Something of a hijack (but hey, it’s a Pit thread) but surely you’d want people to know you had a gun? If someone’s reason is “If i’m put in a dangerous situation, I want to be able to defend myself” it just seems to make sense that you’d want people to know you have a gun. It’d stop you getting into that situation in the first place… not in all cases, but if I as a thief have a choice between attacking a guy I know has a gun or waiting for the next person, i’m going to wait.
I guess I just don’t understand CC laws. Could someone explain to a less gun-experienced Brit?
It depends on what the thief is intending to steal. Carrying a gun openly might discourage a thief aiming for your wallet, but it makes you a target for the thief who is shopping for a good Glock.
Yes, yes, I know, some will argue that “good” and “Glock” are mutually exclusive, but I’m a Glockie, so tough takkie.
I think you vastly overestimate the number of people who would even bother to read these records. It’s not like they’re broadcasting this stuff during the Superbowl or something. Somebody actually has to have an active interest in viewing these records and then they have to request them, and go through whatever hoops are required to get them. Other than a nosy reporter or two, who’s going to bother? Certainly, your average Joe off the street doesn’t even know he can get these records, let alone care enough to actually do it.
On a slow news day the press might castigate a basketball player for walking down the street, you said. This implies that there’s nothing wrong with walking down the street, unlike the other things which there is something wrong with: Adultery, drunk driving and carrying a gun.
Don’t blame me for what you posted. If you didn’t mean there is something wrong with carrying a gun it sure didn’t come across that way. Simply clear up your meaning and move on. It’s not my fault you wrote that.
I’d ask the opposite. Unless the government plans on taking my guns away, why do they need to know I have them? Once the background check is complete and I buy my gun there is no need to keep a record. Keeping those records costs time and money for the state. It’s just not needed.
Well, there are plenty of people who believe that each one of those things (adultery; drunk driving; carrying a gun) is wrong. There are some peope who believe that some of them are OK, while some aren’t. And there are probably some people who believe that all three are fine.
You act as if adultery and drunk driving are considered universally unacceptable. I submit that, given the amount of adultery and the number of arrests for drunk driving we see in the US each year, opinion on these things isn’t as unanimous as you would appear to believe.
I meant, and it’s pretty clear from my post, that carrying a gun is CONTROVERSIAL in America, not that there’s anything inherently wring with it. Do you deny that there are debates over this issue, that it is a controversial issue? How can you? You’re involved in one in this very thread.
It’s not your fault that i wrote what i did. It’s just your fault that you’re too obsessed or too stupid to take away the clear and obvious intent of my post. And you keep harping on it even after i reiterated my position. Idiot.
I think it encourages responsible gun ownership and reduces the incidence of “loose cannons.” I think that one would be more careful about firing one’s weapon carelessly (or in anger) if one knew there was a good chance that one could be traced.
Sorry for the double post, another thought. If the gun were to be stolen and recovered, it makes it much easier for the authorities to be able to return it to its rightful owner.
Databases to track gun owners are complex and expensive. They don’t work. Most importantly, they enable the government to take guns away when and if they decide to. Much better not to give them so much power, I say.
A paranoid person might suggest that if a criminal can go look up a list of people who have a CCP or own a gun, they would know which people not to rob, making everyone else less safe. Conversely, if they want a gun they know exactly who to go after, as Mellivora capens suggested.
The whole idea behind a CCP is that nobody knows you have it. Keeping a list of CCP holders defeats that purpose and is a waste of time and money the government could be spending better elsewhere.
I think it’s a good idea. You can put the murderer away, but the manslauhgterer will be out in ten years, and shouldn’t have a gun, not even one he bought 11 years ago. And the reckless endangerer might be out before he gets the final notice from his mortgage lender. He wouldn’t even have to engage in active subterfuge.
They might not be universally unacceptable, but they certainly are widely viewed as being immoral and wrong. Even people who cheat or drive drunk would probably usually acknowledge that what they are doing isn’t a good thing.
It’s not clear from your post. Sorry. Those things you listed are WRONG. That’s what I think when somebody says adultery and driving drunk. They’re also kind of CONTROVERSIAL, but not really. We argue about everything on the SDMB but would there be anyone to show up and defend adultery or drunk driving on this board?
I know your position now. I’m not harping on it. I’m just telling you why you were misunderstood. I’m not an idiot or a moron for simply reading your posts as anyone would. (And indeed, as at least one other did.)
If you’d stop calling me names, I might not feel the need to explain myself to you. You should try that.
Yes. Debaser doesn’t believe the government should keep track of whether or not you have a gun, once you’ve passed the background check. It would be a little silly to have alaw prohibiting felons from owning guns, and give the government no power to enforce it, other than asking the felon, “Are you suuure you don’t have any more guns? You wouldn’t lie to us would you?”
I think an important thing to consider here is the fact that newspapers and other news outlets need to make money. The only way they do this is if they print or publish something that people will pay to read or listen to. The thing is, people are more likely to pay for stuff that’s scandalous or incendiary. Actual facts in a news story often come in a far second to misleading spin or hyperbole. Most people couldn’t tell the difference anyway. If more people had critical thinking skills, they wouldn’t subscribe to the ‘journalism’ that plays fast and loose with facts, and those organizations would go out of business.
At any rate, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the players (or anyone) to want a gun license. I don’t think that it’s wrong to have records for concealed licenses, especially in case of serious incidents. I think that regardless of how ‘private’ those licenses are, the information will likely get out due to human nature and even more likely if it involves some sort of celebrity. Celebrities certainly have a right not to explain their actions, provided those actions don’t harm or affect anybody else. But the point is, no one would make a big deal out of it if everybody stopped wasting their lives paying attention to stupid, useless bullshit.
Let’s imagine that there is a government tracking database for guns. It keeps track of who buys them, and anyone who sells or gives a gun to someone else has to report it to keep the database up to date.
Now let’s imagine a criminal named Joe. Joe was convicted of armed robbery, did his time, and now is out. He decides that he wants a gun. So he goes to his local black market dealer and buys one.
Now, please to explain how a gun database will help keep a gun out of Joe’s hands. The seller won’t report it, and Joe damn sure won’t either. So what we come down to is probably Joe getting arrested for something and they find a gun on him and charge him with illegal possesion (or whatever the charge is). Just like now, except that millions of dollars was spent on a useless database to track the guns of law abiding citizens who would’ve never committed a violent crime to begin with.
This is not a gun ownership database we’re talking about, it’s simply about the application for a concealed carry permit being a public record, as other applications for government permits are. Why is it so important that that remain unknown? I’m not anti-gun in general, but frankly, this emphasis on secrecy worries me somewhat.
Simple: it doesn’t. I was giving one of several answers to the question, Why does the governement need to keep any record of whether you’ve obtained a permit. My answer was:
This was in addition to other answers about identifying stolen guns, and returning them to their owners.
If I’d claimed that it would keep illegal guns away from criminals, you might have a point. I think you might be arguing with someone else, and quoting me by accident.