Would the NRA accept a licensing requirement requiring high levels of gun expertise?

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=JR Brown]
Not even the most paranoid pet owner has ever suggested that the point of the license is so that when the dog-haters take over, they can round up all our dogs and incinerate them.
[/quote]

The difference is that there isn’t the same level of hostility and contempt towards dogs and dog owners that there is towards guns and gun owners.

If gun control advocates would stop pushing an unreasonable legislative agenda, they would have a lot more credibility and many people (but not all) would be less paranoid. For example, it’s become pretty clear that “shall issue” CCW laws don’t increase the number of shootings. There’s no legitimate reason to oppose these laws, and yet gun control advocates fight these laws tooth and nail.

As a gun owner, I’m facing an enemy that’s clearly unreasonable; an enemy that never seeks to repeal gun laws when they don’t work but instead calls for more and more gun laws; an enemy that’s never satisfied; an enemy that has publicly called for sweeping gun bans. I think it’s reasonable to be a little “paranoid” as you describe it.

42

[QUOTE=Bobotheoptimist]
Not really, no. The person who committed the crime and/or is not legally entitled to own a gun is the person to focus on, not some random person who quite probably did not knowingly or intentionally commit a crime.

An unreasonable desire to punish people who aren’t breaking the law is, in my opinion, one of the primary problems with the anti-gunners. That and an apparent wish to keep passing more laws until everyone is breaking the law.
[/QUOTE]

Knowingly transferring a gun to a person who is barred from having one is already a felony. Furthermore, if the seller had reason to believe that the buyer intended to use the gun in the commission of a crime, they can be charged as a accessory to said crime. An individual who assists a person who does not have the legal right to own a gun in obtaining one is not “some random person”, they are a person whom the police have a legal and legitimate reason to investigate to assess whether they knew at the time that said transfer was illegal.

If your car is stolen, and it is later discovered that some third party bought it from the thief and is now claiming ownership, do you agree that it is legitimate to ask if the buyer knew or suspected at the time of purchase that it was a stolen vehicle? Or would you claim that since the buyer “quite probably did not knowingly or intentionally commit a crime”, it would be undesirably intrusive for the police to consider that possibility?

JRB

43

[QUOTE=jtgain]
You’ve already started down the slope.

In your own argument, you’ve stated that it is only a crime to KNOWINGLY transfer a gun to a prohibited person.

If I sell a gun in the classifieds, or in the local Pennysaver paper, when the person shows up to buy, he is a stranger. I don’t know him. He could be Christ himself or just out of prison last week.

So, since this is a “loophole” we need to outlaw private sales or report them. So this has, in your post, gone from a license to own requirement, to a regulating/outlawing private sales requirement.
[/QUOTE]

You might sell a gun to a complete stranger through the classifieds. But you might instead sell it to a friend, or give it to your brother-in-law. A significant number of the guns used in the commission of a crime were obtained through friends or relatives; cases where you might in fact know that the person in question is “just out of prison last week”.

The point that I made was that licensing would allow tracing of ownership. Required reporting of private sales would also allow tracing of ownership and therefore might partially substitute for licensing of individual firearms. Licensing of individual firearms also has the additional benefit, not addressed in my post, that it would allow the verification that the owner has the legal right (and the proper permits, where applicable) to own a firearm of that type, and possibly, following the OP’s suggestion, that the owner has demonstrated some required level of proficiency and safety training. So, yes, licensing would be more useful than required reporting.

Nowhere do I suggest “outlawing” private transactions.

JRB

44

[QUOTE=JR Brown]
Not even the most paranoid pet owner has ever suggested that the point of the license is so that when the dog-haters take over, they can round up all our dogs and incinerate them.
[/QUOTE]

They probably should have such concerns. Google “Denver Pit_Bull”.

45

[QUOTE=ExTank]
First of all, your analogy is not only bad, it’s atrocious. No gun I’ve ever owned, shot, held, seen, or heard about has ever needed worming, or had distemper, or needed a rabies vaccination so it wouldn’t go nuts with brain fever and randomly shoot people.
[/QUOTE]

People cannot contract distemper, most dog intestinal parasites, or most of the other diseases affecting dogs, for that matter. Rabies is quite rare among dogs, compared to wild animals, and despite popular imagination does not necessarily cause the infected animal to randomly attack people (so-called “furious rabies”). Overall, the risk to the general population that can be alleviated by tracing dog ownership is relatively low, but dog licensing is nonetheless pretty much universal in this country.

[/QUOTE]
I do agree that some mechanism of tracing a firearm back to its last legal owner to find out how J. Random Criminal came to be in possession of it is not (again) theoretically a bad idea. As well, reporting each tranaction and having a NICS background check on both parties is theoretically a good idea.

Again, these laws have to be enforced by people, and I’ve met waayyy too many underpaid, pissed-off civil clerks and jerk-off cops to want to trust a fundamental right to their discretion.
[/QUOTE]

All laws are enforced by people. The (federal) regulations specifying who cannot own a gun seem pretty straightforward to me; what “discretion” are you talking about?

JRB

46

[QUOTE=JR Brown]
The point that I made was that licensing would allow tracing of ownership. Required reporting of private sales would also allow tracing of ownership and therefore might partially substitute for licensing of individual firearms. Licensing of individual firearms also has the additional benefit, not addressed in my post, that it would allow the verification that the owner has the legal right (and the proper permits, where applicable) to own a firearm of that type, and possibly, following the OP’s suggestion, that the owner has demonstrated some required level of proficiency and safety training. So, yes, licensing would be more useful than required reporting.

Nowhere do I suggest “outlawing” private transactions.

JRB
[/QUOTE]

So, how would private transactions work under your scheme? Would a seller have to verify that the buyer had a valid “purchase license”? Just look at it or call the state registry to see if it is valid? Compare the purchaser with the picture? What if the purchaser recently grew a beard or mustache? Would the seller be liable criminally or civilly if he sold a gun to a person who presented a fake “gun ID” to the seller?

You didn’t suggest outlawing private transactions, but you wanted “reporting”. Of what? Name, age, sex, date of birth, appeareance, ID #, SSN? of the purchaser or seller the serial # of the gun or what?

If I want to sell a pistol to a guy, do I have to make him bend over and get a fecal sample, or just ask him his name? Or what point in between? And what law enforcement agency do I submit this information to? And are they open 24/7 or do I have to wait for regular business hours for gun sales?

47

[QUOTE=JR Brown]
Knowingly transferring a gun to a person who is barred from having one is already a felony. Furthermore, if the seller had reason to believe that the buyer intended to use the gun in the commission of a crime, they can be charged as a accessory to said crime.
[/QUOTE]
“Knowingly”. So should we require all FTF transactions to have a federal background check? Do you think it’s reasonable to ask individuals to give me their SSN, address, DOB, DL#? Will your tax dollars pay for the increased staffing required to handle all these requests? No? So we’ll just require that my sons pay for a background check on themselves after I die before they can inherit my guns. That’s reasonable.
Or we could punish the person that committed the crime. No… that person is a victim of the gun culture and needs a big hug. Not like that dirty SOB that sold a gun to a person who lied about their background.

48

[QUOTE=brazil84]
As a gun owner, I’m facing an enemy that’s clearly unreasonable; an enemy that never seeks to repeal gun laws when they don’t work but instead calls for more and more gun laws; an enemy that’s never satisfied; an enemy that has publicly called for sweeping gun bans. I think it’s reasonable to be a little “paranoid” as you describe it.
[/QUOTE]

It is not clear that gun laws “don’t work”. There is a good deal of variation between the effect of different laws, and in different places, and a good deal of contradictory research; at best you could say that not all of them been proven to work.

A major confounding factor is that existing laws are not effectively enforced. One of the reasons they are not enforced is that it is too easy to circumvent them. That motivated my post.

I happen to live in a state that has what I consider a pretty enlightened set of gun laws (official site, summary). So far Massachusetts has not dissolved into a totalitarian regime, nor has it been overrun by criminals.

JRB

49

[QUOTE=JR Brown]
It is not clear that gun laws “don’t work”. There is a good deal of variation between the effect of different laws, and in different places, and a good deal of contradictory research; at best you could say that not all of them been proven to work.
[/quote]

So you are saying that there is not a single gun law out there which you are satisfied “doesn’t work”?

That’s just unreasonable. And that’s part of the reason why I don’t trust gun control advocates.

In any event, it seems you don’t deny that “shall issue” CCW is not a problem; or that gun control advocates have aggressively opposed “shall issue” CCW. Again, this is part of the reason why I don’t trust gun control advocates.

50

[QUOTE=JR Brown]
Waaaaait… This is actually a formally stated position? I’ve seen various people on this board make that argument, but I just thought they were, y’know, utterly paranoid?

JRB
[/QUOTE]

Not so much now, but in my lifetime there have been two major Federal laws: the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, which did nothing of the sort, and the Assault Weapons Ban of 1993. Then you see laws eyed at banning “armor-piercing” ammunition, which amounts to most centerfire ammunition. You also see movements to ban hollowpoint ammunition, which is actually far more safe than ball ammunition because it is not prone to overpenetration.

On top of that there are many states that have lists of banned weapons, or in California’s case “unapproved”, which amounts to the same thing. Hand in hand with that is registration schemes, and when you juxtapose that with the obvious intent of the other laws to severely curtail ownership of firearms it is not unreasonable to see that the trend has been limitation with an eye on banishment. Hell, some notable people haven’t even made it a secret that they want to ban firearms. These people are derisively called “gun grabbers”, and with just cause- look at the legislative histories of Kennedy, Schumer, Boxer, Feinstein, McCarthy, and to a certain extent even Hillary Clinton. They would like nothing more than the elimination of private ownership of firearms. Were they to pass laws that accomplished that, registration lists become confiscation lists.

It’s not paranoia, simply concern. But it will be pretty much moot in June.

51

[QUOTE=jtgain]
So, how would private transactions work under your scheme? Would a seller have to verify that the buyer had a valid “purchase license”? Just look at it or call the state registry to see if it is valid? Compare the purchaser with the picture? What if the purchaser recently grew a beard or mustache? Would the seller be liable criminally or civilly if he sold a gun to a person who presented a fake “gun ID” to the seller?

You didn’t suggest outlawing private transactions, but you wanted “reporting”. Of what? Name, age, sex, date of birth, appeareance, ID #, SSN? of the purchaser or seller the serial # of the gun or what?

If I want to sell a pistol to a guy, do I have to make him bend over and get a fecal sample, or just ask him his name? Or what point in between? And what law enforcement agency do I submit this information to? And are they open 24/7 or do I have to wait for regular business hours for gun sales?
[/QUOTE]

Congratulate me, for I have located the Somerville Police department (which turns out to be in that unmarked, vaguely official-looking building down from the post office - who knew?), and acquired a form FA-10, “Firearms sale/rental/lease transactions form” (also used for reporting loss and theft, and for registration of firearms). It was passed over the counter by The World’s Most Bored Clerk, whose sole comment was “Ya need more than one”?

So, MA’s transaction reporting requires this:

The seller fills in their name, dealer number or (for a private transaction) license number, and the make, model, and serial number of the firearm in question (plus a few descriptive things like “check here if large capacity”), and date. The buyer fills in name, address, age, and license number (note that Massachusetts requires a would-be gun buyer to get a firearms license before purchase), and some demographic stuff (race, sex, height, weight, etc). There is a space for the buyer to enter their SS#, but this is marked as “optional” (wonder how many people exercise that option?). Both parties sign.

The top copy of the form is to be submitted by mail to the state Firearms Record Bureau within 7 days of the transaction (cost: one stamp); the other two copies are to be retained by the buyer and seller, respectively. The whole form is one page long and designed to be read by an optical scanning thingie (“USE BLACK COLOR INK ONLY” is repeated about 5 times…).

Aside from the demographic data, which get a :dubious: (don’t they collect that stuff on the licensing form?), this appears to me to be pretty straightforward (modulo the fact that the form serves five different not-entirely-compatible purposes). The instructions include a warning regarding age and licensure requirements for different gun types, but as far as I can see there is no onus on the seller to verify any of the information given by the purchaser.

So not a perfect system, but not unreasonable in my view.

JRB

52

[QUOTE=Bobotheoptimist]
“Knowingly”. So should we require all FTF transactions to have a federal background check? Do you think it’s reasonable to ask individuals to give me their SSN, address, DOB, DL#? Will your tax dollars pay for the increased staffing required to handle all these requests? No? So we’ll just require that my sons pay for a background check on themselves after I die before they can inherit my guns. That’s reasonable.
[/QUOTE]

See post just above.

Your sons may be models of virtue. But I can guarantee that every person on the FBI’s Most Wanted List was someone’s adorable little innocent baby once. If you agree that it is reasonable to restrict certain persons from owning firearms, why should certain forms of transfer (buying a gun from a dealer) be screened for such persons but other forms of transfer (inheritance) not?

For the last time, a person who sells or gives a gun to someone who they know is legally barred from owning one HAS COMMITTED A FEDERAL CRIME. How do you get from wanting to see this crime be punished to giving a different criminal “a big hug”?

JRB

53

[QUOTE=brazil84]
In any event, it seems you don’t deny that “shall issue” CCW is not a problem; or that gun control advocates have aggressively opposed “shall issue” CCW. Again, this is part of the reason why I don’t trust gun control advocates.
[/QUOTE]

I do in fact oppose “shall issue” CCW. But that’s not the topic of this discussion, so far.

JRB

54

[QUOTE=JR Brown]
Aside from the demographic data, which get a :dubious: (don’t they collect that stuff on the licensing form?), this appears to me to be pretty straightforward (modulo the fact that the form serves five different not-entirely-compatible purposes). The instructions include a warning regarding age and licensure requirements for different gun types, but as far as I can see there is no onus on the seller to verify any of the information given by the purchaser.
[/QUOTE]

If someone presents me with identification, exactly how much scrutiny should I give it? Should I call the local police, the state police, the FBI, Interpol, what? I am to give it a reasonable amount of scrutiny, which is what your ID gets when you’re carded for smokes or alcohol. If someone gins up a phony and I can’t tell the difference, is that my fault?

Now all you have to do is tell me who does this. The penalty is such that the only person who would knowingly transfer a firearm to a felon, person with a PFA or DUI conviction, etc., is someone who doesn’t care. Who doesn’t care about the law? That’s right, a criminal. Criminals don’t obey laws, therefore the law doesn’t prevent crime. QED.

Or, alternatively, you could accept that this sort of thing very rarely happens and stop making a big deal over it. That is, unless you’d care to demonstrate that it happens with such alarming frequency that we need to address it immediately for the safety of everybody in these United States.

I can see why. Us permit owners kill so many people that we bathe in their blood every night and still have enough left over to drink.

55

[QUOTE=JR Brown]
For the last time, a person who sells or gives a gun to someone who they know is legally barred from owning one HAS COMMITTED A FEDERAL CRIME. How do you get from wanting to see this crime be punished to giving a different criminal “a big hug”?JRB
[/QUOTE]
And just how is the person selling the gun supposed to know the buyer is a convicted felon? I’ll type really really slow here - If I sell a gun to a guy that says he is legally allowed to own said gun, I have acted in good faith and, I hope, not COMMITTED A FEDERAL CRIME. Yes? With me so far? Now, if the person turns bad, or was already bad and <gasp> lied, you still wish to punish me for this? Yes, I oppose this.

I read your example above, and there’s quite a bit glossed over there, like the requirement for a firearms license before purchase. That’s a hell of a big step from mailing a form.

Do you see the problem now? What if the federal firearms purchase license that would be required was invalid? Would the seller be held responsible for not recognizing a forgery?

56

Oh heck, I’ll just go zero to Godwin (on the topic of why gun nuts believe registration - - - - - > confiscation – they’re not without precedent):

http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/registration_article/registration.html

and

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment080200a.shtml

57

[QUOTE=Huerta88]
Oh heck, I’ll just go zero to Godwin (on the topic of why gun nuts believe registration - - - - - > confiscation – they’re not without precedent):

and

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment080200a.shtml
[/QUOTE]

Except of course that It Can’t Happen Here, because… because, we’re a DEMOCRACY, where the government obeys the people, and the army and police would never betray the people because they’re loyal to our tradition, our culture of freedom… :rolleyes:

58

[QUOTE=JR Brown]
I do in fact oppose “shall issue” CCW. But that’s not the topic of this discussion, so far.
[/quote]

I made it a topic of discussion. See, there are (at least) two reasons why gun control advocates might support stricter registration requirements:

First, the “reasonable” reason – they are just looking to make it easier to solve crime; they don’t want to seriously infringe on gun owners’ liberties; and it’s not just another step towards a total gun ban.

Second, the “cynical” reason – they don’t really care whether the new requirement will reduce crime. they are simply trying to infringe on gun owners’ liberties and take another incremental step towards a total gun ban.

Of course, gun control advocates would have us all believe that they are motivated by #1. And that people are paranoid if they suspect or believe that #2 is what’s really going on.

In my opinion, CCW is a good litmus test to distinguish between these motivations. If gun control advocates were truly reasonable, they would have no problem with “shall issue” CCW. And yet they seem to oppose CCW pretty aggressively.

So I conclude that some degree of “paranoia” is justified. If we look at the actions of gun control advocates – as opposed to their words – it does seem like their ultimate goal is a wide sweeping gun ban.

In fact, I challenge you to deny that you would support a broad gun ban throughout the U.S.

59

[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
If someone presents me with identification, exactly how much scrutiny should I give it? Should I call the local police, the state police, the FBI, Interpol, what? I am to give it a reasonable amount of scrutiny, which is what your ID gets when you’re carded for smokes or alcohol. If someone gins up a phony and I can’t tell the difference, is that my fault?
[/QUOTE]

Read the last half of the last sentence of the post you quoted. Does that help?

[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
Now all you have to do is tell me who does this. The penalty is such that the only person who would knowingly transfer a firearm to a felon, person with a PFA or DUI conviction, etc., is someone who doesn’t care. Who doesn’t care about the law? That’s right, a criminal. Criminals don’t obey laws, therefore the law doesn’t prevent crime. QED.

Or, alternatively, you could accept that this sort of thing very rarely happens and stop making a big deal over it. That is, unless you’d care to demonstrate that it happens with such alarming frequency that we need to address it immediately for the safety of everybody in these United States.
[/QUOTE]

The fact that once a gun has passed into private hands its subsequent movements are essentially invisible has been identified as a non-trivial problem by several studies, so it’s not just my personal opinion.

Our lab is up for a 3-Year Protocol Rewrite in a week and The Boss Lady has put us into Official Panic Mode, so I won’t have a lot of time to pursue this discussion for a few days. I’m sure there will be other occasions to discuss our differences of opinion.

JRB

60

[QUOTE=Bobotheoptimist]
And just how is the person selling the gun supposed to know the buyer is a convicted felon? I’ll type really really slow here - If I sell a gun to a guy that says he is legally allowed to own said gun, I have acted in good faith and, I hope, not COMMITTED A FEDERAL CRIME. Yes? With me so far? Now, if the person turns bad, or was already bad and <gasp> lied, you still wish to punish me for this? Yes, I oppose this.
[/QUOTE]

No. If you did not commit a crime, you did not commit a crime. But if the gun ends up in the hands of someone who is barred from having one, someone along the chain of ownership probably did. If you sell a gun to Tom, and it is then found in the possession of Harry, who is a convicted felon, we could use the information that you transfered said gun to Tom to find Tom and ask him how the gun passed out of his possession. If we can’t track the movements of the gun at all, then we can’t.

There is no “purchase license” in MA. Perhaps I was unclear. There are three types of MA gun license, for different classes of guns, and before you can buy your first gun in any class you must obtain the relevant license. Once you have that license you can buy as many guns as you like in that class without additional licenses. But you can’t buy a gun without already having a license, so the fact that the form requires the buyer to have a license number is not surprising. Also, as I said before, as far as I can tell the seller is not obliged to verify anything, or even so much as look at the buyer’s license. I’m a little out of it at the moment, so if this is still confusing ask, but as I said in the post above we are in a bit of a time crunch for the next few days so I may not be able to respond in a timely manner.

JRB