I think it will depend on how we define 'ceding ground'. Off the top of my head, I personally don't think the following examples count as ceding ground we should be trying to keep.
I'll pretend you're not acting in bad faith. We'll consider your idea line by line.
1) A live fire training requirement with some reasonable level of qualification scoring (basic beat cop level qual here which is not hard?) for licensure.
First, everyone reminds us that we're civilians, not cops. Why should we be held to their standard if the situations we're likely to be in are different? Even with a lower standard, they abuse it.
Example: Boston's Moon Island test. On paper, this is an easy test. I quote it here for reference:
The applicant will fire a total of 30 rounds at a modified 25-yard bullseye target with 10, 9 and 8 rings. Each round has a value of 10 points. A perfect score would be 300. (30 hits inside the 10 ring.) A hit inside the 9 ring is 9 points. A hit in the 8 ring is 8 points. Any hits outside of the 8 ring are counted as zero points. A minimum of 210 points (70% of 300 points) is required to pass the Range Test. Any applicant may be disqualified for not handling the revolver safely.
Applicants will fire the first 12 rounds from the seven-yard line, double action, with a one-hand hold. The remaining 18 rounds will be fired from the fifteen yard line, either single or double action, with either a one or two hand hold. The choice is made by the applicant.
The target is about 11x 17. Basically, as long as all your shots are on paper, you're guaranteed to pass.
Except that 40% of the test is shot
one handed, double action only. I hope you don't have arthritis or any other form of hand issue that prevents you from pulling that 12lb trigger.
And that's
after you get yourself to the test facility. Because the only way you're allowed to get there is if you drive yourself. Pedestrians, bicycles, cabs and rideshares are prohibited from the bridge. If you are a lifetime urban dweller who never got a driver's license, you're prohibited from getting an LTC...or, you're required to spend piles of money taking driver's education, then the test, then paying for your DL, then renting a car.
2) Universal background checks (with carefully scoped requirements; 'no violent felonies', some 'substance abuse' boundaries for example) for all transfers.
The only way to enforce this is with a registry. But we'll skip over that for a second.
MA has UBC: simple possession of a firearm is a felony. Transfers require a background check (that's what MIRCS does when it confirms your LTC is active). Private individuals are only permitted 4 transfers per calendar year without going through an FFL. Those FFLs are prohibited to transfer certain firearms that are 100% legal to possess.
As a result, people pay grey market prices for the most popular handguns in America. We'll disregard the magazine price.
3) A standardized course and assessment for de-esclation skills.
This class doesn't exist. I know because I teach classes in avoidance and de-escalation. The group with which I teach this class provides it to police departments who decide to hire our services. Many departments don't have this kind of training.
So now you're holding private citizens to a
higher standard than "highly trained" law enforcement officers.
Moreover, the LTC class already costs $100+ and takes 5+ hours. How many hours of additional training do you require someone to gain access to a protected fundamental right? How much more should they be expected to pay? Who will train the trainers?
4) Minimum age of 21 for unsupervised carry except for hunting. (You can't carry any firearm without a licensed 'adult' present unless you're hunting where 18+ seems reasonable).
VT has allowed 18-year-olds to carry since the founding. We let 16-year-olds navigate our country unsupervised with 3000-lb missiles. We let 18-year-olds decide the future of our nation; some jurisdictions are allowing younger people to take part in local decision-making.
Why 21? Why not 25 - most scientists agree that's about when brain development completes. Or, 30, just because?
What about 18-year-olds who have moved out and found jobs? They're adults, leading adult lives, but can't protect themselves?
What about emancipated minors? They're living as adults, but physically smaller and less developed - they should be left defenseless?
Why should hunting suddenly be restricted to 18+? Even in MA, you can get an FID and hunting license at age 15? Why shouldn't that proud 15-year-old be allowed to sit out for turkey this morning while mom and dad have their coffee?
Why are your "minor concessions" worse than the existing rules in MA?
No carry in elementary or high schools unless you're a LEO or explicitly trained for and working in a security role.
Why are schools a special case? Why should people who carry all day, every day, suddenly change their behavior when they walk over an imaginary line? Why should people who our government invested untold amounts of money training to be effective with firearms lose their right of self-defense, unless they take some half-rate continuing ed. class, simply because they chose to continue to volunteer, this time as educators?
Then, there's cultural efforts we could make: Socialize the idea that the "community" expects certain conduct. We're already pretty good about collectively dogpiling folks who flag.
Clearly, you're not a teacher. I pray you're not a parent. "Dogpiling" people who demonstrate imperfect behavior is a terrible teaching tool.
Offer correction. Do it with the appropriate level of seriousness. If someone else is already providing the correction, let them be. If it happens again, and you're the one who sees it, or the nearest, feel free to reinforce the lesson.
Do not "dogpile" unless you want to chase people away.
We should doing the same 'cultural standards setting'' against things like open carry, trying to carry guns on planes and the like.
No, we shouldn't.
First, open carry is lawful and should be. Sometimes, it's the best of several poor choices. For some people, it's just a preference. For others, it's proved a useful political tool that has
successfully improved access to concealed carry.
Carrying on planes isn't even illegal. It's prohibited on commercial flights, except by authorized personnel. Even much of that is relatively new.
Granted, there would be special considerations if someone were to use a firearm on a plane, but most of us will never draw a firearm in anger. If it stay son your hip, why should it matter?
More people than ever carry. More people than ever can afford to fly. The laws are wildly different between jurisdictions.
Let's assume our current regulations are appropriate. Like above, if someone makes a mistake that doesn't hurt them, the answer should be "no harm, no foul." The TSA agent who notices the firearm could pull the offending traveler aside and explain the correct method to check a firearm. An airline that wants to help their customers get where they're going could offer pistol cases for sale or rent, and help them check it in their luggage.
If the person who is carrying the firearm actually means harm, we'll learn real quickly during the sidebar conversation when one of three things happens. 1) He pulls the gun out: we've got a bad guy, security gets to respond appropriately. 2) He walks to the baggage check: we've got a mistaken traveler who gets to do right in the future. 3) He leaves: could be a good guy or a bad guy; we may never know. Still, the "crisis" was averted without public shaming.
Simplistic example, of 'compromise to reach agreement' "We retain the right to make our own guns (P80 for example) but we agree we can't own them if we're not licensed and we can't transfer them to the unlicensed and the penalties have teeth".
Serializing firearms didn't become the law in the US until 1968. Until then, it was just a useful tool that some manufacturers availed themselves of for QC and customer care purposes. You literally cannot take away "the right to make our own guns" without a 100% registry.
You're talking about 19th century technology. It was still a common shop class project to make cannons in the 90s. What they learned in that class was sufficient to make a modern firearm. That genie can't be put back in the bottle.
So far, I've been good, but this meme is accurate and appropriate
We accept the SPIRIT of prohibitions against owning full auto
I'm going to pause you mid-line.
Who's "we"? You're projecting. Again.
The NFA exists because we demanded more ways to catch bootleggers and mobsters in the 30s. Until 1968, you could have Tommy guns mailed to you by Sears-Roebuck. Until 1986, you could still go to your local Sears and buy one.
That prohibition is directly opposed to the spirit of
Article 17 of the MA Constitution, Amendment 2 to the US Constitution, and all the similar contemporary documents. Full auto is what the right is all about, and always has been.
without an NFA-like process so we'll stop %^&ing around at the margins with things like forced reset triggers and bump-stocks and are fine with the government coming down like an anvil on Glock Switch buyers but the SBR, brace and suppressor regs have to go.
There are two things I really need to make sure you understand. Please forgive me if this is repetition.
- Laws function based on definitions.
- People will alwaysfiddle at the edges of definitions.
- In some cultures, this raises almost to the level of scripture.
- If it's not within the definition of a crime, it's not a crime
- If we believe it should be a crime, we must modify the definition.
- Laws not only don't prevent crimes; they invent them.
- In the US, we operate under a system of "Negative Rights."
- This means that your rights are absolute until we create laws to constrain them.
- That is, before there were laws nothing was illegal.
- When we create a law, we make something that was previously unwelcome into something that is unlawful.
- By making laws, we make criminals.
Machine guns have basically never been used for crime, at a level that merits statistical analysis. Tools like the NFA don't prevent people from hurting each other, even with guns.
(But hell, maybe we accept that we can't carry suppressed except when actively hunting or at a range?).
Why?
Everywhere else in the world,
Maxim's invention is expected to be used. We require them on cars literally everywhere. 100 years later, the technology has barely improved because the largest market in the world has artificial hurdles. And for what? Because "poachers will use them" or there'll be silent gunfights at malls?
Poachers don't care about silencers. They go out and shoot things when they want, where they want. Most never get caught. Even without suppression.
And they're not "movie silent." At most, they're "hearing safe." Generally, they're just another layer of hearing protection.
And they're big. You're not about to see a lot of people trying to carry suppressors in an industry that's focused on the smallest, lightest firearms possible.
Now I want to make an AIWB holster for a Maxim 9...just because.
I'm truly spitballing here, but the principle is; preserve the right to own and carry for self defense, preserve extremely broad latitude for recreational use but agree that participation in society means coming to terms with the idea that we need to participate in society in ways that reduce violence rather than acting in ways that have us seeming to almost be hoping for SHTF scenarios.
You're projecting.
That's not Liberty. Freedom is messy, and sometimes, scary.
Participation in society must never be constrained to the fears of the least tolerant, nor the whims of the unimaginative.
Core to the idea of preparing for "self defense" is readiness for any number of dangers. Some people use "zombie apocalypses" as a shorthand or a teaching tool: it's easier to introduce that umbrella to children as though it's a game than to tell your 6-year-old about the real horrors that exist in the world. Others really believe that "TEOTWAWKI" is around the corner, but as long as they're not hurting anybody why should we hurt them?
This is before we note that "self defense" is a broad term that includes (and, even in Massachusets, definitionally begins with) local militias of irregulars who will "bear arms for the common defence." Before we say that can't happen in 2023, it's happening in Ukraine
right now. Taiwan and most of Africa are the precipice. Hell, China's own people keep making noises like they'll act on it.
Unless we fall back to American Exceptionalism, why should it be impossible
here?