Dave Hartwick has it quite right. Particularly on the issue of individuals who demonstrate that they should be disqualified from firearm ownership after they have obtained firearms.
I know it is easier to think in categorical terms, but people are dynamic- they change over time- and just because they once passed a background check doesn’t mean they always will in the future.
I’m literally laughing right now, at you. Aren’t you the definition of trolling? You pose a question like you wanted a debate when all you really wanted was to stir the pot.
After the pot got stirred (not to your liking) you jump to the above quote.
I’m tempted to start a thread in GQ on this question, but for now I’ll see if it can be handled here:
How do criminals get guns? (Specifically, when criminal commits crimes with guns, where did they get the guns?)
I can think of a few different methods:
They could make them, e.g., zip guns. I suspect this accounts for a very small percentage of guns used in crimes.
They could purchase them legally.
They could steal them.
They could purchase them illegally from someone who purchased them legally (or purchase them illegally from someone who purchased them illegally from someone who purchased them illegally from someone who purchased them legally, and so on).
Are there other statistically significant ways in which criminals obtain guns? If not, does anyone have stats on how criminals get the guns they use in the commission of crimes?
If we want to ensure that the guns represented in that chart aren’t owned by the folks who own them (I’ve rewritten this sentence three times–I apologize if it’s still not clear), then we should see where we might put in changes.
The biggest chunk is guns that criminals got from friends or family members. Can we break this down further to show whether they’re stolen or loaned or given? In either case, though, registration coupled with a requirement to report theft or change of ownership might help: you might be a lot less willing to loan a gun to someone, or a lot more willing to report a theft by a family member, if you could be legally on the hook otherwise. [Edit: it occurs to me that a big chunk of these might be guns picked up and used at the house of a friend or family member, and therefore registration wouldn’t help unless it’s coupled with storage requirements–if Jim is able to grab your gun out of an unsecured drawer and go hold up the liquor store with it, you face jail time for not storing your registered gun properly.]
Guns received by drug dealers are presumably received illegally. The question then becomes how the drug dealer obtains the gun.
Guns purchased from retail stores are the next biggest chunk. If you register guns when purchasing them from retail stores, this would likely reduce this avenue for guns getting into the hands of criminals, and it’d also help law enforcement for stupid criminals: if I’m a suspect in a crime committed with a specific caliber gun, and I have such a gun registered in my name, that’s an important clue.
Theft or burglary accounts for 9% of these guns. I’m not sure how registration would affect these guns, although if registration is coupled with mandated reporting of theft, that might help track the guns more rapidly.
Black market guns are another 9%. See #2. It seems likely to me that a lot of guns on the black market are originally purchased legally: Bob’s job in the syndicate is to take a bunch of cash around to a lot of different gun shops and buy up some stock to sell later. Registration would make it much easier to identify Bob and prosecute him when a gun he funnels to the black market is used to commit a crime.
Pawn Shops, Flea Markets, and Gun Shows account for 8% of these guns. See #3.
Loaned or borrowed guns are 3% of these guns. See #1.
Overall, it seems to me that registration would apply a deterrent effect in 83% of these cases: friends wouldn’t loan guns and would report their theft; criminals would be less likely to purchase guns through legitimate channels; black market gun dealing would be constrained by original purchase paperwork.
Registration might therefore result in an increase in the theft of firearms, as criminals try to get their hands on guns registered to other people.
LHOD - I would have no problem with registration if there wasn’t the Chicago and New York examples in our nation’s recent history (plus a variation of the theme in California). Once a certain class of firearms is registered, if the State decides to outlaw - they then have a way to find all of the offenders.
Now, in those cases in New York, Chicago (I think) and California - owners received letters telling them to either move their offending firearms out of the area or turn them in. In California, certain models became illegal to own and illegal to sell. If you didn’t have a place out state, you became a law breaker.
That is not confiscation though. Nobody went door to door, though official letters were mailed out to registered owners.
My compromise offer:
I register all of my firearms.
If at any time the State bans my firearm, I receive a grandfathered exemption for my serial number for myself and my family members.
The State can also offer me money, but it will be a significant chunk of change.
I want to track the bad guys, and their weapons sources.
I already carry insurance riders for my firearms collection - always have, even when living in a place where it was against the rules to have firearms. Luckily my insurance company didn’t communicate with my landlord.
I already carry an umbrella policy in case of random events where I could owe damages.
I already keep my firearms stored appropriately.
I just don’t want to be penalized for registering - something that has already happened in the United States.
I think these concerns are legitimate and should be discussed. That said, the OP asked a specific question–how would registration reduce crime–and I think it’s worth exploring this question fully. Many folks seem to think that registration couldn’t reduce crime, and obviously if it couldn’t, there’s no reason to push for it. We should only consider the downsides of registration if there’s an upside for it in the first place.
Without in any way suggesting your concerns are illegitimate, therefore, I’d prefer to focus for now on whether I’m right that registration could reduce crime.
Any retail sale in #3 and #6 currently results in a registered gun via the 4473 form. More likely than not, most of the guns in your item #1 are also registered in the same way.
I think registration and tracking could help in solving crime, but not reducing it necessarily. Finding out who originally purchased a gun, tracking the change in ownership, MIGHT later help you find out someone who is a regular source of firearms for the criminal class.
But I don’t think it would have much of an impact on guns used in crime. There would be a lot more thefts reported I would think.
You are not allowed to accuse other posters of trolling, and telling another poster you are laughing at him is pretty close to, you know, trolling. Knock it off.
I’ll be handing out a lot of warnings if this thread keeps going the way it’s been going.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the registration that currently happens doesn’t go into a federal database of the sort that can be used for efficient crime-solving. Is this true? I think a lot of the registration proposals on the table, including the OP’s question, involve a national database.
I think there might be two effects on crime:
Most importantly, if guns used in crimes can be tracked more effectively, criminals will take this into consideration. If I’m Bob the gun mule who purchased guns from a lot of different sources to sell to a drug ring in Charlotte, currently I feel pretty good about my chances of getting away with it. If every purchase goes into a federal database, and if that data is constantly getting mined looking for weird purchases like mine, I might be a lot less enthusiastic about my job. Maybe I’ll see if Starbucks is hiring. Same thing goes for a lot of other cases involving professional criminals: make the crime riskier, and the crime looks less enticing.
If registration is attached to storage requirements, then guns used in crimes of passion might be harder to get at. People who currently store their guns in a sloppy fashion might be less likely to store them in that fashion.
Of course registration won’t eliminate gun crime. But I think the dynamics that apply to all law enforcement (increased efficacy in enforcement reduces crime) would apply here as well.
Knowing who is legally allowed to own and operate a gun would allow the police to arrest people who were found to be in possession of a gun but did not have a valid license, or who attempted to purchase a gun but didn’t have a valid license. The goal would be to not issue a license to people who were more likely to commit crimes (because they have a criminal record, or fail a mental health evaluation, or whatever).
When I buy a car, I have to register it with the state, and present them with my drivers license. If I get pulled over by the police for any reason while driving my car, they make me show them my license and they punch it into their computer to check that it’s valid. Why shouldn’t guns be subject to similar practices?
I think it’s safe to say this “registration leads to confiscation” idea is at the heart of pro-gun people’s objection to registration, yes? Now, the condition precedent to confiscation is some sort of legislation outlawing guns (or whatever type of gun you own, as the case may be). Let’s say this passes, and there isn’t a registration requirement. What are you going to do? Keep your guns and risk prosecution? Because unless you are, it doesn’t much matter whether your guns are registered.
There should be no permission slip or registration from the government in order to exercise the right to self-defense. (Imagine the howls of protest if permission/registration were required as a precondition to exercising the freedom of speech.) Registration/permission free weapons assure that a tyrant can not more easily disarm and overcome us.
The historical reality of the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms is not that it protects the right to shoot deer or bad guy robbers. It protects the right to shoot tyrants.
When California required registration of their definition of Assault Weapon, the estimate is that around 10% were registered. By law the rest had to be moved out of state or destroyed.
I will hypothesize that there are a ton of unregistered, and now illegal, assault weapons in California that are in the hands of otherwise law abiding citizens.
So, yes, a lot of people will keep their guns and hope to not get caught.
Looking at just the last twenty years of mass shootings for example, how many times did law enforcement not determine exactly where and when the firearms were procured? The data is there, they just need to work a little harder to get it.
If they buy from a retailer today, the sale is recorded. None of the shootings mention above seemed to have been affected by any thoughts of registration. If the shooter is willing to go down in a hail of bullets or by a self inflicted one, they probably don’t give a crap about where their sales are recorded.
Secondly, the straw purchases that you mention by Bob the gun mule are already illegal. there is a 10 year/$10,000 fine attached to it. I suggested in another thread that a good way to combat those sales is to actually enforce the law and the penalties, and use the money gained to put out a PSA campaign to let people know what a straw purchase is, why they are illegal and how badly your life will be affected WHEN you get caught. Right now, there is little risk to begin caught and if so, very little risk of jail time or fines.
Not sure why one needs to be attached to the other. It would be an interesting discussion regarding what makes safe storage vs. unsafe.
Maybe, but Canada’s experience with gun registry has been anything but.
I’m not asking you to speak for the majority of Californian “assault weapon” owners. I think that might stretch even your empathy beyond its limits. I’m asking you (and anybody else participating in this thread) to speak for yourselves. Would you flout the law?
[QUOTE=thatguyjeff]
Registration/permission free weapons assure that a tyrant can not more easily disarm and overcome us.
[/QUOTE]
Better run down to a gun show and pick up some anti-aircraft weapons, then.
70% of guns were never registered in Canada. Since the Canadians are often looked to as the law abiding ones in the whole gun issue in North America anyway, this number does not bode well for the US acceptance of registration.
