Updated 13AUG2024: This is oddly gaining minor traction. It’s amusing, but I merely wrote this to vent my frustration. Apparently, in Michigan, shotguns are really not registered and can be sold to a pawn shop with minimal paperwork or whatnot. I think the below crap I wrote misses the bigger problems behind gun-obsessed people. Mostly I hate dealing with unknown and excessive bureaucratic hoops as a barrier to doing the right thing.
I’ve corrected some grammar problems and removed the option for pawnshops as a means of disposal. Otherwise, the original article follows.
Open Policy to Help Reduce Guns in Circulation
Does anyone want a legitimate gun reform proposal that is non-ideological, but instead is a matter of strategic public policy? I agree gun buyback events shouldn’t allow people to sell guns anonymously to the police. It’s messed up that there is no ongoing program to accept guns anonymously. A good part of my community is not mentally stable enough to own a gun. I should be able to convince someone who shouldn’t have a gun, legally or illegally, to give it to someone to dispose of it without identification or repercussion unless it was involved in something significant like rape, robbery, violence, murder, and unnamed crimes of significant moral need for identification. Currently one has to register the disposal of firearms. That’s honestly not a great idea.
Suppose a gun hasn’t been actually used for any significantly depraved act, and the owner just shouldn’t have a gun, morally or legally. In that case, there should be a method that allows for a mediatory third party, to get rid of a gun from someone who shouldn’t have it before a suicide or a crime is committed that didn’t need to exist. Someone who has a gun who shouldn’t must then be pragmatically enabled to get rid of it with a degree of separation to protect anonymity and from punishment for its mere possession and acquisition. Let’s get it out of society; no questions asked beyond what I am basically describing as a public firewall. They would send them to the state police to catalogue and destroy. (There is a hole here for guns of significant historical or social reason to preserve.) Almost no guns shouldn’t go back to someone who managed to let them get stolen. We shouldn’t dig into punitive pursuits beyond an exception for guns used in major significant crime. I am recommending the public firewall be people in the community of an established reputation, such as public notaries who choose to participate. There should be a record that gets destroyed after a period. Identifying information may not be turned over without a warrant. Applicable warrants must have a reasonable justification to follow up on or prevent a crime of pragmatic significance. Warrants would trigger the release of the identifying information. Identifying information should be destroyed after a reasonable amount of time has passed. That metric can be determined upon further research. Policy and law needs to prioritize prevention over retributive justice goals, especially if we are preventing any act that would be prioritized over retributive justice for mere ownership of a firearm. Take the gun supply away by giving people a way to discretely get them out of circulation that should never have been owned considering where they ended up.
Joker's Wild 