I think that, at best, you’ll get some “Sure-we can tighten it up some here…if you let us loosen it up a bit there” responses. It’s like you’re in a boat with a bunch of holes in the bottom of it, and your partner says, “Well, I guess you can plug up some holes over there…but just to be fair I’m going to poke some more holes in the boat over here”.
Do law abiding gun owners out number criminal gun buyers? That is what I am led to believe. Criminals who previously bought from law abiding gun owners would find a lot fewer guns available if private sales had to go through an FFL and background check. That is good enough for me.
How about the death penalty for committing a felony with a gun? And I mean a real death penalty, as in you’re hanged the Sunday after your conviction, no years of appeals and delays.
Besides increasing the chances that mistakes will be made and innocent people will be executed, what will be accomplished?
Well, if you are going to compromise the Fourteenth Amendment, you shouldn’t be too upset if others compromise the Second Amendment.
Combined 2 quotes
Guns can be and are regulated, just like speech, press etc. I draw a bright line at taxation however. Small fees have a tendency to become large fees and could become a barrier to purchase and ownership. To me, this would be the equivalent of a poll tax.
[QUOTE=YogSosoth]
Why not keep a record of it? You can validate that you went through it, other agencies can ensure that a check was done, and past information may make future checks faster. I think, again skipping ahead slightly, that there is a severe, debilitating undercurrent of mistrust, but to me its standard bureaucracy, neither bad nor good, and if it can help not repeating information gathering, then it can be a helpful thing. When you go to the doctor, your files have your medical history. Imagine if that was thrown away each time you are cured of a particular ailment or if a checkup turns up with nothing. You’d have to start over each time and that will cost time and money, and there may be mistakes missed that may lead to consequences later. For background checks on guns, you should definitely have all that on file. It would definitely help if, for example, something turns up in a previous check that prevents you from having a gun, let’s say a conviction, but if that record is not kept maybe the next check somehow doesn’t find that.
Combining that with my other proposals to limit purchases, a background check can see if you’re buying too many guys, or datamining can spot behaviors that may turn out to prevent loss of life later (like how Target datamined their customers and once predicted a pregnancy even before the girl’s father knew about it).
[/quote]
I freely admit that I haven’t fully thought this out but it has a certain Orwellian feel to it. “Buying too many guns” is a phrase that I’m uncomfortable with.
[QUOTE=YogSosoth]
I put this here because I thought safety locks are pretty standard but not mandated across the board. I’m talking about a little switch on the gun that locks it, no different than a lever on a stroller you step on to lock the brakes. I cannot believe it would be too difficult. And also some guy, Sho-something, replied to me that its pretty standard and he seems to imply that its ubiquitous, and he’s no fan of my position. Anyway, I don’t see how it can be difficult. If all medicine bottles can have a cap that’s hard to open, then they can design a small metal thingy to jam the trigger when the lever is not at the right place
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It would depend on the gun. Many, if not most, semi-automatic pistols do have safeties and some have more than one. Every long gun that I have ever seen (I used to sell guns) has them. Revolvers do not. It would not be an insurmountable technical problem to put safeties on revolvers. Requiring retrofitting of existing revolvers would be prohibitively expensive. I have no idea how many accidental shootings this would alleviate. Definitely some but probably not many. People that follow safe gun practices do not need safeties on the revolvers. Those that don’t practice them would likely (IMHO) just flip them off.
[QUOTE=YogSosoth]
I don’t feel too strongly about this point so I wouldn’t fight for it much. I do think its utter irresponsible to hand such a thing to a child, even if it conflicts with tradition I think that people need to be more responsible with guns. One sticking point I can imagine between us: I think safety classes need to be designed and certified by the federal government, I would take that completely out of the hands of local law enforcement and I would certainly never allow certification from an organization like the NRA. You would need to pass a government course with law enforcement that are certified to teach it, and even then I would still have standards as to how young a child can be. If 18 or 21 is too old, then there should be an age too young to handle guns too
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I think that your federal government approved program takes things a little too far. Almost all licensing is done at the state level.
[QUOTE=YogSosoth]
Due to the recent shooting in Oregon, some Dems are proposing some common sense legislation. I personally think all of those are low restriction and should be at least the minimum of what gun laws should be, not some extreme restriction that people oppose vehemently. In short, they are:
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Expanding the background check system to cover guns sold at gun shows and online.
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Extending the period, which is currently three days, after which a purchaser can get their gun even if a background check is not yet completed. (This is how Charleston, South Carolina, killer Dylann Roof got his weapon.)
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Adding “abusive dating partners, individuals under a court-imposed restraining order and convicted stalkers” to the list of people banned prohibited from buying firearms.
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Making it a crime to be a “straw purchaser” who buys a weapon for somebody else.
I think all of those are good laws, how about you?
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- I don’t have a problem with it in theory. I’m curious as to how it would actually work.
- Extend it to what? A week, maybe. A month, no. It’s not difficult to contrive instances where making someone wait is a very bad idea. It’s equally easy to contrive instances where it’s a great idea. Again, I would need more details.
- Again, the devil is in the details. What does “abusive dating partner” mean? Have I been convicted of a crime or does my ex just have an axe to grind? Convicted stalkers or restraining order? No problem there as long as there is a mechanism for getting off of the no-gun list once the order has been lifted.
- Straw purchases are already illegal. If being the “purchaser” isn’t illegal, it should be.
These categories include any person:
Under indictment or information in any court for a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
who is a fugitive from justice;
who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance;
who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution;
who is an illegal alien;
who has been discharged from the military under dishonorable conditions;
who has renounced his or her United States citizenship;
who is subject to a court order restraining the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child of the intimate partner; or
who has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence (enacted by the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1997, Pub. L. No. 104-208, effective September 30, 1996). 18 USC 922(g) and (n).
These are questions on federal form 4473, required to be completed by anyone attempting to purchase a gun from a federally licensed firearms dealer (any gun store), prior to the background check.
Lying on this form is a federal felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. It’s well-known that this crime is almost never prosecuted. Here’s a a pro-gun control group that agrees, showing that in 2009, only 77 people were prosecuted out of 71,000 felonies.
This is why you hear anti-gun controllers say “How about we work with the 20,000 gun control laws we already have on the books, before you write new ones?”
I agree. You want to guess what these 77,000 prohibited persons did when they couldn’t buy a gun through a dealer? I’m guessing:
- Say “damn! I didn’t know I was prohibited”, and give up.
- Find a straw man.
- Steal a gun.
- Find a private seller. (Private sellers don’t have access to the federal database. Some ask for a CCW permit to prove the buyer is not prohibited. Many don’t.)
Options 2,3, and 4 are also crimes, by the way. They are very rarely prosecuted, either.
Your forgot possibility #4: He’s carrying a gun against the chance that he might, through no fault of his own, find himself in a situation where drawing or firing it would be the least bad option open to him. If he’s open-carrying, in the hope that it being visible might deter such a situation to begin with.
I chose to factor out anything with a probability of less than .00001%
You are factoring that out based on your assessment of his risk. That wasn’t a part of the other possibilities you listed. Do try to stay on your own page, at least, in the debate.
Guns sold from dealers online must be shipped to a FFL (Federal Firearms Licensee, also known as a “gun shop”.) You can’t just order a gun online and have it shipped to your house (unless you happen to be an FFL.) Where I live, the FFLs charge about $25-35 to complete the background check and transfer you the gun. In Chicago, the going rate is about $75. Gun controllers would have you believe that you can order a gun online and have it shipped to your house. It’s a lie.
Under federal law, if you live and I live in the same state, you can can come to my house and I can sell you a gun, unless I know, or have reason to know, that you are a prohibited person. I can also sell you the same gun at a gun show. I’m not a FFL (dealer.) FFLs are required to do the background check, whether the transaction occurs in their store or at a gun show. There is no “gun show loophole.” It’s a lie.
The 3-day limit sucks as it is. A better solution, in this day of computer technology, is to speed up the process. The way it is now, some people with same name as a prohibited person often get delayed. My friend in Michigan was one of these. The gun store with the best selection and lowest prices in our area was about two hours away. We’d drive up there on a Saturday, sometimes. But he’d get delayed, as often as not, so he’d have to make the four-hour round trip again the following weekend to take possession of his purchase.
“Individuals under a court-imposed restraining order and convicted stalkers” are already prohibited persons. Again, I think someone is lying to you. I’m starting to see a pattern here…
Straw man purchases are also already illegal, also.
So you’re pretty much in favor of laws that already exist. So am I, mostly. I’m also in favor of enforcing these laws. How about you?
See my above post. In 2009, out of 77,000 who lied on federal form 4473 (a five-year felony) only 77 were prosecuted.
How about getting that number up to, say, 50 or 60 thousand, try that for a few years. If that doesn’t work, then maybe we can talk about some new laws.
Oh, by the way, if you agree that we shouldn’t let 76,995 people per year off the hook for attempting to purchase guns illegally, you agree with the NRA. And me. Yay! Common ground.
Every bit of that has been explained in previous threads, ChickenLegs. Multiple times, even. My guess is that, despite you explaining it again, we will see those same lies repeated at this board this week. Possibly even in this very thread.
Probably. But these are mostly smart people on this forum, I think.
The gun-controllers fall mostly into three groups:
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The ignorant. (Don’t have all the facts.)
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The misled. (They’ve been lied to.)
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The emotional. (They simply hate or fear guns, regardless of facts.)
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The dimwitted.
I see very few of group 4 here. Group 3 is beyond hope. I’m working on groups 1 and 2.
By the way, I am or was a group 1 and group 2 person myself, on many issues. Even on some details regarding gun control. I’ve been educated more than once on this board.
Actually, group 3; the emotional ones, aren’t beyond hope completely. Just beyond the reach of rational argument. In real life, I’ve seen more than a few gun-controllers flip after close exposure to crime.
How many tax dollars would it take to lock up an additional 76,923 Americans a year for five years?
One can figure it out. Multiply 76,923 by five. Take the current federal prison budget for our 205,000 federal inmates, and more than double it. Now we have over $8 billion in new federal spending to fund. This comes to over $100 a year for a law-abiding family of four.*
One thing to consider: Gun owners have roughly twice the risk of dying from gunshot as the rest of us. It seems to me that, therefore, gun owners would benefit a lot more than I would from doubling the size of the federal prison system.
So here’s my modest proposal, if we really have to build all these new prisons: Let the people who benefit the most, pay the most. Fund it two thirds by a new tax on guns, and only one third by taxing people like me.
Even better would be to take measures that don’t cost money or send hundreds of thousands of more Americans to prison, such as putting cigarette-type warnings on gun and ammo boxes, and telling dealers to wait for the background check to come back, even if it takes – gasp – a week.
- In the long term, it could be a lot more than that, because of a couple million new convicted felons who never again earn enough to pay much in the way of taxes. On the other hand, there probably will be some people who actually are deterred. I’d call those factors a rough wash.
That may be the probability of the gun carrier needing to use his gun at any given time, but not the probability of the motives of the carrier; #4 is most likely.
Probably far less than the “universal background checks” most of the gun controllers are supporting. Probably much, much less, if you factor in the reduced societal costs.
Besides, are you really saying “Let’s pass laws, but not prosecute the people who violate them?”
If it has come to this level of argument, I’ll have to bow out.
Can we just rename this the “private sale loophole” and stop pretending it doesn’t exist?
Because, really, I’m getting fucking tired of people saying that a law that allows someone to buy a gun from someone without a background check isn’t a loophole in the law that requires background checks to purchase guns.
FWIW, I’m holding a box of 30-06 ammo. On the outside, it lists 10 Safety Rules and 2 warnings in both English and French.
The US combines high crime with the world’s highest incarceration rate. Doing more of what isn’t working won’t reduce societal costs.
To be a little more concrete: How many of the hundreds of thousands of filled-out-the-form-wrong felons you propose creating are fathers? How does the probability of a boy growing up to be a criminal change when his father goes to prison and comes out never being able to get a good job? I’ll leave you to look this up and come back with real numbers of how throwing more and more people in prison reduces societal cost.
The kind of laws I would pass, if I could, are ones that people are unlikely to violate. If they do violate them, I’d give the sort of penalties that cause a person to lose their job as a last resort.
In additional to what I advocated in the last thread, I would forbid manufacture or commercial importation of real guns that look like toys, as here:
I predict the manufacturers would consistently comply without need for prison. If I’m wrong, having the CEO spend a safe boring weekend in jail would likely be sufficient.