So, if I borrow a friend’s gun to see if I like it, it should be worth my freedom and my friend’s gun? Admittedly, it’s not like most people will (or should, of course) lend guns to casual friends, but I do know one, maybe two people with whom I share enough trust to do this.
Okay, one more time, zwaldd. What does registration have to do with felons?
You said:
To which I reply:
Felons are generally not allowed to possess guns. If you catch a felon with a gun, it may be forfeit. Registration is unnecessary to confiscate their guns. All registration does is make previously law-abiding citizen, who chooses to not register, into a criminal. It has no effect other than that. By your own damned admission. What don’t you understand?
beer, forget the fucking felons. i’m talking about people who buy guns illegally for illegal use, regardless of prior convictions. those people would have their illegally bought guns confiscated, even if they are not felons. if i implied that i favor registration laws to prevent convicted felons from legally posessing guns, i retract the implication. i’m not talking about felons ok? forget the fucking god damn felons! i acknowledge there are already laws prevent them from legally owning guns. i’m talking about people (other than felons, mind you) who buy guns anonymously so they can use them for crime. if you mention felons again, i am going to have to assume you are a fucking moron. sorry for insulting a mod, but jesus fucking christ.
cornflakes - valid point, but i don’t see the problem in not allowing people to lend their guns without their presence.
So, I borrow my buddy’s 10ga goose gun, never been before, never bought one. I’m pulled over on the way to the hunt site because I didn’t use my turn signal merging onto the highway. Smokey see’s my hunting outfit, asks if I’m going hunting. I reply, yes, he says can I see your registration for the gun? I say I borrowed it. He rolls his eyes and says, sure, mind stepping out of the car? and placing your hands on the hood, please? yep, that sounds like a reasonable scenario…
bf - the law’s not in place yet so lets play with it. let’s say then that you just have to have the registration in your possession. you tell him who you borrowed it from, he runs a check on the registration number. sure enough, it traces back to your buddy, the gun wasn’t reported stolen, you give him some more info that doesn’t appear on the registration card but he can check it in a database. it checks out, you’re on your way. if the gun is reported stolen later that day he’s got your drivers license number, license plate, description, etc. i like that idea, but if you do end up killing someone with it, i would want to hold the owner liable. that’s the risk you run lending out your gun without your supervision.
zwaldd, the valid point is that I am an adult and do not need a babysitter. There is nothing unlawful in my borrowing a friend’s gun and driving five miles to Red’s indoor range and plinking off a few shots. If someone trusts me well enough to lend me a gun, that person has no need to drop everything on his or her schedule and tag along.
On the other hand, I can borrow someone’s car, which is a more common safety hazard than any weapon, without their following along. Hell, I drove my father in law’s truck for a year before I bought it from him and transferred the title. Needless to say, he wasn’t in the passenger seat every time I started it up, and it wasn’t an issue the one time when I was pulled over.
Ironically, what was at issue was that the cop thought that I wasn’t wearing a seat belt (I was, and he didn’t pursue it), the truck’s registration was out of date (it wasn’t), the inspection was out of date (it wasn’t either), and I didn’t have insurance (I had my card as well as my FIL’s, both of which covered my driving the truck, and this is what he wrote me for.) With apologies to the vast majority of cops who have a clue, somehow I wouldn’t feel safer knowing that this cop could have jailed me for a weapons offense, and don’t think that they will ever let any weapons violations drive away. Having once been almost taken downtown for having a machete in my van, I don’t.* This is just another reason any registrations make me nervous.
And trust me, the legislatures do enough playing with any bill before it comes out the other end as a law. That’s what they’re paid for, and we only have a limited amount of influence in the process. Maybe we should stick to the main ideas of possible legislation.
BF, good example. Of course, if you were pulled over like that, you would probably be on a hunting trip with friends, and it would be hours, if not days, before they found you in jail and cleared up the mess. After that, you would have to find your car and pay the impound costs. You didn’t do anything wrong, but that’s the price of keeping the public safe. :rolleyes:
*[sub]It was in the middle of the van, in possibly the hardest place to get to from the drivers seat or any door. I had used it to cut grass in Oklahoma and fortunately had the red dirt in the mudwells to prove it.[/sub]
Valid point, problem, whatever…
since my previous post addressed the concerns you raise here and you’re introducing a guns to cars analogy, i’ll consider my case for registration uncontested.
Why? I don’t have to prove any ownership of a car to drive it. The registration sticker is a road tax; guns don’t wear out roads.
Fuck you; you brought 'em up, shithose, not me. I’ll forget 'em when you concede the goddamn point.
And then immediately after telling me to “forget the felons,” you state “i’m talking about people who buy guns illegally for illegal use …” Now correct me if I’m wrong here, but wouldn’t these people be felons?
Also, if I’m to forget the felons entirely, then obviously we are left with law-abiding citizens only. So, you are indeed advocating, and actually even recognize the fact, that you are talking about making a law that affects law-abiding citizens only.
Finally, I’ve strongly contested your case for registration. Registration does nothing except create a new class of criminals; those otherwise law-abiding citizens who refuse to register their firearms. You’ve admitted this already.
You have no uncontested victory to declare.
But, since you’re so adamant about registration, please tell me what it accomplishes, other than the effects I’ve objected to. Namely, the creation of a new class of criminal. I’m really curious. What are the real benefits firearm registration?
Might I just ask-why would people not want to register a gun?
Just curious, no opinion on it, really. Since I don’t have a gun.
My idiot ex-roommate put my Ruger Mk.II (.22 calibre) pistol in a box to hide it from his daugher who was up for the weekend. He was going to do laundry at a friend’s place (god forbid he’d actually pay a dollar or two to use the common machines downstairs!) and needed something to carry his clothes in. He threw them in this box. (I know. I don’t believe him either.) One of the ex-roommate’s friends had warrants out for her arrest. She was standing by friend’s car (in a bad part of L.A., BTW) and the police happened along. They searched the friend’s car even though he wasn’t near it and the criminal-woman wasn’t in it. Guess what they found in the trunk? My Ruger!
Gues who they didn’t call to verify ownership? Me! This pistol was bought new from a dealer. Running the serial number would have told them the jobber Ruger sold to, and the jobber would have told them the dealer I bought the pistol from. The dealer would have said, “Oh, we sold that to Johnny! Here’s his address and telephone number!” Or they could have asked the ex-roommate who it belonged to, and I could have come down with my receipt. (Note: ex-roomie wasn’t arrested. They just confiscated the gun.)
I am convinced that had ex-r not come clean and told me about it, I would still (several years later) not have my pistol. I am convinced that the police would have made no effort to locate me (I still live at the same address) and that the pistol – my legally obtained pistol – would have been melted down or dumped into the ocean and I would never have known what happened to it.
Why have a law that only affects law-abiding citizens? Why depend on police to behave in a fair and reasonable manner when they don’t even know how to work a simple telephone?
uncle beer, you can’t be this stupid. you brought up felons, not me. i said criminals, but defined them as those who bought a gun illegally intending to use it illegally. you’re only a felon if you’ve been convicted of a felony. i then said that if i somehow implied that i was talking only about felons, i retract the implication. are you really this stupid or are you just kidding me? read the posts carefully.
you haven’t made a point yet that i haven’t already addressed and you’re a moderator (implying some arguing experience). c’mon - am i on candid camera or something? you have to be shitting me.
UncleBeer, please cite for me where zwaldd used the word “felons” in his original post. He used the word “criminals,” not felons. YOU were the one who used the word “felon.”
But no matter. Perhaps an example is required to explain his reasoning to you.
I am a law-abiding citizen with no criminal record (i.e., not a felon–get it?). I decide I want to kill my husband. I find someone who will sell me a gun. I do not register my gun. On my way to kill my husband, I am pulled over by a cop. He searches my car.
Now here’s the important part, so pay attention: if the gun is registered, the cop cannot confiscate it. I am on my merry way, off to shoot my husband. HOWEVER, if the gun is NOT registered, he can confiscate my gun, and will probably arrest me. I am thus prevented from shooting my husband.
That is all zwaldd meant. Registration is not a panacea for gun-related crime. Yet in circumstances like the one I described above, it can help.
You are a non-felon who is going ot go out and find a ‘bad’ guy to sell you a gun? Not go to a pawn shop, gun store or Wal-Mart where they register you and do background checks and make you wait till is goes through. Nope you are going to go find a dumb neighbor to sell you one of his guns and then you are going to drive so bad that the cops are going to pull you over and search your car without a search warrent and find tis gun and lock you up till your court date, then put you in jail for a while and then you will be over your mad and won’t kill the hubby? How about we make it against the law to kill the hubby? Wrong huh? Real crime of passion here. Bet we could save more lives if we quit turning loose convicted felons on their second gun related charge to kill a third time than all the gun control you can dream up. Let them off as easy as you the juries do now the first time. Just get tough the second time. That will do more good than all the knee jerk BS you all have come up with in the pro registration junk so far. Heave forbid we get tough on gun rerlated crime the first time like in I believe Richmond Va. where the bad guys are scared to use a gun. They know what is going to happen. The gun crime problem is Way down I hear. Not much fromn the media or the pro control people.
:::: sheesh ::::::
You have been “sheesh” and that’s bad…
Thank you G, for not weighing in with an opinion with no facts. The bottom line, IMHO, as a gun owner is: If I have to register my firearms with a government organization that is not looking out for my best interest is, sooner or later, they will look up my registration, cruise by my house and say, this is a warrant to check out your house to see if you have illegal weapons here ie., ones not on the registration I filed. I could then be incarcerated, fined, whatnot, based on this little piece of data that the federal gubmint (Montana speak, but I digress) deems necessary to maintain. Regardless of the fact that I am a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen of no official ill-repute.
How many of us have said, after getting a traffic ticket, why aren’t you out catching real criminals, ya damn cop, instead of busting my balls (or whatever) over something trivial like a busted headlight?!?!
(((Dang, that makes my earlier post seem almost relevant, don’ it???))
I’ve started a new thread in GD for handgun registration. My apologies, to everyone, for letting my emotion get the better of me here. I promise it will not happen in the new thread.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=54764
not only is this a ‘slippery slope’ fallacy, it’s not even based on a similar precedent with other registered items. however, you are correct in that this is the reason people give to argue that registration will punish those that register.
Speaking of fallacies, what is with this “but I’m a law-abiding citizen” crap? That Mike McDermott character up in Massachusetts was a law-abiding citizen too, until he went and shot up seven of his co-workers.
My point is, there is no clear delineation between law-abiding citizens and criminals. A law-abiding citizen can become a criminal with one criminal act. Yet people insist on citing their “law-abiding citizen” status as a justification for why they should be allowed to carry guns.
That the gun lobby clings so stubbornly to such an obviously flawed argument forces people like me—who are willing to respect reasonable arguments for gun ownership—to dismiss you guys (e.g., BF) as a bunch of ignorant wackos. It completely undermines your cause. If I were a gun owner with a brain in my head, I would resent having you guys on my side.
Come again? These two classifications are mutually exclusive. How can you say there’s no demarcation? That’s absurd.
Doesn’t this assume some conscious intent then? I have no intent upon breaking the law. If it doesn’t assume conscious intent, then maybe we better lock up everybody immediately. They may have a criminal dispostion and not even know it. After all, it doesn’t actually require a gun to kill, or commit any other crime.
Oh yeah, before I forget, criminal and felon are synonyms, you can’t draw a distinction between them. Check Roget’s.