The Electoral College Needs to Go

Background:

I originally wrote this to address PragerU video claiming the Electoral College is essential. I'm not going to post a link to the video, it's propaganda and half-truths and isn't actually relevant other than it was what prompted me to finally write this down. The video is partially correct about the reasons the founders created the EC, but it doesn’t cover all the reasons, nor why none of them apply today, and can never apply in today’s society. It’s also grossly incorrect about how it would work under a popular vote. That's all I'll say about the video, everything below stands on it's own. If you're interested if watching it, it's on YouTube and published in 2014/2015.

History of the Electoral College:

First you have to consider the historical contexts. The public was not well educated. Many couldn’t read or write. There was no national media, no TV, radio, nor even telegraph. News and information travelled relatively slowly. There was no rapid transit, no planes, trains, etc. so candidates had no easy or quick way to reach the voters of every state to get their message out to voters and become well known. Most voters would be familiar only with candidates from their own state, and maybe neighboring states.

Therefore, the EC was created to address these concerns as follows (these are the explicitly stated reasons the founders actually discussed):

1. To take the vote for President and VP out of the hands of relatively uninformed voters and give it to men presumed to be more familiar with political issues and the candidates, including candidates from all other states.
2. To prevent an unqualified populist from ever holding the reigns of the most powerful office in the country.
3. To remove the inherent advantage a candidate from a more populous state from having an overwhelming advantage solely due to name recognition.

Why the EC Isn't Useful Today:

We have universal public education, virtually everyone can read and write, and virtually all have access to nationwide news and information.

Changes in transportation and media technology have made the first and third irrelevant. Any candidate can get their message out via national media, the Internet, radio, TV, newspapers, etc. candidates can travel to all states quickly to speak directly to the voters in those states. The only states harder to physically reach are AK and HI.

The 2020 campaign season demonstrates that even physical travel to those locations is unnecessary now. It is still preferable, but clearly not necessary to reach voters.

Now let's address item #2 from above...2016 demonstrated that due to partisan influence in state laws on selection of electors, the EC is no longer capable of fulfilling its purpose of preventing an unqualified populist from reaching the office, and in fact, it’s the EC that put him there, not the popular vote. He lost the popular vote twice (as of Aug 2024) and looks like he's headed for a third loss in the popular vote in 2024.

Conclusions:

The EC is no longer useful for ANY of its intended purposes. Moreover, it greatly disenfranchises voters in populous states in their vote for the one official elected to represent ALL of the US. Everyone has an approximately equal vote in in electing their House Representative, and the a House represents the people. I’ll skip the Senate in this discussion because they were never supposed to directly represent the people, but the interests of the sovereign states (the state governments). The one person (two counting the VP) whose job it is to represent the best interests of all he people and all the states isn’t elected equally by the people, nor by “more qualified electors” directly representing the people in a state, but by partisans chosen by the parties.

BTW, the founders really disliked political parties and wanted to avoid partisan politics and would be appalled by the EC and the power of the parties today.

The EC is an anachronism that no longer serves any of the purposes it was designed for. It should be eliminated, or radically redesigned to address the concerns of partisan politics, equal representation, and preventing unqualified people from ever becoming President.

Final notes:

1. The oft repeated claim that under a popular vote candidates would just focus on large cities is nonsense that is stuck inside the all/nothing paradigm of the state electors. In a popular vote, every single vote counts equally. Candidates now spend most of their time in the “battleground states” and largely ignore the voters in other states, that’s a result of the EC that would disappear in a popular vote.

In a popular vote, candidates would campaign anywhere they believe they can pick up more votes. 500 votes in rural Kansas are just as valuable as 500 votes in NYC. Don’t take my word for it, look at election of Senators and how they run heir campaigns. A candidate must appeal to voters everywhere to win. Look at the fact that only 5x in US history has the EC vote been other than the winner of the popular vote.

2. You can accomplish materially the same things without eliminating the EC, but by restructuring it to be proportional allocation of electors based on the popular vote in each state. But as that would need to apply to all states, it would require a Constitutional Amendment or you are at the whim of any state legislature to change their allocation at any time (before the election, any change made after the election would be almost certainly considered invalid by Congress in counting the votes of the electors). Imagine a partisan state legislature changing their elector allocation during the campaign season as it becomes clear who is more likely to win overall in their state.

A proposal for reducing mass shootings in the USA.

Background, scope, and context:

We have a violence problem in the USA, and one of the ways that shows up is mass shootings. For purposes of this proposal, I'm referring to incidents where 8 or more people are shot and many of those are killed, and it's not related to gang/drug activity, or family/domestic violence. This is not an attempt to address those other incidents, even though those kill far more people every year. This is to address the large mass shootings such as Columbine HS, Aurora Theater, MSD HS in Parkland, the Newtown/Sandy Hook ES shooting, the Las Vegas concert shooting, etc.

Why am I addressing only these? Because they have a much larger psychological impact on the country, and because they can be addressed much more easily than those other incidents. These are acts of domestic terrorism, specifically stochastic terrorism. These have different causes and different solutions than the gang/drug or family/domestic dispute violence. Addressing those other issues is a much more complex problem involving many aspects of our society, laws, culture, and safety net. I may attempt to address some of those issues in another post, but I'm not going to even attempt them here.

Below is my proposal for limiting access to guns based on their capacity for "mass lethality". No, this won’t stop all such incidents, but it will make them much less likely and will tend to lower the count of injuries and deaths in each incident.

While I'm going to refer to AR-15 type guns because of their familiarity, nothing in the proposal is based specifically on any specific gun, style, or cosmetic features. This is based solely upon capacities, functionality, and maximum round energy. Indeed, this proposal doesn't even need to distinguish between handguns, shotguns, rifles, nor type of action (semi-automatic, bolt-action, etc), nor is it limited to guns using gunpowder, any means of propelling a "bullet"/"projectile" at sufficient energy will qualify.

Note that this proposal does not ban the possession, sale, or manufacturer of any type of gun or ammo currently legal in the US, but it does place some restraints on unlicensed possession of certain guns and upon the transfer of such guns, by proposing they be allowed under a new type of license that is less costly than the existing FFL (federal firearms license) required for possession of fully-automatic guns under the NFA (National Firearms Act), and requiring registration of all covered guns.

Premise: Mass Lethality

The lethality of a given gun is based mostly upon it's range, accuracy, and energy of the fired projectile(s). Now, notice that both range and accuracy are related to the energy of the projectile, higher energy cartridge allows for greater range and accuracy. Those aren't the only factors, rifling, length of barrel, length to caliber ratio of the round, mass of the round, etc all have an effect on range and accuracy. But even mass and caliber factors are significantly affected by the energy of the round. Lower energy with a given mass means lower range and accuracy, likewise, larger caliber means more drag and thus lower range and accuracy at a given energy. In short, energy of the round is the most significant element in determining range, accuracy, penetration, and lethality of a projectile.

Now, consider "mass lethality", that is the speed and ease with with a gun can be used to kill or disable a larger number of people in a given time frame. This is obviously related to it's lethality as above, including it's range, penetration, and accuracy, but also to the sustained rate of fire. Obviously, fully-automatic guns will have the highest rate of sustained fire, but those are already tightly controlled and difficult to obtain, for this very reason.

Guns such as the AR-15, which was in fact designed to be a military assault rifle (but due to political influences was rejected until Colt purchased it from Armalite, made minor changes, then marketed it as the M16 to the military, and then removed the full-auto and burst modes to market it as a civilian semi-automatic). As such, it bears nearly the same mass lethality capacity as its selective-fire siblings. This has been repeatedly demonstrated in many mass shootings, some using stock AR-15 type guns, others using modified versions with "bump stocks" or similar devices to increase the rate or fire to approximately the same as it's fully-automatic siblings, as well as in demonstrations showing how quickly it can be manually fired and how quickly magazines can be changed out. Ergo, it is the combination of larger capacity magazines, higher energy rounds, and rapid cycle times that determine the "mass lethality" of a gun. Similar guns from many manufacturers are now easily available to almost any US citican.

Guns with such "mass lethality" are inherently "weapons of war" and serve no need in hunting or self-defense (see notes at the bottom). Therefore, it is prudent to significantly restrict the possession of such weapons by civilians except when they are engaged in military training maneuvers or deployed in military battle zones.

Terminology

Now, for some concrete definitions.

1. Gun shall mean any device capable of firing one or more projectiles from a "barrel", propelled by "gun powder", "expanding gasses", electricity, or any other "explosive propellant", and said projectile is not self-propelled (e.g. rocket, missile, etc)
2. Magazine shall mean any internal or external means of storing more than one round of ammunition such that it can be moved into a firing position and fired by the gun. This specifically excludes ammo storage containers unless said there is a means other than a specific manual action by the person operating the gun to load additional rounds from that container into a firing position (e.g. belt-fed, chain-fed, or clip-fed rounds fed into the gun). This is the traditional meaning of magazine, just clarifying points so there is no possibility of a "work-around". If it can feed additional rounds into a firing position, it shall meet this definition of magazine. Note that the "cylinder" of a "revolver", or ever a gun with multiple barrels that can each hold one or more rounds will qualify as a "magazine" under this definition.
3. High-capacity magazine shall mean any INTERNAL or EXTERNAL magazine with the capacity to hold more than 10 rounds/cartiridges. 10 rounds is not "high-capacity", 11 is.
4. High-energy round shall mean any projectile intended to be fired from a gun, that has a maximum energy capacity of the cartridge in excess of 800joules. For reference, this allows virtually all common "handgun" rounds except those larger than .45 caliber, and some "Magnum" rounds. Nearly all hunting guns (rifles and shotguns), except those using the .22LR or .22Magnum, exceed that energy, however, those guns rarely have magazines exceeding a 10 round capacity. [note: the figures I based this on are likely “muzzle energy”, not cartridge energy. Either measure could be used, but the energy limit might be higher when measuring maximum cartridge energy. Requires a bit more research to determine the appropriate measure/limit]. Note this refers to the maximum energy cartridge the gun is capable of firing, not the energy of any specific ammo the person possesses.
5. If a gun is capable of firing a high-energy round AND the person possessing the gun is concurrently in possession of a compatible "high-capacity magazine", functional or not, whether or not the magazine is installed in the gun, then it shall be deemed a "weapon of mass lethality" and shall be restricted under this law.
6. Possession shall mean having access to, or control of, such a gun. A gun secured in such a way that you don't have access to fire it is not considered “in your possession” under this proposal, unless you are carrying it.

The proposal:

1. any gun capable of firing a "high-energy" round, and containing an internal "high capacity" magazine, or capable of utilizing an external magazine, MUST be resistered with the state in which the owner resides. This applies regardless of whether the owner possesses any "high-capacity" magazines. If the owner does not possess any compatible high capabity magacines, then only registration is required, no license is needed. However, you MUST obtain a license before you can possess a compatible high-capacity magazine. This also means any transfer (sale, gift, etc) of such a gun to a new owner will require re-registering the gun. If the owner moves to a new state, it must be registered with the new state within 30 days of move.
2. Congress shall create a new type of firearms license allowing possession of these "weapons of mass lethality", criteria and costs for which are TBD, and shall be less costly and shall not require all of the qualifications needed for the existing FFL. It shall not allow a person to possessess any of the weapons that currently require an FFL. Criteria for receiving the license shall include passing a written test indicating they understand the terms of this law, have passed a background check (depth TBD), have completed an authorized gun safety course, have passed an authorized firearms proficiency test on a range,, and have passed a phycological examination.
3. Any gun meeting the criteria above, shall be illegal to possess unless the person possessing it has a valid license for such type of gun or is under the direct supervision of someone with such license, AND has properly registered ownership of the gun or has written, signed, dated, time-limited [to less than 14 days] permission from the properly registered owner to possess it at that time. Written permission from the owner is not required if the person is under the direct supervision the properly licensed and registered owner of the gun. Possession without specified permission from the registered owner shall be a US federal misdemeanor (class TBD) or a felony if the owner says the posessor was not authorized to possess it. Possession without a valid license shall be a class D/E felony, for a first offense. Subsequent offenses should remove all rights to possess any gun.

Notice that all of this is strictly based on measurable capabilities and capacities of the weapon, no judgement calls, nothing cosmetic, and penalties apply based on unlicensed or unregistered possession, not sale, transfer, or manufacture, so there is no "work-around" for it. It either meets the criteria and requires licensing and/or registration, or it doesn’t meet the criteria, and therefore doesn't require any additional licensing or registration, much like the existing NFA laws.

This has virtually no impact on any existing handgun, rifle, or shotgun, except for a few handguns that use high-powered (typically “magnum”) rounds AND hold more than 10 rounds, and the AR-15/AK47 like guns. It doesn't ban any gun, but it does make unlicensed or unregistered possession of specific categories of guns illegal.

In order to avoid being ex-post facto or violating the takings clause, the FedGov shall offer to purchase at market value (established shortly before the legislation is passed, or as soon as possible afterward) any gun or magazine that would become illegal to possess without a license or registration under this law, for a period of 1 year prior to the effective date of this law. Thus, current owners will have numerous options to become compliant before the effective date. Owners will be able to use any one or more of the following options to become compliant with the law:

• Get a license for such type of gun, and register any covered guns. Licenses will include thorough background checks, and are not guaranteed to be issued to any individual who applies. Those who already own a covered gun and magazine who apply during the year prior to the effective date of the law shall have their application fee waived, as will registration fees for currently owned covered guns be waived for those who receive a license.
• Sell covered guns or magazines to another person who is licensed to possess them. This includes anyone possessing the new license type or any FFL.
• Sell covered guns or magazines to the Federal Government at the pre-established prices.
• Exchange high capacity magazines, for a number of 5-10 round magazines to closely match the total capacity of each operational "high-capacity" magazine exchanged, supplied at government expense,or for one 5-10 round magazine if the high capacity magazine is non-functional.
• Destroy any covered guns or magazines, and sign an affidavit attesting to their destruction. Affidavit must include make, model, and serial number of each destroyed gun. Falsifying this affidavit (as evidenced by the later finding of any gun listed on the affidavit shall incur the same indictment and penalty as possession would have, plus an additional felony for the falsification.

It shall be illegal to give, sell, or transfer a "high-capcity" magazine to an unlicensed person. It shall be illegal for an unlicensed person to buy, receive, or build-manufacture a high-capacity magazine. The lone exception to this is that an unlicensed person may temporarily possess such high-capacity magazine while under the direct supervision of a properly licensed person.

Note that it is sufficient to simply sell/destroy/exchange all magazines for covered guns that qualify as a "high capacity" magazine to become compliant. However, later acquisition or manufacture of such a magazine would put an unlicensed/unregistered owner in violation of this law.

Notes:

Yes, the second amendment is about stopping a tyrannical government. Below are the reasons that’s not an excuse against limiting civilian assess to guns like the AR-15:

1. The states have the National Guard, official state militias to protect from the federak government. This is was not the case when the country was founded and the 2nd Amendment was written.
2. There are 80M-100M gun owners in the USA, they vastly outnumber the total number (~2M) of military and police. In the event of any attempt to attack the citizens, it’s likely at least half the police/military would refuse to follow an order to attack and would take whatever arms they could and fight against those who would follow the order. The govt would be greatly outnubered.
3. Having an AR type gun isn’t going to make any difference in such an event, not against professional military armed with tanks, RPGs, LAWS rockets, artillery, fighter jets, bombers, and nuclear weapons. It will be numbers and tactics that win against tyranny, not AR-15 like guns.
4. Likewise, for home/self-defense, an AR-15 like gun isn't going to be any more useful with or without a high-capacity magazine. Handguns and shotguns are the most useful for home/self-defense. If you need to fire more than 10 rounds in self-defense, you've already lost because you were greatly outnumbered, or were not adequately proficient with your gun, and an AR-15 type gun would not likely alter the outcome.
5. Does registration allow tyrants to confiscate guns? No, for two reasons. First, this doesnt require registering all guns, only those meeting the criteria above. Your other guns aren't affected. Second, the number of guns and gun owners already in the US makes that completely unrealistic.
6. Why restrict magazine size? Yes, magazines can be changed very quickly, however, it does generally take 2-3 seconds and changes the focus of a shooter while doing so. Therefore, every time a shooter has to stop and change magazines gives defenders a chance to escape or counter-attack (whether that involves shooting back or physically assaulting the shooter).

Acknowledgements:

Inspiration for this proposal came from my reading of a proposal by a friend of mine. While my proposal is definitely different from his, it was the thing that sparked the idea in my head, so acknowledgement is due for his contribution.People B4 Guns proposal

Updates:

2022-05-31: Given that I've been advocating this proposal for several years (including about 2 years before I posted it here on my blog) as an alternative to an outright ban, but almost no gun owners have tried to get it enacted, I've concluded that too many just don't want to do anything. As such, I'm ok with turning this proposal into an outright ban on the types of weapons it would cover, either way works for me. If you're not willing to be part of the solution, then you are part of the problem and should be treated as such. If you don't like being put in that category, then do something. Take action to address the problem now. Doing nothing isn't working. "Thoughts and prayers" don't work, unless you take action. The "good guy with a gun" theory is thoroughly debunked, as 6x as many shooters are stopped by UNARMED civilians than are stopped by "good guys with guns".

2024-09-04: Minor tweaks and clarifications, corrected a few typos/spelling errors. Changed "high-capacity" magazine from more than 9 rounds to more than 10 rounds, thus reducing the number of covered magazines and simplifying the exchange of "high-capacity" magazines for lower capacity magazines.

Praying for the wrong things

While there is a slight Christian bent to this, I know that most of this applies to Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Wicca, and many pagan religions.

If you’re praying for Trump (or Biden) to win the election at this point, then you’re praying for the wrong thing. Perhaps you’re confused about how prayer works. Perhaps you hope your prayers will somehow change the outcome. That’s not how prayer works.

Prayer doesn’t change what has already happened. Whether or not God can do that is a question I’ll leave to the theologians and philosophers. What I do see is that he/she won’t, at least not if there is free will. For God to undo what is already done, would be to deny the very concept of free will, and dealing with the consequences of our choices.

If you want some biblical examples, notice that Lot’s wife wasn’t brought back after being turned to a pillar of salt. Notice God didn’t stop, nor undo, the crucification of Jesus. You may believe Jesus was resurrected/risen, but notice he was not brought back in mortal human form. There are literally hundreds of examples in holy texts that God doesn’t undo what has been done. Notice that no matter how many times you have prayed for something to be undone, it has never been undone. Praying for God to undo anything already done is to live in a fantasy world.

If you’re praying for money, things, or power, you’ve completely missed the message, and you’re praying for the wrong things. If you’re praying to force others to adhere to your beliefs, you’re praying for the wrong things. If you’re praying for personal gain, you’re praying for the wrong things. Some very wise and insightful people wrote “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a color TV, Dialing for Dollars is trying to reach me”, sarcastically making this very point.

As Pope Francis said (translated to English) “First you pray [for guidance], then you act. That’s how prayer works.” You pray for guidance about how to deal with circumstances, then you act on that guidance to achieve the best result that is now possible.

This election is over. The votes are cast. God isn’t going to add 200,000 people in key states, create birth records and IDs or them, create voter registration records for them, create ballots that vote for the candidate you want to win, and insert them in to the uncounted ballots. God isn’t going to change the ballots between now and any recounts. That’s just not how any of this works.

Yes, there are still ballots to count and certify, there are legal challenges to be addressed, etc. There are laws and processes covering all of those, and God doesn’t interfere with the laws of man. If you’ve read your holy text, you know that. Don’t pray for God to change the outcome, to sway it in the way you want it to end, because that isn’t how it works, and you’re wasting your time and energy.

If you want to pray for Trump, then pray for God to show him the error of his ways. Pray for him to repent for his lies, cheating, adultery, and crimes. Pray for him to see the damage and harm he has caused, for him to feel empathy and compassion for others. For him to truly understand the pain and suffering he has caused, and for him to repent and change his ways. But don’t pray for him to win, that’s just not how God works, and such prayers won’t be answered, nor help anyone.

Pray that all the votes are counted, that everyone has their voice heard. Pray that the leaders we elected (whoever they are) will do whats in the best interests of ALL of the people and the country. Pray for guidance for how you can help bring about what is best or ALL the people, even if it doesn’t match your view of what that looks like. That is how prayer works. That is how God works.

Let’s Talk About Taxes, What’s Fair?

There is no such thing as a "fair" tax. For any system of taxation you can contrive, I (or another) can show how it's "unfair" to some person or group. Therefore, I never discuss taxes in the context of fair/unfair (e.g. "fair-share"). There simply is no such thing, so it's a futile discussion.

The only useful context for discussion taxation is workability. Specifically, a workable taxation system is one that provides sufficient revenue to provide the agreed upon services, while minimizing the impact/burden on each individual.

By impact/burden, I mean it the effect on the ability of the individual to live with the "socially agreed upon" minimal necessities of life IN THAT SOCIETY, AND minimizing the impact/limit on his ability to better his situation via education, work, and/or investment.

Thus, if a person makes at or less than the minimum required for necessities in a society, ANY taxes on him are a very heavy burden, even "undue" burden. For someone who makes just a small amount more than minimum, taxes are a heavy burden as they limit his ability to better his circumstances, therefore, they should be as light as feasible, but he can reasonably be expected to pay some taxes. The greater the difference between a person's income, and the minimum necessary in that society, the lesser the impact taxes will have on his ability to improve his circumstances.

This is the fundamental principle for which progressive taxation is the system with the lowest impact/burden. Now, some will try to claim it's unfair to those who earn the most, but as Ii said, "fair" isn't a useful context for discussing taxation. However, because it's very difficult for human beings to remove "fair/unfair" from their context for consideration, I will address a couple items in the context of what is fair/unfair:

1. It should never be considered "fair", or "just" to tax more than 50% of what a person earns (after deducting the minimum required to live in that society). That is, taking more than half of a person's "discretionary" or "disposable" income as taxation should be avoided unless it's simply not possible to operate an agreed upon govt using less (e.g. it might be necessary to have a higher tax during times of war or national emergency, and then must be for as short a time as practical).
2. To reduce a person's ability to afford luxuries is less of a burden than reducing his ability to improve his circumstance. Is it not more of a burden to take 10% from a person who has $1000 above the "minimum necessary", than taking 20% from a person with 100,000 above the minimum?
3. Those who earn more, do so, not solely of their own labor, but in part by the freedoms afforded by the society in which they earned it, thus those who "earn" the most, have also benefited the most from the society. Is it not appropriate that those who benefit more, pay a greater share to continue the society that enables them to earn those amounts?

It's Time to Talk About Guns.

It's time to have a frank discussion about guns and the homicide rate in the USA. First some disclaimers:

1. I don't know all the answers, I've just analyzed the statistics enough to point out the flaws with both the "pro-gun", NRA, don't regulate them, arm more people groups as well as the "ban guns", "gun control" groups. I will address both through one or more articles, so expect to have your beliefs challenged no matter where you stand on the issue.
2. I will propose some possible solutions or paths that might lead to solutions. You may or may not agree with all of them, and that's ok. Please read them anyway, perhaps they will alter your view, or perhaps they'll help you see a path/solution others haven't seen.
3. I'm going to point out trends in the US and other countries that may counter what you've heard/read. I will provide links to the source data so you can see that I'm not distorting the info.
4. Some of what I post might really upset you. Chances are that it's not what I say or how I say it that upsets you, but the fact that it disagrees with some belief or agenda you may have (and may not even be aware of). That too is ok. Push on, be willing to challenge everything you think you know about the topic.
5. I'm not going to try to convince you that guns are good or bad, that's a personal opinion, you're welcome to keep your opinions about guns. I'm dealing in facts and practical solutions to lower the US homicide rate, and "gun violence"
6. I'm a lifelong gun owner. I'm not interested in convincing you to own guns or not. You can make your own choice.
7. I've never hunted and have no desire to do so. I have never pointed a gun at any living creature, and I hope I never find myself in a situation where I find that necessary. I shoot targets, including skeet (clay pigeons).
8. If you choose to own a gun, I'm going to demand that you be responsible. If you can't or won't be, you should not be allowed to own or possess a gun.
9. I believe guns can be a part of a civilized society, and that the laws need to take every reasonable effort to keep guns away from those who are unlikely to act responsibly.
10. There are some "arms" that are weapons of war and should not be possessed by civilians. This is long established Constitutional law, we don't allow civilians to own nuclear weapons, tanks, artillery, bombs, fully-automatic guns, etc. We allow some exceptions via licensing or qualified individuals. This is not an infringement of the 2nd Amendment. This is established law, don't even try to argue against it, deal with reality. I will not indulge such arguments, so don't waste your time or mine trying to make one.
11. Personal attacks and uncivil comments will not be tolerated. If you make them, I'll remove them and/or ban you. Keep it civil.

Homicides are homicides:

Many sources talk about "gun homicides" as is they are somehow separate from other homicides. They aren't. Dead is dead, no matter how they were killed. People don't kill because they have a gun. People become homicidal, then they find a method of carrying out their intent. Yes, some methods have a higher lethality rate, some kill more people in less time, but there are several methods that can be just as lethal and fast as a gun. But notice it's not the gun that makes people homicidal, the gun is just a convenient and (in the US today) very accessible tool.

Suicides are not homicides:

Suicides are a tragedy, I'm not going to diminish the seriousness or loss any suicide represents. But, they are a symptom of many problems in our society, depression, hopelessness, lack of access to healthcare, poverty, etc. I don't even pretend to understand it. But I do know that suicides aren't materially lower in countries with very low access to guns, because they have nothing to do with guns. I'm not going to address suicides other than to say, they are a separate issue, require a separate set of solutions. If you try to conflate "gun suicides" into the discussion, I will remove your comments. No exceptions. Don't even ask why it's not allowed because I just explained why.

Australia and the UK:

Australia’s gun ban/buyback did not stop the problem. Every time there is s mass shooting in the US, the same set of old articles claiming it ended mass shootings and drastically lowered their homicide rate reappear. The problem is that it’s not exactly true. Note: this does not mean that sane, sensible restrictions on access guns aren’t a part of the answer, I think they are a part of the answer, but they clearly aren’t the whole answer to addressing the homicide rate.

Australian Gun Ban/Buy-back
1. Homicides actually increased for 2 years after they completed the gun buyback. Then they fell for about 10 years and have been fairly stable since.
2. The US experienced the same percentage decrease in homicides over those same years, despite the abundance of guns here and the expiration of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban in 2004.
3. Australia didn’t even see a drop in mass homicides. There were 77 people killed in mass homicides in 13 incidents in the 21 years prior to the Port Arthur Massacre. All were shootings. There have been at least 79 killed in 13 incidents in the 21 years since, about half of them by arson, 8 by stabbing, 8 using guns, others by various other means.

Massacres in Australia Crime in the US Australian Institute of Criminology

Regarding the UK handgun ban, I'm not getting into the specifics, but if you research it, you'll find the results are very similar to Australia. I'll leave that research to the reader, but I've looked into it extensively, and it's not materially different. The one thing I will address is that the UK did get their homicide rate under control...by hiring tens of thousands of additional police officers. That's what finally worked, not the handgun ban. The homicide rate actually increased about 60% over the 12 years following the handgun ban. Look it up.

Chicago and other US cities:

Chicago does not have the highest homicide rate in the US. In fact, it's not in the top 5, and it's generally not in the top 10, having only been in the top 10 two of the past 20 years. For the last 5 years, St Louis has been #1. St Louis has almost no gun laws. As of this writing, the top 5 are St Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans, and Newark (NJ). St Louis and New Orleans have very lax gun laws, Detroit has moderate laws, Chicago and Newark have strict laws. Feel free to browse the list sorted by homicide rate, that pattern continues throughout the list, with a mixture of cities having lax laws right next to cities with strict laws. There is a slight tendency for cities with the lowest homicide rates to be cities with strict gun laws, but it's not strong enough to cite as compelling evidence for strong gun laws "working".

List of US cities by crime rate

Thoughts and Prayers and doing nothing:

Thoughts and prayers won't solve this, no God works that way. If God protected the innocent, we wouldn't need to have arguments or laws about abortion, or murder, or armed guards at our schools, God would just protect them. Notice it doesn't work that way. Prayers are for guidance, then you take action. Without action, nothing happens. Send your thoughts, make your prayers, then ACT.

A Proposal:

A rational proposal, draft legislation, written by a friend of mine that is the first proposal I’ve seen that could effectively address the “military type guns” in the US. It’s not an outright ban, but it would place them under strict regulations.

It’s well written, easy to understand, specific and measurable so anyone can objectively determine if any gun falls under it or not, and addresses the functionality, not the appearance or other factors that can easily be worked around. And, it doesn’t infringe anyone’s 2nd Amendment rights. It also applies to all those already in circulation and gives time for the owners to comply with the new regs.

It may need some tweaking, but it’s a very solid starting place. I've proposed some specific tweaks that clarify and simplify it by addressing the "mass lethality" of a given gun using restrictions that are based solely on the maximum cartridge energy combined with semi-automatic operation and a "magazine" capacity exceeding 9 rounds. I'll post those details as an update later.

PeopleB4Guns.org

Beware False Claims and Propaganda:

Beware the claims about the numbers of school shootings and mass shootings. There are people out there flat out lying to further their agendas. This is true for some on the pro-gun/no restrictions groups as well as the anti-gun/"ban them all" groups. Here’s one example.

1. More armed people isn’t the answer. The same data that shows “gun control” doesn’t solve the problem also show that more guns doesn’t solve it. Two sides of the same coin.

2. Sane, sensible gun restrictions, possibly including a ban of guns such as the AR-15, are a prudent step to take, but don’t be deluded into thinking they will make a big difference. They will help, but it’s likely to make only a small difference.

3. Blaming or banning inanimate objects, while sometimes prudent and somewhat helpful, does not, and never will solve problems that are caused by human behavior. Sure, we can ban the most dangerous objects, and save a few lives, but the big results only come from addressing the behavior.

4. What we need to do (other than doing the above) is stop arguing about guns and start looking at what causes the anger, hopelessness, disconnection and/or other feelings that has people do such things with such frequency in our society. It’s not strictly a “mental health” issue, it’s cultural and socioeconomic.

An editorial that covers many of the common claims.
A sane article on the issues, based on evidence, not ideology.

PACs, Parties, Corporate, and individual activities in campaigns.

Individuals, Companies, and Corporations:

No person (including corporations) other than a candidate’s official campaign organization, may pay for political advertising promoting or denouncing any candidate.

Note this does not preclude public statements endorsing or denouncing a candidate, including newspaper and TV editorials. But it must be printed/aired just one time during a campaign. “On demand” reading/viewing of the editorial is allowed, but no person other than the campaign itself is “paying” to promote or advertise said editorial/endorsement.

Political parties:

Political parties are to be funded by donations from US citizens and permanent residents who are constituents of the area represented by that party. Notice that excludes corporations and foreigners. Parties may not pay for activities that promote or oppose any specific candidate, but they may pay for advertising promoting their party “platform”, views on issues, etc. They may also pay for their national presidential nominating convention, and state parties may pay for conventions for their nomination of state governors and other statewide office holders. National parties may not fund state parties nor vice-verse, but they may help promote or hold fund-raising events for each other. This is to ensure that state parties are nearly free or outside influence from other states. Parties may of course maintain, publish, and distribute lists of their candidates and elected members.

PACs:

Political Action Committees are permitted but may only promote or oppose specific issues/laws, they may not promote or oppose any candidate or political affiliation (e.g. Political Party). They can accept donations from US corporations and any US citizen or permanent resident. This is how corporations can express their political views, by forming and/or contributing to PACs that promote or oppose issues of importance to that corporation. Note: this could include churches and other not-for-profit organizations. This prohibition includes purely “internal” communications that promote or oppose specific candidates or parties. E.g. preachers promoting a candidate from the pulpit, memos/email from corporate executives about candidates or parties, etc. PACs may have internal communications about which candidates support or oppose (including undecided or unknown) the issues the PAC supports or opposes, as such is essential to their mission, and they may publish lists of candidates CONFIRMED to PUBLICLY support or oppose each issue/law, so long as they have performed due diligence in verifying the accuracy of those lists before publishing. Candidates who haven’t publicly stated a position on the issue/law may only be listed as “position unspecified”

A Proposal For Election Campaign Finance

My previous posts on Corporations are Not People touch on the problems of unlimited campaign contributions and "dark money". In this post, I offer a specific proposal for publicly financed campaigns that limit the public liability, and give every voter the exact same power in contributing to the campaigns of their choice.

Rather that directly financing any willing candidate, or using capped partial public funding to qualified candidates, two methods that have been used or proposed elsewhere, give every active voter (those who actually voted in any election in the past 4 years) a “debit card” with an initial amount on it that they can donate to one or more qualified/registered candidates of their choice. Such “money” to expire after 4 years, whether given to a campaign or not (thus encouragine regular voting, and limiting the total cost to taxpayers). Then, when a voter actually votes, it will be “refilled” (a few months after the election). The public pays, but the amount is limited, and everyone who votes gets the same amount. Candidates have to convince voters they are the most worthy of donating funds to. Those who don’t vote for more than 4 years, won’t have money to donate until after they vote again. Candidates would be required file reports showing how the money was used, and can be required to repay any amounts that were used for improper or illegal purposes, and/or be banned from being a candidate future elections for a period of years.

Note, I'm not hooked on the 4 year timeframe, that's the minimum I would support. But I don't think it should be more than 8 years. Anyone who doesn't vote for a long time, while knowing these rules, clearly isn't really interested anyway.

Advantages:
• This eliminates all foreign and corporate campaign money. Campaign contributions can come only from registered voters.
• The “money” on the voter's card can only be given to, and used by, a properly registered candidate. It won’t work at stores, etc.
• You can further limit contributions to allow donations only to candidates who will be on the ballot in that voter’s precinct, thus candidates will solely be financed by their own constituents. No outside funding, the elections will not be influenced by outside interests.
• Unused campaign funds can be automatically returned to the Treasury 60-180 days after the election.

You can even have separate pools of money for federal, state, and county/locality elections, funded and amounts controlled, by the respective govt entity.

All of this is relatively easy to do using existing debit card payment technologies.

See my post on PACs, Parties, Corporate, and individual activities. for info on allowed and disallowed activities related to campaigns.