right. that worked well for the South in the 1860s. it’s even less likely that you as a civilian would be able to do anything today against a modern army with tanks, drones, and a government that monitors all communications.
While the mass shootings are horrible, they account for a tiny percentage of deaths from gun crime in our country. I’m not sure why we’d limit ourselves to looking only at mass shootings when determining the efficacy of a federal database.
Part of the reason for that is that the data is kept in an archaic fashion: it’s kept in notebooks at individual points-of-sale. If it were computerized, the ATF could hire some folks from Google to set up some data-mining techniques that’d catch these straw purchases (thanks for reminding me of that term, BTW–I knew there was a term for it!)
Currently, gun #13579 is used in a crime by Bob. Bob took it from the drawer in his brother’s house. His brother doesn’t get in any trouble, because who’s to know where the gun came from?
If there’s a registry, the cops go to Bob’s brother and ask how his gun showed up in the crime. If they investigate and determine that it was kept in an unsecured drawer, brother gets charged for improper storage.
If Bob’s brother knows he might face such a charge, he’ll be likelier to keep his gun locked up.
Algher, I appreciate your responses in this thread; and JXJOhns, I appreciate yours as well. It’s good to be able to discuss these issues in a calm, rational fashion.
Tempting though it may be to remind you about parade permits, broadcast licenses, building permits for churches, driver’s licenses used in the commission of acts of free association, and the like, all of that is a hijack. The OP isn’t asking about the advisability or constitutionality of registration: it’s asking about the efficacy of registration.
Well, after 17 years per the link I posted, Canada has either destroyed or will destroy all of their registration records pending a court challenge. Again, this does not bode well for any registration attempt here.
Agree, but the mass shootings are what is fueling the debate these days. Clear examples from the news that the current situation is not limiting law enforcement.
Glad I could help. The challenge though is why would Bob’s sale raise any flags? Unless you also want to make X amount of gun purchases per month/year illegal. That is a completely different challenge. If you know that guns that Bob is purchasing are ending up being used in crimes, he should be flagged on today’s current NICS system.
Every retail of FFL sale since 1968 has been recorded. The trail might end cold, but if Bob’s brother bought the gun from a dealer or retail store, there is a record.
That also assumes that Bob’s brother registered his gun. 70% of guns in Canada were never registered. And, the whole safe storage idea is another issue. Who really determines what is “safe”?
Thanks, I see registration as nothing but a bad idea. But with the right compromises, it could be something I would accept.
I asked specifically for whether (global) you would flout the law. Having said that, the Wikipedia article cites to this page, which based the 70% estimate on what appears to be a made-up number.
Certainly it’s sparking the conversation, but I see it more as a catalyst than as a fuel.
Again, I think data mining would come in handy here, in the same way that it’s used in banking to flag suspicious transactions. As I understand it, law enforcement monitors certain patterns in banking and uses this monitoring to stop certain crimes; isn’t this accurate? And if it is, is there a reason why similar data mining couldn’t be used on gun registrations to flag suspicious purchases for further investigation?
It may be that purchasing more than 2 guns a month would remain legal (I don’t see why, but then I’m not a hobbyist and I don’t need to see why). But if Bob turns out to buy a dozen guns in a day from a dozen different shops around Charlotte, that won’t show up under our current system, but it might raise a red flag under a national database, and the cops could take a closer look at Bob to see if something is going on. Do you disagree?
Again, I think it’s a question of efficiency. Recording sales in paper notebooks is obviously not a very efficient way to record them, and it impairs investigation. Do you disagree?
First that wikipedia article cites this claim from the Law-Abiding Unregistered Firearms Alliance–not exactly a sterling cite, IMO 
[edit: Ninja’ed!]. Second, it appears that they’re suggesting that 70% of current guns haven’t been registered, and are not talking about registration at point-of-sale. Third, if they had trouble with registration, rather than preemptively admitting defeat, perhaps we could explore why they ran into trouble and how we could avoid the difficulties they faced.
The imperfect legislative system determines what is safe.
It states that there are 21 million guns in Canada. It further states that as of 2004 there were 6.8 million guns registered and links to numbers from an MP. That works out to 68% roughly.
Yes, and the 21 million figure appears to be made up. This is all kind of beside the point, though.
if there’s records of the gun sales, can’t they follow those to compel people to register? I’m not understanding how they know there’s that many guns otherwise.
You are asking whether I would commit a State level or Federal level felony?
Pardon while I choose to not answer.
However, to help dispel ignorance - a couple of us have presented information on how widespread the scoffing of the law has been so far in places that required registration.
All that would take is a change to the NICS background check system. If Bob is flagged as buying multiple guns over a “short” time period he could be flagged and all sales declined. I suspect that some of the ideas coming out of the Biden committee will involve making similar changes to NICS. Currently purchase data is removed from NICS after 24 hrs. I would think that restoring it to the pre 2004 standard of 90 days would suffice in that sort of investigation.
As I stated earlier, the recent high profile cases proved no problem for investigators to find exactly who where and when the guns were purchased.
They took an agreed upon number of 21 millions guns in Canada and numbers provided form an MP that showed 6.8 million guns had been registered. 68% or so.
They offered four extensions to amnesty to get people to register and in the end scrapped the whole program. I’m sure that someone up there worked on a plan to get more people to register.
Well, they’ve done a bang-up job of flaunting their firearms knowledge, I can’t wait to see how they define “safe” since nobody else wants to.
Not sure why they couldn’t get people to register. They just didn’t.
It is estimated that there are 300 millions guns in the US. I have no idea where that number comes from either but it seems to be one that everyone mostly agrees upon.
I agree it’s beside the point, but do you have or can you find a better number?
As I understand it, these places required registration of new and existing firearms, in an area with very little gun violence, and the statistics given combine registration of both kinds of firearms, right?
If that’s correct, I think they may not be very useful stats. In the US, we would expect much higher registration of new firearm purchases, true–but over decades, these registrations would come to comprise most firearms owned, wouldn’t they? And since registrations would be used mostly in cases of violence to solve crimes, this might provide some examples of why registration would be helpful.
Consider the following cases of gun theft:
-I register my gun, store it properly, and report its theft. No penalty, even when it’s used in a crime.
-I register my gun, store it improperly, and report its theft. I’m charged with improper storage, probably a misdemeanor.
-I register my gun, store it improperly, and don’t report its theft. I’m charged with two crimes, both probably misdemeanors.
-I don’t register my gun. In addition to any of the above scenarios, I’m charged with an additional, very serious crime, if the gun is traced back to me.
If possession of an unregistered gun is a felony, then people will risk prison time, loss of voting rights, etc. if they fail to comply with the law. Certainly some people will take that risk; but once there are some high-profile cases of people going to prison for this crime, and once registrations fail to turn into confiscations, I suspect a lot of people will choose to register their guns.
Without implicating yourself in any way, consider what you’d choose. If you see that registration is used for law enforcement and crime prevention, but is not used for confiscation, but that people are going to prison for not registering their guns, would you personally be willing to risk prison?
Hypothetically speaking. Obviously I respect your right not to answer, but I hardly see how it’s different than saying you’d take up arms against a tyrant. That would also be a felony.
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that 10% of firearms is registered. How is that not better than none?
In the absence of any reason to disbelieve it, I don’t see what’s wrong with the government’s own statistic. It’s quoted on that LUFA page and suggests that the compliance rate was about 90%.
I moved several of my firearms out of state rather than register them in California. For a period of time I was breaking the law. If it went nationwide, I would probably seriously consider taking some of my collection, coating it to preserve, and locking it away rather than turning it in.
If we can imagine a scenario something like this:
-Registration has been federal law for a decade.
-Amnesty for registration is ongoing: there is no penalty for late registration, except as below.
-If the police discover you in possession of an unregistered gun in any way (e.g., a traffic stop, investigation of a crime at your house, reporting a theft, tracing a gun used in a crime back to your purchase years ago), you face the very real possibility of a felony conviction with a prison sentence.
-There appears to be no political will for confiscation.
Under such circumstances (which are, I understand, relevantly different from California’s circumstances), would you be more inclined to register?
Doubtful, unless there is some serious promise of payment (like $50k per firearm in today’s dollars) if confiscation is ever passed. I really do not trust the government on this issue.
Interesting. I have no data to support my position, but I suspect that, if all the conditions I describe were to pass, a lot of people would be more willing to risk an eventual confiscation than to risk any-day prison-time.
As a related question, do you think you’d be willing to go out of your way to avoid registration on the purchase of new firearms?