Gun owners - would you support this compromise?

Great Debates
81

Or alternately, proposals to at least move down the path to help keep guns out of the hands of those who shouldn’t have them, like I made up above. Which was ignored, I see.

The next step is getting more people entered into the system as being disqualified. For one thing, a violent juvenile offense which would normally have resulted in an adult felony conviction should permanently disqualify someone. What possible positive outcome is there to having T-Dog, who held up a liquor store at age 15 and had his record wiped at 18, get easy and legal access to handguns? It won’t stop him from getting them on the street, but it’ll make it harder. And make even possession a felony for him, too, the next time he’s pulled over.

And let’s add to the list prosecuting those who attempt to buy a gun when they know damn well they’re prohibited. The Brady Center likes to crow about the hundreds of thousands of criminals stopped from buying guns when their background checks came back “no” - but they’re often strangely, suspiciously silent on the subject of “so why aren’t all those people in jail?” The last time I checked, it was a violation of Federal, and in my State State law, for a prohibited person to attempt to buy a gun. Call me crazy, but maybe if we had put those couple hundred thousand prohibited persons in jail, there would have been less crime on the streets?

82

It sounds sensible from here.

83

Fair enough. Gun ownership should be treated differently than chemical or drug ownership. Happy?

Like it or not, guns are unique in our society. They are the only objects for which ownership is specifically protected in our Constitution. There are no drugs that you are guaranteed the right to own; there are no chemicals you are guranteed the right to own. Guns are unique in that respect. If guns occupy a special status in our constitution, I see no reason why they should not also be considered differently than chemicals or drugs by legislating “responsible gun ownership” that mandates a level of responsibility that is greater than that expected for chemicals or drugs.

84

Yeah, because that’s exactly what the police did with the registration info after Katrina…or was it?

85

The crux of the matter is what exactly it takes to make one a responsible gun owner. My answer is that it takes very little effort to be a responsible gun owner, but, as we have yet to define what it is to be responsible, my answer isn’t exactly helpful. So perhaps we should attempt to define just what it means to be a responsible gun owner.

The issue Fear Itself brought up is one of storage and liability. The firearms I own are only as secure as everything else that is in my house. I keep them out of sight but if someone broke in and ransacked my home there is a good chance they would find one or more of them. Actually, once they looked in one area they’d say “jackpot.” I store my ammunition separately from the firearms (and don’t have ammunition at all for most of them) and I consider that to be the extent of what I need to do to be responsible. At least so far as proper storage goes.

Odesio

86

This reasoning suggest the appropriate penalty, under your notions of justice, for the crime of allowing oneself to be raped – enforced celibacy from then onward, lest any STD the rapist might be carrying be spread further.

87

It sounds like a reasonable idea, but who would be willing to pay for such a plan?

88

A shot of penicillin will take care of that threat, while the gun owner has no options that will mitigate the threat from his stolen weapon. And with that, I think we have tortured that analogy long enough.

89

Who pays for current felons who go to jail? The taxpayers. Yeah, that’s tough, but if we want to prevent convicted felons - the people we really want to stop from having guns - from buying them, what’s the other option? Continue to pass laws and don’t enforce them? What percentage of violent crimes are committed by people with felony convictions already on their records?

With respect to the cost of the expanded check system: we hear how much every murder with firearms allegedly costs Society - the numbers I Googled just now and got numbers of $500,000 and up. The system is already in place, the databases exist, the infrastructure is there, the differential cost is having someone staff the phones. This is a low-tech unskilled position - someone types in the ID which is read over the phone, and reads “Yes” or “Rejected.” It’s not zero-cost, but if we even believe $500,000 per murder, how many could it potentially prevent before you hit break-even? I don’t see why this couldn’t be a simple web-based system: enter someone’s DL number or State ID number, and see “rejected” or “accepted.” Enter your own ID along with it, and you go on record as getting liability protection for what happens after the sale.

As far as the opening up juvenile records idea, that’s a zero-cost option. Violent teenagers don’t need access to firearms when they’re adults.

None of these ideas will stop murders to a huge extent. But they impose no burden on existing law-abiding gun owners and would have a positive impact.

90

I’m not happy I had to goad you into doing the right thing, but it got the result.

OK, that’s an interesting argument, seriously. I need to think if I have a good rebuttal.

91

A large problem with the whole registry idea is that many people will do whatever they can to bypass it on the principle of the government should not know who owns guns and it’s the first step to confiscating guns. Slippery slope? Sure. However, given things like post-Katrina, it’s also a legitimate concern.

So I’d like to toss in a protection of the registration list should only be accessed two times. First when purchasing/selling a firearm, in which case the registration needs updated obviously. Secondly, law enforcement can access it, but only for investigating a crime involving a specific weapon, in which case they can only get the information on that specific weapon.

Until cries of ‘Katrina!’ can be answered with “a government official who tried that again would spend X years in jail”, those yelling slippery slope actually have a valid point.

92

Be carefull; you might get banned for making racist statements against hispanics.

Nah. It’s Glen Beck’s and Sarah Palin’s fault. I read it in a Pit Thread on the Straight Dope the day of the shooting, before we even knew the name of the shooter.

Every time we compromise, we move “the line” a little bit closer to their goal: total ban on firearms ownership.

Look, draw a line somewhere, okay?

If you’re talking about the kind of chuckleheads who keep loaded guns in their nightstand or sock drawer, or tucked away in a box on a shelf in the closet, you have a case, and I agree with you: these owners are irresponsible and should be on the receiving end of some criminal and/or civil penalties if their guns go missing and hurt someone else.

My firearms are kept unloaded and in a locked gun safe. What penalty, what liability, what responsibility do I bear if I were to be robbed while I’m out of the house, and I later return home to an empty gun safe?

Are you going to tell me, with a straight face, that I wasn’t a responsible gun owner by dint of my guns having been stolen?

Because it looks like that’s what you are saying: if a gun is stolen, regardless of the circumstances, then the owner, ipso facto, was not a responsible gun owner.

93

Yes. I could not have said it better myself. Gun ownership is an awesome responsibility, and it is about time that gun owners recognize that with this right that is guaranteed by our Constitution, comes a solemn responsibility for which they should be held accountable. If you don’t accept that responsibility, then maybe gun ownership isn’t for you.

94

Seems like a backwards way of looking at it. Something is so cherished as to be enshrined in the constitution as a right we need to protect so much that we make any type of use of the right subject to strict liability with criminal penalties attached?

So then that cherished right will be exercised by fewer people?!?

95

Do believe any accountability for “responsible gun ownership”?

96

So, the only side openly stating “All or nothing!” is yours?

97

Well for a bit of a different view let’s hear from the Aussie.

I grew up in a hunting and sport shooting family. We skied biathlons and also went deer shooting, got a few ducks etc etc over the years. I had my junior permit at 12 and full license since I was 18.

Yes any guns I own have to be registered and I have to keep my licence current.

I could if I so desired get a handgun for target shooting, there really is no other reason in Australia you would want one.

My semi auto went years ago but I still have enough to satisfy my noise making habits.

Most Australians support tough laws and conditions on guns and gun owners, much in the same way we do for car drivers etc.

Australia has tougher gun laws and I am glad that we do.

98

Don’t accept the responsibility??? I have a 1,000 lb gun safe. Gun safe. It’s anchored to a cement floor. You’d need sophisitcated power tools, technical knowledge, and hefty chunk of uniterrupted time to break into it.

I don’t keep loaded firearms in it. I usually don’t have ammo at all, except for some odd .22LR left over from the range. What more do you realistically expect me to do?

The only way to go from there to “compromise” with you is to have no guns at all.

So I completely reject your concept of “responsibility” as entirely unreasonable. Buh bye.

Can you not read?

Or are my words here, just a few posts above…

…indicative of an “all or nothing” mindset?

You seem to miss the subtleties of the concept of “compromise.”

It means we both give up a something in order to have a little of what we both want.

From '68 to '96, every compromise your side had to offer has given guns owners less of what we want while achieving little of what you want.

From '96 'til today, gun owners have been getting more of what we want (less restrictions, concealed carry, “assault weapons,” etc) and crime has fallen to mid-'60 levels.

So, for the past 15 years, while getting what you want (less crime) even as we have gotten what we want, you still want to bitch and moan and talk about gun owner’s need to compromise. Fuck that.

There is a reasonable, rational, middle ground. You ain’t on it.

99

Let’s look at what works and what doesn’t. And we’re going to lean on some other Amendments rather than just the 2nd, OK?

  • Most felons are repeat offenders. I’m having trouble finding the stats for a cite; I found this old cite for Washington State, 2005: (http://www.sgc.wa.gov/PUBS/Recidivism/Adult_Recidivism_CY04.pdf) which claims among other things murder has a 35% felony recidivism rate, felony assault 56%, felony robbery 57%, and manslaughter 57%. So let’s stop and focus on this - I’ll wager in most of these cases a weapon, most likely a gun was involved. A gun which, FWIW, was illegal for the felon to have in the first place.

Now we could just extend first-felony sentences to keep them all in jail, but just throwing people in prison to get rid of them is just sweeping the problem under the rug, and isn’t a Conservative thing to do. So I think what we need is a combination of:

  • Much more intense monitoring of these people once they’re out and about. GPS tracking, cameras in their apartments and houses, and funding for parole officers to do their work. And prison sentences for absentee parole officers, because by slacking off, they hurt other people’s lives. When parole is over, the surveillance vanishes.
  • Longer probation periods with zero tolerance for backsliding into violence.
  • Job training which does more than just train them to be janitors. Create incentives for business to hire these ex-felons too, to break the cycle of poverty.
  • General education to improve their lives overall.
  • More funding for “boot camps” which have a proven program for reducing recidivism.
  • On that note, end the blacklist for military enlistment for first-time non-violent felony offenders.
  • Borrow an option from what made Australia great - transportation. Meaning, some of the problem is these felons get out and return to the same old hood, same gangs, same old. Give them parole on the condition they sign up for a “new identity” program, in a State far, far away, to really give them a fresh start. This would be offered to first-time offenders only.

Conservatism is about taking broken people and fixing them. Let’s try fixing some people, and maybe some of the gun problem will fix itself.

100

If you’re going to make a gun owner criminally responsible for having a 1,000-lbm gun safe broken into, then you’d better be including cops and government officials in that basket. Like this case, where Homeland Security officers lost 243 firearms: Report claims officers lost 243 Homeland Security guns

I assume you are calling for felony convictions for these folks, should their guns be used in a crime, right? After all, what more solemn responsibility do the police and law enforcement have?