02-26-2018, 03:19 AM
The NRA has a pretty small membership compared to the rest of the population. However they give substantial amounts of money to the GOP (https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/23/politics/...index.html) and to push their presidential candidate. In fact, the pro-gun lobby spent over twice as much to fight Democrats ($34.5 million), as it did to support Republicans ($14.5 million).
Something that no one asked the NRA in the CNN meeting was why. I've lived in countries with zero gun laws and where they were extremely illegal. It's a no brainer which countries were much safer for the average citizen. The NRA fights any and all restrictions to keep their sales going and to keep Americans from finding out that guns don't make the average person safer.
If the insurance industry were involved in gun sales, you'd see some immediate changes. There would be biometric locks, there'd be restrictions on clip sizes, quite possibly gun restrictions based on muzzle velocities as well as more laws about background checks, age restrictions, etc.
Almost all of the US gun homicides are committed by males under the age of 26. Psychologists have shown that a large percentage of people under the age of 26 do not yet have coping mechanisms to deal with conflict and their brains are still developing a key aspect of learning mortality that prevents them from doing "stupid" high-risk things.
...[t]he feelings of immortality of teenagers on the fact that their frontal lobes are not fully working. The reason the frontal lobes are not fully engaged is because they have not yet completed the process of neuronal myelination. Think of myelination as the insulation on the electrical wires inside your house. Without myelination in the brain, electrical signals from neurons fail to reach their destination. The parts of our brains that myelinate last are also the parts that evolved most recently. These parts include our frontal lobes, which contribute most to our unique personalities and allow us to anticipate the consequences of our actions. Essentially, your frontal lobes tell you that it's a bad idea to drink alcohol and drive or to ignore the consequences of taking heroin. When your frontal lobes finally complete their process of myelination, they begin to work properly and you stop doing dangerous things. Most importantly, you stop feeling immortal. Apparently, women finish this myelination process by age 25 years and men finish by age 30. Thus a 20-year-old female, although her brain is still myelinating, is closer to maturity than her 20-year-old boyfriend, who still has another 10 years before he can really appreciate the wisdom of warnings such as those against drinking and driving or against taking any drug that comes his way. - Gary L. Wenk Ph.D.
If gun owners had to insure their weapons upon purchase, and the age for owning or carrying a weapon was set at 25, we'd see a dramatic change in gun homicide rates.
I just wanted to also add a comment about bump stocks, because I see many people make the argument that even "a belt loop" can be a bump stock. This is a big stretch of the truth. If you want to learn about bump stocks on an AR-15 just watch this video to see how much faster they fire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2IOZ-5Nk5k
Something that no one asked the NRA in the CNN meeting was why. I've lived in countries with zero gun laws and where they were extremely illegal. It's a no brainer which countries were much safer for the average citizen. The NRA fights any and all restrictions to keep their sales going and to keep Americans from finding out that guns don't make the average person safer.
If the insurance industry were involved in gun sales, you'd see some immediate changes. There would be biometric locks, there'd be restrictions on clip sizes, quite possibly gun restrictions based on muzzle velocities as well as more laws about background checks, age restrictions, etc.
Almost all of the US gun homicides are committed by males under the age of 26. Psychologists have shown that a large percentage of people under the age of 26 do not yet have coping mechanisms to deal with conflict and their brains are still developing a key aspect of learning mortality that prevents them from doing "stupid" high-risk things.
...[t]he feelings of immortality of teenagers on the fact that their frontal lobes are not fully working. The reason the frontal lobes are not fully engaged is because they have not yet completed the process of neuronal myelination. Think of myelination as the insulation on the electrical wires inside your house. Without myelination in the brain, electrical signals from neurons fail to reach their destination. The parts of our brains that myelinate last are also the parts that evolved most recently. These parts include our frontal lobes, which contribute most to our unique personalities and allow us to anticipate the consequences of our actions. Essentially, your frontal lobes tell you that it's a bad idea to drink alcohol and drive or to ignore the consequences of taking heroin. When your frontal lobes finally complete their process of myelination, they begin to work properly and you stop doing dangerous things. Most importantly, you stop feeling immortal. Apparently, women finish this myelination process by age 25 years and men finish by age 30. Thus a 20-year-old female, although her brain is still myelinating, is closer to maturity than her 20-year-old boyfriend, who still has another 10 years before he can really appreciate the wisdom of warnings such as those against drinking and driving or against taking any drug that comes his way. - Gary L. Wenk Ph.D.
If gun owners had to insure their weapons upon purchase, and the age for owning or carrying a weapon was set at 25, we'd see a dramatic change in gun homicide rates.
I just wanted to also add a comment about bump stocks, because I see many people make the argument that even "a belt loop" can be a bump stock. This is a big stretch of the truth. If you want to learn about bump stocks on an AR-15 just watch this video to see how much faster they fire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2IOZ-5Nk5k