Things that have happened, ideas that have occurred.

[grinninfoole]

This will be a bit scattershot, because one thing that has happened is that the local tree population has started to copulate/fornicate/pollinate, and I'm feeling crappy as a result.

Yesterday, a guy came in with a HC Ultimate spiderman collection, which he wanted to sell to us, that was obviously from a library.  I got his name, phone number, and saw the library stamp.  Then I called the library (at the VA center in Leeds) and found that he'd stolen the book only an hour before.  The librarian passed me over to a cop, so I filled him on the situation and gave him a description of the thief.  After checking with his boss, the cop called back and told me to just tell the guy to bring the book back, because it was only worth $30.  I don't know what else goes on at the VA (I think the cop recognized the guy's name, but it was really unusual so he might just have been amused), but I was disappointed that they didn't seem to really care, when the librarian was really pissed and clearly wanted action taken.  I hope they get the book back.

Today, Lefty and I were chatting in the store, and we segued from him ranting about retailers who think comics should only be G rated to gun violence and the problems of Second Amendment absolutists, and how it was easier to acquire a gun than get a driver's license in MA, when I had what seems to me to be a really good idea: we should make everyone who owns a gun have to get liability insurance.  After all, I'm required to have insurance before I can operate a car, why not a gun, too?  If there's any lobby in this country that can shut those assholes at the NRA down, it's the insurance industry.  Guns are fun, but the insurance industry is in business make sure that the rich stay rich, and they'll get their congress creatures to pass effective gun control laws tout suite.

This weekend, I went east for family get togethers.  First was Sunday brunch with my family, inspired by a visit from uncle from Honolulu.  Afterwards, he and I sat and watched the Sox beat the Yankees and talked about a mix of personal matters (like the challenges of marriage), family history (like his dad playing ball against Lou Gehrig, or being at a game when Ted Williams spit at the crowd), and current events (my uncle apparently knows Paul Shinseki and thinks well of him.)

Then we went to a memorial supper for Millari's mom, who would have been 65 on Monday.  It was a good time with brother & sister in law, Papi and his new wife.  I am really glad to be part of my wife's family.


I was going to say more, but I don't feel like posting any more now.  With luck, I shall live to post more later.

Comments

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

Is it really easier to get a gun than a driver's license in MA, at least legally? I have several friends in MA who have legal guns, and the process appears to be much more difficult than it is in IL. (Of course, the process for getting illegal guns is pretty simple, if you are willing to take the risk of imprisonment if your contact is actually a cop or informant, or the risk of being robbed if your contact doesn't actually deliver.)

The insurance idea has its points, but I think it fails the reality test. Even with cars, you have a fairly large number of people who are driving cars without insurance, despite it being mandatory. (In the Chicago area, most of them are illegal immigrants, but I've seen numbers that indicate similar percentages are drviing around sans insurance even in areas without much of an illegal population.) And cars don't have an additional factor that guns have, namely, that some models are easy to manufacture.

I was around for one of the discussions on starting a gun buy back program in Iraq, and I pointed out that when that was done in Pakistan after the end of the anti-Soviet insurgency in Afghanistan, the people who had been manufacturing guns in Pakistan for the insurgents ramped up production so that they'd have more guns to turn in. I was told to shut up, pretty much, and that discussion was very low-level, anyway. I have no idea if the people who actually implemented the Iraq gun buy back program even thought about it..but the same problem has come up there.

If you have access to the materials, it is not hard to churn out your own AK-47 (most of the world's AK-47s are cheap knockoffs, leading to the amusing attempt by Russia to use intellectual property laws to suppress them (http:// www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/200583023444.asp)) , your own revolvers, or your own pistols. More modern guns are a good deal more difficult, but the old models work just as well for most purposes. People with access to machine tools can do an even better job. I don't think controlling that is possible in a modern society.

In the US, there isn't much manufacture of illegal guns (most criminals illegally acquire guns that were legitimately manufactured), but I think that would change if availability changed.

I really don't see what can be done to deal with it. That genie got out of the bottle a long time ago.

That requirment might limit things like the VA Tech massacre (where the weapons were legally acquired), since I think an insurance company would not be willing to insure someone like the shooter in that incident (or would charge very high rates), though, which might be a bonus. But I imagine criminals would just ignore it.

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

Limiting massacres strikes me as good goal. Obviously, people will still kill people (both others and themselves) and since guns are a good way to do that, some of them will get hold of guns. However, I do think that putting more bars in the way people getting hold of guns would be a good idea. The insurance industry would probably be able to get the private sale/gun show loophole closed. I think that that would save some lives.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

You have to consider other factors, too, though.

• Massacres are, contrary to what you might think from media depiction, rare events. Is it worth it to make a big change in the practices of people doing something legal to try to make a dent in this rare event? The answer for terrorism has been yes, but I don't think it's been worth the cost there, and I don't think it will be for firearms, either.
  
• Would adding this requirement move some people from buying firearms legitimately into the black market?
  
• Presumably, this would give insurance companies a lot more information about people's mental health state than they have now. What effect would this have on overall insurance rates?
  
• While I think most of the people who committed these spree killings have been of questionable sanity, some of them showed a lot of ability to plan. Will they turn to the black market?
  

Still, I don't think it's an idea that is totally without merit. You should write your Congressthing and suggest it.