Isn’t there some sort of form that needs to be filled out with your name and other information and the gun type and serial number usually when you purchase a gun?
For me in CA - yes. Though there are exceptions for interfamilial transfers, C&R, and some limited other circumstances. There’s also gun trusts too. But in most other states, not for private party sales. That’s part of why UBC is resisted - because it makes banning and/or confiscating incrementally easier.
You also seem more reasonable than most. However, what benefit do you think mass gun registration would do? All guns are now “registered” when sold.
Yep. My epiphany came during the LA riots. The Patriot Act kinda scared me.
I keep saying this to my friends who want to disregard Heller. I keep telling them that their privacy rights depend almost entirely on a very poorly written Roe V Wade opinion.
If congress were to pass a law saying that people must get licensed and register their firearms, I am almost positive that the law would be constitutional.
I don’t think congress could limit the NUMBER of guns. After all after the first one or two, how does the 8th 9th or 10th gun make that person any more dangerous?
Congress can probably limit the type of gun that can be owned but it probably cannot be as restrictive as California has been.
The right to carry hasn’t been established but I am confident that it will (subject to restrictions on private and government property)
There is a credibility trust and frankly the burden is on the gun control side to close that gap and try to find common ground. Instead, they insult gun owners and argue from ignorance. If they were really interested in reducing deaths they would not be proposing the sort of shit they are proposing. They are proposing things with a view towards banning guns altogether so the gun owners don’t trust them.
If the gun control folks were serious, they would focus almost exclusively on background checks, licensing, registration and maaaaybe magazine limits. They should also be ready to give a few things like a national carry permit and uniform gun laws across the nation (i.e. getting rid of all state and local gun laws in exchange for the licensing and registration).
I’ve seen this “tighter background checks” idea brought up quite a bit lately, but I’m confused what its proponents are actually proposing. I’m not even sure they know. You know that a “background check” isn’t like an investigation, with interviews and people calling your neighbors and friends to see if you’re an alright guy, right? No one is taking letters of recommendations or references. A “background check” is simply: collect the person’s information and see if they’re in the NICS database(s). If they are, then deny the purchase. If they’re not, then it’s allowed to proceed. It’s not like they could look harder at the databases, or triple-checking the databases is going to do any good. It’s usualy a simple “either they’re in there, or they’re not”. There’s nothing really to “tighten” in that area, as far as I can see. What did you have in mind when you wrote this sentence?
There are lots of gun owners that get a gun, and a carry permit, and carry that gun with them in public, for protection. Here’s a paragraph of analysis from a very recent Gallup poll:
If you believe that lawfully carrying a gun for self-defense is dangerous, or causes an increase in our crime problem, you’re in the minority. Most of your countrymen feel differently.
It would seem to have been a very poor tactical decision, to say the least. Sort of like confronting Redcoats on the Lexington Green. Just curious though, what was it you think they’d be fighting for? What would their reason for trying to overthrow a supposedly corrupt government be?
It seems you skipped over my parenthetical comment. Carry permits could be given to people with special needs, e.g. carrying large sums of cash or jewels as part of their employment. But do most males “need” a gun for protection in public?
If a mugger asks for your wallet, do you give it to him? Or do you shoot him? Is saving the $50 in your wallet the reason you “need” a gun? Or is the concern that you’ll run into a crazed Islamist terrorist? A far more likely need for protection might be your getting into an argument with a gun-toting drunk in a bar, but that scenario rather argues in support of gun control.
I have friends who have been in awkward violent situations. In no case would the outcome have been improved by a gun. Yes, there are scenarios where the gun might do you more good than harm. A giant lightning-rod or a pet tiger might save your life also – should there be an unrestricted right to travel with those in public?
Because the next step would be to increase the number of things that qualify as prohibiting. Like, the no-fly list or the terrorist watch list. Or non-violent misdemeanors. Or traffic violations and unpaid parking tickets. Or people who engage in unapproved speech, or any manner of way to restrict.
And/or, they can eliminate the need to actually conduct the background check at all and just say it will take longer. What will be 3 days will turn to 5, to 10, then to never.
There are too many new posts here for me to keep up, but just a few more things …
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime sounds pretty “international” to me. That’s where numbers like these and most of these come from.
Are you just trying for a perfect record of being wrong on absolutely everything, or are you really not familiar with the history of apartheid and the long history of South African racial violence? South Africa is a unique outlier in being an advanced nation with a very violent history. The USA is a unique outlier in being an advanced nation drowning in guns with no meaningful gun control. Both have high murder rates and high gun death rates.
Maybe one gets that impression from such inexplicable resistance to passing any effective gun laws that even Sandy Hook had no effect, thanks to the NRA suggesting that more guns was the answer, pulling the strings of all the Congressmen they control, and suppressing research on gun violence. It’s not surprising that virtually all the gun crimes horrific enough to make the front pages turn out to have been committed with guns “legally obtained”, usually one or more semi-automatic rifles and pistols that were bought by some deranged lunatic with the same ease as buying a candy bar – weapons that would either be strictly regulated in any civilized country or prohibited altogether. That’s why.
And then there’s the marvelous category of ATF Title II weaponry. Even machine guns are legal in the US, but they’re expensive and you have to register and pay a $200 ATF tax. But not just machine guns – the same bit of paperwork can also get you silencers, and guns disguised as canes, pens, and cell phones. Title II also covers grenades, mortars, and rocket launchers, in case you want some of those. Some lunatic Congressman introduced legislation just a couple of months ago to take silencers off the Title II list and make them easier to get in the interest of “hearing protection”. It’s just rampaging insanity. There’s no other word for it.
I wasn’t aware that Statistics Canada or the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime were “gun grabbers”, whatever that’s supposed to mean. That’s where most of the numbers and the chart I cited before come from. But since the NRA and its fans are working almost as hard to suppress facts and research and analysis on gun fatalities as they are to spread misinformation about it, it’s no surprise that they have fashioned invectives to hurl at anyone publishing facts that are detrimental to their cause. If the facts are so supportive of their position, why are they so determined to suppress them?
See also my response below about murder rate vs. gun homicide rate.
That statistically there are around 9 guns for every 10 Americans – some numbers make that to be as many as 11 – but you knew that. The highest by far of any first-world nation on the planet.
Of course not. The contribution of gun ownership rate to homicide is a complex interplay of number of guns in circulation, how well they are regulated, and the prevailing gun culture in society. The dramatic – almost incredible – difference in gun violence between the US and all other developed countries is accounted for by striking differences in all three of those factors, not just in gun numbers. But they’re all inter-related
I agree. But the fact is that academic studies strongly suggest that given all three factors I mentioned above, or even just the last two factors, overall homicide rates would go down because the “substitution effect” would be relatively low. Simply because hitting someone over the head with a chair – or whatever imagery you want to use – is not the same as shooting them in the head with a gun.
Here are some of those studies:
1. Where there are more guns there is more homicide
Our review of the academic literature found that a broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide
2. Across high-income nations, more guns = more homicide.
We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s. We found that across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides. These results often hold even when the United States is excluded.
And here are homicide rates from all causes – knock yourself out. Notice that the US per-capita homicide rate is more than 2.7 times the total of Canada, 3.8 times the total of France, the UK, and Australia. So again, these are not marginal percentage point differences, they are whole multiples, far beyond what can possibly be accounted for by socioeconomic differences, though those certainly do exist.
It doesnt seem to, oddly. Mainly due to the fact that criminals dont carry openly. They cant own guns legally. You’d think that hotheads openly carrying would lead to gunfights, but not as a significant issue.
Altho you are correct in that it’s far better to hand over that wallet*, how can you be sure he’ll stop at the wallet?
*
First, your parenthetical was about a mugger, not special needs. Second, and this is key - you don’t get to determine what anyone else needs. People, not males, have an interest in protection at all times.
Every incident is specific and dependent on the fact pattern at the time. If I felt threatened by great bodily harm and had a viable opportunity, I would not hesitate to shoot someone to defend myself.
I think my potential for being impacted by temporary localized civil unrest is more likely than my potential to be impacted by a terrorist.
If you think a giant lighting rod or pet tiger is analogous to a firearm, I’d say that’s part of the reason there is a disconnect here.
I don’t know about lightning rods or pet tigers, but when it comes to guns, the American people have spoken. Take a look at this animated gif to see the progress that has been made in the last 30 or so years:
…
The UNDOC relies upon voluntary nation reporting. Wrong again.
Sure, but Apartheid ended more than 10 years ago. Anyway, SA is still a First World nation, under the totally outdated Cold War idea of “1st, 2nd & 3rd world nations”. Note that Sweden, Switzerland, Ireland, Austria etc are also “Third world” nations based upon the Cold war scoreboard. So, you’re wrong about First World nations.
However, if you’re going by how developed a nation is, rather than what side it was on during the* fucking Cold war*- Mexico, Venezuela, etc all qualify as Highly developed nations, not “3rd world shitholes”. Chile and Argentina qualify as very High, right up there with the USA, France, etc. So you’re** wrong** about “3rd world shitholes”.
See, in order to make the date dance, they had to limit to a undefined “high-income countries” whatever the fuck that means.
Like I posted before, the USA does have a murder rate which is too high, and Canada, etc is quite a bit lower. But you claimed the US rate was a “order of magnitude” higher. **Wrong. **
Still Canada is in the top ten for private Gun ownership, and manages a very low murder rate. France is up there too.
I already cited two studies that give you the information you claim to be interested in, and here you are acting like they don’t exist.
You can easily undermine my position by citing any peer reviewed science that contradicts it.
Or you can go with smiley face emoticons.
This is really at the heart of this whole debate. And my answer to it is that you don’t get to determine that libertarianism is the only permissible philosophy of governance. Society has a legitimate right to balance personal liberties with societal safety in reasonable ways, so that there is always some point – always – where society gets to say “you may say you need that, but in the interest of public safety, you can’t have it”. Or at least, you can’t have it unless you demonstrate a unique and compelling need, which is again exercising balance. And in some cases you as a private citizen can’t ever have it, because the thing is so dangerous that a balancing compelling need can never be justified.
Because otherwise public safety is compromised, and when it is, it just leads to a hardening of attitudes toward personal weapon rights and an escalating weapons war. This is exactly what’s happened in the US, where, incredibly, practically every kind weaponry imaginable can be legally owned by any ordinary citizen with no justification whatsoever. And then, once again, a bunch of innocent people get shot by some lunatic and everyone wonders why this keeps happening, as if it’s some kind of mystery.
American society doesn’t seem to have that particular problem with regulating dangerous drugs. Hell, they don’t even have that problem regulating – in fact banning outright – lawn darts. But the gun thing resonates through a powerful convergence of American mythologies – distrust of government, personal independence, and the primacy of individual liberties at any cost.
This is why discussions like this are always futile.
Here’s the table from your own cite!
OR† (95% CI)
Firearms (exposure)* –
Suffocation 2.6 (2.1 to 3.1)
Crash/jump 8.0 (6.4 to 10.2)
Exposure 18.0 (12.8 to 25.3)
Cuts 325.5 (256.8 to 412.7)
Poisons 270.4
It shows that my previous cite was underestimating the relative lethality of guns relative to jumping or poisoning!
Do you not understand what you’re reading? The odds ratios there are for firearms relative to each other method. The odds of successfully killing yourself are 2.6 times greater if you use a gun compared to suffocation, 8.0 times greater compared to jumping and 270 times greater compared to poisoning.
What exactly makes you think I need to dig deeper?
Peer reviewed science on what, exactly? I don’t think any scientists care enough about your continued efforts to poison the well or paint your opponents as anti-science enough to care. Nor do they do studies on how members of this board, or in the wider community members of either the pro-gun or anti-gun side uses stats to spin their narrative. What, exactly, am I supposed to find a peer reviewed study on…or did you just pull that out of your ass, once again, to muddy the waters? What, exactly, do you THINK my position is on any of this, and what do you THINK I’m supposed to be defending here? Do you even know? I’ve asked you in the past, and you’ve pretty much failed to define what you think my position is, let alone what it actually is, so I really don’t know what you are wanting me to defend here except your out of the ass assertion I’m anti-science…or something.
I don’t know why you make statements like this. Such obvious exaggeration weakens your position. In this thread alone you note that silencers (suppressors) are limited as Title II weapons. I am prohibited from buying a basic handgun based on its color. To say that practically every kind of weaponry imaginable can be owned is not based in reality.
As to the safety argument, or “balance” as you call it:
Please, encourage your ideological compatriots to campaign on the idea of repealing the 2nd amendment. Call for a constitutional convention as the party platform.
On the topic that people are bringing up stats - the association between gun prevalence and homicide. I know scientists care about that.
Or you could just keep having a fit.