Gun Control - Prevention, Mitigation and Rehabilitation

Better than any statement I could hope to make about our need to take control of the gun culture that threatens our basic liberties on the one hand, and the lives of innocent civilians on the other, is the statement reported last night (1 - 30 - 2013) in a segment entitled the Rewrite on The Last Word 

After listening to the testimony of David Wheeler (Click on the above link), who lost his son at Sandy Hook on December 14th, 2012, I want to ask you to consider the questions: What are your priorities?  What should be ours as a nation?

In my mind, the only sensible, responsible response to Mr. Wheeler and his son is to look at the gun control issue in its full context and not just a piece-meal political bag of bargaining chips to be used to kick the problem down the road while upsetting the least number of special interests. The central focus must be on the instrument of death and destruction, the GUN and GUN ACCESS, and not scapegoating the issue by shifting the focus to other important, but tangential, issues such as mental health, criminality, or alleged Constitutional Rights.

What we need is an open and complete discussion and debate followed by the creation and implementation of laws and policies that tackle the three major elements of GUN CONTROL. These are: the Prevention, Mitigation and Rehabilitation of the impact of guns on people. Prevention, mitigation, and rehabilitation are all required in order to develop an effective GUN CONTROL policy. Such a policy would place the responsibility for the GUN on the gun owner. (After all, gun ownership it is a personal choice, and not an obligation under the 2nd Amendment).

Prevention: The government, representing ALL of the people, should be setting the regulations to distinguish between lawful ownership and use and unlawful ownership and use of all firearms. A first step would be for Congress to enable the proper authorities to collect and RETAIN the records of all GUNs and their transactional history.  Second would be to enable a comprehensive codification and simplification of Gun laws at the national, state and local levels and come up with a Uniform Code of Gun Ownership, e.g. the Uniform Commercial Code which governs interstate commerce. Code would govern the rights and obligations of ownership and the processes for legal transfer of title.

Mitigation: In a crisis situation, how do we expect a Rent-a-guard or vigilante to be prepared to take on a perp with an assault weapon and 30 round magazine/clip? Regulations limiting the access to "combat style" weapons may limit the arms race between the authorities and the "bad guys" and mitigate the collateral damage. Gun and gun related incidents arise because of the availability of a GUN, as a weapon, to threaten or to assault, or to use deliberately and with premeditation to intimidate the other party to the incident. Thus, policies developed to regulate a person's access to, and the types of, a gun and gun related (ammunition, clips, storage, etc) activity are called for. By placing responsibility for any and all claims of liabilities on the owner of record, rights of ownership are balanced by the responsibilities of ownership.

Rehabilitation: There is considerable debate in the media about the causes of gun violence but very little which recognizes and reports on the long term consequences to the victims We need educate the public and their representatives about the long terms costs of gun violence and accidents on the victims and the community.  We can start by assigning legal responsibility for the GUN to the registered owner of the gun, just as we do now with the automobile, a pit bull, etc. The liability for the consequences of gun injuries, damage and deaths, arising from an incident should be "presumed" by the law and the courts to be the obligation of the official owner of the gun. The owner of the gun,  used in the incident, should be held responsible for compensating all of the victims, unless proven otherwise. In an earlier essay, I have suggested that a mandatory insurance policy on the GUN might be used to help both owners and victims.

What are your thoughts? And how do you answer Mr. Wheeler and the other parents of the victims of gun violence and accidents?