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A hypothetical gun control proposal

thaiboxerken said:
Yes, stricter controls would mean less guns available for export from USA to Mexico. If they change their source, so what? Are you upset that those profits wouldn't be coming to the USA?
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Firearm diverted to the Mexican criminal market represent millions of dollars in sales for retailers in the border region. It's in their financial interest to keep the flow wide open.
 
Just throwing out a random suggestion here:

Maybe the penalty for stealing a gun should be several times that for stealing a car or a pillow case full of jewelry, regardless of the value of either.
 
triforcharity said:
But using your logic, we would just ban them.
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thai has already established that anything that kills people should be banned, unless of course, it's an item that he owns/uses or a hobby he practices.

Every post he makes is dripping with bias.

I've yet to see a single pro-gun person on this forum claim that complete open-market freedom to own whatever damn firearm they please is the way we should go. The complete reverse is true, where the pro-gun side is behind ideas where registration, safety, and security of firearms is long overdue and necessary.

It's too bad we can't adopt a system like Switzerland...where they have one of the highest civilian gun-ownership in the world and an extremely low homicide-by-firearm rate (0.52).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland
 
leftysergeant said:
Just throwing out a random suggestion here:

Maybe the penalty for stealing a gun should be several times that for stealing a car or a pillow case full of jewelry, regardless of the value of either.
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Yes and any offence involving a gun should attract the most severe of penalties in terms of imprisonment.
 
leftysergeant said:
Just throwing out a random suggestion here:

Maybe the penalty for stealing a gun should be several times that for stealing a car or a pillow case full of jewelry, regardless of the value of either.
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Is this not already the case? I just assumed it was. If it isn't it damn well should be.
 
thaiboxerken said:
What do I own or use that's primary purpose is killing?
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Killing is not the primary purpose of a gun in a defensive or military application. It is an instrument to, as Clausewitz put it, "destroy your enemy's ability to resist your will."

Preparedness can keep the barbarians on the other side of the river and the goblins at bay without firing a shot.
 
leftysergeant said:
Killing is not the primary purpose of a gun in a defensive or military application. It is an instrument to, as Clausewitz put it, "destroy your enemy's ability to resist your will."

Preparedness can keep the barbarians on the other side of the river and the goblins at bay without firing a shot.
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That is contradictory.
 
A hypothetical gun control proposal, from http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/20...-compromise-gun-control-bill-i-can-live-with/

  • Repeal the Brady Bill and do away with the NICS system entirely. It was supposed to keep felons from getting firearms but has failed miserably. The solution isn’t to “tweak” the cumbersome and expensive background check process. The answer is to get rid of it entirely.
  • Repeal the Hughes Amendment to the Firearm Owners Protection Act limiting ownership of full-auto weapons to those made prior to 1986.
  • In accordance with the 1968 amendments to the National Firearms Act, there will be a 90-day amnesty registration period every year, from January 1st through April 1st (or February 29th on leap years). The ATF will have 30 days to process any NFA transaction. Failure to complete a transaction in 30 days will result in the refund of all fees to the transferees and issuance of a default registration letter stating that the NFA items in question are legally possessed even if they are not entered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.
  • Any pilot or aircraft crew member who is an honorably discharged veteran or possesses a permit to carry from any state will be authorized to carry a firearm while in the air in any manner they deem fit.
  • Any schoolteacher, school employee or school volunteer who is an honorably discharged veteran or possesses a permit to carry from any state is authorized to carry a firearm in any school in any manner they deem fit. Any school district which is found in violation of this law shall forfeit all federal funds for a period of 6 months (for a first offense) and not less than 1 year for subsequent offenses.
  • Repeal the Gun Free School Zone Act of 1990.
  • Congress shall deem that Article IV Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution (commonly known as the full faith and credit clause) applies to state-issued permits to carry. Any state which fails to honor the permits of any other state shall forfeit all federal funds for a period of 6 months (for a first offense) and not less than 1 year for subsequent offenses.
  • In accordance with Coffin v. United States a person who is attacked in a place s/he has a right to be and who is not engaged in unlawful activity will have no duty to retreat and will have the right to meet force with force, including deadly force if s/he reasonably believes it is necessary in order to prevent death or great bodily harm to him/herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony and shall be presumed to have acted in self-defense until proven otherwise. Law enforcement may not arrest an individual for using deadly force unless they have probable cause to believe that the use of force was unlawful.
  • The definition of “sporting purposes” shall include all types of sport and competitive shooting and all “military style” and semi-automatic rifles, shotguns and handguns are hereby deemed suitable for sport shooting.
  • Any firearm or firearm accessory made by a private individual for their personal use will be beyond the authority of Congress under its constitutional power to regulate commerce among the states.
  • “High capacity” magazines will be defined as any ammunition feeding device designed to hold more than 150 rounds.
  • “Armor piercing” bullets will be defined as any round which, when fired from a pistol with a barrel of no more than 4 inches (not including recoil or sound suppressor) can pierce 1 inch of HY-100 steel (or its equivalent) at 200 yards.
  • Any business will have the right to exclude weapons from their premises and by doing so they accept strict liability for protecting their employees, customers and visitors.

Why do gun grabbers make all the rules and expect gun owners to make all the compromises?
 
In other news, Sam Harris has a pretty good rationale for guns (reposted from one of the other (now 11) gun threads: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-riddle-of-the-gun

Like most gun owners, I understand the ethical importance of guns and cannot honestly wish for a world without them. I suspect that sentiment will shock many readers. Wouldn’t any decent person wish for a world without guns? In my view, only someone who doesn’t understand violence could wish for such a world. A world without guns is one in which the most aggressive men can do more or less anything they want. It is a world in which a man with a knife can rape and murder a woman in the presence of a dozen witnesses, and none will find the courage to intervene. There have been cases of prison guards (who generally do not carry guns) helplessly standing by as one of their own was stabbed to death by a lone prisoner armed with an improvised blade. The hesitation of bystanders in these situations makes perfect sense—and “diffusion of responsibility” has little to do with it. The fantasies of many martial artists aside, to go unarmed against a person with a knife is to put oneself in very real peril, regardless of one’s training. The same can be said of attacks involving multiple assailants. A world without guns is a world in which no man, not even a member of Seal Team Six, can reasonably expect to prevail over more than one determined attacker at a time. A world without guns, therefore, is one in which the advantages of youth, size, strength, aggression, and sheer numbers are almost always decisive. Who could be nostalgic for such a world?
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Kestrel said:
Firearm diverted to the Mexican criminal market represent millions of dollars in sales for retailers in the border region. It's in their financial interest to keep the flow wide open.
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Proof?

FFL dealers have no interest in selling firearms that end up being the focus of a compliance inspection or worse from ATF.

The recent Fast and Furious scandal started not with intrepid investigative reporters or crusading anti-gun politicians, it started with FFL dealers begging ATF to intervene in sales that didn't add up - and believe me, I know of more FFL dealers contacting ATF with information on sketchy buyers than there have been sucessful prosecutions of rogue dealers.

ATF has sucessfully closed shops and revoked licenses for paperwork problems, but actual illegal weapon sales by FFL dealers are quite rare, certainly not anywhere near your asserted millions of dollars in sales.

Reason #1 - paper trail from manufacturer/distributer to dealer. The receiving dealer must document the receipt of and disposition of any firearm he receives in the course of conducting business in the ATF approved "Bound Book" - a dealer can be dinged for not entering the required information even if the firearm has not been removed from a shipping box at the time of an inspection - I know of a dealer who was visited in the early afternoon who had failed to unpack and enter the pertinent information from his morning UPS delivery - it's that serious.

Reason #2 - paper trail from dealer to buyer, the 4473 and any associated state forms (as applicable) If a dealer has a firearm on paper not present and accounted for at time of inspection by the required federal & state forms, the dealer will soon be in a world of hurt.

Here's a website of a consulting agency with an interesting business model that exists because of zealous ATF enforcement of paperwork regs - literally down to crossed "T's"

http://www.fflguard.com/red’s-trading-post/

With a testimonial from a guy who's gone through the ringer over simple paperwork mistakes - with not one allegation of an illegal sale.

Millions of dollars in illegal sales, even across a geographical area, is fiction, not fact.
 
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shawmutt said:
A hypothetical gun control proposal, from http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/20...-compromise-gun-control-bill-i-can-live-with/

  • Repeal the Brady Bill and do away with the NICS system entirely. It was supposed to keep felons from getting firearms but has failed miserably. The solution isn’t to “tweak” the cumbersome and expensive background check process. The answer is to get rid of it entirely.
  • Repeal the Hughes Amendment to the Firearm Owners Protection Act limiting ownership of full-auto weapons to those made prior to 1986.
  • In accordance with the 1968 amendments to the National Firearms Act, there will be a 90-day amnesty registration period every year, from January 1st through April 1st (or February 29th on leap years). The ATF will have 30 days to process any NFA transaction. Failure to complete a transaction in 30 days will result in the refund of all fees to the transferees and issuance of a default registration letter stating that the NFA items in question are legally possessed even if they are not entered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.
  • Any pilot or aircraft crew member who is an honorably discharged veteran or possesses a permit to carry from any state will be authorized to carry a firearm while in the air in any manner they deem fit.
  • Any schoolteacher, school employee or school volunteer who is an honorably discharged veteran or possesses a permit to carry from any state is authorized to carry a firearm in any school in any manner they deem fit. Any school district which is found in violation of this law shall forfeit all federal funds for a period of 6 months (for a first offense) and not less than 1 year for subsequent offenses.
  • Repeal the Gun Free School Zone Act of 1990.
  • Congress shall deem that Article IV Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution (commonly known as the full faith and credit clause) applies to state-issued permits to carry. Any state which fails to honor the permits of any other state shall forfeit all federal funds for a period of 6 months (for a first offense) and not less than 1 year for subsequent offenses.
  • In accordance with Coffin v. United States a person who is attacked in a place s/he has a right to be and who is not engaged in unlawful activity will have no duty to retreat and will have the right to meet force with force, including deadly force if s/he reasonably believes it is necessary in order to prevent death or great bodily harm to him/herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony and shall be presumed to have acted in self-defense until proven otherwise. Law enforcement may not arrest an individual for using deadly force unless they have probable cause to believe that the use of force was unlawful.
  • The definition of “sporting purposes” shall include all types of sport and competitive shooting and all “military style” and semi-automatic rifles, shotguns and handguns are hereby deemed suitable for sport shooting.
  • Any firearm or firearm accessory made by a private individual for their personal use will be beyond the authority of Congress under its constitutional power to regulate commerce among the states.
  • “High capacity” magazines will be defined as any ammunition feeding device designed to hold more than 150 rounds.
  • “Armor piercing” bullets will be defined as any round which, when fired from a pistol with a barrel of no more than 4 inches (not including recoil or sound suppressor) can pierce 1 inch of HY-100 steel (or its equivalent) at 200 yards.
  • Any business will have the right to exclude weapons from their premises and by doing so they accept strict liability for protecting their employees, customers and visitors.

Why do gun grabbers make all the rules and expect gun owners to make all the compromises?
Click to expand...

Just off th top - the bolded would never hold water under current law - a LEA doesn't have a legally enforcable duty to protect a given individual, and the way the world simply works, even I couldn't prove to a legal certainty that had I had a firearm in possession (when forbidden by co. policy) I would have stopped a criminal or other from injuring me or others.
 
BStrong said:
Millions of dollars in illegal sales, even across a geographical area, is fiction, not fact.
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Where in my post did I say illegal sales?

As for the numbers, it's not exactly rocket science. Tens of thousands of firearms confiscated from Mexican drug gangs have been traced back to retailers in the US. This easily amounts to millions in sales.

Long before the Fast and Furious scandal broke, the ATF requested that dealers in the border region report multiple sales of certain rifles popular with the Mexican criminal gangs to any one individual. The gun lobby went ballistic and the NRA filed suit to block the ATF from requiring dealers to report multiple sales.
 
Kestrel said:
Where in my post did I say illegal sales?

As for the numbers, it's not exactly rocket science. Tens of thousands of firearms confiscated from Mexican drug gangs have been traced back to retailers in the US. This easily amounts to millions in sales.

Long before the Fast and Furious scandal broke, the ATF requested that dealers in the border region report multiple sales of certain rifles popular with the Mexican criminal gangs to any one individual. The gun lobby went ballistic and the NRA filed suit to block the ATF from requiring dealers to report multiple sales.
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Let's try this again.

Do you have numbers that back up your assertion that:

"Firearm diverted to the Mexican criminal market represent millions of dollars in sales for retailers in the border region"
 
BStrong said:
Let's try this again.

Do you have numbers that back up your assertion that:

"Firearm diverted to the Mexican criminal market represent millions of dollars in sales for retailers in the border region"
Click to expand...

The dealers didn't give away the firearms, they sold them.
 
Kestrel said:
Where in my post did I say illegal sales?

As for the numbers, it's not exactly rocket science. Tens of thousands of firearms confiscated from Mexican drug gangs have been traced back to retailers in the US. This easily amounts to millions in sales.

Long before the Fast and Furious scandal broke, the ATF requested that dealers in the border region report multiple sales of certain rifles popular with the Mexican criminal gangs to any one individual. The gun lobby went ballistic and the NRA filed suit to block the ATF from requiring dealers to report multiple sales.
Click to expand...

The activity you describe has been illegal for a long time, so how about enforcing the law?

It seems hard to believe the sales were traced to retailers, since the retailer would be instantly out of business without an FFL.
 
LTC8K6 said:
The activity you describe has been illegal for a long time, so how about enforcing the law?

It seems hard to believe the sales were traced to retailers, since the retailer would be instantly out of business without an FFL.
Click to expand...

It's illegal for a dealer to knowingly sell to a straw buyer. Even assuming the dealer knew, the ATF has to prove it to pull a license.
 
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