Gun Myths:

"I was cleaning it, and it just went off and shot someone"

This requires both a mechanical malfunction of the gun, and violation of the four rules of gun safety. There are various wordings of the four rules, but they are basically the same:

When handling a gun:

All guns are always loaded

This means that the other rules always apply--Never say "Don't worry, it isn't loaded" as an excuse to do something that wouldn't be safe with a loaded gun. If someone checks to see that a gun is not loaded, then hands it to you, you should check to make sure it is unloaded, then follow the rest of the rules anyhow.

Never point a gun at anything you are not willing to destroy

This doesn't mean you must want to destroy everything you point at, but rather if you cannot live with the consequences of destroying something, don't point a gun at it.

Know your target and what is beyond

You must know where the bullet is going to wind up, and what it may destroy on the way there. Something that blocks your view, but will not completely stop a bullet does not relieve you of this responsibility.

Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target

If you are pulling the trigger of an unloaded gun, you still must choose a safe target and aim at that target. The target can be "the ground" rather than "that particular spot of ground".

Guns don't "just go off". Guns go off when handled. In almost all cases, they go off only when their triggers are pulled, in a few extremely rare cases they will go off when dropped (Almost all guns less than 30 years old are designed to be drop safe) or when decockers or other controls are used. They don't go off in a proper holster, or when sitting on a table or shelf. For this reason, I believe that guns that will be loaded often should be left loaded, but in a locked container--Less handling, less risk.

Politics

I've been trying to figure out where I fit politically. I seem to be more libertarian than either liberal or conservative. I think government should be a lot smaller--Federal should probably be half to 1/3 the size it is, not counting the military.

Top federal priorities should be:
Defense
Non-consensual Law Enforcement
Legal infrastructure--Courts, judges, etc
Infrastructure and long-term investment. Public buildings, roads, parks, etc.
Protection from state government
Promoting commerce

Lower priorities
Education. This is a lower priority only because I don't think the feds are all that likely to efficiently spend education dollars. I also don't see a really good way to use federal money to help locally--If you reward high-performers, you're de-funding the people who need the most help, if you help where it's needed the most, you essentially reward poor performance.

Health Care. This is a weird situation--I don't think it's a primary function of the federal government, but the finances of health care are currently insane. Those with health insurance are already subsidizing those without, in a very inefficient way. If the subsidy were moved and controlled (more preventative, less ER) I think it likely that my health insurance costs would go down by more than my taxes would go up.

The other option is a "pay or die" system. I personally would be reasonably OK with that, but it won't fly politically, and there are problems of people having to prove they can pay before they can have treatment.

The reason I specify "non-consensual law enforcement" is to distinguish it from busybody law enforcement like drugs, prostitution, gambling and other vices. If we spent less (resources) on victimless crime, we'd have more to spend where it will protect victims.

If drugs are legal, I think there will be far less property and violent crime and more room in prison to keep violent offenders longer. The drug addicts won't need to steal as much, and may be able to support their habit legally.

Prostitution should also be legal, partly to help protect prostitutes from being unfairly exploited.

I find state-run gambling offensive--The state should not be allowed to run a lottery (or a whorehouse, or a liquor store...) but should be able to (reasonably) tax and regulate privately run gambling. (or whorehouses....)

Federal coercion needs to stop. I'm talking about "pass these laws, or we won't fund your highways" type things. Intent also needs to be considered--Abuse of the interstate commerce clause to justify regulating things that should be left to individual states needs to stop.

Taxes should be primarily on spending.

This is a draft, and I'll likely come back to it later.

Close enough

Took a friend and his wife to my club's IPSC-style shoot today. Brought the Glock 34 I bought yesterday. When I test-fired it before buying, it seemed to be slightly left, so I was going to adjust the sights. Fired a single test shot. Under normal circumstances I'd fire a group before messing with the sights, this time I decided it wasn't necessary:

CCW

One of the best gun quotes I've seen was a man who's wife asked him "Do you think you will need a gun at Sam's Club?". His reply: "If I thought I was going to need a gun at Sam's club, I wouldn't go there". That sums up a lot of my thoughts on carrying a gun. Since getting my license, I generally carry when it isn't fairly inconvenient. I don't carry at work because it is posted no guns at the turnstiles. I could almost certainly get away with keeping a gun in my car, I don't like that idea on a regular basis--although I've never had anything stolen from a locked car, I'm paranoid about having a gun stolen. I avoid shopping where stores have chosen to ban legal guns, I will shop (or eat) where the business is required by law to ban guns. I didn't initially plan to carry much. I got my license for two reasons--One was political, the other was so my wife would get hers. We took the training together, she applied in our county, I applied in an adjacent county and mine came first. I wanted to work the bugs out so I could give her better advice, and discovered that I like carrying. It doesn't make me tough. In fact, it does exactly the opposite--I can't risk escalating a minor situation into violence, so I need to back down in most cases. I think it will help to know that I am choosing to back down for the other guy's safety, or because shooting someone is expensive, not out of fear of physical violence. The gun isn't to let me wander bad neighborhoods, it isn't to protect property--It is to protect my life and the lives of those I love. I might use it to protect another innocent, but that depends a lot on the situation. In the fairly short time I've been carrying, I've had a couple of minor incidents that made me think about the gun. The first was only a few days after I started--Wife and I were walking our dogs, and another dog burst out of his yard and charged us, and started scuffling with our bigger dog. I began to reach for my gun out of a startled reflex, but stopped that before I even got my shirt out of the way. Instead I kept my hand near, and challenged the dog, towering over him and shouting at him to go home. He did. Don't know what would have been different without the gun--Now that I've thought of the proper response, I think I'd act the same way, but I don't think I'd have been able to bluff as well without either the gun or some prior thought. The gun helped me act like "top dog", and helped to think of a good nonviolent way to stop the problem, knowing I had backup. Memorial day weekend fireworks in the nearby city (we live in a small town)--On the way to the car there was a fairly narrow, crowded bike path. Ahead was a drunk muttering angrily to himself about someone pushing him. We held back, and we let him go 20 feet or so ahead. Again, not much different in how I would have handled it without being armed, except possibly more amusing than it would have been otherwise. Drunk was somewhat smaller than me, although I'm guessing a far more experienced street fighter, since I haven't thrown a blow in anger since junior high school in the late 1970's. He finally picked a small old man to verbally challenge-I watched until he staggered off, apparently satisfied after a brief verbal assault. I did try to figure out what I should do if he physically assaulted the old man--I still don't know. Third time, same city was brief--Was alone, walking downtown--Fairly unusual, I do that about once every other year or so. A fairly respectable looking black man in his 20's was carrying grocery bags. As he passed he said to me (at least I think it was to me, there was nobody else close) "Next time I'll kick your F***ing Ass". No clue why. Again the only difference because I was carrying is that I was more amused than frightened. Didn't change my behavior--I watched to make sure he kept going by, as I continued in the opposite direction.

Health Care

The health care payment system in the US is broken. Providers don't have any effective way of forcing payment; all they can do is transfer costs to those who will pay. This is effectively a very inefficient form of national health insurance, biased towards some of the most expensive methods.

We need a system where health care gets paid for, or doesn't happen. This means either some sort of government funding, or a system where if you show up without a means to pay, you get turned away even if that means you die.

My proposal:
First, make everyone eligible for no/low cost insurance, with no means testing. This should have a fairly low co-pay for doctor's visits, urgent care visits and most prescriptions, and a fairly high co-pay for an emergency room visit, with vigorous collection activity for ER co-pays.

The no/low cost version would be rationed. Money would be spent where it does the most good--that would mean that some treatments that are expensive compared to their results would not be available. You wouldn't be guaranteed a choice of doctors, and in almost all cases where there is a choice between convenience or low cost, low cost would win.

Traditional private insurance would be encouraged and subsidized at least to the cost of the basic system, and it would be required to have substantially equal coverage.

Another necessary part of this is an overhaul of malpractice. All doctors will make mistakes. All doctors will have patients with undesirable outcomes. The system needs to strike a balance between weeding out incompetent doctors and making every poor outcome a financial windfall for the victim or their family.