gun in the home.

• Always keep the gun unloaded and locked up.
• Lock and store the bullets in a separate place.
• Make sure to hide the keys to the locked boxes.

We're Better Than This

This is the website:

http://wearebetterthanthis.org/

I guess we are going to find out if we are.

Please - add your name to that website.

Job Creators

Conservatives would like to keep tax rates low, in particular for the wealthy; their belief is that these individuals are job creators, and increasing their taxes will discourage job growth. They also want to reduce spending by the government to bring the deficit down; they claim this will increase confidence and therefore increase business investment and economic growth.

Progressives would like more spending on things like education, infrastructure, rebuilding our country; they believe that increased revenue from increased taxes is one way that we fund that spending. They believe that spending on programs that directly create jobs, while contributing to the deficit in the short term, is an investment that creates pays dividends in the long term, in the form of economic growth.

It's not easy to connect cause and effect between either of these approaches; it's not easy to demonstrate that one set of policies works well, and another does not. We have research data that can help understand past effects, however the data is used selectively and with breathtaking levels of misrepresentation by partisans, as opposed to adding anything resembling clarity. Good luck preaching to anyone but your own choir.

So, let's make it easier to understand, and possible for everyone to win: rather than limiting tax deductions for charitable contributions, expand that category to include contributions to education and infrastructure programs. Give money to your state to keep police, fire fighters, teachers working, and to hire more of them. Build roads and bridges. Create a national program to bury our antiquated system of overhead power lines so the next hurricane doesn't result in power-outs and fires.

Let's have the so-called "job creators" actually start creating some jobs that everyone can see.

As individuals make higher contributions, reward this with reduced marginal tax rates. Make the maximum contribution unlimited. For every dollar donated directly to job creation, the government reduces spending by the marginal tax rate of the contributor plus 10%, to account for a multiplier effect that progressives claim will occur.

So that the deficit goes down, and your taxes need not go up to fund government stimulus.

Let it Be

Just drove home from my favorite seafood restaurant with my wonderful wife and fantastic son, we put "Let It Be" on the CD player and we all sang along. It was the perfect end to my birthday. Makes me realize that sometimes my life would be nothing short of complete if I was capable of playing that song on my piano and having my family and friends sing with me.

Sometimes life just seems real simple.

Why do I Write

My step-sister was killed with a gun.

An ex-girlfriend was killed by a gun.

A friend was killed by a gun.

Strangers have aimed at me with guns, and fired. I was lucky. Many around me were not.

I have strongly held beliefs and feelings about not just guns, but violence. I write with hopes that someday my son Connor, when he's older, will have the chance to read this and get to know his Dad a bit better, and we can have a constructive discussion about the politics, the violence, and what can we do about it. I write because when someday he might ask me "Daddy, what did you do about it?", I can at the least say that I did this, this blog, with your basic garden-variety liberal hope to "make things better". It's my hope that my writing here stays constructive, and it's my belief that I'm at least providing myself some therapy with this; and that if I can make myself better, I've made "things" better.

While I'll make a good-faith effort to present facts and address misconceptions - including my own - I want you to know that I'm not looking for a rational, objective argument that might prevail in a debate. I suggest that the time for deference to rational, objective debate is gone; I admit that I feel intensely emotional about what's happening, and that sometimes listening closely to what we deeply feel, and acting on it, is important - it's what makes us human.

In my deepest heart of hearts, I hope that what I write causes one butterfly somewhere to flap its wings, and this creates a chain of events that save the life of one child from gun violence.

Obama: Proposals in Wake of Shooting

December 18, 2012: From the Washington Post:

President Obama on Monday began the first serious push of his administration to attempt to reduce gun violence, directing Cabinet members to begin formulating a set of proposals that could include an effort to reinstate a ban on assault rifles.

Let's track this to see where it goes. Hopefully it doesn't turn into a commission, or a blue-ribbon panel, or some other vacuous gesture.

Updated December 19, 2012: It's going to be a "task force". Ah. 

Politicians

I've watched for years as our political leaders get elected with promises that end up broken, with self-descriptions that end up disingenuous.

I've seen them address crises as consoler-in-chief, as if that should be sufficient. I've talked to friends that are invested in the charisma of our leaders - that someone is a gifted orator, or that we believe she's a good person, or that he appears to be sincere.

I respect those views. However, I personally need neither consolation nor charisma; nor do I care whether any given politician has "character". This, in my view, misses the point. We elect these people to take care of the needs of our country - to do a job.

For many years I've wondered what would it be like to simply track our politicians, and connect the dots between what is said and what is done. I'll make that effort here, with this blog.

Newtown

It's with grief beyond measure that I read the Newtown sign we've all seen on the newscasts by now:

Our hearts are broken

Our spirits are strong

It's not without anger that I would add: our gun laws are a disgrace. It's time for our leaders to move beyond "talking about talking about it". Now is the time to talk about it, and now is the time to do something.

Walk the Talk

Speaking out about our broken political system, and our culture of violence in particular, has become something I must begin. It's my own fears that have delayed this - but now that I tell my son Connor "no fear", it's time I walk that talk.