Everett True Comics

2A types generally lose their minds over anything that might imply a restriction on ownership. I think it's not because they don't approve of the thing -- whatever it is -- but they see it as a slippery slope, and that The Liberals will just keep adding more straws to the camel's back until it's not practically legal.

For instance, if you troll around in the pro-gun forums, you'll often come across people saying things like, "every gun owner should also own -- and know how to use -- a trauma kit"; or jumping down the throats of any poster posting a picture where someone isn't practicing trigger discipline; or derides the people in a video where someone inadvertently (thoughtlessly) waves a gun at someone else. Even presumably "pro" gun YouTubers are usually careful to show that the weapon they're handling is unloaded when they're doing something with it that isn't shooting, and it's not because of YouTube's increasingly stringent gun video rules: it's because otherwise their comment section will be filled with gun people criticizing good gun ownership habits. So it's demonstrable that the wider gun-owning community is pro gun education and safety, and you'd think adding laws that support these beliefs would be no-brainers -- but they aren't. It's when it comes to codifying the socially-enforced rules into law that the community stomps on the brakes and becomes mulish.

Personally, I believe that this is a silly position to take; relatively few people object to drivers being required to take driving tests, and nobody complains about driver's ed classes in pub ed. Cars are dangerous. So are guns. IMO you should need to take a test, get a gun license, and then be able to buy and carry (concealed if that's what floats your boat). Just like a driver's license, you'd need to retake the test whenever you move to a new state, but otherwise it's essentially a one-time test. Just put the same restrictions on guns that we do cars, and do away with most of the other laws. Maybe rifles are like basic licenses, handguns are like motorcycles, and machine guns are like tractor-trailer semis: you take a different test to get a different kind of license allowance for each. And treat guns like cars: when you buy a gun, you register it just like you'd do a car, whether it's a private or commercial sale. Move to a new state, register your guns there, just like you have to do with cars.

Gun control is a massive source of contention between liberals and conservatives, and we're never going to overturn the 2A in the states. I don't know if the 2A crowd would agree to treat guns like cars if it meant eliminating a whole mess of other legislation around guns which are of questionable efficacy to begin with. Absolutely, getting rid of all of the guns in the states would have a huge public safety impact, but I don't believe it's a realistic expectation that will ever happen; whereas mandatory training/education, testing, and licensing I think would improve things, and might be a reasonable middle-ground acceptable by both sides. Like they say in Lower Decks: "if both sides are equally unsatisfied with the negotiation... THAT'S A COMROMISE!"