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Twenty 6- and 7-year old children were murdered by an assault weapon with high-capacity magazine clips by a socially withdrawn individual with a mother who was not only a gun advocate but apparently didn't take rational precautions to keep those weapons safe; doctors who offered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

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. 

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.