A few questions for those in favor of stricter firearms law... [View All]

[Flyboy_451]

There are a variety of measures supported by an equally large and diverse cross section of people involved in the debate. Views of those who support increased restrictions seem to range from mild to wild, including everything from closing the "Gun show Loophole" to an all out ban on ownership by private citizens.

There seems to be little discussion on unintended consequences, or what would happen if laws were seen not to be effective. This leads to my questions. For the sake of this discussion, please assume that any factors that contribute to crime, violence and firearms accidents, yet are not directly affected by firearms law, remain unchanged.

If the laws that you support or propose were passed tomorrow, what results would be your goal (being as specific as possible), and by what measure would you judge success or failure of said laws?

One of the arguments frequently used in opposition to the idea of bans and restrictions on concealed carry is that it leaves the average citizen at the mercy of armed criminals who would ignore such laws and continue to seek firearms through illicit sources. Laws of any type would require some amount of time to even have a chance at achieving the desired results. If the number of successful defenses against criminals decrease dramatically and violence in general increased, or even remained unchanged, how long would you be willing to wait before calling the laws a failure and acting to rescind them? Or, would you ever act to rescind laws that had no apparent positive effect?

JW