Then we should have a registry already, no? But we don’t and unless there is a major groundswell of support, it’s not likely to happen on its own. Would you be willing to compromise on anything to achieve it?
That bit puzzled me as well; the vendors surely must give their information to the exhibitor, and the exhibitor could sell those names to the NRA, but I’ve never heard of an attendee having to give their name to go to a gun show. Perhaps some have pre-sales of tickets, or some kind of VIP pass, or early entry, or something like that? That’s all I can think of, but I’ve only been to gun shows in Kentucky. Maybe some states require pre-registration or something like that.
There are other ways to go about ensuring that as few prohibited persons as possible own firearms: their dwellings and effects could be searched upon conviction or commitment and periodically thereafter, monetary bounties could be offered for anyone who reported a prohibited person who possessed a firearm, the criminal penalty for such illegal possession could be made more severe, undercover agents at shooting ranges could run license-plate numbers and look for prohibited names, etc. A registry is one way, but not the only way.
So instead of the cost and intrusion of a gun registry, you propose summary searches of the properties all people convicted of a felony or found to have a mental illness? Searches comprehensive enough to find a firearm?
Wait. You agreed that criminals and mentally ill people should not have firearms , but you want other people to give you stuff to achieve your goal ?
:rolleyes:
Yeah, finding someone collecting advertising information is just exactly what you were talking about in the OP.
I really hope you do not think that December was the ideal poster to emulate.
I haven’t proposed anything; this isn’t even a registration thread. I do propose that registration isn’t the only way to determine if a newly convicted or committed person is the owner of a firearm. You may feel it’s the best way, but it is not the only way.
So, the NRA has a database, do they? How long before some enterprising young hacker gets his grubby mitts on it?
So you believe them when they tell you they do not own any guns? Bear in mind that we are talking about felons and the mentally ill, people high on the list of who you shouldn’t trust.
As for the database, I wonder if you could fit it all on a thumb drive and sell it to whoever is thinking about invading.
NRA types are lousy with computers, so their security shouldn’t be any trouble. I take “next Monday,” giving him the weekend off. ETA: It’d be too cool to waste on a Saturday reveal.
What remark of mine are you basing that on?
I know that, at least in Kentucky, felons are asked if they own guns and ordered to dispose of them within a certain timeframe (which I can’t recall), because a casual friend of my brother’s had to do that upon being convicted of a drug felony.
But I don’t recall saying that felons and the mentally ill should be taken at their word.
Then how do you know if they have guns? Or guns available to them that are owned by housemates? Are you suggesting that, before their release, their homes and all homes where they may take refuge be thoroughly searched? Enquiring minds want to know what these other ways you inferred with, “…it is not the only way,” are?
But that’s not in the purview of this thread. We should be laughing at how the people most against registration have been taken for chumps by the people they thought were protecting them.
Duplicate except for a 
at the end.
I want people to comply with the law - that being that felons and mentally adjudicated individuals are prohibited from possessing firearms. I am opposed to a government registry of any kind. People can have multiple goals.
What about you, would you be willing to compromise on anything to achieve registration? I feel like you’re avoiding the question.
**“It’s patently clear that if one agrees that criminals and mentally ill people should not have firearms, the only way to achieve this is to have a database telling you who owns firearms.”
**
You wrote this. I’m quoting you. What I’m grasping is that you think if you know who owns firearms, this knowledge will prevent criminals and mental patients from getting their hands on guns. Am I right so far? OK, so your data base contains the names of criminals and the names of mentally ill persons, right? It must categorize them, or it couldn’t help you pick them out as “shouldn’t have a gun”. Seems to me, the only gun owners you need to compile are the criminals and mental patients who are gun owners … if your list contains the fact that they are felons or crazy, you can put together a database of criminal and crazy gun owners.
You don’t need a database of lawful gun owners, because lawful owners names don’t do anything to identify felons and fruitcakes. Why don’t you patiently tell me how your hypothetical database of gun owners allows you to keep guns out of the hands of crooks and crazies?
If anyone is interested the existing situation in Australia is this:
I have a fireams licence issued by the State Govt., a little plastic photo ID like a drivers licence. It lists the weapon classes I’m licenced for and the calibres I can buy ammunition for.
In order to get the licence I have to be a member of an approved club, have completed a safety course, have a gunsafe that meets the proper specifications and the licence gets renewed every 5 years, I also have to shoot at a recognised range 4 times a year and keep a record of that. If you’re a hunter you also need a signed form from a farmer with over 60 acres of land stating you have permission to shoot on their land.
Any guns I own are noted on on the registry (calibre, make, action and serial number) and I can go in at any time and get a paper printout.
Gun sales have to be done through registered dealers. If you sell a gun, it goes onto the dealers books, you get a copy of the disposal form from the dealer and take it to the registry who then re-issue your license. The dealer can only send the gun to another registered dealer (if the sale is interstate).
Now, prior to the 1996 buyback some states and territories had pretty much the same system in place, some had slightly slacker ones and a few (Queensland and, I think, the Northern Territory) only had a system in which the gun owner was licenced but not their guns.
When the buyback was clearly on the way, I know a lot of semi-automatics were ‘sold’ to guys in QLD or the NT. Beacuse of the differing systems between states you could arrange with a friend or family member who was already licenced in one of the slack states to ‘buy’ your gun - all you had to do was notify the police in your area of the disposal of the weapon to a licenced person in the other state. There was no actual way to check that you had done so.
Quite a few shooters kept their semi-auto’s and just got a bolt-action rifle in the same calibre so they could keep buying ammunition and reloading supplies, a lot of guns were sold for a lot more than the government was offering and almost certainly ended up on the black-market or in the hands of criminals (so well-done to the government there).
These days, in theory, if you have a mental illness that can make you a danger to yourself or others the police can check to see if you’re on the registry, same if they are attending a call to your house. I don’t know what the laws are regarding patient confidentiality and whether hospitals or doctors have to report people to the police once they are diagnosed.
Where do crooks and crazies get their guns from?
Glock doesn’t manufacture illegal guns for them to buy. They get their grubby mitts on guns previously owned by lawful gun owners. If all the lawful owners have unregistered, untracked, untraceable guns, it’s pretty easy to see how someone less-than-perfectly-lawful could allow his gun to get in the wrong hands, intentionally or unintentionally.
If all the guns and gun transactions are tracked by owner, the lawful owner is going to be the point at which the illegal transaction stops. If they’re not tracked, you’re trusting the felon or fruitcake to abide by the law, which seems hilariously naive.
See post #82.
While it is a bit shady of the NRA to gather this data in secret, and it is embarrassing to have the NRA be the most prominent gun-rights advocacy group in the nation, there is a world of difference between the NRA compiling names of gun owners and the government doing so. For one, the NRA lacks the ability to pass or enforce laws, so the only thing they can do with their list is solicit money and try to recruit new members. For two, the government is expressly forbidden from compiling a gun registry by the Firearm Owners Protection Act, while private actors like the NRA are not. And for three, if the NRA’s political efforts are aided by their database scheme, then they are, in fact, protecting the people who thought the NRA was protecting them.
Thanks for sharing that.
It’s very scary that your government treats you with such contempt. I couldn’t imagine living under such repressive laws.
You got a better solution?
Do you disagree that the NRA is primarily responsible for the gun rights that we enjoy today?
I quoted your first post right there for all to see. You can’t deny simple reality. The post of mine that you responded to wasn’t “faulty reasoning”. It was a straightforward opinion by me against registration, which you immediately argued against, comparing it to car registrations as being harmless.
As to the concept of the NRA having a database of potential donors…
Can anyone name a single company or organization anywhere that doesn’t have such a list? The Sierra Club has one. The ACLU has one. Bank of America has one.
I can’t imagine how it would be possible for an organization to function without one.
I don’t want to reveal too much, but I have some personal involvement with how the NRA CRM Database works and I assure you it follows the same practices that every company and organization uses.