I know that living north of me allows you to have a better sense of what I need and don’t need, but for once you are incorrect. I do need a semi automatic, magazine fed rifle with either a telescoping stock, protruding pistol grip, or a bayonet lug.
Besides, if I didn’t have this gun, the king of England could walk right in here and start pushing you around. [/homer simpson]
The “need” requirement you insist upon is a rather stringent test for property ownership in a nominally free society. Putting that aside, however, I’d like to direct y’all to a comprehensive debate previously conducted here on the “merits” of handgun registration.
Despite the many claims of an inevitable reduction in the number of crimes committed with firearms should a federal and universal registration law be enacted, nobody has been able to demonstrate sufficiently just how registration would cause such a phenomenon. Registration of firearms simply cannot do anything to prevent gun crimes.
I’d also like to note that no one advocating a federal firearm registry has included just what such a thing might cost (if we judge by Canada’s recent experiences, the cost will be huge, on the order of tens of billions of dollars), nor has anyone addressed the protections and recourse an unjustly accused/convicted citizen will have when the inevitable errors in the registry cause such. It is interesting to learn that the FBI & ATF can’t even keep track of their own guns effectively enough to prevent many from going missing - including a not insubstantial number of fully-automatic weapons; they aren’t even able to determine how many guns they own which have disappeared . And these are the guys who’re gonna be charged with maintaing the registration database?
I believe it can, by enforcing responsible gun ownership. All guns begin as “legal” guns when they leave the manufacturer. By tracking the ownership of a gun, there would be fewer private, unrecorded sales that allow guns to fall into the hands of criminals.
Your exaggeration notwithstanding, $10 billion is not huge. The burn rate in Iraq is $5 billion per month, with much less to show for it in terms of saving lives than gun registration. Gun registration would be a bargain at $10 billion.
By this ridiculous standard, we should not conduct elections, because errors are made; we should not collect taxes, because errors are made; and we should not prosecute criminals, because errors are made. In each of these, the benefits far outweigh the problems created by errors. So it would be with gun registration.
I asked before, but I don’t see an answer. Do you know how guns are tracked today?
What makes you think it’s an exaggeration? Again, using Canada as an example, the article linked on page two of this thread tells us that Canada spent 860 million dollars above and beyond the 140 million in user fees to register a mere 6.1 million guns. I will assume those dollar figures are Canada dollars; this means - using today’s exchange rate of 1CAD=0.84345USD- that it cost in U.S. dollars about 725 million. Finishing the math, we find that it has cost Canada around 118 USD per gun registered. And with over 200,000,000 guns to register in the U.S. (ignoring for the moment that many of them cannot even be uniquely identified by an existing serial number) we find a cost of 236 billion dollars to the United States to implement a similar scheme. That’s a pretty outrageous number, eh?
Now where’s that exaggeration again?
Horsemuffins. I’m not trying at all to apply that standard. The examples you cite have safeguards and means of recourse built-in; potential errors can be corrected by some specified means. I’m asking to hear what the plan of registration advocates is for doing the errors inherent to a registration scheme. It has to be an integral part of the law and examined closely before any such law is acceptable.
So why is this assumed to be too much to hope for? We managed to apply that standard to all the government functions I mentioned, why not gun control? But at least there is hope; if we met that standard, gun control would be acceptable to you. Now we are getting somewhere.
It’s not too much to hope for. At least I hadn’t thought so. But this part of anyone’s proposed registration scheme has yet to be explained to me. And until it is - in sufficient detail - along with a convincing argument of how registration will indeed yield a positive effect on one or more of the four goals of good gun legislation that I outlined in the thread I linked, I will continue to oppose any and all registration schemes. The devil’s in the details, man.
Frankly, however, while I believe my reservations over the lack of protections can be overcome, I don’t think I will ever be convinced that registration can be proven useful in reducing crimes committed with firearms. In order to accomplish such, the penalties for doing so must be compelling enough to modify the behavior of a large number of people - people who are demonstrably resistant to, or incapable of, measured rational thought.
“Gun control,” as broad and nebulous a term that is, has always been acceptable to me. I would support federal legislation requiring that all firearm exchanges take place through an FFL dealer with a mandatory NICS background check and approval. Even the NRA, although you’ll never hear its detractors admit it, have advocated such a thing in the recent past.
You have also failed to address the costs of a registration system. I’d really like to see a reaonable estimate of what this thing’s gonna cost the users and the taxpayers. It is not insubstantial, your protestations othwerwise. Lemme throw another number at you - which I admit is wildly speculative, but no one advocating registration that I know of has ever addressed it.
If you’ll permit me for the moment the following assumptions:
• 236 billion dollars over tens years (that’s the approximate time frame from which the original Canadian numbers were extrapolated)
• a ballpark figure of 15,000 firearm homicides per year, or 150,000 over the same ten years (a number that is certainly high since firearm homicides in recent years have ranged from 11,000 to 13,000)
we find that even if registration could prevent all of these 150,000 murders, it would have done so at a cost of over 1.5 million bucks a head. Very coldly stated, since the vast majority of the folks murdered by guns are violent criminals, shot by other violent criminals, a million-five is an unacceptably high price to prevent the death of a thug.
I say we should pass a law requiring everyone to be nice to each other.
That will solve everything…right?
Right?
:rolleyes:
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
I agree. I believe that our founding fathers would have never considerd the right to hunt and put food on the table, or protecting yourself and faminly an issue. I think that those things are so fundamental that they never considered the right to protect yourself an issue. I doubt that they ever considered the fundamental right of self defense as anything that anyone would dare question.
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state.[sub]as long as you are in the militia (which is all men). And you don’t use it for hunting. And don’t enjoy target practice, that’s right out. And don’t use it for protection from thieves or hiway men or others that would do you or your family harm.[/sub], the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.[sub]As long as the only reason you have the weapon is for the possible overthrow of the government. That’s OK then.[/sub]
I’m sorry, could you clear this up? Are you saying that, if it can be shown that ‘a well regulated militia’ is not necessary to the security of free states, then the amendment is to be read as void?
IOW: read it as implying “So long as a well… then…”. Interesting. All that remains then is to inquire: Are there any free states, without well regulated militias?
I’m suggesting that since you are hijacking the thread to discuss press clubs in Japan, then you could code it with the [hijack] [/hijack]. Start a new thread so desired.
Nice try. You couldn’t be more mistaken. I’ve lived for a total of 17 years here. I’m a businessman, managed departments in Japanese companies and established and run an American subsidiary here. I deal with entrenched bureaucracy, nitpicky Japanese customers and asinine drunks at the corner bar. I’ve got great friends here and people I can’t stand.
And how much of that of that matters? None of it. Why? Let me explain, because it is clear you don’t understand the concept of opinion. My opinions are mine. They may be correct, they may be incorrect, but they are my opinions. Having opinions is not prescribed to the intelligent or the educated alone. You have opinions, as do I. There are plenty of people on this board with whom I don’t agree. Hell, I think my right wing, Republican, conservative brother-in-law is full of shit, and he’s lived for 50 some-odd years. But telling him he is an idiot because he doesn’t understand something, or is misguided, won’t make for pleasant dinner conversation. No, I need to politely negotiate with him and state clearly what I think, and allow him to talk the red-neck trash he so enjoys. It is a painful process, much like parenting a small child.
I’m unconcerned that you disagree with me, and only god knows how many problems this country has, but to read three lines over two posts and then make such off-base conclusions suggests serious educational deficiencies.
Indeed, Sleel, your headlong rush into logical fallacy based on your presumption of my time in Japan shows all of us your capacity for logical thought, to say nothing of the state of your negotiation skills.
Perhaps it would be best if you just read what others posted and refrain from posting until you understand the above stated principles.
Sevastopol,
If you’re responding to me, I was being sarcastic.
What’s IOW?
In Other Words…
A quick update on the gun confiscation mess in NOLA:
*(Fairfax, VA) – The United States District Court for the Eastern District in Louisiana today sided with the National Rifle Association (NRA) and issued a restraining order to bar further gun confiscations from peaceable and law-abiding victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
“This is a significant victory for freedom and for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The court’s ruling is instant relief for the victims who now have an effective means of defending themselves from the robbers and rapists that seek to further exploit the remnants of their shattered lives,” said NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.
Joining LaPierre in hailing the U.S. District Court decision was NRA chief lobbyist Chris W. Cox. “This is an important victory. But the battle is not over. The NRA will remedy state emergency statutes in all 50 states, if needed, to ensure that this injustice does not happen again."*… More text at the link provided.