Why take chances? We don't want our elected leaders, children or religious institutions to be even at the slightest risk. Safety first! It isn't as though there aren't plenty of safe places to market guns without putting soft targets at risk. Maybe 1,000 feet isn't right? Could be 500 fee is best, could be 2,500 feet. I'd let states decide so long as a minimal buffer between soft targets and weapon sales is maintained.
I am no dewy eyed optimist, I appreciate that safety measures only help in some cases. People still burn to death even with smoke detectors, still die in car crashes even with safety belts, children still poison themselves no matter that we used "child-proof" containers. But even so, we still use all of these measures because they help at the margins.
There are something like 270,000,000 guns in the United States. Sensible gun safety regulations will not lead to a massive decline in gun ownership, nor do we want it to. Every American citizen, who is responsible and sane, will be able to own the firearms of their choice if desired. But we can insure mentally ill people have a much harder time getting access to firearms. We can slow down a "hot head" from getting guns and ammo, giving them time to reconsider. I have no illusion that we will stop many criminals, radical Islamists or radical Christian terrorists. But those types of killings do not make up the bulk of gun deaths. Insane people killing themselves and/or others make up well over half of the shooting deaths in America.
My safety rules will save a few lives. Maybe your kid, maybe the friendly deputy that plays cards with me, maybe someone's depressed father - someone, somewhere every day. Over eighty people a day are killed by firearms, 30,000+ a year. So we "only" cut gun deaths by a few percent - that is a thousand people a year or one every eight hours.
Seems worth it to me -=- DrStrange
