The point is to make it inconvenient to have an unregistered weapon.
Think of it like cars and titles/tags. Sure, you can drive around a car without titles/tags; there are people who do. However, without proof of ownership you can’t insure the vehicle. You can’t get a loan against it. Even something as simple as a broken tail light can leave you walking home, and if it ever gets impounded for any reason, it goes bye-bye unless you produce paperwork. If it’s a junker you bought for $200 and will drive until too many parts fall off, that might be acceptable; you probably wouldn’t do that to gramps’s '57 Chevy.
Lets say you do have gramps’s .38 special. You can’t insure it. You can’t take it to a public range or most gunsmiths. If you run into the wrong cop, you lose it. Buying ammo is difficult and expensive, since you can’t just walk into the gun shop and instead must go black-market. You can’t let the wrong person know you even own it (which also means the ex-wife and the rebellious teenager and the brother-in-law you don’t really like now have something to hold over you). If you get caught with it, you might go to jail, lose your job, have a criminal record that makes it hard to find a new job, have your wages garnished to pay a steep fine, and so on.
That’s inconvenient, and the longer you hold out, the more inconvenient it gets. At some point, the inconvenience starts to outweigh the allure.
Actually, they frequently are. Even more frequently, they were purchased in public, and the ammunition used was bought openly.
The percentage of American households that own guns is already on the decline, and has been for a number of years. If owning unregistered guns means dealing in the black market and paying ever more money for guns/ammo that have been secreted away, I expect fewer households will be a) willing, or b) able to pay.
Sorry, forgot to mention that the 2nd Amendment was repealed. Don’t fight the hypothetical.
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I think it would depend on how it was “repealed”.
If the proper procedure is followed, where it gets voted on and debated and ratified, successfully, then public opinion would have to be overwhelmingly different from what it is today. There, you wouldn’t get rebellion, just a lot of gun owners ignoring the law.
If five of the Supreme Court decides that the Second Amendment means “guns have to be banned immediately”, then Congress impeaches a few of them and we have a Constitutional crisis, probably resolved by something similar to Roosevelt’s “switch in time that saved nine”. You wouldn’t have rebellion in that case either, since a Congressman who sat still for that kind of judicial foolishness is a Congressman who will soon have a lot more time to spend with his family and work on his memoirs. So we wouldn’t need one.
Justices who are anti-gun tend, IME, to be pro-criminal rights. I wonder how they would consider giving the police the power to demand proof that a gun is legal just because.
No, civil war will not break out for something like this. There would be pockets of resistance, but I believe many people who hoard guns to that degree are ultimately cowards who need a gun to feel safe. Most of them will wither in the face of others with bigger and more guns.
Or, perhaps the ones grabbing the guns are the cowards? Or, perhaps it has more to do with you projecting than bravery or cowardice on anyone’s part, and using such ridiculous and over the top terminology to demonize the other side is kind of silly?
Are you talking about police, soldiers, secret service, security guards, and bodyguards here? Or the people who don’t have the privilege of paying for personal protection and therefore have to take responsibility for their own self-defense?
I was speaking of our military and police. When talking about a large group of people like that, yes, I’m sure some of them are. But not as much as those who oppose them
Speaking of demonizing…
Taking guns away is not cowardly. If such a law passed, it would merely be people doing their jobs. I referred to people who talk a big game but typically don’t live up to it. If someone shouts that there is government oppression, fascism, and dictatorship in America now, I’d expect them to act like it, form their own band of guerillas and attack the government. I think its cowardly if they say that but go to work, pay their taxes, and complain on the internet.
And before you think about doing so, let me remind you that me complaining about the internet is not the same thing so don’t even bother trying to use that as a response. Completely different things. Those people are cowards if that’s all they do
No because they go head first into situations that require it. If you’re simply living your life in America and following the law, its very likely that you will never need a gun for protection. Ever. So those who overstate their vulnerability and arm themselves when they do not need to are cowards. People who are sent to defuse violent situations using guns are not cowards
I think it is rather cowardly to hide behind police and soldiers. If you are simply living your life in America and following the law, its very likely that you will never need a hired gun for protection. So those who overstate their vulnerability and pay others to carry guns for them when they do not need to are cowards.
In fact, now that I really think about it, beyond the cowardice of hiding behind hired guns, you are also responsible for all the innocents they kill while they are “protecting” you.
So protecting yourself is cowardly, but shooting others for political purposes is not? Are you sure the military “defuses violent situations”? I was in the Army. That was never our mission, written, spoken or otherwise. And I can guarantee you that isn’t anyone else’s mission either. People defend themselves and others because they don’t want to die or watch innocent people die. It has nothing to do with “defusing violent situations” whether you’re paid to carry a gun or not.
Just because you’re willing to bet your life on the likelihood of never needing a gun for protection, ever (just where do you live, anyway? An impenetrable fortress? The moon? Have you seen the news lately or ever?), those of us who do see the need are cowards? But a professional who sees the need is not?
Tell me exactly why a CEO who hires a professional bodyguard is less cowardly than a middle class person who guards their own body instead? Is someone who grows their own food more cowardly than someone who goes grocery shopping? Is a home brewer more cowardly than someone who buys their beer at the liquor store? What sort of logic is this?
The often quoted figure of 300 million guns in the US is way out of date, at least from 2008.
NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) background checks, pre-sale, are the most reliable numbers we have for gun sales. Most of these sales go through after the check. These are the legal sales that have been routed through the FBI background check system.
Here is a fairly recent CNN Money article.
And the accompanying FBI chart.
And sales/checks continue at a brisk pace of 1 to 2 million more each and every month. Look at the FBI chart.
So a probably more accurate number of guns to get rid of in the USA, right now, is approaching 500 thousand, or a half million.
And next month another million or so. Chew on those numbers while you are thinking about how to get them all out of US society. The FBI chart on background checks is real, I am not making this up.
I don’t understand how you’re getting 500 thousand (or 500 million, which might be what you meant) out of that data. Yes, it shows that there are 1.5-2m background checks performed per month, fine, but absent both a baseline and information about how many of those are resales, I don’t think you can derive a total number of guns in the country from it.
Police and soldiers are there for your protection. It is their job to do so and they typically have the training and expertise and the materials to deal with things that a common person cannot. So I don’t consider it cowardly to “hide” behind them, rather, people should call LEO’s for the purpose they are for. However, to get to the heart of what I think the issue is, I do not think one is necessarily inherently noble, honorable, courageous, etc. for dealing with issues themselves. That, I think, is what you are trying to infer, that if you’re a “real American” to use the descriptor I’ve heard used many times before, you are an individual who pulls yourself up by your bootstraps and relies on no one. I think its nice if you personally decide to live off the grid, eat what you kill, grow your own crops, etc., but I don’t think you are inherently any better than someone who lives in the middle of a city, takes city buses to work, relies on government-funded projects for recreation, and uses government authorities like LEOs for protection. I’d be happy if the lone mountainman image just hurries up and dies already
I don’t think buying insurance is cowardly. I dispute that a gun is an apt analogy for insurance.
In this case, the coward part isn’t simply buying something you might not need. I don’t consider people who buy, for example, sunscreen in case they need to go out to be cowardly. The coward part comes from the fear that danger is everywhere and that you’re unprotected if you aren’t armed. There have been many threads here where people say they feel naked and vulnerable if they are not allowed a gun into a restaurant or on vacation to another country. People need to learn to feel comfortable disarmed, most places you go and things you do won’t require life-and-death decisions using deadly weapons. I would challenge people on this board who are armed to go a month unarmed, but I know they won’t do it for reasons. And no, telling me to go armed for a month is totally not the same thing and requires much more work, so that counter is a pointless non-sequitor
You’re assuming you’re protecting yourself. A better way of stating it would be: “Arming yourself when there is a near certainty that you’ll never be in danger is cowardly, and kind of paranoid.”
This has absolutely nothing to do what what we’re talking about.
I live in the city of Los Angeles, where there are violence, gangs, and murders, but given the number of people, my chance of needing a gun is still astonishingly rare. I’ve been here for the better part of 30 years and not one time have I needed a gun or would a gun help the situation. Not. One. Time. I don’t go stupidly strolling into gang territory at night though nor do I put myself in the position of needed to be defended often.
I would ask you why you need a gun, if you have one. If you go hunting or something, that’s besides the argument, I don’t care much for hunters but I’m not looking to take away stuff for sport. But if you’re afraid of having your home broken into, then how often does that happen in your neighborhood? How often has it happened to you? What are the chances it’ll happen again. If its a small fraction of a percentage, I think you’re likely as safe without a gun as with one.
This is pointless, none of those concern safety.
An argument I’ve heard often before. I’m surprised you didn’t say why Obama travels with Secret Service. The answer to that is quite simple: some people are more of a target than others. Are you part of a gang? Do you often wear expensive jewelry and hang out in areas of high crime? Do you involve yourself in criminal ventures? Do you wear a shirt that says “Shoot me?” If so, I can see why you need a gun. But like most of us, you’re probably an average, non-descript person. Nobody’s coming after you specifically. So you don’t need a gun or bodyguards. Maybe if you had a stalker or a crazy ex, sure. But most people don’t have that and don’t need any forms of protection
But the argument you’ve offered is that it’s unlikely you’ll need it. It’s very unlikely I’ll need fire insurance. I’m more likely to be the victim of a home invasion than a house fire. So it’s nice that you dispute the analogy, but you need to offer an argument as to why it’s not apt since it satisfies the exact criteria you have given.
That is certainly not representative of the vast majority of gun owners. Do you disagree?
Maybe. The American Revolutionary War started over firearm confiscations.
On 19th April 1775, the American Revolutionary War began when General Gage, commander of the British garrison in Boston, dispatched Lieutenant Colonel Smith, along with 900+ British Army regulars, to Concord with orders to CONFISCATE the colonials arms. Brigadier Lord Percy’s relieving force swelled the British military to 1800+. As I remember, the British Army did not confiscate any firearms that day, lost the battle, and eventually, lost the war. British Regiments (involved in the battle):
4th later King’s Own Royal Regiment and now the King’s Own Royal Border Regiment
5th later Northumberland Fusiliers and now the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers
10th later the Suffolk Regiment and now the Royal Anglian Regiment
18th now the Royal Irish Regiment
23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers
38th later the South Staffordshire Regiment and now the Staffordshire Regiment
43rd later 1st Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and now 1st Bn Royal Green Jackets.
52nd later 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and now 1st Bn Royal Green Jackets
59th later the East Lancashire Regiment and now the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment
Marines: now the Royal Marines
And that was also the day that Paul Revere warned the British Army that the colonials were coming.