Alsatian

I begin by saying in my opinion the good gun control laws were passed into law a long, long time ago and that subsequent gun control laws go too far. Below are a list of the gun control laws that I would accept as reasonable. They leave the details to be worked out -- and often the devilis in the details -- but hopefully I give some sense of where I draw the line.

#1: People convicted of committing crimes that depend upon using guns to threaten their victim should be forbidden to own and/orpurchaseguns for life. I'm thinking about armed robbery, armed rape, armed kidnapping, you get the idea.

#2: Guns contained within a vehicle should not be loaded while the vehicle is on a public road.

#3: Guns should not be sold to anyone below a certain age. I'll pick a number out of the air and say that age is 16 years, but I'll entertain alternatives. More people are killed by cars every year, and you can drive a car at age 16.

#4:Private ownership of machine guns is regulated not outlawed. I contemplate something very like the existing law for private ownership of machine guns.

#5: Private ownership of exploding projectiles and arms for launching such exploding projectiles is against the law. Exploding here refers to some internally contained means to motivate a violent explosion -- gun powder, C4, whatever -- rather than "explosion" or mushrooming of a kinetic energy projectile such as a hollow point bullet.

That's about it. You might make penalties for commiting crimes heavier if commited using a gun as a tool, but this isn't gun control in the true meaning of the word as far as I'm concerned.

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On reviewing my response I see problems in even what appeared to me as "common sense" gun laws. For example, if I'm driving through a bad part of town it might be a good idea for me to have my pistol loaded and sitting beside me on the seat in my car. It won't do much good for self-protection if I have to stop to load it before using it to defend myself . . . or can't I be attacked while in my car? I hear there are quite a number of car-jackings that take place these days that answer to this precise scenario.

So, I'll stick with my original contention:there are no remaining holes in the gun control legislation where "common sense" good gun control legislation can be initiated. All the good gun control laws have long ago been put into effect and only bad gun control laws get enacted today. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!