Biden to take action on ghost guns.

[Dr. Keith]

I’d say significant gun control is not a risk he is willing to take.

 

[Ranb]

Biden's action is not going to reduce the number of guns in private hands by any significant amount. It will be a bit harder to make your own gun frame/receiver without a serial number.

No one is getting their firearms confiscated as a direct result of this letter/order. Biden remains much more "pro-gun" than Trump.

 

[Bikewer]

Forgive my ignorance, but how does filing off the serial numbers and logos on a handgun stop these all-powerful "THEM!" from taking the guns anyway?

Well, they won’t know it’s there….

I see mentions of sealing the parts for these “ghost guns” in PVC tubes and burying them… and I just saw a post on Reddit by a “prepper” who’d sealed hundreds of rounds of ammunition in vacuum-sealed plastic.
(Which is absurdly unnecessary….)

 

[mgidm86]

You're saying Biden is the pocket of the gun lobby.

Was that supposed to be a question? I don't think Biden is the pocket, or in the pocket of the gun lobby.

I don't think Biden can pass any significant laws or regulations on his own. The problem is Congress, among many others.

 

[Stacyhs]

We've had several mass shootings in the last few days, including 3 over this weekend.

Mass shootings: as American as apple pie.

The three Easter weekend mass shootings are in addition to other gun violence in recent days. Last week, a gunman opened fire in a New York subway car, wounding 10 people. A suspect was arrested the next day. Earlier this month, six people were killed and 12 others wounded in Sacramento, California, during a gunfight between rival gangs as bars closed in a busy downtown area just blocks from the state Capitol.

One week ago, a shooting inside a crowded nightclub in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, left a man and a woman dead and 10 people wounded. And last month, 10 people were shot at a spring break party in Dallas and several others were injured as they tried to escape the gunfire.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation...-u-s-during-easter-weekend-leaving-two-2-dead

 

[Ranb]

I don't think Biden can pass any significant laws or regulations on his own. The problem is Congress, among many others.

Trump had the ATF write an amendment to the CFR to classify bump stocks as machine guns after the Obama administration repeatedly said they were legal to own without a tax stamp.

What is there to stop the Biden administration from doing the same thing as Trump did? Just amend 27CFR further to include any semi-auto firearm capable of bump firing without a bump stock in their definition of a machine gun.

I suppose the courts would be less likely to support such as action seeing as how bump stocks were an outlying gun accessory prior to being declared contraband whereas semi-auto rifles chambered in center fire cartridges are very common.

 

[Ziggurat]

We've had several mass shootings in the last few days, including 3 over this weekend.

Were any of them committed with ghost guns?

If not, then this seems... off topic.

 

[Stacyhs]

Were any of them committed with ghost guns?

If not, then this seems... off topic.

Unknown as of yet. But it wouldn't surprise me.

 

[Ziggurat]

Unknown as of yet. But it wouldn't surprise me.

It would surprise me. Very few gun crimes are committed with ghost guns. Stolen guns are common in crimes, but ghost gun regulations do nothing about stolen guns.

 

[Stacyhs]

It would surprise me. Very few gun crimes are committed with ghost guns. Stolen guns are common in crimes, but ghost gun regulations do nothing about stolen guns.

False claim.

Earlier this week, police said one such ghost gun was used in a shooting at a high school in Arizona.

Ghost guns are increasingly popular among those banned from owning guns.

In a review of 114 federal cases involving ghost guns during the last decade, Everytown found 2,513 of the homemade firearms were connected to criminal activity.

A majority, more than 2,200, involved charges of illegal manufacture or firearm dealing.

"Nearly forty percent of these cases involved defendants who were prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms," the report released in May 2020 said.

It also found ghost guns were frequently being used by criminal organizations and drug traffickers to facilitate crimes, including "gun trafficking, robbery, drug trafficking, terrorism, and murder."

In addition, the review highlighted "troubling examples of white supremacists obtaining ghost guns."

https://www.newsweek.com/ghost-guns-facts-america-gun-controls-breaking-point-1650381

The problem of ghost guns has been growing steadily for years. Today more than 40% of crime guns recovered by ATF agents in California are ghost guns. And the fear that these guns will be used in tragedies has already been borne out. Criminals have used ghost guns to go on deadly rampages in California and Washington, and to ambush law enforcement.

https://giffords.org/blog/2020/05/ghost-guns-are-specifically-designed-for-criminals-blog/


What was that you were saying about "Very few gun crimes are committed with ghost guns,"?

 

[Ziggurat]

What was that you were saying about "Very few gun crimes are committed with ghost guns,"?

I didn't say none. I said very few. And I stand by that. Your first quote is an anecdote, and anecdotes are not a refutation of that claim. Your first link provides no evidence at all about what fraction of gun crimes are committed with a ghost gun. In fact, the crimes involved in the cases mentioned are specifically about illegal gun manufacturing, so it's hardly surprising that there's going to be a lot of ghost guns in cases specifically involving illegal gun manufacturing.

And your second link is obviously also subject to sampling bias. Most gun crimes are state crimes, with no involvement from the ATF. They only involve themselves in specific subsets of gun crimes (such as illegal manufacturing), so that 40% statistic is wildly oversampling ghost guns as a fraction of total gun crimes. Much more representative statistics come from local law enforcement seizures from gun crime cases. And there, rates are pretty low, usually single digits. They are increasing, but they aren't high right now.

So... the odds of being a ghost gun in this case are low, and with no evidence that it was a ghost gun, it's off topic.

 

[Stacyhs]

I didn't say none. I said very few. And I stand by that.

Yes, you did say "very few"....without providing any supporting evidence for that claim. You just made it up out of whole cloth.

Your first quote is an anecdote, and anecdotes are not a refutation of that claim.

Examples are often anecdotes and articles quite often give examples, especially very current ones, of the subject they are writing about. Which this one was. Next strawman...

Your first link provides no evidence at all about what fraction of gun crimes are committed with a ghost gun.

Since ghost guns are, by definition, unable to be traced, it's impossible to know how many crimes are being committed with them unless they are being left at the scene of the crime. Those who are overwhelmingly buying ghost guns are those legally banned from buying/owning/having guns. So what does your logic say about the type of person resorting to ghost guns? Upstanding, honest citizens or criminals or, as the second link points out:

"It also found ghost guns were frequently being used by criminal organizations and drug traffickers to facilitate crimes, including "gun trafficking, robbery, drug trafficking, terrorism, and murder."

In fact, the crimes involved in the cases mentioned are specifically about illegal gun manufacturing or firearm dealing, so it's hardly surprising that there's going to be a lot of ghost guns in cases specifically involving illegal gun manufacturing.

FTFY

You said "Very few gun crimes are committed with ghost guns." Are "illegal manufacture or firearm dealing," not crimes? It also said they "involved charges of illegal manufacture or firearm dealing,"; they did not say those were the only charges or that crimes had not been committed by them. As already stated, the reason for ghost guns in the first place is because they cannot be traced, therefore are extremely difficult or impossible to connect to a crime.

And your second link is obviously also subject to sampling bias.

LOL. How? How is a report on ghost guns involved in federal crimes using federal sources "biased"?

Most gun crimes are state crimes, with no involvement from the ATF. They only involve themselves in specific subsets of gun crimes (such as illegal manufacturing),

OR:

Federal Gun Charges:

The Sale of Firearms Without a License. ...
The Sale of Illegal Firearms. ...
Making False Statements When Purchasing a Gun. ...
Illegal Possession of a Firearm. ...
Convicted Felon Possessing a Firearm. ...
Possessing or Using a Gun in a Drug Trafficking Crime or Other Violent Crime.

...so that 40% statistic is wildly oversampling ghost guns as a fraction of total gun crimes.

I'd say it's wildly undersampling total ghost gun crimes since it's limited to federal crimes and not state. As you claimed, most gun crimes are state gun crimes.

Much more representative statistics come from local law enforcement seizures from gun crime cases.

Agreed. Which means overall ghost gun crimes are under-, not over-, represented in the federal report.

So... the odds of being a ghost gun in this case are low, and with no evidence that it was a ghost gun, it's off topic.

I think they're higher than you think...or want to think. As for being off topic, it may or may not be as there's no evidence as of now that one or more of the recent mass shooting did not involve a ghost gun.

Here are more 'anecdotes' for you:

Last week, a man shot and killed his three children and their supervisor during a visit to The Church of Sacramento. The shooter had a restraining order against him by the children’s mother and was prohibited from purchasing a firearm. However, he was able to get an AR-15 style rifle ghost gun.

Recently, there have been several incidents of school shootings with ghost guns in Maryland, New Mexico (x2), and Kansas.

'Ghost guns' showing up in school shootings, experts fear trend will get worse
Four recent shootings involved a gun made from an online kit, police said.
"From Jan. 1, 2016, through Dec. 31, 2020, there were approximately 23,906 suspected PMFs [ghost guns] reported to ATF as having been recovered by law enforcement from potential crime scenes, including 325 homicides or attempted homicides," ATF spokeswoman Carolyn Gwathmey said in a statement.

Steve Ely was one of three people wounded by a man police say used a ghost gun to carry out a deadly rampage in the Gaslamp Quarter last April.

"Ghost gun" used in deadly shooting of 16-year-old Angellyh Yambo in the Bronx. The two other teens were also shot and are still recovering.

 

[Ziggurat]

Yes, you did say "very few"....without providing any supporting evidence for that claim. You just made it up out of whole cloth.

It’s true that I didn’t provide citations, but it’s true nonetheless. But since you are so butthurt about it, here is one example:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/may/11/numbers-undercut-biden-administration-claims-ghost/

“In Chicago, for example, only 139 out of the 11,258 firearms seized [in 2020] — roughly 1.2% — were ghost guns.”

The absolute stats back up my claim. None of your citations actually contradict it.

The funny thing about all of this is that accepting this reality doesn’t even require that you take any position with regards to Biden’s move. You can think it’s the best thing since sliced bread even while recognizing that such guns are rarely used in crimes. So I really don’t get why you are so invested in this. It’s quite odd.

 

[Stacyhs]

It’s true that I didn’t provide citations, but it’s true nonetheless. But since you are so butthurt about it, here is one example:

Since when is expecting someone to provide a citation for a claim that is the basis for their argument being 'butthurt'? Someone's getting defensive.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/may/11/numbers-undercut-biden-administration-claims-ghost/

“In Chicago, for example, only 139 out of the 11,258 firearms seized [in 2020] — roughly 1.2% — were ghost guns.”

The absolute stats back up my claim. None of your citations actually contradict it.

Um...no, it doesn't. Those are the numbers seized, not the number used in crimes. We don't know how many ghost guns are floating around out there or being used in crimes because well...they freaking GHOST GUNS.

The funny thing about all of this is that accepting this reality doesn’t even require that you take any position with regards to Biden’s move. You can think it’s the best thing since sliced bread even while recognizing that such guns are rarely used in crimes.

The problem is, Zig, that you haven't proved that ghost guns "are rarely used in crimes." You think that the number of them seized in Chicago is somehow evidence that these untraceable guns aren't used in crimes very often. Do criminals generally tend to leave their guns at crime scenes? What percentage of illegal guns in Chicago were actually seized by the government? You can't answer that because we don't know how many illegal guns are out there because...and try to comprehend this...they're NOT REGISTERED OR STOLEN OR BROUGHT IN FROM OUT OF STATE, ETC.

So I really don’t get why you are so invested in this. It’s quite odd.

Why are you so invested in this? In fact, you're the one who brought up ghost guns in response to my post about mass shootings which did not include anything about ghost guns. It's quite odd.

We've had several mass shootings in the last few days, including 3 over this weekend.

Were any of them committed with ghost guns?

If not, then this seems... off topic.

 

[mgidm86]

Trump had the ATF write an amendment to the CFR to classify bump stocks as machine guns after the Obama administration repeatedly said they were legal to own without a tax stamp.

What is there to stop the Biden administration from doing the same thing as Trump did? Just amend 27CFR further to include any semi-auto firearm capable of bump firing without a bump stock in their definition of a machine gun.

I suppose the courts would be less likely to support such as action seeing as how bump stocks were an outlying gun accessory prior to being declared contraband whereas semi-auto rifles chambered in center fire cartridges are very common.

As I said, Biden can't do anything significant on his own. None of this is significant.

 

[Ranb]

So if millions of Americans had to surrender their semi-auto firearms because they were capable of bump firing, it would not be significant?

 

[Ranb]

More comments from Biden on gun control.

https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-says-9mm-bullet-blows-lung-out-body-1711551

On Monday, Biden said the assault weapons ban in the 1990s had "significantly cut down mass murders."

That would be untrue to say the least. The AWB of 1994 did not result in the confiscation of any firearms that I'm aware of. I did not give up mine and the "pre-ban" firearms were legally bought and sold the entire ten years the AWB existed. The "post-ban" versions of AR-15's and other semi-auto rifles also sold very well during the ban.

"And I sat with a trauma doctor, and I asked him—I said, 'What's the difference?'... I said, 'Why are they dying?' And they showed me x-rays. He said, 'A .22-caliber bullet will lodge in the lung, and we can probably get it out, may be able to get it, and save the life. A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body.'

Perhaps the 22 caliber bullet they were discussing was a small 22lr and not the much more powerful .223 Remington? If the 9mm was that good, then our military would be chambering their rifles for it.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

More comments from Biden on gun control.

https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-says-9mm-bullet-blows-lung-out-body-1711551


That would be untrue to say the least. The AWB of 1994 did not result in the confiscation of any firearms that I'm aware of. I did not give up mine and the "pre-ban" firearms were legally bought and sold the entire ten years the AWB existed. The "post-ban" versions of AR-15's and other semi-auto rifles also sold very well during the ban.


Perhaps the 22 caliber bullet they were discussing was a small 22lr and not the much more powerful .223 Remington? If the 9mm was that good, then our military would be chambering their rifles for it.

The AWB never died in a few states in New England, including Massachusetts, and they're still plenty of pre-ban rifles kicking around for slightly elevated prices for those willing to pay. Also, plenty of ban compliant rifles that are pretty much perfect substitutes are available and are somewhat more popular here than they are in non-ban states.

Ironically, my post-ban H&K G3 rifle clone (PTR-91) is ban compliant simply by removing the flash hider and bayonet lug, which changes the lethality of this once widely used military rifle not one bit. Pre-ban 20 rd magazines are available for dirt cheap (I paid $7 each for a box of 10) since so many NATO surplus ones are available, and buying one of these is a bit cheaper than getting the less potent but banned AR-15s. Any such grandfather clause these days would mean the huge supply of existing AR-15's would keep the country well supplied for generations.

Ruger Mini 14's, CETME L, Kel-tec SU-16s, and a variety of civilian versions of modern combat rifles in 5.56 are readily available in ban compliant formats.

The AWB was a dumb law. It does nothing to inhibit the majority of gun crimes which use pistols, and would only slightly change the habits of spree shooters that prefer rifles. It's probably not worth even spending the political capitol to pass such a law and it would probably be just as much effort to pass something more expansive and effective like semi auto bans or magazine limits.

 

[mikegriffith1]

This issue is a prime example of the negative impact of partisan hardliners. There is broad agreement from the center-left to the center to the center-right on some gun control measures, such as expanded background checks, raising the minimum age for gun purchases (or at least rifle purchases) to 21, and reasonable red flag laws.

Some hardline liberals can't tolerate the common-sense idea of allowing at least some school staffers to be armed, while some hardline conservatives oppose changing the age requirement and even oppose the red flag law enacted in the GOP-controlled state of Florida and signed by none other than Rick DeSantis.

When I went to school in Israel, anytime we went on a field trip, one of the teachers brought a rifle, and nobody said boo about it. We all understood that it was for our protection. In Israel, nearly all schools have only one access point, and that point is manned by an armed security guard.

 

[Stacyhs]

This issue is a prime example of the negative impact of partisan hardliners. There is broad agreement from the center-left to the center to the center-right on some gun control measures, such as expanded background checks, raising the minimum age for gun purchases (or at least rifle purchases) to 21, and reasonable red flag laws.

Some hardline liberals can't tolerate the common-sense idea of allowing at least some school staffers to be armed, while some hardline conservatives oppose changing the age requirement and even oppose the red flag law enacted in the GOP-controlled state of Florida and signed by none other than Rick DeSantis. 's

When I went to school in Israel, anytime we went on a field trip, one of the teachers brought a rifle, and nobody said boo about it. We all understood that it was for our protection. In Israel, nearly all schools have only one access point, and that point is manned by an armed security guard.

Doctor: You have a cancerous mole. Our plan is to treat your symptoms with chemo, pain pills, and thoughts and prayers instead of removing the mole itself.