Any law involving guns in any way is automatically "anti-gun"?

This isn’t about what’s good for the gun owner. It’s about what’s good for the rest of society who is now endangered by a missing gun that the gun’s former owner is keeping a secret from law enforcement. Your motorcyclist’s squashed noggin isn’t going to be pointed at someone during an armed robbery.

Airman, I believe the law provides that you only have to report the incident within 3 days of noticing the gun is missing, not within 3 days of it actually going missing.

Just for the record, frogs don’t actually behave that way.

Please explain how law enforcement knowing about a stolen gun prevents it from being used in a subsequent crime?

Cops can’t find stolen cars most of the time. What makes you think they can find a stolen gun?

The OP’s link would not load, so I found an article from the Philly Inquirer:

Here we see the problem. You are making it a crime to not report, or even to be slow in reporting. That sounds like something that could be used against a crime VICTIM, a law with way too much of an opportunity for abuse by anti-gun authorities.

Us Gun Nuts don’t trust anti-gun authorities. We have been giving in for years, with little to show for it. Like hell we will support a law that can make a felon out of a guy who waits too long to report a gun missing or stolen.

If a car is stolen, it means that a thief walked up to your car, generally outside of your home, entered the car and drove away. There is precious little evidence for the police to gather. The car is also most likely going to be chopped and sold as parts, not pointed at a crime victim. So, we have a crime that has little evidence to go on, and little chance of violent follow on crime, chance of solving the crime… low.

Someone steals your gun, chances are a burglar entered your home, rummaged around your valuables, and took the gun. We now have an opportunity to collect evidence, hairs, fingerprints, etc. because the thief didn’t steal your entire home. Since the gun can be used in a violent crime, there’s more incentive to canvas the neighborhood, and put more police hours in to solve the crime, chance of solving the crime… slightly-better-than-low.

At any rate, even if they don’t usually solve the crime, I think they should at least get the opportunity to do so, even if the gun owner is inconvenienced by having to report the theft.

It does not. You have to report it within three days of discovering that the gun went missing. That was right in the OP.

What would make this different from any other burglary in which the police typically indicate that the odds of catching the burglar or recovering your possessions is low?

I’ve even heard burglary victims say they were told by the police that dusting for finger prints won’t do any good anyway.

This is my fundamental issue with the vast majority of gun controls; not only are they largely designed to be showpieces for politicians who want to champion how they are tough on crime that end up being impractical to implement, they also allow the same class of politicians to avoid addressing the root problems of violent crime; to wit, the socioeconomic conditions which engender gang membership, lack of economic and educational opportunity, persistent poverty, and increasing division in economic strata. A prime example of this on the federal level is the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which encompassed among other things the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, elimination of state-sponsored inmate higher education, a variety of provisions that instituted laws of dubious Constitutional merit, and the infamous campaign to hire 100,000 new police officers. The law ended up being a major kludge of amendments, special interest additions, unworkable laws, and underfunded or entirely unfunded mandates. The Assault Weapon ban, argued by supporters to ban weapons with “no sporting purpose”, did little more than prohibit cosmetic additions to rifles that were in no way functional unique from “sporting” rifles, and create an overnight market for overpriced high capacity (>10 round) magazines. No attempt was made in any part of the law to establish metrics for efficacy, and since crime rates had been falling for nearly a decade before, there was no real pressing need for the law except to address media hype about drug dealing gangs armed with full-auto AK-47, the evidence for which was apparently drawn from rap music videos otherwise having no basis in reality. (The most popular “assault weapon” for gangbangers was the Intertec Tec-9, an large, cheap, open-bolt straight blowback pistol so inaccurate and prone to feed jamming and stovepiping that it is the weapon you would prefer your opponent in a gunfight to be carrying.) Since many provisions of the law have since expired there has been no correlating increase in crime.

Another example of a good concept executed very poorly was the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993. The essential premise was to institute a background check system to assure that purchasers of weapons did not have a history of criminal activity or mental instability. Unfortunately, the bill was drafted in such a way to place an unfunded mandate on state and local authorities to perform said checks, and failed to provide a comprehensive national system to coordinate information. This was eventually challenged and negated on 10th Amendment grounds, and later superseded by the implementation of the National Instant Criminal Background Check. Curiously, the National Rifle Association–almost universally reviled by gun control advocates and the media–has supported the concept of an instant background check for decades. The NRA also contributed to and ultimately supported the National Gun Control Act of 1968 and the modifying Firearms Owner Protection Act of 1986, which restricted firearms sales and applied federal penalties for the purchase and ownership of firearms by felons, minors, et cetera. The NRA and other firearm advocacy organizations have long championed mandatory sentencing (for good or bad) regarding crimes committed with firearms.

So to answer the o.p.'s question in general form, no, not all firearm laws are opposed by the majority of firearm enthusiasts as being “anti-gun.” With regard to the particular bill in question, without reviewing the text and provisions therein its impossible to say whether it would make a good and practical law or not. The preponderance of legislators in the quorum found it, for one reason or another, to be not a good addition to the penal code and thus voted against it under the presumption that this represented the majority of opinion of their constituents. In political science terms this is called “democracy.”

Stranger

Compare and contrast:
investigate to recover a deadly weapon from the hands of a known burglar
investigate to recover property that would probably be replaced with an insurance check

Which investigation would you put extra effort into? I’d say a big reason thefts don’t get solved is that the police don’t have the manpower to thoroughly investigate property loss, stolen guns should be way higher up on the priority list.

I’ll give you this, if the police treat a stolen gun with the same urgency as a stolen iPod, this law is useless, and police support of it is a joke.

You have a total misconception on what LE does in most non-homicide cases. PA is a gun-friendly state; as such, guns are quite often part of the stolen swag in “routine” burglaries. Police agencies don’t usually do the things you describe in those cases. Why do you think they would under this rejected law? Pittsburgh, Harrisburgh, Philadelphia, and a few other cities have large PD’s with well-equipped and well-trained forensics units. Pretty much everyplace else in the state, if it has a local PD at all, has a few officers who handle everything. * They don’t even investigate murders!* Those investigations are handled by the State Police and they don’t have forensics experts in every barracks; they bring in experts from elsewhere in the organization for really serious crimes. Police organizations in general don’t expend equal effort on every crime depite what the CSI shows may have led you to believe. Most crimes are investigated primarily by talking to people. Many, many crimes are cleared by someone confessing or someone squealing, physical evidence plays very little_if any_role.
Watch less TV.

It was always painted as the NRA opposing waiting periods rather than the NRA supporting NICS.

Dishonesty has long been a hallmark of anti-gun activists and politicians.

The only time I have ever seen such a thing in action is when a friend of the family’s home was burglarized. The burglar(s) made off with electronics, jewelry and guns.

This was reported, including a list of serial numbers of the firearms stolen. The state police (who have jurisdiction in that township as they do not have their own police) told this family friend that it was highly unlikely they would ever catch the burglar(s). As far as I know it has been over 10 years and they never recovered any of the stolen firearms, or at least they never notified the rightful owner.

I hesitate to bring this up, because I remember so few details about it, but I seem to recall the NRA opposing a law that I think would have made gun makers responsible if the user of the gun was injured due to the gun being manufactured faulty. This seemed to me, at the time, an example of “any gun law is an anti-gun law” over-reaction, and something gun owners should have been for, as it would benefit them.

Does anybody recall this proposed law, and perhaps can elaborate why the NRA was against it? It was at least as far back as the 90s, and maybe even the 80s. My apologies for the vagueness and so little information.

The laws they actually oppose are the ones that allow the victim (or family of the victim) of a crime committed with a gun to sue the manufacturer of the gun because the gun was used by a criminal in the commission of a crime.

AFAIK firearms manufacturers are no different than any other company that produces a product if that product injures or kills someone because of a defect.

So, since Sheriff Taylor can’t handle the investigation for Mayberry, nobody in the state, even in the big cities who voted overwhelmingly for it, should get the support of this law? Andy can just go ahead and thank Otis for reporting the theft and go on making fun of Barney, no harm no foul. In Philly, where they may actually have the resources to investigate, they have a chance to do something. Even if they probably won’t solve all of the thefts, at least they have a record of the loss, and they will solve a few here or there.

One article I just read also suggested that this is really targeted at straw purchases, not true theft, though I’m not sure how that would work.

You don’t get it. They don’t do the kind of in-depth physical investigation you describe for gun thefts even now in the big cities. The new law would not have changed that. Philly either doesn’t have or won’t commit the resources you imagine to investigating gun thefts. This law would not have changed that. Catsix has explained quite nicely why the law is, at best, superfluous. I’ve explained the realities of police investigation. You are just clinging to a fantasy now.

I’m fairly sure the proposed law I’m trying to remember was addressing the gun user being injured from a manufacturing problem or defect.

That makes sense. Perhaps the law would have made the gun manufacturers have more liability than other products, which could be why it was opposed.

Sorry, I must have been dreaming that I posted “if the police treat a stolen gun with the same urgency as a stolen iPod, this law is useless” right before your first comment in this thread.

My bad, I’ll be sure to never do that again.

I would be very interested to see a draft of this legislation as well as a cite of the NRA’s response opposing it. It would surprise me if they were opposing liability for actual manufacturing defects, as the NRA has heavily emphasized the safe and responsible use of firearms since its inception.

Let me know if you find a cite.

Will do. So far my research mainly consisted of posting my vague memories to this thread and hoping somebody knows what the heck I’m half-remembering, but I’ll try to do some decent searching tonight after work.

Scenario 1: Car is stopped, cop checks out registration and sees it is stolen, driver is arrested, potential other crime is stopped (cars are frequently stolen to commit robberies).

Scenario 2: Car is stopped, cop finds gun but doesn’t know it is stolen so gives it back, later someone is shot in a robbery, gun nuts score pyrich victory.