On "Common Sense" Gun Regulations - Let's use some actual common sense!

I just posted this on Facebook, but wanted it to be more referable for the consuming public over time, so here it is -

I posted this comment with it -
I am a proud gun owner and user. I believe in the Second Amendment AS WRITTEN, not as freely interpreted by the gun nut lobby aka the NRA. I do NOT belong to the NRA because they don't represent or support common sense gun laws in this country and by not doing so they make every mass shooting a more divisive issue than the one before.

Here's the real BEEF!!! - The willingness of lawmakers to jump on any buzzword that comes down the hall and HAIL IT as the immediate gratification solution! Example - BAN ASSAULT RIFLES! What utter bullshit! I have an AR-15 platform rifle - the so called "assault weapon" - of general focus. I also have a British Enfield .303 cal. Mark 1 Mod III bolt action rifle made in 1916 - other than the US Springfield, probably the longest serving and most commonly deployed military weapon throughout the British empire for over 100 years. Probably EVERY rancher in Australia has a British Enfield as their "goto" gun. REports from the battle front in several wars state that "A well trained British infrantryman can lay down so much fire so quickly with the bolt-action Enfield that there have been occasions that someone though a .30 cal machine gun had been deployed. Been used in more actual assaults than almost any other weapon on earth, but NOBODY thinks of it as an assault weapon. So lets get real about what constitutes the REAL problem, and deal with that part of the bigger picture, not just label a whole class of guns or type of technology and then demonize it with absolutely no justification.

The problem is PEOPLE who want to come into a SOCIAL VENUE, and shoot a bunch of people rapidly. That requires that people who aren't stable being able to get a firearm easily and quickly - the current background check system would detect only the most egregious repeat offender across a range of public space... and by the way, the national military security system doesn't do a very good job of detecting potential traitors either. It requires that the future perpetrator be able to get as much ammunition as they can carry of afford, which ever is the limiting factor. That's a no brainer. The only limit in most cases is age. It requires that they be able to feed that ammunition to the receiver of the gun as quickly as possible - which means semi-automatic weapons with large capacity clips are optimum, but by NO MEANS, the only way to do this! As previously noted, a good bolt action handled by someone with reasonable skill can do the same thing BUT you have to have available ammunition, so clips matter - ANY CLIP SIZE MATTERS. Why? Because it's more than a single shot and changing clips doesn't slow down the activity that much. Sure, I have to haul around three ten shot clips for every 30 round clip but the 30 round clip is bigger and heavier too.

If we can drop 6 store security people on an alleged shoplifter in 10 second or less, because they walked through the ubiquitous RFID detector at the door, why in God's name can't we put an RFID on every gun, new or old, as part of a national gun registration process, and detect not only the presence of a gun, but, in milli-seconds, the type of gun, and have public venue security all over it, the same way every major retail outlet in the nation protects the integrity of it's profits, all day every day - think WalMart . There was a policeman on site at Orlando who returned fire. Imagine the benefit to him, and many others, if he'd known within two second of the guy approaching the place that he was armed, and with what. He could have taken away the element of surprise. Just imagine! That's what holding the perpetrator responsible means. That's COMMON SENSE GUN REGULATION. If we put saving lives and holding perpetrators accountable for their actions on an equal footing with preventing theft and protecting profits, we could have this problem solved yesterday and put the argument to rest that the government is trying to take everyone's guns away. They aren't or it would be done already.

Thanks for being there and being you.

The Smokemaster