I asked this maybe a dozen times in other threads and never got an answer. jtgain, maybe you can help. We all agree that criminals and mentally ill people shouldn’t have guns. We also know that people enter into those classes in a fashion that is not structured. That is, it is possible that at any particular point in time, someone might experience a mental break, or engage in criminal acts.
So, when a person does so, we might be able to prevent them from obtaining a firearm. But without registration, how can we know whether or not they already have one?
Well, Kable has not been around to answer this post, but I for one don’t know what this list is supposed to prove.
Self defense. Shows the system works.
Clearly a hunting accident.
Regretful, but they probably would have stabbed themselves to death if they didn’t have a gun. Death with dignity.
This hero saved the life of hundreds of people and saved the state thousands of dollars being the the prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner in this case. It’s called responsibility people, this hero was responsible for his own actions (those of the last 17 years). A true patriot.
Clearly a hunting accident.
Hunting accident. Babies can look a lot like a water fowl in pre-dawn light. I almost made this mistake myself once.
Clearly a misfired weapon. I once put a hole in the side of my house while cleaning one of my guns (I forgot to take the round out of the chamber), this sounds like something similar. I am sure the patriot learned a lesson and will be more careful in the future.
Shows the system works.
Show’s the system works, obviously the robber was shot in self-defense.
Hunting accident.
What? This boy was just exercising his constitutional rights and the jack booted liberal school administrators are trying to curtail them.
Finally, here is a criminal who illegally had a gun (probably stolen from a patriot) that was unable to use his gun in the commission of a crime due to the bravery of a law abiding citizen who left his gun at home. If everyone around had been armed, it would have probably been unnecessary for this gentleman to tackle the criminal…
For those of us keeping score, it is clear which side of the argument is winning.:rolleyes:
If we can’t trust grandpa to do the background check, how can we trust him to send in the transfer form?
It’s a good question that has given me pause. If I understand it, take a gun owner like myself who obeys the law and is (reasonably) sane. I own 4 guns (for example).
Now, for whatever reason I go off my nut or my finances, morals, family life, or whatever degrades and I start committing crimes or doing things that would make people question my sanity. Your proposal would allow the authorities to instantly say: “Well, jtgain owns 4 guns with serial numbers XXX, YYY, ZZZ, and QQQ, with these makes, models and calibers. Let’s be on the lookout for him.” Under the current system, they don’t know if I own zero guns or five hundred guns.
It’s a fair question, and let me think on it. My initial reaction is to oppose it on the grounds that I shouldn’t be held responsible for what I might do. But I’m not a gun nut reactionary, so lemme digest it for a bit…
It’s not a matter of trust. It would be a crime not to. By requiring both parties to send in the transfer form, it is immediately evident if one party doesn’t. If grandpa doesn’t send in the form but Joe does, grandpa gets a call from the authorities.
If neither party sends in the form, then the registry doesn’t know about the transfer. However, the last registered owner is risking big fines if the gun later shows up under a different owner–either from a crime or a new transfer. Grandpa is not going to want to risk that and will likely register that he transferred the gun. Even if the criminal he sold it to doesn’t register, at least the authorities know precisely when and how the gun got into the criminal system.
This is sometimes done with car sales. When the current owner sells the car, they can send in a form to the state indicating they no longer own it. This way if the new owner doesn’t register and it shows up in a crime, they have documented that they sold it to someone else.
A registration database wouldn’t make you a suspect in this case. But once you are convicted of a felony, it would be used to take your guns away. Today, if you acquired your guns from private sale, there is no record of you owning any guns. There is no way for the authorities to know that you should have your existing guns removed after you are convicted. But with a registration database that includes private sales, the authorities would know that you have X guns and can make sure they are confiscated.
It would also help when they came to arrest you. They would have an idea of what sort of arsenal you have and would be able to plan accordingly.
Obviously if defensive gun use always made the news you could swamp those numbers. Taking even the lowest of the low estimates of 55,000 DGU per year…
…divided by 365 leads to would lead to over 150 crimes thwarted per day. Please check my math Euphonious, I don’t want to make a mistake.
Also, I was at a USPSA shooting match and there were over 100 shooters shooting over 100 rounds each, mostly out of semi-auto handguns. Not one injury or incident and everyone had a lot of fun.
That’s why I bent over backwards for the gun-grabbers and used the lowest estimate for DGU. So I realize the real number may be a lot higher. Based on the lowest number I used, was my math correct?
Is that survey one of the ones that defines a DGU as locking your bedroom door when you hear somebody breaking in in the middle of the night, yelling “Get out of here, I have a gun”, then waiting for the bad guys to rob you and leave? If so, I think 55,000 may be a bit high.
The NRA membership files are stored on a computer. Computers can be compromised by governments, as demonstrated by Stuxnet. As for the tanks, I will leave you to explain them.
Or is it one of the ones that counts DGU as “I saw a guy and he was prolly gonna do a crime, but I flashed mah gun at him and he runned away.”
Or counts the stories that folks mail in to gun lovers digest that read like Penthouse Forum letters: “Dear Gun Lovers Digest: i never thought this would happen to me, but one day I was out minding my own business, with my trusty gun, and…”
