This is kind of infuriating: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/27/unfair-fema-climate-program-floods-00032080 FEMA runs the nation's flood insurance program, which isn't ideal. FEMA will buy out or mitigate the homes that are at high risk of flooding, rather than repeatedly pay out flood claims. Makes sense. Buyouts occur at market rates, and most places hate this program, because they lose their tax base, it destroys what would otherwise be decent housing stock, and places downward pressure on adjacent properties. The mitigation on the other hand, does the opposite. FEMA cannot mandate you leave a home, and cannot refuse to insure it (within some parameters). This is the "you can't total a house" stipulation. FEMA is the insurer of last resort. If a house was up to code when it was built (often based on the date the permits were issued), in most places it can be insured against floods. Places in floodplains are required to have it, and identifying places that should have flood insurance has become a much more difficult process with climate change. No flood insurance? You can get some grants, usually enough to make basic repairs, not much more than that. Then you're looking for loans. Most FEMA programs are predicated on damage. If you own more shit, and a flood happens, you sustain more damage and thus are given more assitance/dollars/grants/whatever. Thus, FEMA calculates risk based on the same logic. FEMA somewhat reasonably quantifies that risk based on dollars spent. Ie, it's better to mitigate a $500,000 home than a $50,000 home, because a $500k home might incur $100k worth of damages, whereas the $50k home will not incur that amount of damage at one time. Also, the FEMA program works at an individual homeowner level. So, a $500,000 home with 10 acres of land is easier to mitigate than 10 $500,000 homes on 10 acres of land. Guess who owns $500,000 homes at a higher rate? Somehow, that makes FEMA racist, because FEMA gave all these white folks this money to sink into fancy homes. Nevermind the fact that to mitigate this stuff, the owners have to sink typically 25% of their own money into the project. Also, the article somehow suggests that FEMA pay to mitigate houses....that are rented? Like, a tenant should be able to put a house they do not own on stilts? The article starts off by suggesting FEMA spend $11m on homes that were condemned, 5 years ago, which....no for several reasons (public housing: HUD has their own money to fix this stuff, condemned for 5 years and no one did shit means you can't "bill" it to a disaster or a single incident, FEMA paying for demolition is a very convoluted process except in rare cases). Also, FEMA is severely limited by law on new construction. These programs are based on mitigation and insurance, not new development. That in most cases would be illegal, because it encroaches on other authorities (HUD, USDA, etc.). The devil's bargain used to be: pay for insurance and hope you don't need it, or when shit hits the fan, you take out a loan and hope you don't have to do it again. Obviously insurance is preferable, cheaper and less of a strain, it's why poverty sucks. One thing FEMA has not kept up with is the wild increase in the cost of housing. Estimates show that almost 10% of the nation's housing stock is worth over $1m, and the median price of a home is now $100,000 higher than it was in 2019. The maximum FEMA assistance in a disaster is like $35k, and the top SBA loans are $300k. So, literally most housing stock in the country right now couldn't be rebuilt with Federal assistance....thus, insurance. Don't get me wrong, this program sucks. It's absurdly expensive, to achieve functionally nothing. This kind of prevention is like mitigating against lung cancer by smoking organic asbestos-flavored cigarettes. However, this program sucks because of the legal corners FEMA's painted into, not because it's inherently racist.
Perhaps because some of the proposed changes are completely unrealistic, unenforceable, and arguably unconstitutional. As well as some peoples' obvious ignorance of guns or actual laws and processes already in place. I'm perfectly open to talking about things like universal background checks, raising age limits for legal purchase, closing loopholes and all that. I stated on here earlier that I can't, in good faith, argue against private sales being done through an FFL. It's not a stretch, because here in NY for my father to give me my grandfather's pistol, it had to be done through the Sheriff's Department and wasn't that big a deal. But home inspections, or having to store my firearms any place other than my home, or being required to undergo yearly mental health evaluations to prove I'm fit to own the guns I've had for decades already? Absolutely not and if that makes me a bad person, so be it.
Those are some of the more extreme measures i could think of, but how about some of these. You can't rent a car on your own until you are 25. Shouldn't be able to buy a gun without the co-signing of a parent who takes on full liability for the gun until you are 25. Ammo carries huge taxes to help fund additional gun programs needed to own a gun. Ammo is as registered as guns are. You need to go through the same background, waiting period check as you do to buy a gun. You need to complete training, a written test, and a practical test to show you understand how to properly use, care for, and are capable of owning a gun. All guns old and new must now be part of a national registry. Stiff penalties for non-compliance. Those are just a few others besides some of the ones you already listed.
I'm ok with all of that, and more, with a couple exceptions to what you put. I ok with this if strict accessibility and use limits are in place. Like I said, no searching names at traffic stops. Only looking up serial number specific information after a crime. I don't mind paying the tax or waiting for a background check to come back. But this part seems excessive. What if I want to combine boxes of ammo in watertight storage? You're not serial numbering every cartridge, so it'll be pretty useless.
I think those are good ideas too. It doesn’t stop people from being able to own a gun either. I think one of the easiest and probably biggest bang for your buck as far as efficacy is concerned would be to just raise the age you have to be to own semiauto weapons. Or semiauto rifles at least. A lot of these guys who do these shootings are super young and emotionally at the level of teenagers. Forcing them to wait till at least 21 or 25 even would probably go a long way in preventing large scale killing. Not saying it will stop all school shootings, but waiting till the human brain finishes developing would be a good start. I remember the irrational anger I would feel at dumb shit when I was a kid. I was never close to killing folks, but self control is not a kid’s strong suit. Combine that with stiff gun storage penalties and you probably shave off a good bit of these crazy shootings.
You shouldn’t show interest after the crying starts too. You’ll be shocked at how soon that little bastard starts sleeping through the entire night when that baby knows that when it starts screaming… you aren’t coming.
Here's a radical idea: How about we enforce the laws that are already in place? I'm constantly seeing stories of someone who wasn't supposed to have a gun arrested on a gun charge, let out on no bail, and a week later they're picked up for shooting someone. It seems to me that it used to be that if you weren't supposed to have a gun and got caught with one, you were fucked. No ifs, ands, or buts. On the spot fucked. Now it seems to be treated like a jaywalking charge.
I've addressed the other points you made in previous posts, so I'll focus on ammo. It's a consumable which is impractical to register, especially down to the individual round. There's already some taxes on ammo that's goes toward wildlife conservative programs. I have no issue with additional taxes on ammo, provided they're within reason. I.e., not greater than taxes on tobacco products.
Let me clarify as I probably used the wrong wording. When I say register ammo, I meant more in the sense that you can't just go out and buy boxes of ammo without showing a permit for a gun. The two would be linked together where X person bought X ammo. This would add just another layer where if you are trying to stock pile ammo, you would have to spend a bunch of time and effort to do so.
So instead of registering the ammo, what if there was a registry to show what kind of ammo each person was purchasing? I work in a medical clinic and before a patient can get a prescription for a controlled substance, we run a report to see what other controlled substances they have been prescribed and by whom. So if we see that our patient, who is supposed to be on a steady low dose of medication for chronic pain, went to another doctor to get an additional script, we won’t fill for them. If there was something similar for ammo it could flag people who seem to be going to lots of different places to stockpile. Seems like if we can do it for meds we could do it for bullets.
I don't want to sift through this thread, but...all of this feels very familiar. Like we've had these discussions the last time someone shot children. There are no perfect solutions to criminality, mental health, or the social issues that seem to be preventing us from solving any of this at the highest levels of government. I think the images of police standing idly by while children were murdered, and handcuffing frantic parents might be the tipping point that we need police reform, gun control or some sort of change. It all depends on how long until the next one, which....according to my news feed already happened yesterday. Abott's promise of "there will be new laws" essentially means one of two things: he's lying, or his political career is dead. He's overseen some of the worst things Texas has to confront, and failed spectacularly. If this isn't the tipping point, it has to be accelerating rapidly towards one, because God knows we need some things to change.
This is Texas. He’s fucked up everything here. He’s spent more time trying to outlaw abortion and homosexuality than he has fixing the power grid and doing literally anything to help the people here. Beto couldn’t beat fucking Ted Cruz in his senate race. I don’t see how he beats Abbott. The people here just don’t care enough about anything to even consider voting for a democrat. I sincerely hope I’m wrong.
abbott is akin to trump, in that he can and has absolutely fucked up everything and people will still vote for him. The snowpocalypse was his “shooting someone on 5 ave” moment, and no one gave a shit. because we live in a state filled with fucking idiots
In case you didn't hear him when he crashed Abbott's presser, he's gone back to his "Hell yes, I'm taking your AR!" stance. He never had a chance. Couldn't the Dems have told him months ago to stand down and not run, because he doesn't have a hope in hell? Maybe we'd have a better candidate who doesn't make the party look like a fucking joke.