Gun Control On Blockchain
I wrote the first version of Gun Control on Blockchain in 2015 and have re-circulated it every time there is was a school shooting or other mass shooting in the US or abroad. The idea proposed here comes from use cases that are developing at the Integrated Engineering Blockchain Consortium related to access of hazardous materials, dangerous machinery, and critical infrastructure. Why not firearms?
Obviously, access to the control room of a nuclear power plant is not necessarily protected by the US constitution, but with the power of US citizenship comes the personal responsibility of wielding it appropriately.
Problem: According to some sources, 280,000 Americans have died from guns in the last decade. Even opponents of gun control acknowledge that there is a need to assure that a gun owner is qualified to operate each specific type of firearm that they possess. Even proponents of gun control acknowledge that registering a gun with a central authority (government, insurance, gun schools) constitutes a loss of civil liberty. Everyone knows that “blanket legislation” accomplishes little more than punishing a large number of responsible people in order to deter a relatively small number of irresponsible people.
Proposal: A person who seeks to acquire a gun may create an anonymous persona on the IEBC blockchain that includes their training, qualifications, health records, police record, etc. This record may then be validated by one or more other personas who that gun owner knows and trusts. Any new information needs to be appended and likewise validated any time in the future. The keys to the data are controlled exclusively by the person making the claims and nobody else.
Gun dealers would be able to review the record and sell the level of armament commensurate with the threshold of competence claimed by the record holder — much like they do today. However, in the event of a gun discharge, the actual identity of the person and their gun becomes known during the investigation, therefore, their private key can be revealed without loss of civil liberty. If the gun owner’s persona is accurate, then they will be protected under the 2nd amendment and receive an isolated incident judgment. If the person lied on their persona, they forfeit some protected under the 2nd amendment and receive broad penalty and liabilities. It is in the best interest of the gun owner to be accurate about their claims.
The same would hold for validators, if the validator signed off on a claim that the gun owner had proven completion of a gun safety a course or psychological assessment, they would be clear of any incrimination. If the validator OK’s a fraudulent claim, there could be some limited liability as an accessory.
In this manner, the identity of the gun owner or the validators are never revealed to the government, except after the fact once the owners Identity has already been otherwise legally revealed.
Gun Owner Insurance:
Without revealing identity, the gun owner’s IEBC persona may act as a proxy identity for the person. The proxy would then be assigned to a risk sharing cooperative pool based on similar claims made by other IEBC personas. The gun owner would pay insurance premiums commensurate with their claimed persona — i.e., corresponding to the correct risk pool of their persona.
In the event of a claim, the identity is revealed. If the person cheated on their premiums, they would not be covered by insurance. If they were truthful, they would be covered for any damages against accidental or protective discharge as protected by the US Constitution.
Discussion:
Disciplined and experienced owners will pay a trivial amount for gun insurance while beginners would pay substantially more. This creates the incentive to become educated in the rules of firearm ownership. If an individual has demonstrated severe shortcoming of responsibility, judgment, or prior convictions, their insurance would be exponentially more expensive, perhaps prohibitive. Therefore, they would need to pay more to own a gun and or complete a rehabilitation program. The market will reach a new equilibrium of relative safety.
This type of arrangement applying an IEBC adjudication layer to a blockchain effectively preserves the identity of the gun owner while also providing essential data to a public ledger that may be assessed by gun dealers, gun trainers, insurance companies, mental professionals, personal references, legislators, and the public at large.
Again, in the event of a shooting, the gun owner and their gun are discovered anyway, therefore privacy no longer exists. Only at that time may the public ledger be reviewed. There is a negative incentive for all people in the chain of possession in a community to allow an unstable person to possess a gun.
In the event of a worst case scenario intended by our founding fathers requiring for a protection by a trained citizen militia, then the owners can simply delete their keys and essentially delete their record until such civil order is restored.
The IEBC Adjudication layer satisfies the 2nd amendment on all points while protecting the public by filtering incompetent owners without punishing competent owners through fair market forces.
