Why the term 'gun regulation' sometimes bothers me.

[aikoaiko]

For some people, governmental regulation of firearms is a means to reducing access and ability to bear arms for even law abiding folks.

In this youtube video, the LAPD Chief of Police, Charlie Beck, is speaking at a 2009 Brady Center Gala and he is proud that his LAPD gun unit's creation and enforcement of regulation has reduced the number of gun dealers in LA to 17 and allows only 23 LA residents to carry a concealed weapon in all of LA. I'm sure I'm not the first to post this here, but I just saw it and wanted to comment on it because it shows how manipulative and cynical some people are about regulation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SotYYpPDgw

I agree that unlawful gun dealers need to punished and even sometimes shutdown, but you don't create regulations to shut down otherwise ok businesses. I agree that not everyone should be permitted to carry a firearm, but to use regulation as a means to reduce people's ability to protect themselves is just wrong.

I'm for regulation, but not for the ends of limiting access to guns to lawful, responsible people.

[Travis Coates]

1. The only reason FOR regulation

is to limit access of lawful, responsible, people to guns. Regulations on guns have roughly the same effect on criminals as regulations on marijuana

[wtmusic]

2. Even law-abiding folks are not permitted to bear nuclear weapons.

Now that we've determined that the "right to bear arms" doesn't imply the "right to bear any arms", regulation is on the table, and it's up for the courts to decide where to draw the line.

[aikoaiko]

5. I would say its ultimately up to the people.

But yes, the courts will have their say.

Most people I know are interested in regulation that keeps guns out of the hands of prohibited people, but when faced with the LAPD Chief I realized that some people think regulation is a means to nearly rid their jurisdictions of access to firearms.

[wtmusic]

8. Who gets to decide who "prohibited people" are?

and what if they decide you're a prohibited person?

Sounds dangerous to me.

[Euromutt]

9. Regulation is one thing; thinly veiled prohibition another

Leaving aside the fact that there's no such as a man-portable nuclear weapon (I do not for one second believe the Sovs, who still hadn't worked out how to make transistors by the 1970s at least, were capable of manufacturing a "suitcase nuke"), we don't accept regulation for its own sake; it has to have a stated purpose, and demonstrably serve that purpose, and only that purpose.

I get the impression the City of Los Angeles' "regulation" of firearms is not focused on actually reducing violent crime, but rather on imposing de facto prohibition, or at least, as much as the city executive can get away with without being successfully sued (again). It might be noted that Beck's claim that there are only 23 concealed carry permit holders in the city of Los Angeles is almost certainly a falsehood; there may be 23 CCW permits that have been issued by the LAPD, but it's an open secret that if somebody wants a CCW permit, and the LAPD is okay with that person having one but don't want it on record that they themselves issued a permit to that person, they maintain "plausible deniability" by referring the individual in question to the police department of neighboring Culver City. In fact, back in 1992 it turned out that one person who had availed himself of this dodge was Michael Yamaki, a member of the board of commissioners that, at the time, reviewed CCW permit applications for the City of Los Angeles. This board, on instructions of the mayor, had a de facto "no-issue" policy; one of the handful of applications it approved was for incoming LAPD chief Willie Williams in 1992. Williams, who had previously been a commissioner in the Philadelphia PD, had twice failed the Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) exam, and was thus barred from carrying a firearm as a law enforcement officer in the state of California.

When William Bratton became chief of the LAPD in 2002, he too was issued a CCW permit, thereby relieving him entirely of the need to take the POST exam.

And frankly, limiting the numbers of permits issued doesn't necessarily improve public safety when due care and attention is not given to whom those few permits are issued, and California law enforcement has a rather spotty record of that. The most reliable way to get a CCW permit in California is to contribute generously to the local sheriff's election campaign fund, or be a friend, family member or business associate of the sheriff or assistant sheriff. In 2005, it emerged that of the 86 people issued CCW permits by the Orange County Sheriff's Office, 29 were major contributors to (then-)Sheriff Carona's 1998 and 2002 election campaigns, and others included relatives of Assistant Sheriff Haidl, and employees of Haidl's auction company. The wisdom of issuing permits to senior LEOs' family members without too many questions asked was illustrated by the fact that, in 2003, Haidl's son had been convicted of participating in the gang-rape of a teenage girl.

Sacramento County Sheriff's Office suffered a similar PR disaster when an inebriated CCW permit holder flashed his handgun in a threatening manner at a couple in a parking lot; he was found to have only one qualification for receiving a CCW permit, namely that he'd contributed handsomely to the sheriff's campaign fund, which didn't really compensate for the fact that he wasn't even a resident of Sacramento County, and the sheriff thus had no authority to issue him the permit at all! And in 1999, a program by the L.A. County Sheriff's Office to make a number of celebrities--including Jay Leno and Steven Seagal--special deputies and issue them CCW permits had to be curtailed when two of them turned out to have arrest records for felonies, another was convicted of (non firearm-related) federal offenses, and yet another had to be suspended after drawing his carry weapon without good cause.

I can cite more examples, but you get the idea. Limiting the number of firearms doesn't do any good if the people kept disarmed aren't the ones committing violent crimes. It is not legitimate to restrict citizens' freedoms solely for the sake of restricting them, and that is what the LAPD seems to be doing.

[GreenStormCloud]

10. Man portable nukes did exist.

The U.S. version weighed 55 pounds. It had a knob to select the size of the yield, a timer that could be set (Bottom setting was five minutes, I forget the top setting but I think it was 12 hours.) and the arm switch. I think it required a key but I am not sure.

After the cold war they were all collected and destroyed.

The warhead was the W54 which was also used in the Davy Crockett delivery system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition

Nukes can't be put on a shelf until needed, like ordinary artillery shells and small arms ammo. The nukes decay, the electronics that control the precision timing of the detenators tends to change value. Nukes have to be maintained by being put on a technicians work bench and poked with instruments and calibrated. Eventually they have to be remanufactured. However, technology has likely changed since I was trained 35 years ago.

[sandnsea]

3. LA Murder Rate Lowest Since 1967

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/01/violent-and-propertyrelated-crime-in-los-angeles-continued-to-fall-in-2009-.html

It's worth calculating into your concern.

[friendly_iconoclast]

4. It's also down to similar levels in places that *don't* have restrictive gun laws...

And way up in Chicago, noted for being even more gun control-happy than LA.

So the lower murder rate in LA, while undoubtedly a good thing, can't really be said to have been caused by gun laws.

[aikoaiko]

6. Same in GA where gun laws have been loosening up for the last decade.

I think its really difficult to say what is leading to this massive downturn in crime. I suspect our willingness to lock up so many people for many years has a big impact on crime rates. I fully expected a big upswing in crime, including murder, after 2008.

[jazzhound]

7. "It's worth calculating into your concern."

Sounds like you're working with a defective calculator again.