I know what you mean. I’ve experienced how Uncle Sugar can use federal highway funds to batter states and municipalities. For the Federal system to force its will on others is no great leap.
My concern is more the “overly enthusiastic” departments who figure this is the way to get rid of their minority residents and to abuse people they can’t quite find enough evidence against for other cases. Think of it as the basic “speed check” or “routine check” and how that can be abused. Multiply that by 20 since we’re talking about them entering your home and not just your vehicle and you can see where it could end up.
You are saying the test “would” when what we are discussing is more of a “could”. Lord knows what we would actually end up with by the time its all done. I don’t see anything really absurd coming along but I do see the basic bias you find in most of the national aptitude tests. With the possible exception of the BITCH Test, of course. Its one of the reasons a lot of my neighbors fear and/or ignore any federal movements like this. Right now they fear and avoid the basic laws we have now, and violate those laws as a result. Tracking as usually discussed goes way beyond that.
But lets say we are indeed talking more a skill test than an aptitude test; and remember, we aren’t talking about packing a gun - just the ownership of one. Are you saying a poor person in the inner city, especially a minority person, isn’t at a disadvantage? How do they get the training needed to pass your test? Who is going to provide or pay for it? Do we add firearms training to the high schools the way we have drivers education? Do we have some sort of quota system that allows poor minorities to pass with a lower score? And that’s just off the top of my head before we start talking specifics and trying to write this act.
If it was as easy as “Person Y fires a 10 shot score of X after Z hours of free training provided through the local schools; both public and private” it could be really great. If it comes out more like the usual federal legislation it will be a can of worms that will create more criminals out of currently law-abiding citizens.
Good points all, but the same could be said about driving licenses - yes, there too the poor get shafted, just as they are shafted by the fact that their income means that they can only own the shitty cars that keep breaking down (making them more expensive in the long run) which in turn means they get dinged more over car regulations.
And it all sucks for sure.
But it’s better, well, *safer *(for everybody involved and their neighbours) than just letting anybody drive regardless of whether they can or not, isn’t it ?
[QUOTE=enipla]
Um, what? When was the last time a murder was committed with anything above and beyond what is typically used for hunting?
[/QUOTE]
That’s a tenuous connection at best. ANY real evidence? Since you are asserting that they NRA supports criminal behavior (the classes you describe are prohibited) it is a bold claim.
I think we already have most of that in one form or another.
Every so often around here we have a sort of “buy back” where you can turn in a gun and get a gift card; no questions asked. I have to admit that even I take advantage (literally take advantage in the bad sense of the phrase) by buying some cheap pieces of crap that aren’t worth being broken for parts let alone used. I then turn them in for a profit on the gift cards when they run these campaigns around Christmas and use that for some of my shopping. Not a bad deal for me; not doing much for getting dangerous guns off the street though. And then you have the case like my one neighbor who had a relative (basically) steal his guns to turn them in for gift cards. Remember - this is all no questions asked. That was a small nightmare for him to wade through before it was all over and it didn’t end with the return of his property. So there are problems to be overcome.
Mandatory licensing and liability insurance - again maybe its just being inner-city but I see a certain bias there as well. Like health care today, a lot of people around me will simply “do without it” and ignore the law because they feel that any cost is beyond their means. And for some of them its actually the truth. And this is after “Obamacare”.
Taxing the snot out of ammo - we already do tax firearms, ammo and more pretty well but how many bullets does a criminal need? Five? Twenty? Not more than that really. Some nut-job can always save up for the 200 rounds he/she wants/needs. Its another example of busting up the legal people - target and sport shooters - to get at people who won’t be effected by what we do.
"Stopping import and manufacturing of certain types of guns. Background checks, age requirements for anything other than a simple hunting rifle. Unlicensed guns go into the incinerator. " – We already have all of that and more; much of it for decades or longer. Not only hasn’t it been an immediate fix but things have gotten worse in some places since some of the laws were implemented.
There have been 4 firearms deaths around me, within say 4 blocks of where I am sitting, this year. You can have any gun law you want and all 4 would have still happened. Three of them were “criminal on criminal” events and one was a domestic in a family that already had a body count by knife (which is why I say it would have happened anyway). We’ve also had 4 people die by knife this year and a couple hit and runs that could be something more than a mere accident.
Look, I don’t say this lightly; it shakes every bone in my Libertarian body to say it. But we have good gun control laws and methods in effect now. What we may - just may - need is more “people control” laws. But those are their own debate with their own problems.
You confuse driving and owning; you talk one while we’re talking the other. But lets play it out.
Right now my one neighbor owns a car. He can’t drive it; he has some medical issues that prevent that. It’s no longer registered or licensed so in a sense its illegal. Maybe someone should step in and take the car away from him; it does present a risk on several levels. Someone could steal it and use it for criminal purposes or the gas tank could bust a leak and burst into flames. But would that seizure really make us all much safer? Is it worth the cost to society as a whole? Laws differ from place to place but many places anyone can own a car; they just may need someone else to be the driver. With cars and a lot of things than can be dangerous, owning is one thing and operation another.
Now, concealed carry - the firearms equivalent of driving. In most places that does require some form of background test or skills test. And I would hope that we can agree its needed everywhere. But that is a different subject from where we are here.
“yes, there too the poor get shafted, just as they are shafted by the fact that their income means that they can only own the shitty cars that keep breaking down .”
But we already have that, right? “Saturday Night Specials” were basically banned. Cheap shitty guns like the old Raven .25s are a thing of the past to the level that they are almost a sort of collectible. Did it change anything? Did criminals suddenly stop shooting people? Or is all it accomplished was keeping firearms away from big parts of the law-abiding members of inner-city communities? And in the end, did it make you or me any safer?
I will admit to being sensitive to the race/class issues that often pops up in gun control debates. But its partly because we’ve already seen it. And when it comes down to racism in particular, saying our intentions are good just isn’t quite enough for me anymore.
Yes, but that’s cars. Do you know anyone who owns a handgun and doesn’t shoot it but just needs someone else to defend them with it once in a while ?
Is it ? I just said I’m OK with people having handguns, provided their owner (and putative “driver”) could shoot them straight and responsibly.
I wasn’t doing the analogy thing at that point, just pointing out the many ways low income households get shafted about car ownership (especially in the US, where cars are both more necessary than they are in Europe and mass transportation is typically worse than what it is in Europe).
But the main thrust of my point was countering your argument that inner city folks would be at an unbearable disadvantage wrt a shooting test. Which, be that as it may, they also are wrt the driving test. They have to learn the road code, get tested on that ; and then they have to pay a driving school ; and pay for the driving exam & the licensing fees. None of which is easy on a low income. And cars are a whole lot more necessary to most people’s day-to-day than a Glock is.
If that’s not too onerous or too unfair, then neither should a shooting practice & test.
Background checks, registration, tracking, magazine limits, etc. might make it easier to catch and prosecute people who commit gun crimes, but would have next to no preventive effect. The fact is, it would be nearly impossible to stop gun terrorism preemptively without essentially saying that no one can have a gun, or at least some kinds of guns, unless they’ve been carefully vetted to be permitted one. I realize that sounds fine to a lot of folks here, but it must be acknowledged that that’s a 180-degree turn from the presumptions our federal and state governments were founded on. That’s why gun owners disparage “sensible gun laws”: they’re the worst of both worlds, infringing AND ineffective.
If an abiding majority of the people of the United States decided that owning guns was a social evil we’d be better off without, like was once the consensus about alcohol, then this would both deserve and require being formally enshrined in the Constitution by amendment.
And what happened in a very short number of years?
Why the assumption that all LEO’s will abide by this new amendment when many have already said they would not take citizens guns because of any law. They don’t know what their local citizens want? They are robots to the politicians words? Have no opinion or belief that would cause them to not follow the new society of world kumbya? :smack:
Might check and find that the Sheriff of a County has a bit more power than one normally sees or realizes.
It’s kind of hearsay. The problem with laws like this is that they’re are specifics that have to be abided else one can be a felon. Person A cannot loan Person B a firearm to use for hunting while at A’s home but can loan the exact same firearm to B if they are hunting together. Maybe there’s good reason for that but I don’t really see the distinction where in one scenario A giving firearm to B is fine and in another it’s a felony.
CA has long had the background check requirement for private party sales but has an exception for loans of short duration. This is widely construed as 30 days. For a new person that doesn’t have any firearms borrowing a few to try out is a great way to see many options at a low cost. It’s a way to introduce new shooters.
My thought is the WA hopes to discourage this. Another sleazy tactic like forcing women to go through hoops before abortion.
