First, you have to remember that in 1776 speak, "we'll regulated" actually means "well armed", not govt regulated the way we think of it today.
Also, the notion of cars being more heavily regulated than guns is false. The only requirement for owning a car is to achieve your 18th birthday. The regulation is all on the USE of a car. I took a 15 minute written test and a 30 minute driving test to get my drivers license. To get a hunting license, I was required to take a 12-hour class (over two days) followed by a 1-hour written test. A concealed carry license requires an additional test and class same as my upgrade to a class E drivers license.
Now, if you think that's not enough, you're well within your rights to think that. But the notion that cars are more heavily regulated then guns is false.
The idea of Chicago's problems being related to lax laws elsewhere also doesn't wash. If there were a connection there, the places with the lax laws would have even more violence than Chicago.
And the stats I've been reading for years have shown Australia's gun related crimes on the rise while ours are on the decline. Still a huge gap, admittedly.
Now, the cultural thing - you do have a point here. We are somewhat numb to this type of thing here. And there's a significant part of the criminal segment that believes its perfectly okay to settle small differences with murder. And if we cannot correct that, we will continue to have these problems.
I think these are fair points, though I disagree with some of them.
First, you're right that well-regulated has several meanings, although the most probable definition for the later eighteenth century means ordered. And ordered in turn means both working
and moderated. However, the more important point is how the Supreme Court sees it; judicial precedent over the past 150 years has indicated well-regulated means that some impositions can be imposed. For example, you can't buy a bazooka (this is an extreme case, obviously). The government has the right to restrict that, according to the courts.
I don't disagree that hunting licenses may have more rules than car licenses. But you're perfectly able to own a gun in your house without having a hunting license. What I was proposing is a license in order to
buy a gun, not just use it to hunt. And to get that license, a brief course on gun safety, gun handling, and a serious background check.
I don't think that Chicago gun crime is due solely to the ability to buy legal guns in suburban Cook County. (I think it has a lot more to do with socio-economic problems and a gun culture--
combined with easy access to guns.) What I was saying is that holding Chicago up as a failed case for gun control isn't particularly fair; there may be strict gun control in Chicago, but the city's suburbs are little regulated. My whole argument is that it's more complicated than just gun control or culture or mental health or poverty--it's a dangerous cocktail of all of these.
Australia's gun crime has fluctuated, but it's still way below ours. As I said, I don't think it would have the same effect in America. But I do think that sticking our fingers in our ears and doing nothing hasn't accomplished much, so we should start trying to come together in the middle to get something done. If gun rights people could accept restrictions, and gun control people could accept that people want to own guns in some capacity, I think there is a rough bit of middle ground.
But do you know what happened after Newtown? The gun first reported to be used, the Bushmaster, saw its sales skyrocket. Sales are up almost a third this year. People didn't move away from violence, they moved towards it. They were worried there was going to be a restriction, and instead of thinking about how they might engage in that debate, they decided to grab the semi-automatic gun used in the shooting. They didn't move away from violence, they moved towards it. I understand why they did it, I get the rhetoric, but I find it really disturbing.
