Ron Veronda is a San Francisco teacher, school principal and public speaker. Mr. Veronda believes he has a solution to the “gun proliferation” problem.
His answer’s based on an index card system developed for his students. The student fills out a “freedom” request (e.g. no homework). They flip the card and write the “responsibilities” they must fulfill to earn their “freedom” (e.g. pass the test). The teacher signs off on the card and the deal begins.
At 1:54 , Mr. Verdona explains how the “freedom/responsibility” index card system should apply to guns.
A straightforward solution to the proliferation of guns would be to create responsibility cards in those communities or states where their collective consciousness is high enough to do so.
Anyone making, selling or purchasing or otherwise owning a firearm designed to kill people would, by law, be mandated to complete a card denoting that they understand their legal, moral, social and financial responsibility for such merchandising, ownership or possession.
Anyone failing to do so would be deemed not responsible enough to have a weapon.
Notice that Mr. Veronda’s admission that his gun rights responsibility cards would only be mandated “in those communities or states where their collective consciousness is high enough.” In other words, he “admits” that most people are too stupid to realize the true genius of his plan.
Like all gun control advocates and many educators, Mr. Veronda believes he’s a better judge of what’s good for “the people” than they are. Unlike the “immature” public, his consciousness is sufficiently elevated (whatever that means) to “deem” who’s responsible enough to have a weapon. Any weapon.
This “teacher knows best” attitude is the basis of all tyranny.
Of course, Mr. Veronda doesn’t see his government-mandated firearms freedom/responsibility card system as tyrannical — even though it’s an excellent example of a government “purity test.” You know; the allegiance-swearing oaths beloved of the current Chinese dictatorship and, historically speaking, the Spanish Inquisition. (Feel free to evoke Godwin’s Law here.)
No freedom is denied by mandating such a card. It’s just placed in a more rational, responsible format.
Set into law, these cards would remind us and hold us accountable for the fact that responsibility for an action always has to match the potential for irresponsibility of the same action.
Might one think twice about buying or selling a pistol or an assault rifle knowing that all you have is on the line?
I’m not sure how the bureaucrats administering this firearms freedom/responsibility card system would hold a gun manufacturer, seller or owner responsible for their actions any more than, say, current laws regarding the criminal manufacture, sale or use of arms. Of which we have plenty. But I have a sneaking suspicion they’d find some novel way to infringe on Americans’ gun rights.
If you need another reason to think twice (or more) about Mr. Veronda’s firearms freedom/responsibility card proposal, clock the educator’s matter-of-fact declaration that “assault rifles” have “no place in a moral, sensible and healthy society.” What’s more, “to think otherwise is foolish and invites violence.”
So you can have your right to keep and bear arms if you fill out a firearms freedom/responsibility card. Excluding any and all arms that the government deems amoral, irresponsible and unhealthy. Decided by authority figures whose opinion you’d be “foolish” to reject.
“This technique could be used wherever individual rights infringe on the welfare of others,” Mr. Veronda concludes. “And from where I sit, there’s no shortage of those.” Mr. Veronda is arguing that your right to keep and bear arms, free speech, free assembly, due process, etc. should be limited by their impact on the wider society, as judged by, well, him.
Mr. Veronda’s spent way too much time making a living by telling other people what to do, and punishing them when they don’t do it. His video touting firearms freedom/responsibility cards fits his personality, but desecrates both the spirit and the letter of the United States Constitution. It reveals the educator as a proto-fascist and an anti-gun rights elitist. Which is almost as redundant — and dangerous — as you can get.