A Gun Owner Who Is Perfectly Comfortable With Gun Control

[NRA Member]

Yes you have a 2nd amendment right BUT you need to follow 49 steps before you can exercise it.
This clueless idiot thinks the 2nd is all about hunting??




A Gun Owner Who Is Perfectly Comfortable With Gun Control

http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2015/10/...-lawson-clarke

As the debate over gun control churns in the wake of another horrific mass shooting, I’d like to take a moment to present the step-by-step process by which I became a licensed gun owner in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

STEP 1: I enrolled in a four-hour firearms safety course registered with the state.

STEP 2: I joined a properly licensed gun club to demonstrate I was merely interested in hunting and recreational shooting. While this was by no means mandatory, it was encouraged by my local police department.

STEP 3: I then visited my local police station, where I presented my application for a license to carry, my firearm safety certificate and a letter from my gun club stating my membership was in good standing.

STEP 4: Along with my paperwork I had to pay a $100 application fee. NOTE: In Massachusetts a firearms license is only valid for six years, and the $100 application fee is due any time I reapply.

STEP 5: I sat through a face-to-face interview with a police officer and submitted to a preliminary background check.

STEP 6: My photo and fingerprints were taken and filed digitally with the Massachusetts State Police, along with the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health and the national criminal records database.

STEP 7: I made an appointment at the police firing range on Moon Island in Boston Harbor to demonstrate my proficiency with a firearm in front of a state trooper.

STEP 8: I waited approximately 30 days for my license to be approved.

STEP 9: My class A license to carry arrived in the mail.

STEP 10: I visit a nearby gun store, which by law is registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms as well as the Massachusetts Firearms Records Bureau. After presenting my license to the clerk, I was then allowed to browse the store’s inventory.

STEP 11: I selected my very fist firearm: a 30/30 Winchester Model 94, a tried and true staple of New England deer hunting.

STEP 12: While in the store I submitted to yet another background check, this time over the phone with the FBI.

STEP 13: I waited three days.

STEP 14: I returned to the store and picked up my Winchester 30/30, effectively adding my name to the list of over 250,000 legal gun owners in Massachusetts.

The question I’m most often asked is, “How long did the whole thing take?”

From start to finish, the entire process unfolded over the course of several months, but then again so did acquiring my driver’s license and first car. In fact, one could argue automobiles and firearms are equally lethal machines: each responsible for over 30,000 deaths per year in the United States; so perhaps there’s justification for requiring patience in this endeavor.

But was acquiring a license to carry any more of a bureaucratic hassle than getting my driver’s license at age 16? I would say no.

As a gun owner, I’m perfectly comfortable with the notion of sensible gun control, and in the stark light of recent tragedies, I’d say the process of acquiring my first firearm in Massachusetts was exactly as difficult as it needed to be.

Some vocal conservatives are quick to accuse Massachusetts of being a bastion for the liberal elite who are grossly out of touch with the fundamentals of the Second Amendment. It seems they’ve forgotten this is where the “shot heard round the world” was fired in the name of Independence; where simple colonists in 1775 formed a militia and rose up in arms against a formidable force of British Army regulars.

You’re welcome, by the way.

Trust me, in Massachusetts we know our history and we know the significance of the Second Amendment. However, we also understand that owning firearms is an immense responsibility, and we have carefully balanced our right to keep and bear them with what I would argue are an appropriate amount of institutional safeguards.

Is it a perfect system everyone can agree on? Certainly not. But in a time when contentious shouting has largely supplanted meaningful debate, perhaps that’s too much to hope for. However, there is data to suggest our state gun ownership laws are working. Well, that is to say, they seem to work better than the gun policies of most other states. In a recent study, Massachusetts stands out as having one of the lowest rates of gun-related deaths, second only to Hawaii, a state with a population one-fifth our size.

Clearly the epidemic of gun violence is an issue that needs to be addressed on a national level. For any gun owner or gun rights advocate to suggest otherwise is not only stubbornly myopic, but inhumane.

So if we’re earnestly looking to take steps towards reducing the number of gun-related deaths in the United States while respectfully preserving our Constitutional right to legally own firearms, perhaps the rest of the country should, once again, look to Massachusetts to lead the way.

[Coops]

douchebag-copie-1.jpg

[Emptymag]

HOLE-E-FUK

[GunLawyer001]

. . .
Some vocal conservatives are quick to accuse Massachusetts of being a bastion for the liberal elite who are grossly out of touch with the fundamentals of the Second Amendment. It seems they’ve forgotten this is where the “shot heard round the world” was fired in the name of Independence; where simple colonists in 1775 formed a militia and rose up in arms against a formidable force of British Army regulars.

You’re welcome, by the way.

Trust me, in Massachusetts we know our history and we know the significance of the Second Amendment. However, we also understand that owning firearms is an immense responsibility, and we have carefully balanced our right to keep and bear them with what I would argue are an appropriate amount of institutional safeguards.

. . .

When the metrosexual pussies who live in Massachusetts today have the tiny balls to claim credit for what Colonials did in the late 18th century, that's like me bragging about the war exploits of the guy who previously rented my apartment.

200+ years ago, Americans shot at their oppressors and kicked them back to England. Today, we seriously consider electing unqualified despots to lord it over us based on their percentage of melanin or having a vagina.

The Founding Fathers would look around today and smother the manscaped & perfumed losers who claim their heritage.

[ATBackpackin]

Fourteen step to exercise your right to the 2nd Amendment = Reasonable

Provide photo ID to exercise your right to vote = Unconstitutional

[john9001]

I also have a history.

Step 1: When I was a small boy my dad handed me my own brand new 12 gauge shotgun so I could go hunting with him and said " don't point this at anything you don't want to kill", he was a man of few words, years later the Marines finished my gun training.

[stainless]

As I read it I thought it sounded like something I would write. The problem lies in the fact that I'm in the sarc mode 90 % of the time. I don't think that idiot was being sarcastic.

[RenoV8]

The article is a plant, along with most of the articles that claim to be written by gun enthusiasts who support gun control. Don't believe the narrative, its all lies. Do me a favor and read any article you want....arrive at a conclusion the author wants you to get......go out and research the event that took place in the article and find the real story behind it. One hint, not easy to do, but you will be surprised how different the truth is from the reality portrayed.

[Qtrborecrazy]

Who did Odumbass turn to after the Oregon shooting, hunters. I wonder if Odumbass wrote this himself?

[JenniferG]

I don't always agree with Bill O'Reilly but he was right last night while talking to a pair of retired US Navy Seals about leadership. O'Reilly said to the distinguished men that America is soft and addicted to their little machines and that the two are an anachronism and most don't understand the hardness of the two men. The man is the OP's post is a metro sexual and is probably too afraid to take it upon himself to take responsibility on his own without the government telling him what to do. Massachusetts resembles nothing of it's former self when history was made there.