Why the 2nd Amendment needs to be reconsidered...

[Dubya]

What we have on this thread are a typical group of gun nuts, pretending to be patriots defending the rights of American citizens. They aren't patriots and they aren't even good citizens of America. They don't offer anything to solve obvious problems and are themselves part of the problem. Some even deny problems exist. They don't defend the right to keep and bear arms, but defend their desires to own whatever guns they want. They argue their point like a 3 year old spoiled child, who only knows I want.

Sorry, how exactly am I part of the problem? And forgive me, but part of your argument sounds like that of a 3 year old child.

"defend their desires to own whatever guns they want"? Come on, really? Well, all you need for transportation is a Yugo, so suppose I want to pass some legislation to say that you are only allowed to have a car of no more then 4 cylinders? I can design it as a way to save gasoline and to make the roads safer (since a Yugo would obviously do less damage to somebody then an SUV would). And after all, I would have more of a right to do that, since cars are not covered in the Constitution at all.

I don't agree with every proposal to solve America's gun problems, but I do recognize that people making such proposals are looking for solutions. I believe we need a system of universal background checks and registration that insures the gun owner still possesses the weapon. That's why I believe the best method is a renewable registration. If a person wants to sell their weapon, the registration has to be transferred. All firearm type weapons should be registered so that includes the police, gun stores and the military. They should be ballistic tested regularly and the tests kept on file. That would discourage somebody from using that firearm to shoot someone. People possessing unregistered firearms should be arrested, fined and jail or probation and have all their firearms confiscated. They should lose their rights to possess firearms for a minimum to maximum period and all these punishments should have a range, so they can deal with the cases individually. Transferring firearms by any method other than inheritance should be considered trafficking firearms, though in some cases it's minor trafficking. The open market for guns in America needs to be shut down.

Guess what, it is already a Federal law that all transfers of firearms (other then muzzle loaders) have to go through the background checks. So all you are doing here is repeating what the law already says. That is why if you want to sell a gun to your neighbor, you have to go through a licensed gun dealer to do it.

I thought we went through all this several pages ago?

And sorry, if you are arrested and convicted of a firearms violation, you loose your right to carry a weapon forever. That is already the law, and now you want to give those people a second chance to do it again?

And what the heck good would "ballistic tests" do? That would be absolutely pointless, and simply add to the work load and expense of law enforcement. And do you know how absolutely pointless such a system would be?

Barrels (the round tube like thingie the bullet goes through) are not registered or serialized. They never have been. There is absolutely nothing stopping me from going online and buying 10 seperate barrels for my pistol. I can then go on a crime spree, simply throwing out each barrel afterwards. Then when I am caught, they can do "ballistics tests" all day long on my pistol, they will never match any of the slugs recovered.

In fact, that would make it almost impossible to even tie the crimes together, since each scene would appear to have seperate weapons involved each time.

In fact, I just looked. A new barrel for my pistol is $23. So you have just made a huge headache that would be absolutely worthless. The only reason why what I just described does not happen more is that most criminals are as dumb as a bag of dog droppings. Of course, almost no criminals use guns that they purchased legally in the first place.

You people obviously can't get it through your head that the person was saying their carry permit should allow them to buy any weapon, no questions asked. A person could still have a carry permit at home and be arrested for a crime that makes it null and void. That piece of paper still has to pass the mustard of being checked.

Guess what? Our present system works so only 60% of guns sales are getting background checks and 40% aren't. I don't want to hear this nonsense that the guns are sold to friends. There are people who sell guns at yard sales, which is illegal.

As far as your barrel goes, don't sell barrels to the public without requiring a registration renewal and ballistics test. Limit their purchase to the place where registrations are renewed. It should be obvious that so many people are killed with handguns that the people who own handguns should be checked every year to make sure they still have the gun. Now how hard was that to figure out?

It isn't hard to figure out ways to keep weapons out of the criminal's hands and prevent people from being involved in trafficking weapons to them. When the person has to show up with their guns each year, then we know it wasn't given to criminals. When someone is walking the streets with a unregistered gun, the government should come down on them hard. The cops in cities with a high homicide rate can stop people they suspect may be carrying a gun and search them. The cops will get the damned unregistered guns off the streets and street gangs won't be walking around with guns. We have to make laws to make the cop's job easier, so they can protect society.

Let's say someone has a registered weapon and sells it. When it comes time to renew the registration, they claim it was stolen. They say they don't know when it was stolen and want to buy another weapon. They should be advised that if that weapon is involved in a crime and it can be proven that they allowed someone else to have it, they will be charged as an accessory to that crime. If they buy another weapon, they would be told to keep track of it, because if it comes up missing, it will go on their background check along with the first report of a stolen weapon, and they will not be able to buy a weapon unless it's reported stolen before the registration renewal time. They should have their renewal time cut to every six months and have to prove they have the weapon at 3 months. In short, they aren't going to be allowed to keep buying weapons and allowing others to have them. Losing even one gun and not reporting it stolen is enough to suspect them of trafficking in firearms. If they lose another weapon and report it stolen, their renewal time is now 3 months and they have to prove they have the weapon every month.

In a universal background check and universal renewable registration system, they should use any and all means to track down a weapon that isn't registered under the new system, like old registrations and sales. Obviously, people would need time to get their weapons started in the system, which would be spread throughout the year by random selection, so the first year would be less than a year for some of the people and more than a year for people who have a appointment time close to the time of initial registration. The idea is for people to register all their weapons at the same time for their convenience, or they could elect to have more than one registration time, if they had a lot of weapons to register. The best place to set up the system is participating gun shops, because they would be glad to do it to get a steady cash stream. They can be set up to fire the weapons needing a ballistic tests (shotguns don't need it) and send the bullets to the FBI for scannng into a data base. Gun shops away from large urban areas with violence would be allowed to resell confiscated unregistered weapons. If a registered weapon has to be forfeited by the owner because he is involved in a crime where he may be able to reclaim it, it will be stored in a nearby armory or in a police property room. Stored weapons would only have to be ballistic fired once, but they still would require yearly registration renewed as would all police and military weapons. That would prevent any weapon falling from the system because of theft and provide a yearly inventory. If a weapon is destroyed intentionally or by accident, a report containing the serial number is filed explaining the events, such as sometimes the police destroy weapons. If a weapon is lost, even in combat, a similar report is required. A data base would continue to exist even on weapons said to be destroyed, just in case they resurrect themselves. In places where taking the gun for renewal may pose a problem, like taking the gun outside the residence when police are looking for weapons on the street, a permit by phone system should be worked out with the local law enforcement allowing the person to transport the weapon for renewal without a problem from law enforcement.

Presently, handguns contribute 72.5% of the homicides by total firearms and 18.5% involve firearms, type not stated. 3.8% are rifles, 4.1% are shotguns and 1.1% are other guns. I think a data base could cut down on those firearm type not stated and better reporting and ballistics testing could as well. It's possible that laws may be required to charge people found altering bullets to make them fragment on impact, where even the possession of such bullets is a crime, but care should be taken not to advertise how to do it.

FBI ? Expanded Homicide Data Table 8

Now I realize no gun nut out there is going to be happy with such a system, but I don't care what they want. It's ridiculous to live years in a country where being killed with a gun is one of the top ten causes of death. The purpose of this system is not to get information on gun ownership to confiscate guns. The purpose is to stop gun related crime and make the country a safer place. Having a ballistics test on file discourages using that gun. I see no reason why law abiding citizens shouldn't be able to have guns like assault weapons under such a system. If the public wants more control to eliminate access to those weapons, they can be classified as Title II weapons and not sold in gun stores. They don't have to be banned in a state.

The public should be made aware of the hugh amount of suicide by gun each year. If they know of someone who possesses a gun and has suffered a recent tragedy in their lives, they should intervene by talking to their relative or friend and the state should provide storage to keep firearms away from the person who is vulnerable, if they have a moment of clarity and are willing to part with their weapons. They could store the weapons safely in an armory or police storage area at very little expense to the government. Information about services like the suicide hotline or local counselling should be made available to these people. In short, we don't want people committing suicide and guns make it easier to do it. The last time I checked, it was over 20,000 suicides by gun per year. Some kind of public awareness program reminding the public wouldn't cost that much.

I'm sure other ideas could be included, but this is just exercise, now read a book!

 

[Dubya]

You need to remember the the "National Rampage Association" as you call it, is actually not one specific entity, but rather an organization made up of a couple of millin "voters."
There are also other gun owner organisations, such as the GOA, each of these and other organizations are made up of legitimate gun owner voters, most of whom agree with the organizations stance.
Bottom line is that if you want our guns, you're going to have to kill us to get them.

The bottom line is very few people believe in changing the 2nd or want your guns, fool! It's real brave to make such a claim when no one want your guns. Most of the people just want guns taken out of the hands of criminals and regulations put on guns.

I see, but the entity which lied us into war against Iraq gets to keep their firearms?!?!?!?

.

In the system I proposed, all law abiding citizens can keep their guns, but what entity lied to you? Was it that great White hunter Cheney?

 

[Contumacious]

In a universal background check and universal renewable registration system,!

Dubya, I loves background checks.

Background checks are an excellent disarmament tool. If the government decides that " a background check " shows that you are cuckoo , who the fuck is going to dispute our honorable and angelical bureaucrats.

So in the right hands , background checks can be a great disarmament tool.

As always , Heil Hitler.

.

 

[Contumacious]

The bottom line is very few people believe in changing the 2nd or want your guns, fool! It's real brave to make such a claim when no one want your guns. Most of the people just want guns taken out of the hands of criminals and regulations put on guns.

I see, but the entity which lied us into war against Iraq gets to keep their firearms?!?!?!?

.

In the system I proposed, all law abiding citizens can keep their guns, but what entity lied to you? Was it that great White hunter Cheney?

Cheney, Bush lied about iraq/AfPak.

Slick willy lied about the Davidians.

They are all scumbags and should be disarmed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

.

 

[Dubya]

In a universal background check and universal renewable registration system,!

Dubya, I loves background checks.

Background checks are an excellent disarmament tool. If the government decides that " a background check " shows that you are cuckoo , who the fuck is going to dispute our honorable and angelical bureaucrats.

So in the right hands , background checks can be a great disarmament tool.

As always , Heil Hitler.

.

Just how many people do you think would fail a background check? From what I understand, only people convicted of a violent crime or felony would fail it. They could work out a system to review failures for possible exemptions of things like simple assault or a criminal record long ago.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

It’s sad we can’t have a knowledge and civil debate as to how a given court might rule and why, but such is the nature of the issue.

"Knowledge and civil debate ?"

When the NFA was passed and Miller handed down there were enough crime numbers to support the"dangerous and unusal" test.

There are estimated to be 16,000,000 semi-automatic rifles and 100's of millions of high capacity magazines in private hands. There is a semi-auto rilfe and high cap mag in practically every cop car. 1000's are lawfully used in sanctioned competition every weekend and they sell them at WALMART and major sporting goods retailers.

There were 323 homicides by all types of rifles in 2011.

Which is why I never call posters on typos, I live in a glass house in that regard.

Otherwise yes, that would represent a knowledgeable post, where the data simply do not justify an AWB, at least with regard to semi-auto rifles.

 

[Crackerjaxon]

In a universal background check and universal renewable registration system,!

Dubya, I loves background checks.

Background checks are an excellent disarmament tool. If the government decides that " a background check " shows that you are cuckoo , who the fuck is going to dispute our honorable and angelical bureaucrats.

So in the right hands , background checks can be a great disarmament tool.

As always , Heil Hitler.

.

Just how many people do you think would fail a background check? From what I understand, only people convicted of a violent crime or felony would fail it. They could work out a system to review failures for possible exemptions of things like simple assault or a criminal record long ago.

What's to stop them from changing the criteria once the background checks are in place?

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

No.

And what I ‘think’ is irrelevant.

It’s a fact of law that a person cannot be subject to punitive measures, or have a civil liberty restricted or preempted, absent due process.

That someone might be taking certain drugs or ‘acts crazy’ is not justification for the state to prohibit gun ownership.

If the state has evidence a person has a mental condition or illness that may result in harm to himself or others, that’s a matter for a magistrate to review during a hearing, and if adjudicated mentally incompetent, where that determine is part of the public record, then that person may be lawfully denied purchasing a firearm.

Alright Mr. Libertarian. Got ya, no problem.

Of course, the only time you ever hear of these kinds of hearings is after somebody actually commits a crime, as part of their defense. And this is for a pretty good reason.

Back in 1979, Addington Vs. Texas started changing national laws on the care of the mentally ill. In short, the declaration of an individual as mentally incompetant (which was always a civil matter) was ruled unconstitutional. And as such, the laws started to drastically change. Individuals who were determined to not be a danger to themselves or others were allowed to check themselves out of treatment facilities. Family members could no longer "commit" senile and other unhinged relatives.

But the long and the short of the matter is, under your definition, it would be absolutely impossible to ever deny anybody a firearm based on "mental stability", since such a declaration is in no way a legal matter, but a civil one.

And we all know how long this would take. So instead of a psychiatrist reporting that Mr. Jones is a possibly violent paranoid (who has fears that the government wants to arrest him) to local Law Enforcement who can then go check him out, this gets tossed into the civil court system, behind the divorces and probate hearings. Of course, by the time this all actually hits court Mr. Jones has snapped and shot up a McDonalds (because he things the burgers have nanobots) and a local TGI Fridays (because he thinks it is really a secret base for the FBI).

But at least none of his rights were violated, so we can all sleep safe at night.

Interesting how the gun debate is almost identical to the abortion debate.

That two persons disagree with regard to the solution does not mean one person is not dedicated to solving the problem.

Yes, we would lose our civil liberties, with gun violence undiminished.

As with abortion, there is no quick, easy answer to gun violence – denying citizens their Second Amendment rights absent due process because they ‘seem’ mentally ill is as pointless as banning abortion.

And there must be a consistent treatment of civil liberties in order for Constitutional case law to remain legitimate, where guns and gun violence are somehow subject to an ‘exemption.’

 

[Dubya]

Dubya, I loves background checks.

Background checks are an excellent disarmament tool. If the government decides that " a background check " shows that you are cuckoo , who the fuck is going to dispute our honorable and angelical bureaucrats.

So in the right hands , background checks can be a great disarmament tool.

As always , Heil Hitler.

.

Just how many people do you think would fail a background check? From what I understand, only people convicted of a violent crime or felony would fail it. They could work out a system to review failures for possible exemptions of things like simple assault or a criminal record long ago.

What's to stop them from changing the criteria once the background checks are in place?

60% of gun purchases do get background checks and they just want to stop the other 40%. What are they going to change it to, jaywalking?

 

[Dubya]

I see, but the entity which lied us into war against Iraq gets to keep their firearms?!?!?!?

.

In the system I proposed, all law abiding citizens can keep their guns, but what entity lied to you? Was it that great White hunter Cheney?

Cheney, Bush lied about iraq/AfPak.

Slick willy lied about the Davidians.

They are all scumbags and should be disarmed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

.

I don't see anyone working to convict them.

 

[Mushroom]

Guess what? Our present system works so only 60% of guns sales are getting background checks and 40% aren't. I don't want to hear this nonsense that the guns are sold to friends. There are people who sell guns at yard sales, which is illegal.

As far as your barrel goes, don't sell barrels to the public without requiring a registration renewal and ballistics test. Limit their purchase to the place where registrations are renewed. It should be obvious that so many people are killed with handguns that the people who own handguns should be checked every year to make sure they still have the gun. Now how hard was that to figure out?

THen simply try to enforce the laws to the other 40%, don't try to throw yet more unenforceable laws on top of other unenforceable laws.

After all, it was a much wiser man them myself that stated:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

And this is exactly what it seems to me what you are doing. Instead of trying to enforce the laws already standing, you want to simply make more laws and make firearms harder (or impossible) to get. Break the paradigm my friend, and endorse making the current laws enforced before suggesting more worthless laws that will also likely not be enforced.

And sorry, you can't force registration of barrels. You obviously know very little about firearms, but these are much like tires. I know several competition shooters, and they have multiple barrels, depending on what they are shooting. This is also common among shotguns.

And finally, what good at all will "ballistics tests" do for a shotgun, where the most common load is pellets? Or for somebody that decides to shoot either a pellet load, or something like the Glaser Safety Slug? Or you can simply use a sabot and do the same thing. No ballistics test will do any good at all, since

You see, every single time you suggest an "improvement", I simply move around you once again. And each time showing the complete worthlessness of your "improvement".

Now if you want to enact "firearm microstamping" for all new weapons sold in the US I could easily support that. But almost every other suggestion you have made is simply a panacea which would accomplish nothing. Other then create a huge black-market for barrels (which can be made in any well equiped machine shop).

 

[Mushroom]

60% of gun purchases do get background checks and they just want to stop the other 40%. What are they going to change it to, jaywalking?

Do you have a reliable and verifyable reference that proves that claim that 40% of guns are sold illegally?

 

[Crackerjaxon]

Not that I think it was about anything but Militias, but let's pretend we are in National Rampage Association crazy land...

This is a Revolutionary War Era Musket. It could fire 2-3 rounds a minute in the hands of a trained infantryman. Accurate to only about 100 yards.

This is a AR-15 Bushmaster.

It can fire 45 Rounds per minute, and has a maximum effective range of 450 meters.

Now, before one of you mutants gets on here and tells me, "Well, the First Amendment never considered Television", you are right.

And we don't treat Television like the printed press. There are restrictions on what you can broadcast, when you can broadcast, and who can broadcast. More to the point, the Television industry largely self-regulates. they don't put commercials for Trojan condoms on The Hub kiddie network.

So you think the US military should be issued muskets? Is that it?

 

[Foxfyre]

Not that I think it was about anything but Militias, but let's pretend we are in National Rampage Association crazy land...

This is a Revolutionary War Era Musket. It could fire 2-3 rounds a minute in the hands of a trained infantryman. Accurate to only about 100 yards.

This is a AR-15 Bushmaster.

It can fire 45 Rounds per minute, and has a maximum effective range of 450 meters.

Now, before one of you mutants gets on here and tells me, "Well, the First Amendment never considered Television", you are right.

And we don't treat Television like the printed press. There are restrictions on what you can broadcast, when you can broadcast, and who can broadcast. More to the point, the Television industry largely self-regulates. they don't put commercials for Trojan condoms on The Hub kiddie network.

So you think the US military should be issued muskets? Is that it?

The first Amendment applies to television and radio and other media as much as it does to the print media. The First Amendment is intended to prevent the federal government from controlling the free exchange of information available to the people. It was not intended, however, to be a license for unscrupulous people to take pornographic photos of children and distribute them for the purient use of perverts, etc. It was not intended to force people to risk clearly obscene or other objectionable content if they utilized the newspapers or magazines or television or radio that is clearly intended for general public use.

The Second Amendment is the same. It is intended to prevent the federal government from disarming the people or from denying them the ability to protect themselves from whatever threatens their unalienable rights, including their own government should that ever be necessary. (The entire Constitution was a document intended to provide such restraints on the federal government that it would never become a danger to the people's unalienable rights.)

But there is a dichotomy within the concept. Would I be comfortable with our crazy neighbor who becomes drunk, disorderly, and combative every Saturday night having access to a fully armed Bradley Tank in his back yard? In all honesty I wouldn't. But would I be any kind of threat to anybody if I had such a tank or a machine gun or a fully armed F-18? No I would not. Nor are any amount or caliber or capability of firearms in my house a danger to a single soul unless I am seriously threatened. If I was, then we would have to see how it would go.

So in the end, it is a matter of how much risk is acceptable? Is the risk of one previously undetected nut shooting up a school or church or shopping mall worth denying self protection to millions of peaceful, law abiding citizens. Does increased gun control and restrictions cut down on gun crime? If you look at American cities with the greatest gun control, no it does not. If you go to great extremes such as is the case in the U.K., yes it does. But does it cut down on violence overall? If you look at the U.K., no it does not.

So do you want to deal with the fairly rare gun nut or criminal with a rifle? Or the one with dynamite or hand grenades or agri bombs or molotov cocktails? And no means to stop him?

Somewhere in there is the best answer for how to allow us to defend our unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness while dealing with those who would deny those to us.

 

[JoeB131]

Not that I think it was about anything but Militias, but let's pretend we are in National Rampage Association crazy land...

This is a Revolutionary War Era Musket. It could fire 2-3 rounds a minute in the hands of a trained infantryman. Accurate to only about 100 yards.

This is a AR-15 Bushmaster.

It can fire 45 Rounds per minute, and has a maximum effective range of 450 meters.

Now, before one of you mutants gets on here and tells me, "Well, the First Amendment never considered Television", you are right.

And we don't treat Television like the printed press. There are restrictions on what you can broadcast, when you can broadcast, and who can broadcast. More to the point, the Television industry largely self-regulates. they don't put commercials for Trojan condoms on The Hub kiddie network.

So you think the US military should be issued muskets? Is that it?

No, I think they should have top of the line weapons.

Everyone else should be liimited as to what they have.

 

[PaulS1950]

Here is what the background check asks:
Have you ever been convicted of a felony?
Have you ever been convicted of a crime of violence?
Have you ever been convicted for the unlawful use of narcotics or other controlled substances?
Have you ever been arrested for any offense involving domestic violence?
Have you ever been adjudicated as mentally incompetent?
Are you currently subject to a court sanctioned protective order?
Are you currently awaiting trial?

Depending on the individual involved, saying yes to any of those questions may keep you from passing the background check. If you lie it is a a gross misdemeanor. The background check can take as little as a few moments or up to 60 days.
It is a bit deeper than violent crimes and felonies but unles you answered yes to one of those questions then you would likely pass.

 

[Mushroom]

Here is what the background check asks:
Have you ever been convicted of a felony?
Have you ever been convicted of a crime of violence?
Have you ever been convicted for the unlawful use of narcotics or other controlled substances?
Have you ever been arrested for any offense involving domestic violence?
Have you ever been adjudicated as mentally incompetent?
Are you currently subject to a court sanctioned protective order?
Are you currently awaiting trial?

Depending on the individual involved, saying yes to any of those questions may keep you from passing the background check. If you lie it is a a gross misdemeanor. The background check can take as little as a few moments or up to 60 days.
It is a bit deeper than violent crimes and felonies but unles you answered yes to one of those questions then you would likely pass.

I have been a firearms dealer myself, and that is the biggest problem I see. There is really no "checking" done. They simply rely on the individual to answer honestly and leave it at that.

That is why I favor an actual user licensing, with real checks. And putting some real teeth into the process, making false statements a felony. Really punish those that try to get firearms illegally, not just slap their wrists like they had simply been caught jaywalking.

 

[OODA_Loop]

That is why I favor an actual user licensing, with real checks. And putting some real teeth into the process, making false statements a felony.

False statements on a Form 4473 is a felony.

You are waaaaaay out of your lane.

 

[Mushroom]

That is why I favor an actual user licensing, with real checks. And putting some real teeth into the process, making false statements a felony.

False statements on a Form 4473 is a felony.

You are waaaaaay out of your lane.

And how often do you ever hear of somebody actually being prosecuted for such an act?

99% of the time I ever hear of convictions for this, it was either a dealer who allowed illegal transactions, or somebody who was making a strawman purchase for somebody else. I can honestly say I have never heard of a conviction of somebody who tried to buy a firearm for themselves with incorrect information.

 

[Inthemiddle]