I try, although difficult at times, to stay neutral in the gun debate. I checked the NRA site, but did not get an answer to my question: What gun laws that are now on the books are not enforced? The NRA says that if they were, the gun problem would be solved, with no additional legislation.
Zymurgist
All of them. Seriously.
In Virginia, it is unusual for prosecutors to charge a firearm violation in addition to the crime that included the gun, even though, in many cases, such charges wouldn’t merge.
In other words, a man that carries a concealed weapon into a store, then produces the weapon and robs the store, is guilty of two crimes: armed robbery, and carrying a concealed weapon. One is not a lesser-included offense of the other, since requires proof of a fact that the other does not.
But prosecutors rarely, if ever, charge such crimes.
From a Knight-Ridder News Service story dated September 7, 1999.
"Every day, a computer at the sprawling FBI crime information center in rural West Virginia kicks out the names of 100 or more felons and others who, although barred by law from owning guns, tried to buy one anyway by lying on their firearms applications.
"In most instances, the federal government knows where to find these gun-law violators and has in its possession evidence that could lead to convictions. But this is one gun law the government rarely enforces.
“Of the 23,000-plus cases referred by the FBI to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for potential prosecution since the beginning of the year, only 65 people have been arrested, according to the ATF.”
Here’s a link to the full story.
Additionally, I think I read somewhere recently, but I can’t find a cite for it now, that there were only 2 prosecutions of children for bringing firearms into classrooms last year.
Here’s mud in yer eye!
Yer pal, UncleBeer.
All-in-all, it looks like the NRA is probably right. How about telling the BATF to stop burning down the compounds of oddball religous groups and do their jobs :D.
–It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
It sounds to me as a conspiracy on the part of governmental agencies.
What do these agencies have to gain from their non-action? What can we do to get them to enforce existing laws?
What do they gain? Kinda missing the point here.
Its expensive as shit to track down, arrest, prosecute, and punish all these people for violating very insignificant mandates. These laws are not enforced because on the whole they are either unenforcable, or too minor to bother with. The ATF, FBI and local authorities have much more pressing issues to attend to with their very limited resources.
The push to add more laws about gun control is a totally useless effort, I’d like to see them contribute that cash to enforcing the current laws. The current laws for the most part are completely adequate to stop most violence if they were enforced and abided by.
An example is the fact that is illegal to own or possess an unregistered gun. 90% (just an example) of gun associated crimes are committed with unregistered guns. So the arguement that it would prevent 90% of crime by enforcing that law seems practical right? Wrong. Only about a 25% of unregistered guns are used in crime. See the number of guns we’re talking about here? So to enforce this law the ATF would need to search every person and dwelling to find these weapons, and if they did lay heavy fines or punishment on a last majority of harmless violators. Its not about intentionally choosing to not enforce these laws, no conspiracy (sorry, get a grip), its just they would need to bail out the ocean with a teaspoon.
In MA. they have a law (Bartley-Fox) which dictated that anyone caught with a gun, in the course of a crime, had to serve AT LEAST 1 year in prison-no ifs, ands, or buts. I tried to research the impact of this law-how many criminals sent to jail as a result of the law. Guess what-no records existed-my guess is the judges routinely ignored these (and many other firearms laws).Passing MORE(and increasingly complicated laws) is NOT the answer.
Here’s an NRA position I can agree with. My solution would be to legalize many, if not most, if not all currently-illegal drugs. That would free up resources to allow them to enforce even the most minor gun-related infractions.
When all else fails, ask Cecil.
Part of the problem is the way the judicial system is set up. The original concept was that we would be ruled by ‘laws, not men’, and individual judges and lawyers would not have the power to inflict their personal opinions and desires on the public, but would instead have to follow the rule of law.
Unfortunately, overcrowded prisons, plea-bargain arrangements, and other misused judicial tools have turned this on its head. So now, two people can go to court on the same day for the same offense, and the people ruling the case can decide to give one 20 years and the other one six months, just because they don’t like the skin color or haircut of one of them.
In the case of firearms laws, these are often the first things to be plea-bargained away. I think it was California that enacted a statute imposing severe penalties for using a firearm in the commission of a crime (something the NRA supports), but almost invariably this charge gets dropped on the way to trial.