By Rob Morse
We have 23,000 firearms regulations on the books already. Gun control lobbyists say that’s only a first step and many more laws are needed to protect us. While that’s a fascinating story, real evidence calls it a lie. That is why I propose a different sort of fee and licensing structure for armed America. To make this more interesting, gun control lobbyists say it would hardly cost a thing.
Gun control lobbyists say we need “safe guns,” mandatory firearms training, and mandatory psychological evaluations of gun owners. They say we need more “gun-free zones”, and higher taxes on guns and gun owners. Again, those are more “first steps” to to achieving gun safety nirvana and the last gun control law is nowhere in sight.
The mainstream media dutifully play along. Gun control politicians say gun owners and gun manufacturers should be taxed to pay for the harm that people cause with firearms. In short, we’re told that government employees are the only people who can really keep us safe and everyone else who owns a gun is a clear and present danger to civil society.
The Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex tell us that armed self-defense doesn’t really happen, or if it does, it’s vanishingly rare.
Since safe firearm handling is in everyone’s interest and training furthers the goal of gun owners practicing gun safety, I propose that ordinary citizens should be reimbursed by the state when they take a firearms training class. Maybe a tax credit on their annual return. Those classes always cover firearm safety, including safe storage, and the gun control groups say we need more of that, too. So on top of the training stipend, let’s add another $200 per year for bedside gun safes.
If firearm instruction and frequent practice make all of us safer, then let’s also have government reimbursement of the first $200 dollars spent on ammunition each year. Practice makes perfect and makes for safer gun owners and ammo isn’t cheap. To quote the gun control advocates, ‘This is only a first step, and it’s all worth it if it saves just one life.’
The news media and gun control lobbyists tell us that we don’t need to protect ourselves or the people we love. We’re simply supposed to call the police and let them take care of those situations. Since armed defense allegedly never happens, I have another low-cost solution to make us even safer.
Since there are so many calls to “defund the police”, and they’re having trouble answering 911 calls, let along responding, let’s have the cities and counties that have have cut their police funding pay $200 each citizen who self-identifies as a gun owner. Each one help for over-stretched and outmanned police departments.
We should also wave all state and federal taxes on the next firearm these defenders buy. Likewise, both the firearm and the ammunition manufacturers should be paid $200 for each defensive firearm sold to citizens in areas where law enforcement budgets have been cut.
Since gun control advocates say it’s the government’s job to keep us safe, it’s only reasonable to ask states, counties, and cities to pay for their mistakes when an honest citizen protects the public after the government failed to do its job of maintaining public safety.
It’s odd that the mainstream media and the Gun Control Industry™ deliberately ignore the 7,600 times a day that we use a firearm in self-defense. Just like the police, most of those defensive gun uses never involve pulling a trigger.
In fact, the number of lives saved by ordinary citizens each year is downright amazing. The monetary benefits are enormous as honest citizens prevent injuries — assaults, robberies, rapes and murders — to innocent victims. The emotional costs are even larger.
There is so much more we can do to make us truly safer. If licensing and regulation are important, then those gun control laws should apply to police and politicians too. That can come later, but making it easier for average citizens to arm and defend themselves is a common-sense first step.
This article originally appeared at Slow Facts Blog and is reprinted here with permission.
