The Million Mom March-or is it Farce?

Great Debates
161

I have to apologize for taking so long with my responses–I’m having some time constraints at the moment. I’m also having problems with my computer, and I have not been able to get back into page 3 (that’s what I get for using one that burns coal, I guess). So anybody who made any points in there I would ordinarily respond to–or who already brought up what I’m saying here, or who called for my beheading, or whatever–won’t be getting a reaction. Sorry 'bout that.

Anyway, back to the battle.

Danielinthewolvesden said:

I believe the idiot politician in question was then-Senator Howard Metzenbaum (sp?) (D-Ohio).

Jeff_42 said:

Respond to what? I said your jumping on the 10:1 ratio suggested was based on nothing, which it was. I said citing the Civil War and the Vietnam war weren’t relevant, which they weren’t. Now you have actual numbers with some relevance–why would I complain about that?

Number one (again), they are the ones who chose to emphasize accidents, among other things. Was that emphasis stupid? Yes.

Number two, you are doing exactly what you accuse me of doing. I posted the numbers for everything, then discussed the accident angle–which you then attack. Go ahead, but it doesn’t change the facts.

Gee whiz, you know alternate words that have similar meanings and everything. Unfortunately, those words still don’t mean what you seem to think they mean. They apply to misrepresentations of fact, not to opinions you don’t like. Therefore, accusing me of slander (or libel–I’m not entirely sure the courts have decided which would apply to an internet messageboard) is in effect calling me a liar–presumably with regards to the numbers I quoted, unless you are somehow accusing me of misrepresenting my own opinions. If that’s not what you mean–and I take it that’s not–then say what you mean.

By the logic you’re using–and I’m using the term “logic” very loosely here–the fewer people who are shot the worse it is, since that means a higher ratio of deaths to shootings. According to this, it would be better if every man, woman, and child in the country got shot every year, with 40,000 dying–then your chance of dying if shot would negligible. As I said, that’s ridiculous. Your chances of dying if shot aren’t affected diddly-squat by whether anyone else dies if shot or not.

RTFirefly wrote:

I don’t recall when the whole thing came out–it may well have been after Dukakis clinched the nomination. Nevertheless, his position became the Democratic Party position for that election, in the sense that they supported his candidacy–he was the leader of the Party. Did this automatically mean all Democrats thought that way? No, of course not. But Democratic officeholders had to support the total package, and that included the notion that everybody should be disarmed. You seem to be saying that gun owners should stick their heads in the sand, shrug such things off, and trust the good faith of the anti-gunners. Uh huh, right.

Incidentally, here’s an interesting quotation on the subject:

The writer of that sentiment is no other than our own Cecil Adams. This is his take on the Second Amendment: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_123.html

“Well you’re one too!” Uh huh.

[QUOTE]
WTF?? What laws have I suggested shouldn’t be enforced? What criminals have I suggested shouldn’t be punished?

You’re position has been (1) that it’s not criminals you’re worried about, but me–non-criminals who according to you are on the verge of snapping at any time, and that (2) punishment won’t discourage this sort of thing, so (3) you have to make sure I can’t get ahold of guns (or certain types of guns) so when I go postal I hurt fewer people. That’s how I read it, at least. Your reply to the mention of enforcement was to slam the NRA for what you claim was coming late to the table–which ignored the point about anti-gunners not supporting enforcement. (It also confused me with the NRA, which I’m not a member of, but that’s ok–I can live with that.)

Yes, the death penalty is the ultimate sanction. And yes, there can be questions about its administration. But taking it off the table completely is just one more way of saying that we are not going to firmly punish those whose acts are sufficiently violent.

No, actually it wasn’t. The only mention of it came from tracer:

which was then followed by your:

which says in effect that if NRA had been dressed more modestly she wouldn’t have provoked the attack.

I found what I was thinking of in my father’s copy of the November/December 1999 American Rifleman–this is where I got the impression of registration followed by banning. (For those of you don’t know, American Rifleman is an organ of the NRA–it’s not going to be any more balanced than corresponding literature from HCI, or from any other group on either side of the question.) The incident is discussed in the “Standing Guard” column on page 10, which is written by NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre (the Boogyman, to some of you). The assertions in this column are as follows–this will be my paraphrase, to avoid copyright problems. (There doesn’t appear to be a link for American Rifleman articles on the NRA website; otherwise I’d give it.)

In 1989 California banned a series of semi-automatic firearms which were labled “assault weapons,” in the “Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act.” There was a list of the weapons banned, and also a vague catch-all which allowed the state Attorney General to petition a judge to add firearms to the banned list without action by the legislature. (This adding-on provision was struck down as unconstitutional by the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento in March of 1998–I don’t know what happened with it after that.) (And, as I believe Mr.Zambezi has pointed out in another context, it was primarily cosmetic–the ban was for scary-looking guns. The Colt AR-15, which looks like an M-16, is on the list. The Ruger Mini-14, which fires the same cartridge (5.56 x 45 NATO/.223 Remington) and is also a semi-auto, is not on the list. The only real difference is that the AR-15 has a pistol-grip and the Mini-14 does not. Duh.)

Individuals who legally possesed the firearms banned under Roberti-Roos were grandfathered, but were required to register the guns by March 1992. Attorney General Dan Lungren later extended the registration deadline to accomodate those who missed the deadline (one of the examples given is military personel) and those who had moved in from out-of-state. These guns were all registered by law-abiding citizens–convicted criminals can’t be required to register firearms, because it would be self-incriminating. So said the United States Supreme Court in Haynes v. United States (390 U.S. 85, 1968). http://caselaw.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=390&page=85 (Which itself brings up the point that gun registration schemes are aimed only at law-abiding citizens, but never mind that for now.)

What happened next is the crux of the matter. A suit was filed–according to this column it was by HCI, though I would assume they’d have to have someone fronting for them–disputing the legality of extending the registration period. This suit was successful in having the extended registration period declared invalid–that meant the registrations which occured during the extensions were also invalid. And that meant the weapons registered in good faith under the extension were subject to seizure–a de facto retroactive banning. Attorney General Dan Lungren appealed the ruling. However, new Attorney General Bill Lockyer dropped the appeal.

This, according to the column, was the situation as of last November–I have not researched it, so I don’t know what’s happened since. I am going to assume the guns in question have not been seized–I infer this from the fact that neither the current issure of American Rifleman nor the NRA website have it plastered all over the place.

As I said at the outset, this is the NRA view of the matter–somebody else will have to give the HCI view, and maybe a real Californian could tell us what he or she knows of the matter. But this is what I had read at some point, and where I formed the impression of registration followed by banning. Technically, the answer of “[n]o, that’s not what they did” is correct. As a practical matter, this tale suggests just the opposite–registration of guns in good faith under a ruling by a state official, followed by being subject to confiscation.

I don’t dispute that suicide is easier with a gun than with other items. But deciding to count this as an example violence with firearms which should be suppressed by “unavailability of guns” is nothing more than Big-Brotherism–a “we have to make sure you don’t hurt yourself” attitude. I don’t know about you personally–maybe you actually believe that–but I really doubt the majority of your fellows would buy it except as a way to inflate the numbers as a scare tactic.

I wasn’t taliking about your numbers, I was talking about your suggested approach for comparisons:

Surely whatever “clarion call[s]” were needed could have been incorporated into such it. That would have given the Marching Moms more credibility, but made it less politically useful to some of the elements who were backing it. (One of the sponsors was reportedly “Ding-A-Ling Communications.” I haven’t decided whether I believe that or not.)

I didn’t say you folks were a bunch of vicious racists who wear hoods and bedsheets with the doors locked and the shades down. I wasn’t the one who made the comment about the MMs not patrolling the projects–that was MC, I believe. I’m just the one who pointed out where fido learned the trick. And the effects of raising the price of guns impacts the poor, who are disproportionally minorities, just as I said.

Here’s an article on the subject, called “Selective Disarmament: No Guns for the Poor.” I found it on the NRA website, so naturally it will be one-sided, but it serves to illustrate my point.

http://www.nraila.org/research/19991006-BanningGuns-001.shtml

I don’t know–I haven’t looked at handgun prices in years. Are you suggesting that everybody in the country can afford a color TV and/or a pair of Air Jordans? We must have done better at eliminating poverty than I thought.

Sure. RTFirefly said:

My interpretation is that the “gun control movement” (I assume you consider yourself part of it) will decide what it thinks is “suitable” for my “self-defense at short range.” Surely you don’t intend to let me decide for myself–you might not like my choices.

Other than their right to acquire such weapons, you mean. If these weapons are “bad” somehow, how do you justify not banning them (in the true sense) here and now? Conversely, if it’s ok for me to have them, then why take that right away from my kids?

As I said before, you are the one who wants to restrict my freedom and ignore the Constitution–all on the grounds that you think it’s a good idea. As a self-appointed spokesperson for the anti-gun position, you must answer the question of why I should not regard you as I would anyone else who thinks they should be able to tell people how to live their lives. If I see anything that smacks of bad faith or propaganda, I’m gonna question it–and, no, I feel no obligation to pat you on the head and tell you you’re a good boy while I do so. If you wanna claim those are “cheap-shot[s],” go ahead. If you wanna ignore my points and questions, go ahead. If you think I will stop making those points and asking those questions, you are sadly mistaken.

162

Danielinthewolvesden, slythe may be a smartass, but slythe NEVER bullshits!
I live within walking distance of the Portland Exposition Center, where gunshows are held on a regular basis. In Oregon, private sales are not subject to background checks. Now, multiple sales require one to become a liscensed dealer, but this is easily circumvented by having the guns bought one at a time at these shows by stooges. When the background check bill was first proposed, the propriator of the gunshow stalled it by saying the he would set up a table where all of the “private” sales could get a voluntary background check, free of charge.
Not one person came to that table the entire 3-day weekend.
Since records were not kept for all of these “private” sales, there is no way to tell how many more firearms went out of the building with their new owners, but considering the fact that more than half of the dealers there were “private”…well, you fill in the blank. :frowning:

163

Oh, yes, SLYTHE, I certainly agree that ANY law has loopholes, and those who will try “end runs” around the law. But you see, those “dealers” who were selling those guns, were already violating Federal law. It was just hard to show/prove it. And they could not be any big time dealers. the margin(on new guns) is only about 20%, and they would have to be careful about how many guns they sold. They WERE “dealers” and their sales WERE illegal. What you are saying, that in order to stop them, we should stop private citizens from selling ANY guns.
Now, collectors do quite a bit of “trading”, but they are not dealers. And, how about someone who wants to sell all the guns they own? See, here in CA, you cannot sell any handguns except thru a dealer. Even to your buddy, or even if you are the wife of a policeman who died in the line of fire. And, I know that dealers offer maybe 50 cents on the dollar, or less, on used guns, because that’s what we did.

RTF: the Law was NOT effective in stopping “cop killer” bullets from killing cops, as the co never intended to sell them to the public. And, the USA has no monopoly on gun manuf, in fact the “plastic” gun that set off the metal-detector proof gun scare was a Glock, made in Germany. They could LEGALLY make a metalfree gun. But they don’t, because they CAN’T make one that would sell. There is no real market. They want to make LOTS of guns, and the international terrorist market is kinda small. The design & tooling would cost MILLIONS. And they would sell hundreds. They would not bother to design one, as the R&D would be very costly. Now, it is true, the Glock, which has much LESS metal than many guns, DID evade some of the older, cruder metal detectors. But so would a tiny derringer, and one of them shot Lincoln. Gun companies do not design guns especially to sell to criminals, the market’s too small, and there is too much liability and bad publicity.

164

Nowadays, the use of the word “collector” when it comes to weapons just pisses me off. I don’t give a flying f**k WHAT the laws are in California, I have obviously been talking about the laws of Oregon! When these so-called “collectors” set up their tables at the gunshows, they are allowed to sell from their “collection” of used weapons without a background check of the buyer if the buyer only buys one weapon. At a time! All they have to do is either go all the different tables that are set up to circumvent the law, by one gun from each “collector” and walk out with all the weapons they need, or(like I said before) they could use a bunch of surrogate buyers and do it all at one table. No laws are broken, and major amounts of weapons are transfered without any background checks being made.
This major loophole in the law was what the bill was trying to close. All the bill was going to do was require background checks on all gun sales at gunshows. Period.

BTW, the arguments you brought forth against this very much needed bill have already been heard by everyone here in Oregon. The NRA spent mucho dinero fighting it with both inflammatory advertising and major lobbying and campaign contributions to just the right people.

Now if someome can come up with a legitimate reason why guns, sold at gunshows only, shouldn’t require background checks, I’d like to hear it.

165

I apologize for failing to post earlier as I stated I would. I have been in Boston for the past several days.

166

tracer - cool with me. Sometimes one does things to prevent problems which might or might not actually arise. An ounce of prevention, and all that.

Daniel:

OK, so guns with low metal content exist. At least we’ve got that fact established.

In that case, what are we debating? I say I want the suckers to be illegal; you say they’re unfeasible - in which case such a law hardly inconveniences you. I want them to remain illegal in case they ever become more feasible than they are now; why does a law banning low-metal-content guns bother you?

167

RTFirefly wrote:

Sometimes laws are passed for prevention, yes. Sometimes. But if that were the case here, why was this law proposed as a measure to stop “cop killer” bullets, when they had not in fact killed a single cop?

By calling armor-piercing ammo “cop killer bullets”, the rhetoric that got the law passed was clearly pretending that is was not a preventative measure but an attempt to stop “cop killing” that was already going on. Which it, in fact, was not. That sounds awfully dishonest to me.

There is the issue that these laws would require new tests to be performed on every gun to determine its metal content, and these tests would have to be Federally monitored to make sure nobody “cheats”, and there would have to be an approval committee – and, in general, the price of rolling out even a slightly modified gun design would rise appreciably.

168

Prevention is what you do before something might happen. And since law enforcement officers are overwhelmingly the primary users of bulletproof vests and whatnot, it’s a pretty good bet that if the bullets had gotten into criminal hands, killing cops would have been their most significant use, given that standard handgun ammunition will suffice for anyone, cop or civilian, not wearing body armor.

It’s been a long time since that particular fight, so I honestly don’t remember the rhetoric. But if it was as you say, then I find it as dishonest as you did. Even in this world where it often seems that who has the best sound bite is more important than who has the stronger argument, I still don’t believe dishonesty serves a good cause.

My hope (and this isn’t just about guns; it’s a meta-principle about which I hope I’m not deluded) is that if my argument is really the better one, somewhere in that stronger argument is an honest and powerful sound bite.

Most things we buy have to see testing of one sort or another. For most products, such testing amounts to a minute fraction of the purchase price. In this instance, the testing under discussion is much simpler than that that most consumer products undergo.

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RTF: because those bullets WOULD have been useful to Police & federal Agents, and now even they can’t buy them. And in case of the “anti-metal-detector gun”, there is no need for the Law, and it could possibly make legit guns illegal. Your point was the the NRA was fighting Laws like these tooth & nail, and the Gun manufacturors were falling all over themselves making “evil” weapons for criminals & terrorists. No problem exists, no law is needed. And in fact the NRA had to spend a lot of $$ to fight very stupid provisions of the “anti-cop-killer” bullet laws, which as originally written would have banned every deer rifle bullet. There is no use “preventing” things that are not gonna happen, it wastes Taxpayer (mine) $$.

170

Okay, Slythe; now we have something to work with.

1) HB2535: Required background checks at gun shows here in Oregon. It was killed in the House Ways and Means Committee.

As far as I can tell, this bill didn’t even begin to address gun shows; it seemed to define/redefine certain categoeies of crime, their punishments and provision for and regulations concerning the issuance and revocations of concealed-carry permit(s), and the appeals process relating to denial or revocation of concealed-carry licenses.

Additionally, it’s an editorial summary, not the full text of the proposed legislation; is there more to this bill that I’m not seeing? Or is this the meat of the bill?

There is one paragraph that seems to me to be a “gotcha”, a regulatory blank-check for any anti-gun Sheriff, Chief of Police (possibly as proxies for mayors or city councils) to turn a “shall-issue” law into a “may-issue” law.

While this most likely would act out in the form of Amicus briefs, it could conceivably be abused by anti-gun municipalities or groups to make the appeals process financially impractical for an appellant. It’s a vague, two-edged blade that could cut unfairly both ways.

But overall, I see no grounds for the NRA/pro-gun rights parties to try to block this amendment to Oregon’s State Code.

Finally, you asserted that the NRA and the gun lobby did block this bill, yet you offer no evidence or proof.

You also state that it was killed in the House Ways and Means Committee. Could it simply have been that the Committee felt that the bill, as worded, was somehow unworkable?

2. SB887: Required the school district boards to adopt the Eddie Eagle Program for students in K through 6th grade. They could adopt another approved program only if the Eddie Eagle Program was not available. Needless to say, the NRA was poised to swoop in at every school district if this had passed.

Please check your link to this cite; when I tried to click on it, I received a “Page Not Found” error.

So why in the hell would the NRA oppose this? If anything, HCI and CPHV would have tried to kill this.

I personally wouldn’t have worded it this way (as you suggest from your commentary); I would have simply cited Eddie eagle as an example of a proven and approved program, but left the actual choice of which program to use at the discretion of the local school boards.

Without having a working link to let me read the wording of the bill, we have only your word that it gave the NRA a monopoly on firearms safety instuction.

And your word, unfortunately, isn’t sufficient for the purposes of this debate.

3. SB700: Requires person who sells guns at gunshow to be a liscensed dealer. Required promoter of gunshow to ensure compliance.

This sounds like a derivation of the Lautenberg Amendment, which the NRA opposes on the grounds that it is too sweeping and unconstitutional; we don’t oppose the gist of the bill, just the scope.

There seems to be some ignorance (maybe just confusion) here as to the difference between a Licensed Dealer and an Unlicensed Dealer.

Licensed Dealers, almost unequivically, are people that own/operate regular gun stores. They come out to Gun Shows to try and broaden their clientele. Current ATF Regs. already require all Licensed Dealer to perform a background check on all firearms transactions, whether at a gun show or at a retail store.

A search of the ATF’s website didn’t turn up anything concerning “Unlicensed Dealers”. I believe that the term is a political “catch phrase” to denote private citizens who purchase firearms and then resell them, as priivate citizens, to other private citizens, hopefully at a profit.

As such, they (we, me, you) aren’t required to perform background checks. We can take out ads in newspapers, bulletin boards, trade letters, etc.

Undoubtedly, some of these people are selling firearms to people who couldn’t otherwise legally purchase them at a regular gun store. And if they have the money, they can legally purchase space at a gun show, and sell their firearms without having to perform background checks (while their Licensed counterparts do!). The Lautenberg Amendment seeks to close this “loophole” by requiring private citizens at gun shows to perform background checks on prospective purchasers, and to force private enterprises to act as enforcemnt agencies for Federal regulations

Unfortunately, the Lautenberg Amendment would also require private citizens to perform background checks on any transaction, period, effectively killing all private sales of firearms, regardless of location!

If I’m selling one rifle, to my best friend who I know is a legal buyer, Lautenberg would make me conduct a background check on him.

To date the NICS isn’t set up to perform that function for private citizens. OOOPPPSSS!!! Catch-22 just made me a criminal for selling a piece of my private property to another citizen.

(Actually, to date, NICS isn’t even doing it’s designated job for Licensed Dealers!)

As for the second half of that bill, how can you hold one person criminally liable for the actions of a second (or even third) party?

If I sell you a car, it is up to you to register the vehicle, pay the applicable sales tax, get current plates and the requisite amount of insurance. If you do none or only part of this, you have broken the law, not I. So why should I be held criminally or financially liable for your misdeeds?

Same concept applies here; these Gun Show Organizers rent the halls, provide for adequate facilities/staff, publicize the event and hopefully make enough money on vendor and booth fees (as well as ticket sales) to make a profit.

They are not criminally liable for the misconduct or illegal activities of anyone at the show, unless they knowingly (or could reasonably have been expected to know) allow some unsafe/illegal condition at the show; overcrowding is but one example.

Even if the Show Organizer provided a NICS booth for “Unlicensed Dealers” (most likely for a fee), as there is no law currently forcing private citizens to conduct criminal background checks on other private citizens, why should they [unlicensed dealers] bother?

Unscrupoulous? Maybe. I think so; but I don’t purchase firearms for resale.

Illegal? Not yet.

Lautenberg’s “loophole” (and your SB700)is nothing more than a coy attempt to ban private transfer of a firearm from one person to another, without any conditionals or modifiers concerning numbers or frequency; and to make a third party an unwitting accomplice (and legally complicit for purposes of criminal prosecution and/or tort liablility) if such dealer ever sold a firearm that wound up being used in a crime.

A person selling five guns a month without conducting background checks is alarming; me selling an old hunting rifle because I don’t need it anymore is freedom.

And until The Honorable Mr. Lautenberg amends his proposal to be a bit more specific, we [the NRA, among others] will continue to oppose his bill.

Unfortunately, Mr. Lautenberg (and his cronies) won’t sit down and talk with the evil gun lobby, or compromise with their colleagues in both chambers of Congress, effectively deadlocking his proposed legislation. He was offered a more gun-friendly bill, that did specify how many firearms a person could legally sell, and how often, before being classified as a dealer and being required to obtain a license; and taking the pressure off of parties not relevant to the direct transaction.

But he wasn’t interested. He’s only interested in banning the private possession of firearms, one little piece of legislation at a time.

ExTank
3.6 million strong, and growing…

171

I’m sorry. You can imagine all the ulterior motives you want on the part of the “anti-gun lobby”, but the fact of the matter is I can walk into a gunshow next month, buy as many weapons as I want using the methods I described in my previous post, and not go through ONE background check.

As far as SB887(The manditory Eddie Eagle Program bill), I was unclear. The NRA was pushing the bill; it was the schools that opposed it.

172

Ditto, Slythe. In fact, in Feb. of this year, I purchased two rifles from “Unlicensed Dealers” at a Gun Show in Columbia, S.C., no background check (I also purchased one from a regular Licensed Dealer, with a background check).

The point I was making is that the proposed legislation doesn’t discriminate between someone who is shamelessly using loopholes in the law to circumvent background checks from a person who is selling off a few guns from their collection that they don’t need/want anymore; and the liability link of holding third parties responsible for the criminal misuse of products they are only tangentially involved with.

Under these kinds of laws, if I were to hit-and-run a person with my Jeep truck, not only am I criminally liable (and rightly so!) but also the dealership that sold me the truck in '96 and the Chrysler/Jeep Corp. as well! Maybe even some Car Show organizer if it is shown that I decided to purchase my Jeep after having been to a show and seen all of their features. This is unacceptable.

ExTank

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ExTank wrote, re Oregon’s HB 2535 and its treatment of concealed-carry permits:

As opposed to the concealed-carry permit situation here in California, where every County sheriff can decide for any reason – or for no reason – to issue or not issue a concealed-carry permit to just about any applicant.

And ironically, California’s concealed-carry permits also allow you to carry a handgun loaded. To carry a rifle or shotgun loaded in California, you need a different kind of permit which is even harder to obtain!