Vice President Biden has met with the NRA and Walmart, and he's preparing his gun control recommendations for the president. He'll announce them on Tuesday, Huffington Post reports:
"There is really a very tight window to do this," [Biden] told the press corps during his announcement Thursday.
The recommendations are expected to address a number of angles and topics on gun policy, ranging from the availability of certain firearms and ammunition to data collection between federal and state law enforcement agencies. Biden announced that a top priority would be to create a more thorough system of background checks to prevent those with criminal histories or mental illness from purchasing weapons.
There's a real sense of pessimism about any gun control legislation making it past the Republicans in Congress, but Biden says President Obama could avoid Congress entirely by issuing an executive order. Either way, gun sales are booming around the country, which is probably how history will remember our national response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre.
do you oppose ANY new control measures?No, as I'd explicitly stated in the post you're replying to, I believe that the priorities that Biden outlined are a good start.
do you think there are TOO MANY limits on the RKBA now?No. I think that some current/proposed limitations are misplaced, and some needed limitations are overlooked. We worry a lot about "assault weapons" when they account for something like 4% of gun violence, and not enough about handguns, which account for the vast majority of firearm deaths. But generally, no I don't think there are too many limits right now.
do you think that nothing can be done about the 30,000 firearm deaths each year?I think that reduced availability of guns would likely accomplish that. As about half of gun deaths are from suicides, and studies have shown that having a gun present in a home increases the likelihood of a suicide occurring, I think that an overall reduction in the number of homes with firearms easily accessible would at the very least help with that figure. Measures such as gun buybacks help with that. Add secure storage requirements and you start to reduce the problem of theft and teenage (and preteen) kids getting ahold of firearms unsupervised.
that high-capacity magazines are super cool and constitutionally protected?I think they're super-cool, but I'd support limitations on them. It's one of the few parts of the "assault weapons" ban that went after something besides a cosmetic feature. In addition, California's ban on detachable magazines is another example of a way of putting an upper cap on how many rounds per minute someone can fire.
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