I wouldn’t expect so, no. But, the thing is, a lot of people who own guns don’t go to the range today, when it’s perfectly legal and totally kosher…um, so to speak.
That said, it would be pretty easy to build ranges that were outside of the eye of the police…plus, we have this huge continent sized country thingy were there are myriad places to just go commando and screw the range.
A point about ammo (sorry, it’s hard to cut and paste stuff on my iPad so just going to go by memory here). I believe someone talked about making ammo illegal and hard to get as a way to shut off or curtail people keeping guns in spite of whatever prohibitions are put in place to ban them. The thing is, most of the gun owners I know have reloading equipment and dies for lots of the more popular calibers. At a guess, if there was a ban, many of those people would simply take their reloading underground…but be happy to reload for others who didn’t have the equipment, for a small, nominal fee. Unless you outlawed primers and powder as well of course…in which case, I’m sure there would be a large blackmarket for those sorts of things that would spring up.
It would be like a hydra…you’d have to have a cascade of laws and bannings, and then what you’d get is a black market, where people would get around the laws and bans in other ways.
As another for-instance. Alcohol is legal today. So are cigarettes. Even so, there are STILL people who traffic in black market cigarettes AND in illegally produced booze. Hell, there is a show on Discovery (IIRC) about modern day moonshiners…and they are doing this stuff when alcohol is LEGAL (in most states), simply because some people just like the taste or effect of moonshine better than the stuff they can buy legally in the store.
You can have artillery. And a tank. And every other type of asinine extreme example you want. You can also have the shells that are fired through said artillery piece. You need only register each and every shell with the BATFE as a “Destructive Device” at $200 a pop plus the actual cost of the round. As a rule, people who register weapons are not criminals, but that’s neither here nor there.
Now, let’s say you figure out the Teller-Ulam model and want to build a nuke. Can you? Sure, but since the NRC strictly regulates plutonium you’re not going to be able to get any of that. But the bomb itself? Have at it.
The point is that you guys like to go to extremes. OK, let’s go to extremes. You can have anything you want. The only limit is your wallet and how much BATFE/FBI attention you can stand.
However, the section you quote means something else, namely, that enforcement
will be more effective if it is not squandered on people who would not be criminals
were it not for a mandatory buyback program.
I do not contest that some criminals will always be able to obtain guns by stealing them.
[QUOTE=Lobohan]
So could the same restrictions be put on handguns?
[/QUOTE]
That’s what this thread is all about. You tell me…is that how you’d do it? Do you think it would be effective? What would the ramifications be if only the super rich could legally afford to have handguns, while ordinary citizens who chose not to turn their guns in would be considered criminals? For artillery pieces (or tanks…or machine guns, etc etc) it’s a pretty small subset of folks who could afford the things even if they were completely legal with zero red tape. But for an ordinary hand gun? How would that work out?
Again, these are the questions this thread is all about. What do you think? Would it work?
I think it would certainly work. Most gun owners are law abiding and don’t want to commit crimes. Most criminals ultimately get their guns from legal sources.
I was just wondering in this tangent if limiting handguns would be possible without a constitutional amendment.
Although now that I think about it, the Assault Weapons Ban limited the type of guns that could be made in America. Presumably they could just say that “guns shorter than 1m or designed to be operated with one hand” can’t be manufactured, right? That, plus a government buyup might be doable, if not an actual ban.
They can say whatever you want them to say that you think would work, though I’d suggest not using metric measurements, as that would really put the hex on things.
Regulated manufacture, and only for government and institutional job orders. But then, why? Gunsmithing is a cottage-level industry in the US. Are you going to deprive smiths and hunters the pleasure, because they’re employing banned technology?
It’s not as simple as banning handguns, all that would do is “attempt” to keep people from legally owning handguns. The good guys are one ones who would be totally FUKKED. If you want to ban handguns make sure handguns are not being manufactured anymore. As long as they’re manufactured there’s no way to ban them they’re gonna get into the wrong hands. It’s that simple.
As 3D printing improves, the possibility of preventing new manufacture drops dramatically.As it stands, a guy with hobbyist-level machine tools can make a gun right now.
I’d start with the long overdue repeal of the Second Amendment. Then I’d make the possession or sale of a handgun a crime punishable by life imprisonment without parole. I’d give a cutoff date of say Jan 1, 2100 (it would take at least that long to repeal the dreaded Second) and allow people to turn in their guns without penalty.
Once the deadline passes, I’d offer a bounty for anyone who turns in a gun owner that leads to the successful conviction of same. Once the bounties start slowing down, then start in with random house checks. Come in with federal agents and gunpowder-sniffing dogs. After the random house checks are done, then do methodical searches one county at a time. I doubt it would actually come to that, I think the bounties would get the best results.
I would look at smoking cessation efforts as an example. You can’t legislate handguns away any more than you can legislate alcohol away, at least not without some nasty consequences. Without direct legislation, though, demand for cigarettes has plummeted in the US (50% drop) over the last 50 years. I attribute this to a cultural shift. Unfortunately, the federal government has a limited ability to directly affect the culture of the US. However, there’s a few things they can do. Taxes on cigarettes make them more expensive. Local legislation limits the places cigarettes can be used, which makes them more of a hassle. Public service announcements spread word of the danger of smoking. And FCC/FTC regulations have limited tobacco’s prevalence in the media.
I don’t see why similar efforts can’t be made with handguns. Tax the weapons and their ammunation to make them more of a pain. Limit (with local legislation) the number of type of establishments where people can conceal carry firearms (such as many current laws for banks and bars). Educate the public with facts about the effectiveness (or lack therefore) of handguns in self defense*. And use the federal government’s weight to pressure hollywood to stop making guns seem so badass. Many of these things are already being done, but not on a large scale, probably because all politicians are afraid of attracting the ire of the NRA.
The idea is to reduce the US’s current rabid demand for legal handguns, which should (in theory) mean that there are fewer weapons available to slip through the cracks and into the hands of criminals. If handguns are harder to buy, harder to register, less convenient to carry around and use, and less prevalent in pop culture, eventually (I hope) gun-nuts and/or aspiring gun-nuts will lose interest and take up needlepoint or something.
I don’t want to start a giant debate here about whether or not guns make people safer, since the question has been hashed out in numerous threads here, including in Una’s excellent SDAB column on the topic. IIRC, Una’s conclusion was that it’s basically a wash, so that’s what I’m going with.
But, the thing is, a lot of people who own guns don’t go to the range today, when it’s perfectly legal and totally kosher…um, so to speak.