Gun Control

Great Debates
41

I don’t really want to address anything on this thread particularly, but I did want to put something about Australia in here, just to update the record.

In several of the past threads, there has been debate over what the ACTUAL results of the gun confiscation in Australia have been so far.

Here they are, along with a link to back it up.

Australian Government Site
Murders have fallen from 312 in 1996 to 284 murders in 1998, after experiencing a slight increase in 1997, from 312 to 321.

However, almost every other form of crime in Australia has increased, sometimes dramatically, in the same time period:

For instance, since the introduction of Australia’s sweeping gun bans, armed robberies rose a whopping 70 percent, from 6,256 in 1996 to 10,850 just two years later.

Unarmed robberies also rose by about 20 percent, from just over 10,100 to nearly 13,000 incidents.

In addition:
Attempted murders rose from 335 in 1996 to 382 in 1998

Manslaughter rose from 38 to 49

Assaults were up from 114,156 to 132,967

Sexual assaults rose slightly, from 14,542 to 14,568

Kidnapping and abductions climbed dramatically, from 480 in 1996 to 662 in 1998

Link

42

Goodness, Danieletc:
You mean a flawed implementation of a reasonable policy can lead to inequities? Who would have imagined?

If *all firearms were required to be registered then there would be no confusion about what weapons were covered. Frankly, though, I feel the “I didn’t know my gun was included” defense is pretty lame. If anything, it is an illustration of the lack of personal responsibility exhibited by some gun owners. I may be wrong, but I find it hard to imagine that this measure passed into law without a lot of publicity from both sides of the gun control issue. If I own guns and I know a new registration law has been passed, it is my responsibility to find out whether any of the weapons I own are affected. Obviously, the proper forms would have to be made available to the public.

Your argument that the government gets to “keep the gun” even if the owner is not prosecuted is apparently predicated upon the current rulings regarding property seizure by police agencies. This is a separate issue (and one in which I strongly disagree with the present standard of proof required).

The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*

43

“I didn’t know my gun was included”
These people who use this excuse should not even own guns.

44

Okay, pop quiz, hotshot:

You have a semiautomatic rifle with a detachable magazine. It does not have a foldable stock, or a protruding pistol grip, or a bayonet clip, a “grenade launcher,” or a built-in flash suppressor. It does, however, have a threaded barrel to which you can fit a compensator that was included when you bought the gun.

Unbeknownst to you, however, an obscure gun accessory company – not the same company that built your gun – manufactures a flash suppressor designed to be screwed on to a threaded barrel. The diameter and threading pattern of this flash suppressor happens to match the threading of your barrel exactly, even though your barrel was threaded to accept a compensator rather than a flash suppressor.

A new California law (SB 23), effective 1-January-2000, classifies as assault weapons all semiautomatic rifles that have detachable magazines and are “capable of” one or more of a list of features that includes a threaded barrel for a flash suppressor. All assault weapons in California must be registered. Is your gun included in this definition? And do you feel that you shouldn’t be allowed to own a gun if you can’t tell?

45

Freedom: Interesting statistics. I would be interested in seeing an unbiased analysis, if such a thing exists. Are there other factors contributing to that very dramatic rise in crime. Has the gun ownership rate been reduced enough to really warrant its being considered a cause?

For instance, The 1998 Australian murder rate is either 1.5 (murder) or 1.8 (murder + manslaughter) per 100,000. In 1998, the US murder rate is 6.3 (murder and non-negligent manslauter) (FBI Uniform Crime Index

However the 1998 Australian sexual assult rate is 77.7 per 100,000, whereas the US forcible rape rate is 34.4; almost a third the 1996 Australian sexual assault rate of 79.4 per 100,000. Again, an expanded definition, or are Australians just that much more prone to rape?

The Australian assault rate is a whopping 709.2 per 100,000, whereas the total number of violent crimes for the US in 1998 is 566.4. Now the US only counts aggravated assault; perhaps the Australian staticstics include simple assault?

My point is that interpreting statistics is a non trivial exercise. It’s easy to read any statistic to support your cause; it’s easy to dismiss any statistic that refutes it as inapplicable or due to other causes.

As I have noted before, it seems that all statistical analyses are being performed by people with a pre-existing bias, either for or against gun control. I no longer trust anyone’s analysis unless they bend over backwards to prove they’re doing an impartial analysis.

If Cecil Adams did not exist, we would be obliged to create Him.

46

ok guys off the top of my head i don’t know weather “my” gun would be included but i would be obligated to find out wouldn’t i? so after determing that i didn’t know weather or not “my” gun was included i would follow my obligation and find out! I may only be 14 but i’m not stupid. oh by the way those who don’t bother to find out or don’t follow up their oligation to find out do not deserve to own a gun. (like i said before)

47

Curious aside to this discussion…
In places where Registration is mandatory, a person who is prohibited from owning a firearm (felony, whatever) CANNOT be compelled to register or be prosecuted for failing to register a firearm.

Seems that that would be compelling him to testify against himself (by declaring that he is in possession of a firearm, when he is legally prohibited) and therefore a violation of the 5th Amendment.

Interesting that Clinton and HCI claim that Registration will help to take guns out of the hands of criminals, even though the Supreme Court has ruled (Haynes v. U.S.) that Registration can be applied ONLY to law-abiding citizens…

If you say it, mean it. If you mean it, do it.
If you do it, live it. If you live it, say it.

Joe Cool

48

Joe_Cool;
Can this felon’s gun be confiscated?
“In places where Registration is mandatory, a person who is prohibited from owning a firearm (felony, whatever) CANNOT be compelled to register or be prosecuted for failing to register a firearm.”
Peace,
mangeorge

49

SuaveSkin wrote:

The point I brought up by my example – which is based on a real California law, not a made-up one – is that the gun in question is ambiguous. It is not at all clear, from the wording of the law, whether a semi-auto rifle with a detachable magazine and a barrel threaded to accept a compensator, but for which an obscure threaded flash suppressor would fit, would have to be registered under that law. In fact, there are enough ambiguities with California’s SB 23 that the enforcement of some of the regulations under that law have been suspended pending judicial review.

Say you own the gun I’ve just described. You want to do the right thing, but judicial review takes some time to accomplish. By the time it’s over, the registration period specified by that law will have already expired. So if both you and the courts are unsure whether your gun falls under this law, and you wait like a good little citizen for the judicial review to finish before you do anything, and the judges decide your gun does fall user the law, guess what? You’re instantly guilty of not having registered your “assault weapon” within the alloted time period!

If you decide to “play it safe” and register the gun before the judges decide whether it falls under this law, and the judges decide that it does not, you have put yourself in a great deal of bureaucratic hot water because even I can’t tell you what would happen if you registered a gun as an “assault weapon under SB 23” when it was not, in fact, an assault weapon under SB 23. At the very least, you won’t be able to sell or transfer your gun until you get your falsely-submitted paperwork mess cleaned up (if it can be cleaned up), because registered assault weapons under SB 23 cannot be sold or transferred.

Again, there’s no one phone number you can call up and ask whether your gun needs to be registered, and there won’t be even after the judicial review disambiguates the regulations. The ATF clerks won’t help you because they only deal with Federal law. The California Department of Justice won’t help you because they’re not attorneys. An attorney might help you, if you pay him an arm and a leg (or at least several times the value of your gun). It is not as easy as you think to “follow up your obligation to find out.”

50

I’d imagine so. I didn’t read anything that excuses them from the consequences of owning a firearm illegally…Only excusing them from registration and its consequences.

If you say it, mean it. If you mean it, do it.
If you do it, live it. If you live it, say it.

Joe Cool

51

ok i guess it isn’t as easy as i thought but you still have an obligation to find out weather it be easy or not … hell getting up and going to school every morning is a bitch but i’m obligated to so i go!

owning a gun is a right, indeed, but you must know all rights come with responsibility! you have the right to drive a car but you don’t have the right to drive on the wrong side of the road!

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD
-SUAVESKIN

52
53

It might be interesting to know who is responsible for a lot of the ambiguity in gun laws. The NRA?
Peace,
mangeorge

54

The NRA doesn’t write laws; they’re not to blame. The legislature is. Drafters of these bills usually form their opinions on banning based on what makes a gun “look scary.” Flash suppressors, bayonets, and magazines in front of the trigger guard look scary, so legislatures draft bills to ban them. Never mind that many perfectly ordinary firearms that aren’t “assault weapons” fall within the legislator’s definitions.

Behold, a demonstration of what bans based on a weapon’s “look” can do: SB23 Rules. Follow the little red lines…

55

Of course the NRA doesn’t write laws, they lobby those who do. And by doing so can influence the wording of the laws. So isn’t it to their advantage to have these laws as silly and ambiguous as possible? These ambiguities are the foundation of the arguments of many of those who oppose gun laws.
The idea that everyone who doesn’t own a gun is “afraid of” or “doesn’t understand” guns is flawed.
Peace,
mangeorge

56

What the hell are you smoking? Have you not noticed that the NRA doesn’t favor the making of new laws? The NRA believes that the Second Amendment is enough. The only legislation I know of that they’ve endorsed in decades is the instant background check.

The NRA lobbies Congress because they want to rally votes AGAINST new gun laws. They don’t want any new laws on the books, so they don’t work to ‘influence the wording’. One of their biggest criticisms of new gun laws is that the government doesn’t adequately enforce the gun laws that are already on the books. Why would they want more?

Since this isn’t the Pit, you’ll have to use your imagination and insert a disparaging comment about mangeorge’s intelligence here.

57

Maxtorque: have you ever seen how laws are written? I have failed to take Bismark’s advice. The NRA works to weaken or amend laws that soon will pass. Even tho I am sorta neutral on this issue, even I lobbied my assemblyman when I noted a assault weapon law did not specify CENTERFIRE guns, making most .22s “assault weapons”.

So, yes, if the NRA doesn’t think they can get an outright fail on the bill. they will help write it. Sometimes also they point out technocal inaccuracies.

58

And HCI isn’t a lobby? Are they not able to influence legislators, too? I

f you think ambiguity is the issue here, take a look at the federal tax code. I don’t think the NRA is influencing the writing of that document too much. So, i really don’t think this is a valid conclusion, mangeorge.

59

Daniel, you’ve helped prove my point. You, being aware that .22 rifles are rimfire, lobbied to increase the accuracy of the legislation. You say that the NRA does the same sort of lobbying.

Assuming what you say about the NRA is true, the NRA would be lobbying to increase the accuracy of gun bills. If you’ll peek up a few posts, you’ll note that the question we were discussing was, “Where do the inaccuracies come from?” My original point still stands: the NRA does not write confusing gun laws.

60

Hey, Max, Take it easy there. Don’t go off half-cocked. (Gun humor :smiley: ) The first paragraph was more a question than anything else. I just kinda threw it out there, you know, as a thought.
Introducing weakness into an opponents victory is a pretty effective debating tactic. And the NRA does consider any new gun law to be a victory for the gun control crowd. As you so rightly stated.
My second paragraph, about people who don’t own guns, now that was a statement of opinion.
Peace,
mangeorge