I feel that the lack of issuing a licence for people to own a gun, like a driver's licence and gun registration only protects criminals. The government is not our enemy, the lawless and the criminals in our society provide the threat. When the police find unregistered guns in the hands of an unlicensed gun owner then the authorities could take the guns away. If a person commits a crime with a weapon licenced to them then they could readily be apprehended. There is not any sized block of any group in the United States which would allow the government to take registered guns away from any licenced individual. You could not get the police, the National Guard, the Military, the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Tobacco and Fire Arms, that would be willing to take licenced guns from individuals licenced to carry fire arms. Licencing could be free and so could registration. The right of gun ownership is not any more important than any other civil right of residents and citizens of the United States. Not every civil right that citizens have was recorded in the US Constitution and its Amendments. Many of the writers of the Constitution did not include a Bill of Rights because they feared that the rights not protected specifically in the Constitution would be endangered. The Bill of Rights was only added to the Constitution because some of the original states stated that they would not vote for the Constitution unless they were added.
Thus the National Rife Association is really only protecting criminals and the gun lobby in their resistance to have any laws passed that would protect the residence and citizens of the United States from the misuse of fire arms.
Everyone knows that every citizen in the United States who does not have a criminal record and is of sound mind and body has the right to own guns. Registration of gun owners and of guns would not result in any citizen who has the right to own a gun from owning one. But with the right to own a gun comes the responsibility to see that that weapon is never used in a crime or is sold to an individual who does not have the right to own one. Any elected, hired, or appointed governmental official would loose their jobs if they ever attempted to take guns away from law abiding and mentally sound individuals.
The right of every individual in the United States not to be a victim of gun violence is just as important as the right to own a gun. If you have to have official identification to vote than you can also be required to have to have a licence to carry a fire arm. You have to have a registered title to own real estate and vehicles, than your guns should also be registered in the same way your car and house is. After all you have the right to own real estate and vehicles and businesses. Guns are no different.
This is just my opinion. And yes, when I was 13 in the scouts I was trained to use a 22 rife by an NRA approved individuals, one of which was second in command of our local National Guard Unit. The others were at scout camps. I even had a card issued by the NRA that I had received training. This was in the 1960s. I am not against guns, I just never had any use for one, especially since I moved from rural Americas to the urban populated area. I never felt that owning a gun would make me safer. Until I moved to New Mexico and saw the bars on the windows of my neighbors the doors of my home were never locked any where I lived. Ammunition was always too expensive for me and I never had a good place to practice shooting a gun. I never took any pleasure from hunting.
This is just my point of view and I bare no ill will against others who think differently. Also, very rarely have I lived in places that the majority of people would consider safe. The ability to take another's life does not make me feel safe, nor does the thought that a gun that I owned could be used to take mine.
Think about it registering the title of your house, real estate, motor vehicles, business licences with county and state governments protects your legal right to this property in a court of law. If you depend upon the government to protect your rights to your property, patients, copy rights, etc., why can't you depend upon the government to protect your right to own fire arms.
