Wouldn't it be nice...

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

...if we could address issues that actually cause violence before we let loose the social engineers on tools that enable certain types of violence?

[upaloopa]

1. Your not going end violence but

we could try to reduce gun violence.
Obfuscation is not helping.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

3. Put your straw man away.

[upaloopa]

8. As soon as we get better background checks

and a national gun registry and prevent straw purchases we will lower gun violence.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

10. Better background checks is...

...a great idea. What good does a registry do?

[upaloopa]

11. Trace a gun from manufacturer to a criminal

Any where along the line the gun switching owners is not with a background check the previous owner goes to jail also.

[spin]

18. Registration also makes it far easier to confiscate firearms. ...

That is why registration is extremely unlikely to ever become law.

Canada had gun registration for years. How did that work out?

Canadian Firearms Registry

***snip***

On October 25, 2011, the government introduced Bill C-19, legislation to scrap the Canadian Firearms Registry.[3] The bill would repeal the requirement to register non-restricted firearms (long-guns) and mandate the destruction of all records pertaining to the registration of long-guns currently contained in the Canadian Firearms Registry and under the control of the chief firearms officers.[3] The bill passed second reading in the House of Commons (156 to 123).[35] On February 15, 2012 Bill C-19 was passed in the House of Commons (159 to 130) with support from the Conservatives and two NDP MPs. On April 4, 2012 Bill C-19 passed third reading in the Senate by a vote of 50-27 and received royal assent from the Governor General on April 5.[36]

Upon passage of Bill C-19, the Province of Quebec moved for a motion to prevent the destruction of the records. A temporary injunction was granted on April 5, 2012 which will leave enough time for proper legal arguments to be heard.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Firearms_Registry#Current_status

[spin]

23. Yes he is. His party probably gained a lot of votes through the years ...

because they supported doing away with the gun registration program. Perhaps that is one of the prime reasons they are in power today.

[pkdu]

26. You clearly know nothing about Canadian politics. Nt.

[spin]

25. I agree with my state's position on gun registration. ...

The 2012 Florida Statutes

CHAPTER 790
WEAPONS AND FIREARMS

***snip***

790.335?Prohibition of registration of firearms; electronic records.—
(1)?LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS AND INTENT.—
(a)?The Legislature finds and declares that:
1.?The right of individuals to keep and bear arms is guaranteed under both the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and s. 8, Art. I of the State Constitution.
2.?A list, record, or registry of legally owned firearms or law-abiding firearm owners is not a law enforcement tool and can become an instrument for profiling, harassing, or abusing law-abiding citizens based on their choice to own a firearm and exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed under the United States Constitution. Further, such a list, record, or registry has the potential to fall into the wrong hands and become a shopping list for thieves.
3.?A list, record, or registry of legally owned firearms or law-abiding firearm owners is not a tool for fighting terrorism, but rather is an instrument that can be used as a means to profile innocent citizens and to harass and abuse American citizens based solely on their choice to own firearms and exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed under the United States Constitution.
4.?Law-abiding firearm owners whose names have been illegally recorded in a list, record, or registry are entitled to redress.
(b)?The Legislature intends through the provisions of this section to:
1.?Protect the right of individuals to keep and bear arms as guaranteed under both the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and s. 8, Art. I of the State Constitution.
2.?Protect the privacy rights of law-abiding firearm owners.
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0700-0799/0790/Sections/0790.335.html

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

17. Along the line?

What line? Unless you can get the criminals to register their guns, you've only one person, the last one who legally registered the gun. If he reported the gun as lost or stolen, what are you going to do, lock him up?

Criminals can't go to jail for failing to register a gun as that would entail self-incrimination which is already against the Bill of Rights.

[upaloopa]

30. You want to sell your gun. You find a buyer. You get a licensed

gun dealer to do a background check of the buyer and register the gun to the buyer. The gun is used in a crime. No effect on you. Or
You want to sell your gun. You find a buyer. You sell without a background check and new registration. The gun is used in a crime. You go jail.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

31. In reality...

...if it was illegal to sell your gun w/o an NICS, honest folks would follow the law and the criminals would not. Since the criminals are (presumably) using the guns in committing crimes, you can't lock them up for not registering because you cannot force someone to self-incriminate. The small group of formerly honest folks who had no criminal history that could develop one as a consequence of such a law, would take measures to preclude those consequences.

Many straw buyers would "lose" guns or have them "stolen". Circumventing these issues would require more laws, more bookkeeping and lots of time investigating gun trafficking crime rather than actual violent crimes which such laws are designed to prevent.

Please don't come back with "let's just cancel all the gun laws and, while we're at it, trash the speed limits since none of this is 100%." Reasonable measures are desirable but only those measures that will actually affect the ability of primary criminals to harm and kill.

One of the more common threads behind some of the recent mass shooters is mental illness. Lanza, Cho, Loughner, Holmes and others share that issue. It's time to, in part, get people the help that we all need them to get. Yes there is more to be done. Establishing a huge registry is not a first.

[upaloopa]

32. The criminal has no say in this sale

If the crimnal buys the gun he passed a background check and bought a registered gun. We have to start somewhere. We will reduce the number of straw purchases.
Contrary to all the "it won't work and only good guys obey the law" memes we will do something.
The reasons for doing nothing have run their course and are tired expressions of futility and obfuscation.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

33. What do you mean by...

..."The criminal has no say in this sale"? Is this subject of discussion here the person who is a criminal historically by other violent acts or is this a person who becomes a criminal based on his registered/checked purchased and subsequent illegal sale?

"We will reduce the number of straw purchases." Maybe that would reduce the number of straw purchases. I don't think that it will follow that the number of guns in criminal hands will drop. The Canadian Registry as per the Auditor General of Canada: "The Centre does not show how these activities help minimize risks to public safety with evidence-based outcomes such as reduced deaths, injuries and threats from firearms."

I agree something should be done. The other issues I mentioned are not trivial.

[GreenStormCloud]

4. So knifings and beatings are OK? N/T

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

6. Oh come now.

He didn't say that. I'm not sure that he cares about attacks with blunt or edged weapons. I can't tell from his reply. I mean who would ever realistically expect someone who lives in the US and couldn't (even though we "are awash in them') get a gun, to then use a knife or a baseball bat?

[upaloopa]

9. Cute

[jmg257]

2. Much easier to reduce access to the tools then trying to guess who

Might mis-use them once they have them.

Safer too.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

5. I heard that...

...straw men travel in pairs.

Thanks for the thoughts.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

15. My suggestion was to address causes or violence...

...before the means. It seems to me to more socially responsible. Anger, domestic dysfunction, gang activity and drugs all lead to violence. One of the most valuable resources on the planet are people. Their effective utilization and participation in society and the economy is a terrible thing to waste.

There isn't a magic cure but there are certainly opportunities to help people that are being left behind socially or economically. I think anger management would help some people. Some people could use a free rehab to get clean. Fewer people using drugs equals fewer people participating in criminal activity which is much more likely to involve violence than staying on the right side of the law.

Sure we shouldn't sell guns people with violent criminal records, drug habits or mental issues. There are 600,000,000 guns in private hands worldwide. One third of those are here in the US. I believe that the average time between a gun that was recovered after being used in a crime and its being sold new is about 9 years. There is a large number of guns that have never been registered. There is in fact a large number of guns without serial numbers. All the bans and schemes are going to be a small drop in large bucket.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

24. Common ground, yippee!

I'm not opposed to some measures which will help restrict access to guns by folks that we universally accept should be prohibited.

I wanted to elaborate a bit. Allowing people to degenerate into criminal activity undermines any possible contribution they could have made socially and economically and makes them liabilities rather than assets. I know it's kind of capitalistic to view a human as an asset but we look at nature and talk about the cost of oil spills and strip mining. What is allowed to happen to a percentage of teenagers just because of a peer group and/or geography is criminal, in more ways than one.

Well, rant over. Your turn.

[GreenStormCloud]

7. Actually, it isn't that difficult.

The best guide to future actions are that person's past actions. It is very rare for a previously law-abiding person to become a violent criminal. Note: "Rare" does not equal "Never". To commit murder a person has to go through a brutalization and desensitization process first.

[pkdu]

27. Where do the past actions of the recent , now deceased , child kidnapper fall...should he have had

access to guns removed before now?

[GreenStormCloud]

29. I haven't kept up with that case.

I don't know his background. However, please note that I said, ""Rare" does not equal "Never"". There will be a few people that will be surprises.

[Glaug-Eldare]

22. Prohibition of objects tends not to work well,

and brings along loads of unintended consequences. Particularly when owning that object is a civil right.

[Glaug-Eldare]

16. Addiction and mental illness.

Last edited Wed Feb 6, 2013, 06:55 PM - Edit history (1)

The War on Drugs has failed, and the only ones winning are the outfits getting paid to outfit militarized PDs, the private prison corps making huge money holding non-violent offenders, and the ultraviolent cartels and gangs that are trafficking in the stuff. Spend that enforcement money on getting people treated for addiction, and I believe the results will be enormous. Gangs and addicts create staggering amounts of crime, including murders, extortion, robbery, theft, etc. A happy consequence might be the crippling of groups like the Zetas and Sinaloas who are creating hellish conditions for our neighbors in Mexico.

Mental illness hasn't gotten anywhere near the attention or resources it deserves. Untreated mental illness leads directly to suicide, homelessness, violent crime, and, like addiction, a drastic decline in quality of life. Why aren't people getting treated now? Because it's unaffordable, inaccessible, frightening, and stigmatized. Access to psych professionals needs to be affordable, widespread, confidential, and normalized.

Address these two, and I believe the result will be a stunning decrease in crime of all categories, suicide, and substance abuse.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

34. ^^^ all of this! +1 n/t