Vehicle deaths are mostly accidental, a gun is designed to kill things, especially people. You can kill someone with a car quite easily, just a pain for premeditated murder of an individual. No law or safety feature on a car has made them one bit safer in regards to specifically trying to kill someone with one.





Concealed isn't really a big factor in these spree killings, from a pragmatic perspective a concealed weapon allows someone to carry a gun without meeting instant fear or dislike form a large chunk of the population, gives them a tactical edge if attacked, and represents a global deterrence similar to how LoJack does. In any event, you know my opinion, if self-defense isn't grounds to buy a gun nothing is. As to licensing and registration, frankly I don't think any of the recent spree killings would have been effected. Training is a different story, the government has a clearly defined interest in seeing minimal accidental deaths, low crime, and ensuring a pool of persons able to defend the country. Therefore it clearly has the right to offer gun training at tax payer expense. Not mandatory training, though the legal right to draft people implies yes, but certainly we could begin training kids as the boy scouts do. I'm sure most of them would enjoy it and national defense readiness is sufficient grounds for federal subsidy to schools or groups like the BSA to offer it as an alternative gym/sports/civics class. No reason it has to stop at 18, I won't argue people have a duty to know how to shoot (I do, incidentally) but the gov't has a clear national defense reason to encourage large numbers of well-trained people and guns and ammo aren't budget busters, especially if its only voluntary. We could give out merit badges, make people more likely to attend.

That seems a good idea to me, gets that training in there, no need for mandatory when voluntary would achieve near identical results. Besides, even if you prefer mandatory the voluntary option makes a good interregnum.