You badly need a multi party system. Your current system is too polarized. There's no way to represent nuances. What if I like guns but I want universal healthcare? What if I want a smaller government but I also want great environmental policies?
The US system was ok in the 18th century but now it's a relic. Some things don't age well.
> You badly need a multi party system. Your current system is too polarized.
Definitely we need to get rid of First Past the Post, but while our parties are polarized, they are both far to the right of the vast majority of voters.
> What if I like guns but I want universal healthcare?
That is actually fairly common. Gun control can be done in a nuanced way, and we can have more guns with few instances of gun violence esque Switzerland if we train our populace to properly secure and disarm their guns when not being actively used.
Comparatively, people like my great grandfather thought it was fine to leave a dozen or more loaded guns of varying types all throughout the house. Not great when a shotgun falls out from behind the stove and nearly gets ya.
> What if I want a smaller government but I also want great environmental policies?
Hard to do, small gov't = small town corruption if you look at areas that take this approach.
> The US system was ok in the 18th century but now it's a relic. Some things don't age well.
Definitely, we need to update our antiquated political system.
> we can have more guns with few instances of gun violence esque Switzerland if we train our populace to properly secure and disarm their guns when not being actively used.
Would a law requiring guns to be safely stored (i.e. in a safe) be acceptable? I assume the gun lobby would scream at the thought, but what would the majority think?
Likewise, would a national register and limits (i.e. every serial number is bound to a person in a national registry, the number of registered weapons to an individual is limited, and carrying a weapon not in the registry is a felony) - would that be acceptable?
I think all these countries with tons of guns e.g. Switzerland, Nordics, Canada, the key is they are to a large part hunting weapons. Hunters are usually completely fine with keeping their guns, or in some cases just vital parts of each gun, in a safe. This however means you can't keep a handgun in your bedside drawer, for example. But that's no problem - no one is using guns for "protection" anyway. I think the difference to the US is that in the US people still believe in using weapons for personal protection. Not being able to carry guns outside or have them lying around the house then sort of removes the ability to use them for protection.
The U.S. is particularly sensitive to government encroachment... registries are a hard no-go, never will be accepted, I'm frankly somewhat surprised the sex offender registry exists (think of the children), despite its' flaws. Also, they don't tend to work well for home defense when locked in a safe (as you mention). I don't own a gun, but am very pro the right to do so.
I consider myself a pragmatic Libertarian, so my personal political views don't really align with either of the major parties, but are definitely more conservative in terms of limited federal government than most of the rest of the world view, exceptions to essential infrastructure, which to me includes water, power, communications/internet, transportation, preserving public lands, and education (though in need of some revision). As to corrupt local governments... those are easier for local citizens, and even states to address. Of course historically that hasn't always worked out so well.
In the end, what keeps Germany from being corrupted vs. Belgium... the States in the U.S. are slightly more coupled than the EU nations, but it's not too dissimilar, discounting the same language for the most part here.
Right now, provided a serial number, American police can trace a gun used in a crime to its last legal owner. It takes a number of phone calls -- first to the manufacturer, then to the gun store, then to the first owner, and down the chain -- but it generally works.
And, although it's not mandated by law, gun owners do tend to keep records on private party sales. Nobody wants to be in the situation of "we found this Glock at a crime scene, and it appears to be yours?" and not be able to provide evidence to the contrary.
So a registry doesn't really offer any real utility... except to confiscate those weapons down the road.
If you want to promote safe storage, the best solution would be a tax benefit for buying safe-storage equipment. Gun safes are expensive, at least if you want something that can't be crowbarred open in a few minutes.
Something else that I would love to see, and stealing a page from the Swiss, is universal gun education.
There are more guns than cars in the United States, and I find it negligent that not every American learn not just gun safety, but also how to safely store, handle, and yes, fire a gun -- even if they never plan on owning one.
> If you want to promote safe storage, the best solution would be a tax benefit for buying safe-storage equipment
Yes, a tax benefit seems like something you would probably need to add to a bill requiring safe storage, just to get it past lawmakers and special interest groups.
> Something else that I would love to see, and stealing a page from the Swiss, is universal gun education
That sounds like a good idea. Not sure if having it mandatory even for never-to-be gun owners is the best use of resources, but at least having it as a requirement for a license sounds reasonable - just like driving.
Being a Swede we have (and had) mandatory gun education. For men at least. Same thing in Switzerland. Conscription! (now everyone is again elgible for conscription but far from everyone will be required). So that problem is at least solved in countries with conscription armies. Obviously, neither Sweden nor Switzerland ever trained everyone in gun safety but there is mandatory training before ever using a gun at least, because the licenses require it. So owning a gun for hunting requires passing an exam, Military obviously includes a lot of training, and owning a gun for sports of personal protection is simply not a concept.
I'd actually be fine with a mandatory year of military service, but not sure how well that would sell politically to other Americans.
Personally, I think it would do a lot to connect Americans from different walks of life. I know a lot of people in SF that have no idea what rural California looks like, and that works the same way in the other direction.
As far as licensing goes, that's off the table for historical reasons, and also why I say that we should make gun education universal.
Pretty much every gun control law in the United States, starting after the Civil War, and up to and including California's Assault Weapons Ban and Open Carry Ban, have been primarily to limit gun rights for the poor, and for minorities. It's why the laws are so patchwork, and make so little sense.
So, given that history, public education is the most sensible way to promote responsible gun culture and firearms safety, without imposing the licensing burden that is still used today as a means of discrimination.
First, I have some good American friends. My grudge is not with the people of America but the American system, which the people of American has no say in.
George Carlin puts it best, "America was founded by a group of Salve owners on the premise that all man are created equal."
My observation is that America is the land of law & order as every illegal & unethical practice becomes law. Its owned by 1% and wages war for the 1% in the pretext of spreading the seeds of democracy.
The thing that worried me the most as a non-American is that people around the world think that America is a democracy and all the "bad dudes"(corrupt self-interested 1%), gain power in America and try to impose their will on rest of the world by using Hollywood, CIA & US defence force.
Do you retain first past the post, switch to AV, move to proportional representation?
What are the consequences of each of these choices and who is the right person to make them? There is no perfect voting/political system - all of them have side effects.
Agreed, so my question is why the OP is declaring 2 party system as "worse" when all current systems have drawbacks.
Worse is subjective in this arena. So what are your metrics? What do you define as better? I'm not terribly keen on prop rep, for example - I think it actually gives too much power to extreme parties. Maybe you disagree. Maybe you think it would be better? If so, why?
This is a common argument. For example, many people in the UK's Labour party said this would be the case if the UK moved away from FPTP to AV. The conservatives wouldn't even allow the choice of real PR, limiting the vote to either what they wanted or a crap choice that no-one wanted in an attempt to get their policy choices rubber stamped with a false sense of public approval. This "worked" for that vote, and for Scottish Independence (not allowing further devolution as an option which would have won handily) and failed catastrophically with Brexit.
Notably, Brexit was caused by the small party UKIP stealing votes from the Conservatives, and then by Lib-Dem voters fleeing to Labour because they previously teamed up with the Conservatives. So a leftward shift of voters, sent the result rightward, giving the Conservatives a clear victory which meant they had to deliver a referendum that they never thought they'd have to.
Too late now to change it, but it seems likely the UK wouldn't be tearing itself apart at the moment with a better system.
The US system was ok in the 18th century but now it's a relic. Some things don't age well.