Gun Control & RKBA

---First, end the drug war. Take away the money, take away the guns. Repeal the federal prohibition on at least pot. Addiction should be treated as a medical issue, not a criminal one.

100% agree

---Change welfare rules that don't force fathers out of the house when times are bad. A hand up, not a hand out. While you are giving that hand up, you don't let go when the helpee is only half way up. IOW, remove disincentives to find a job or do something constructive like cutting food stamps when they go back to school.

Kind of agree. I see no point at all in massive bureaucracies. I am very much in favour of a guaranteed minimum income that is facilitated by employers and a centralised database system like we do with taxes. If you fall below a threshold you get topped up to meet the minimum to insure you can continue paying rent, paying bills and shopping. Sure, many economists see a world in which 30% unemployment is a norm in the coming decades... I see no benefit in pretending food stamps and massive government programs to means test the population on a weekly basis. I don't WANT that sort of unemployment by I do think it's inevitable and we better hope that Americans are a bit more generous to their fellow man than they were in the great depression.

---Get cities to repeal stupid zoning ordinances that make neighborhoods unwalkable. One thing I noticed living in Japan and Korea, local business mixed residences created a real community. Makes jobs close by and makes people less dependent on motor vehicles.

The same is true all over Europe. People walk everywhere. Europeans - as I'm sure you know - can't get their head around Americans driving EVERYWHERE. They're not wrong. So I 100% agree.

---Urban farming in greenhouses, if a farmer can do it for profit by selling in local markets year round, why not? Just look at all the empty lots in places like Detroit.

Agreed. And there are people all over the world looking into just that - even high rise farms.

---Provide microloans available to create these small businesses. First priority should be the 20 worst.

While this is good in theory, small businesses are finding it hard to compete in America, because of endless chains. I do support it but wonder what percentage of people it's actually a solution for, long term.

---End incentives for companies to offshore manufacturing jobs and create new companies here in urban areas, not industrial parks at the edge of town.

Well... many of the incentives aren't incentives given, but are incentives based on the disparity between wages from country to country. And of course, the main way US companies will compete in the future is with automation... which doesn't help workers an awful lot.

---Fix education. I don't care about ideology, I care about results. School districts in places like Chicago spend a lot per student but half the graduates are functionally illiterate, something is wrong.

The US education system is a total wreck; it's pathetic. Emulate systems that work. Of course part of the issue stems from the fact that ideology DOES drive education policy in America, on both sides of the aisle. Fix that and you'll get somewhere.

---Community policing. Most residents in these places want sub stations. I don't mean cops who live someplace else and drive around in their patrol cars. Yeah they can be there. I'm talking about men and women who live in the area and walk beats and ride horseback. One horse back cop told me in Tampa that he gets the best intelligence by riding a horse through the projects. Kids love horses and rat out the asshole uncle while petting the horse. Trust between the Man and the people in the area is a must.

Local cops in cars is one of the worst policing decision America ever made. It's an unfortunate necessity in a FEW places, but certainly not universally. In Ireland - and in Europe - cops are on the street... and the relationship is NOT antagonistic. Cops also don't have guns here. As an aside.

---Deglamorize criminal misuse of guns. I want those kids to associate guns with the nerdy kid in Rifle Club, Harvard shooting team, and the ISSF World Cup, not using it to be King Bad Ass of the block.

Meh. Sounds a bit like "Ozzy Osbourne made my son kill..." glamourising bazookas wouldn't mean an upsurge in bazooka violence either... because people can't get bazookas.

---When local cops bust out of state traffickers, hand them over to the feds for violating the GCA, interstate gun sales without a license, instead of letting local DAs drop the gun crime charges like they usually do.

Again, piecemeal gun control works about as well as piecemeal anti-organised crime laws.

---Change the sentencing guidelines for straw buyers for known felons. If caught, they usually get probation.

You know how I feel about this.

---An EO that instructs US attorneys to accept and prosecute for felon in possession charges local police hand to them. I was disappointed that wasn't part of Obama's earlier EAs.

See my last comment

---Oh, end gun free zones. I agree with the then INTERPOL head after the mall attack in Nairobi.

The preponderance of guns in America kills way more people than gun free zones. Saying that, it's just another tiny bit of meaningless gun control... nothing short of a complete ban will save a meaningful number of Americans lives.