Okay, gnu, if push comes to shove, what I favor is this:

Before the law would allow me to take a ton-and-a-half of automobile out on the streets and roads—keeping in mind that someone who does not know how to drive an automobile can do a lot of damage and potentially kill a lot of people before he finally runs into a tree—I was required to get a drivers' license.   This was not issued to me until I had taken a written test to show that I knew the traffic laws, and then had taken a drive with a state patrol licensing official, armed with a clip board and pen, at my side as he told me to do certain things such as parallel park, and enter and exit a freeway, and a whole bunch of other things while he wrote notes on the clipboard.

After the drive, he noted that all was well, except that when I parallel parked, I had to take two runs at it because on the first one, I had scrubbed a tire against the curb. Not a fatal flaw in my driving skill, but still noted as a bit sloppy. So I was issued a license, which allowed me to herd a potentially dangerous ton and a half of metal around the city and elsewhere.

When I bought my two handguns, there was no check as to my criminal record, my sanity, or even if I knew which end of the gun the bullets came out of.

When I got my concealed weapons permit down at City Hall, I had to fill out a form. Name, address, the usual stuff. Nothing about criminal record or state of sanity. Or skill with a firearm.

One of the blanks on the form asked why I wanted to carry a concealed firearm. I really didn't have any specific reason. I wasn't responsible for transferring a briefcase full of money or jewelry from place to place or anything where I really needed the protection of packing heat. When the clerk saw me pondering over that line, he said, "Oh, most people just put in 'sport and travel.'" So that's what I wrote down. Then I shucked out $5.00 and he issued me the permit.

If I'm required to pass a written test and an "in the field" test before I am issued a license to drive—on the basis that the law wants to be sure I won't drive through crowd, kill a lot of people, and come to rest by driving through a plate glass window into a crowded grocery store, I don't see why I am not required to pass a similar test before being allowed to own and carry a device with which I can easily kill or main people with the mere twitch of my index finger.

I think we can do a bit better than that, don't you?

Don Firth