Could you expand on this? Suppose that I register my gun with the county sheriff (or whatever the appropriate LEO is), what has been accomplished? The police now know that I own gun X. What beneficial information can be derived from this? If my gun is stolen, used in a crime and recovered at the scene, I suppose that it can be returned to me.
Background checks
Don’t we already do this? I know that I’ve had my background checked for my last 2 purchases. This may be state to state but that wasn’t my impression.
Industry standard safety devices
Like trigger guards or something else? I’m opposed to mandatory trigger guards because in an emergency, I don’t want to have to find my keys.
Licensed sellers only
Do you mean that you would outlaw private sales? Could I still go to a dealer and have them transfer the gun for me?
Increased penalties for a crime committed while using a gun
No objections here
Age restrictions
Currently you have to be 18 to purchase a long gun and 21 to purchase a handgun. What would you propose changing?
When you look at some of the almost impossible hurdles that places like DC put into place before you can buy a gun, you might be able to understand why some people suspect that this might be used to create a nearly insurmountable hurdle (or at least an unnecessarily high one).
I don’t see how that’s true. I didn’t ask why any officers need guns, but why every officer needs a gun. Even if one in three or four had guns, you would probably have the same net effect on the street, and you could make sure that they had more aptitude and training.
Ask yourself what has been accomplished when you register your business with the local Clerk’s office, or your car with the DMV, or your alcohol license with the whoever gives restaurants alcohol lessons. In each case, there is no serious cry of oppression from the government simply knowing, but I hear that from gun people all the time. Can I skip ahead a bit? Don’t take personal offense, its just that I’ve been through these arguments a lot. I’m going to speculate that you’re afraid if they know you have a gun, that someday they will take it. But if the other common sense laws that I mentioned are passed, then they should take it if you violate one of those other laws. Let’s say that there’s a small fee that is associated with ownership, if you fail to pay it, they can send you a bill or a court summons. Again, not oppressive, just standard license and registration. Or maybe they can see that you haven’t kept up with your yearly training requirements, or yes, they can pin point the owner in case the gun is used in a crime. There’s nothing wrong with that and those are good reasons why all weapons should be registered
Its pretty standard, yes. But I want there to be federal standards and a database. And I don’t want any loopholes on private gun sales.
I think like seat belts or locks on your doors, there should be standard locks that come on all guns. It doesn’t have to require an onerous procedure that makes you fumble for a key while you’re being robbed, but like a switch on the gun somewhere that you have to flip, or a dial, or a button. Something simply more than just “pull the trigger”.
Yes, I would outlaw private sales, or at least ensure that private sales are monitored too. I forgot the name of the law, but there is a regulation that covers private or small scale selling of firearms. You have to get the gun registered and then you can sell it. I’d extend that to antique but useable firearms, and instances where a firearm is given to another person. Again, the model is car sales. You can sell a car to your neighbor if you want, but you have to get it registered in their name and the car has to be licensed.
Purchase yes, but the loophole is ownership. I’d make it illegal for those under 18 or 21 to even own a gun or use one, with the exception of emergencies. The same way you can’t start your kid drinking alcohol at 11 to build him up for 21, I don’t think you need or should be able to train kids with guns for hunting or whatever. Wait until they’re adults
Actually, in many states it’s perfectly legal to let your child drink alcohol. In NJ, there’s a specific part of the law that allows parents to let their children drink, while at home, and under their supervision.
Personally, as much as I don’t really like guns, I’d rather kids get experience with guns under appropriately supervised conditions than be given the ability to buy guns after never being allowed to touch one for their entire lives.
I’m not offended at all by your jumping ahead but you misunderstand me if you think I fear gun confiscation. Just because many people go there doesn’t mean that all people do. Personally, if I were required to register my guns, I would. I don’t see that much good would come from it but I also don’t see a tremendous harm. The examples that you cite though usually are for taxation purposes and your idea of paying a small fee ties in nicely with that. I would strongly oppose that as I believe that gun ownership is a right guaranteed by the second amendment and I know of no other right where one must pay a fee to exercise.
[QUOTE=YogSosoth]
Its pretty standard, yes. But I want there to be federal standards and a database. And I don’t want any loopholes on private gun sales.
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I don’t know if there is or isn’t a database of background checks performed. But if the check was performed and the person passed, what would be the purpose of keeping a record of it? As for private sales, that would be tricky but possible I suppose. Some method of ensuring that the background checks were performed with the purchaser’s approval would be required.
[QUOTE=YogSosoth]
I think like seat belts or locks on your doors, there should be standard locks that come on all guns. It doesn’t have to require an onerous procedure that makes you fumble for a key while you’re being robbed, but like a switch on the gun somewhere that you have to flip, or a dial, or a button. Something simply more than just “pull the trigger”.
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I’d need more details before deciding to support something like this. AFAIK, no such technology exists and the hundreds of millions of guns in existence would create a glaring loophole.
[QUOTE=YogSosoth]
Yes, I would outlaw private sales, or at least ensure that private sales are monitored too. I forgot the name of the law, but there is a regulation that covers private or small scale selling of firearms. You have to get the gun registered and then you can sell it. I’d extend that to antique but useable firearms, and instances where a firearm is given to another person. Again, the model is car sales. You can sell a car to your neighbor if you want, but you have to get it registered in their name and the car has to be licensed.
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And again, at least in my state, the purpose of the registration is for taxation purposes, which I would oppose.
[QUOTE=YogSosoth]
Purchase yes, but the loophole is ownership. I’d make it illegal for those under 18 or 21 to even own a gun or use one, with the exception of emergencies. The same way you can’t start your kid drinking alcohol at 11 to build him up for 21, I don’t think you need or should be able to train kids with guns for hunting or whatever. Wait until they’re adults
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I live in a rural area and I assure you that for a very large area of the country, this would be a non-starter. However, hunter safety classes are required before minors can take to the field. I have no problem with that.
I got tired of waiting so I looked at a couple of the sites he lists above and tried to find a source document. I got caught in a circular network of blog postings - all referring to the Australia’s “Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research”. The claims go back to 2009 and reference 2006 reports.
I could not find a source document nor could I find the referenced organization. There is a similarly named organization for the state of New South Wales. If that is the source of the claims, then it is data for only a third of Australia. http://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au
There is an Australian Bureau of Criminology which may have been called the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research at some time in the past. My earlier link to the real statistics was to the former’s site.
The NSW site is hard to use because it only has data pre-Oct 1996 broken down by district and month, so you have to do a lot of summarising to get a clear picture. I’ve done that but unless someone can suggest an easy way for me to put up a spread sheet so you can see it’s hard to show you the result. Basically assault and homicide were on a rising trend till the early 2000’s but rose most sharply pre-buyback 1995-6. Homicide was similar but rose most sharply 1996-7 (during the buyback). Both homicide and robbery then fell away and are now well below pre-buyback levels. Sexual assault rose sharply 1995-7 but has generally been on a slow rising trend throughout.
The picture that emerges is that violent crime in NSW rose sharply 1995-early 2000’s. That trend began before the buyback, and long term violent crime levels are down.
I suspect that the gun lobby websites have simply cherrypicked the undoubted violent crime rate increases in one state (NSW) that occurred 1996-7 and have ignored the fact that this was part of a pre-existing trend which petered out a few years later.
There is a very simple and indisputable reason for a gun registration database. Everyone says that criminals and the mentally ill should not have firearms, right?
How do you know if they do? For some reason, people seem to only think about prospective gun purchases. But what of the 28 year old convicted of his first felony? How do you know if there are any guns he needs to surrender? How about the 22 year old and his first invountary commitment due to mental illness. Did he buy a gun when he was 20? I’m assuming that retospective gun purchases matter. People wouldn’t argue that gun owners who subsequently show a lack of fitness for ownership should be grandfathered in, would they?
As long as there are not too many rows and columns, (particularly columns), you should be able to paste it into a page of Notepad, then copy the Notepad page into the “Reply to Thread” window, flanked by [noparse]
So here’s the figures for NSW only. 1995-2014. The figures are to December of each year, and the buyback began Oct 1996, so the 1996 year is not going reflect the buyback much. The trends in the figures are of course much easier to pick up if they are graphed, so if there is any way of showing that…
So here’s the figures for NSW only. 1995-2014. The figures are to December of each year, and the buyback began Oct 1996, so the 1996 year is not going reflect the buyback much. The trends in the figures are of course much easier to pick up if they are graphed, so if there is any way of showing that…
The NSW data are at the high ends of the regression lines as well. You can see this in the Leigh and Neill paper in the above link. They make the point that effects of the gun buyback occurred differentially by states due to different rates of implementation of the buy back. It’s helpful to remember that the buyback really didn’t conclude until 1998.
It certainly can. Just ask the recent carjacking victim who had an armed bystander come to their rescue…who ended up accidentally shooting the victim in the head. Oh wait, you can’t.
And this is the problem - encouraging armed citizenry to shoot back has a significant potential to make the situation much worse, despite the Heroic Gunslinger fantasy. Everyone thinks they’re going to be calm and steely-eyed in the face of flying bullets, when anyone who’s actually been in that situation will tell you otherwise.
Well, we could attach the guns to trained individuals who could be called to the scene as needed. I wonder why no one has tried that before…
Question: how often has the heavily-trained Secret Service fired back at someone shooting at them? Answer: Never. Perhaps shooting back at criminals isn’t such a bright idea after all?
Having a gun can’t hurt? In addition to the carjack victim shot in the head by a bystander, there’s the recent incident of the woman shooting at a fleeing shoplifter. There are the incidents of armed bystanders klling other bystanders. There’s the guy who killed his kid while buckling him into the carsear. There are the people injured by gun carriers dropping their guns in stores and churches. There is an ongoing compendium at Daily Kos called Gun Fail, dedicated to documenting incidents of guns “hurting” in unintended ways. They document about 50 incidents every week.
Guns certainly can and demonstrably do hurt. A lot.