interesting article on "lost and stolen provisions"

[bossy22]

A few Ventura County cities have recently passed, or are considering passing, ordinances requiring gun owners to report the loss or theft of their firearms, typically within 48 hours of when the owner knew or "should have known" the gun was missing. Gun-control advocacy groups, having learned from professionals how to spin their anti-gun-owner proposals as benign, disingenuously claim the law will prevent unlawful sales of firearms by purchasers who buy a gun legally, intending to resell it illegally on the black market. These "straw" purchasers often falsely claim that a crime gun traced back to them was stolen or lost.

Gun owners typically report stolen firearms anyway. These laws will only further victimize theft victims and impede criminal prosecutions.

rest can be read here http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/aug/10/why-pass-an-ineffective-law-on-guns/



this article made me re-think my position on such laws....i used to be fully supportive of them but now i'm starting to think that it may practically be more harmful. Its like banning drugs- good idea in theory, bad idea in practice.

[TheWraith]

1. I think it all depends on the implementation.

For starters, you damn well should report if a gun is stolen no matter what. You'd report if your car was stolen, certainly.

That said, someone who fails to notify the police shouldn't be penalized for it, unless the police can demonstrate a pattern of behavior that implies the losses or thefts are not accidental. For instance, if the person has lost two or more firearms which are later used in a crime.

[Treo]

2. Straw Purchase

Has anyone ever actually been caught purchasing guns for resale to criminals?

[SteveM]

3. Not quite a "resale", but recently in Austin...

At the SAXET ("Texas" spelled backwards) Gun Show, a noted boxer (a convicted felon) was charged when his girlfriend went into the building and purchased a firearm. The APD (which regularly hangs out both in and, more surreptitiously, outside the facility) picked up the license plate #s and made an easy arrest. That's one reason crims usually get firearms elsewhere.

[Euromutt]

4. I hadn't even considered the self-incrimination angle

Even though that's what has undermined more than one firearms registry. Well, if you can't penalize actual criminals for failing to abide by the law, what's the damn point of the law?

Well, we know that one, really: it's to fuck over legal gun owners, and make people stop owning guns because it's not worth the hassle.