I have some questions for gun fans, but they're reasonable ones

[jpgray]

The argument I hear most from the gun crowd here (at least the more rational ones) is that responsible legal gun owners are not the problem. That's true. Responsible gun -sellers- who obey the law are also not a problem. I hear quite a bit that all we have to do is enforce current laws, and that most of the dangerous people who get guns do so illegally. Fair enough.

Here's where the tricky part comes in:

How do you ensure that gun owners are responsible and following the law? How do you ensure that gun sellers are responsible and following the law?

Determining a response to risk is always arbitrary. Determining a security for freedom tradeoff is even -more- arbitrary, as total security is impossible. We've hashed this out with the first amendment since it was written, and we still haven't reached a balance everyone can agree with.

In general terms, however, we all agree. All agree that we should have reasonable, effective laws that don't infringe too much on the freedom or rights of our citizens. The problem is that no two people will agree -exactly- on what "reasonable," "effective," "freedom," and/or "rights" mean, and therefore no two people can agree -exactly- on how to balance security and freedom. In general? Maybe. In the most specific details? Almost impossible.

But to the problem. Guns provide a higher risk factor than, say, knives or most other easily obtainable weapons. Killing an average person with a gun is something that anyone can do with very little or no planning. Killing many average people in the same place with a gun is something that anyone can do with just a little planning (plenty of spree killers have proven this). The same is not true of almost any other widely-proliferated weapon. (Have a counter-example? I'll shoot it down for you, so to speak!)

Given that, lapses in gun owner/seller law adherence and responsibility provide far more risk and therefore require at least some greater amount of security than owning another readily available weapon, or a totally benign object like a car or restaurant. Fair enough? So you're the fan of owning guns freely--how do you ensure that illegal gun ownership doesn't happen on an unacceptably high level? Is the level it is at today okay by you? If not, what should change in terms of the law and in terms of enforcement, specifically?

Is it fair or silly to say forcing responsible gun owners/buyers to jump through more hoops (in terms of licensing, registration, inspection) would be worth the prevention of a -single- innocent death? If not, how many deaths would hassles be worth to you? Remember responsible gun owners aren't the problem, but the law has to apply to all. Even if gun owners/sellers were 99% responsible, law-abiding folks, that 1% can do an inordinate amount of damage. The danger of any person's misbehavior with regard to a tool is maximized by the power of the tool. For even more powerful weapons, like grenade launchers, nukes, or the presidency :P, this becomes even more valid.

I don't advocate the banning of any gun which is currently legal to buy, sell, and own. The resistance to that would be immediate and in some ways justified. My suggestion? Regulation that tracks each gun sold, licensing to put a check on mental stability and law-abiding status of buyers/sellers, and inspection to ensure responsible ownership (i.e. to ensure the gun wasn't sold in a neighboring state's urban areas 24 hours later.)

What do you think? What do you support?

[L0oniX]

1. We have home invasions here. What would you suggest I do? Call the cops and wait an hour? n/t

[jpgray]

3. Well, apparently you didn't read my post. Did I suggest banning gun ownership somewhere?

[DS1]

16. Reading comprehension

It's going places!

[blondeatlast]

28. Read the whole post, for one. Reactionary much? nt

[stanwyck]

58. How do you keep you guns

out of the hands of your children? If you have your guns readily accessible for home invasions (which I guess means having them by your side at all times so you don't have to ask the intruders to wait while you go retrieve your weapons, the ammo, and unlock the child proof trigger locks, etc) then how do you keep those readily accessible guns out of your children's hands? And do other parents refuse to let their children come to your house because of your guns? I'm just wondering how you reconcile being a parent with being a gun owner and making sure your child doesn't get his/her hands on your weapons. Sure, you've told them never to touch the guns when you're not around. Did you do everything your parents told you to do?

[L0oniX]

62. We have no children in our home and the house is fenced in.

What will your children do if someone breaks into your house and kills you and your wife?

[stanwyck]

67. If someone breaks into our home

while my "children" (24-yr. old twins) are here, they'll have to get past my Marine son (3 tours to Iraq) who doesn't need a gun to defend himself. We prefer not to live a fear-based life. The odds of someone breaking into our home are less than someone in the home being accidentally injured (or worse) by a household gun. I understand, though, that you feel you're safer with guns in your house. For me, it's the opposite.

[AZ Criminal JD]

70. If the person breaking into your house had a gun

He would get past your unarmed son without difficulty.

[stanwyck]

71. I realize that's the prevailing

belief of people who need guns to feel safe. But it's not supported by facts. I guess you're expecting intruders to come in with guns blazing, a scary scenario that never happens in real life. Maybe it's all the movies people watch and take as factual. Why live continually afraid of horror stories that have a less than 1% chance of happening? It makes no sense. There are real steps we can take to improve our lives. Eat healthy. Exercise. Continually educate yourself. These steps all make a person stronger. Having a gun is a panacea. And that gun is more likely to be used against the homeowner than the homeowner using the gun to protect himself/herself. It's false security. I really don't understand this deep need for people to have guns. I can't comprehend that kind of fear. Freud no doubt had it right. Man with little gun needs big gun.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. It would seem that any rules that interfere with profitmaking aspect of the gun industry will meet

with great opposition.

[slackmaster]

4. As a Californian I put up with a lot more hoops and hassles than people in most states

Yet we still have areas that have a lot of violent crime.

I think the key is to control the criminals.

[jpgray]

5. Most illegal gun owners have a gun that began its odyssey with a legal purchase, no?

Guns aren't smuggled in at the rate drugs are, for example. So the source must at some point be a legal purchaser or a legal seller. The chain of lawbreaking begins where, in that case? Identifying an illegal gun owner after he/she has committed a crime with the gun is a the locked barn and the stolen horse reversed in chronlogy, no?

[slackmaster]

6. Guns are quite traceable under current law

All modern firearms are serialized, and the original owner can be located from the manufacturer's records and the supply chain. The original retail seller has paperwork that identifies the buyer. From that point, in states that do not track secondary sales (unlike California, which does), successive owners can be determined through interviews.

But in reality that doesn't prevent crimes; it can only serve to determine at which point someone broke the law by selling to someone who in most cases is not a qualified buyer.

That's why I think the National Instant Check System (NICS) used by gun dealers in most states should be made available to the general public, with safeguards to prevent abuse. Few people would knowingly sell a gun to a convicted felon, drug addict, etc.

[jpgray]

7. And if the serial is filed off? Should all states track secondary sales?

If the legal gun owner sells illegally (assuming NICS becomes available to all sellers), what should the penalty be? Say, the same as you get for selling weed?

[slackmaster]

9. Filing off a serial number is illegal

If the legal gun owner sells illegally (assuming NICS becomes available to all sellers), what should the penalty be? Say, the same as you get for selling weed?

I believe current federal law allows for up to five years in prison even with NICS not available to the general public.

[jpgray]

10. Again, this is simply another charge after the fact. It does nothing to prevent proliferation

As for the disparity in public damage, illegal guns directly kill how many in this country? Illegal pot directly kills how many? I'm not a NORML rabble rouser or anything, but does it seem reasonable to you that in MT you can get sentenced to life for a first offense of owning a marijuana plant? What is the comparative sentence for an illegal gun sale? And are secondary sales even tracked?

[slackmaster]

14. Registration wouldn't prevent crimes committed with stolen weapons either

FWIW I think cannabis should be completely legal for adults to grow and use, as long as they don't drive, give it to kids, etc.

What is the comparative sentence for an illegal gun sale? And are secondary sales even tracked?

You're making me repeat myself but here goes:

Selling a firearm to someone who is prohibited from owning one is a federal felony, and has been so since 1968.

Most states do not track secondary sales. California has handgun registration and tracks all lawful transactions. Most states do not.

[jpgray]

17. Inspections in conjunction with obligatory secondary sales tracking?

The point is to avoid exactly what you've proved so well--the only way to identify the illegal transfer of gun ownership is often after the gun has been seized in connection with some crime. This is ludicrous--it doesn't prevent gun ownership among criminals any more than the rather sensible regulation that bans prison inmates from owning guns. In other words there's no prevention of illegal gun ownership from secondary or untracked sales, only belated recognition, usually after a crime has occurred.

Would it be so odious to:

Make NICS available to -all- sellers.
Track secondary sales.
Provide for inspections, wherein legal owners take their gun in to an office akin to the DMV.
Harsher penalties for illegal gun sales.

We do more shit for car sales in most states than we do for gun sales. Is that reasonable, in your view?

[slackmaster]

19. How about tracking known violent criminals?

There are a lot fewer of them than there are firearms.

Provide for inspections, wherein legal owners take their gun in to an office akin to the DMV.

No.

Gun ownership is a right. Driving is a privilege. We subject people to inspections, fees, or taxes to exercise rights.

[jpgray]

20. Why not? The key is to prevent that illegal sale, to track it, and to make it much more costly

My suggestion solves all those problems. You would propose to track criminals... how? First offenders would have no oversight at all, in that case. How many charged with illegal possession of a weapon are first offenders?

[slackmaster]

21. Most violent crimes are committed by people with criminal records

That's all I can tell you.

As for your other proposals, I don't personally find them very unreasonable; the problem facing people who advocate that kind of control is selling it to people in MOST of the country.

[jpgray]

23. Selling it to the public is the difficult part. Nobody wants to go through all that hassle

The question is, how do you prevent that first illegal transfer in a reasonable way? There are more workable systems for that than tracking criminals. Unless you live in a wholly totalitarian state, you have to catch a criminal at something to have a chance of tracking him, which rules out first offenders (many spree killers, almost all school shooters). You have to institute the tracking on some basis (which felonies abridge the right to gun ownership? How do you ensure a tracked felon doesn't possess a gun?). And above all, criminally minded people aren't going to be cooperative, or responsible, which increases the cost exponentially even though there are fewer felons than legal gun owners.

On the other hand, a simple inconvenience for gun owners, carried out at the least level of invasiveness possible, will accomplish this. Will it make the NRA go nuclear? Yeah. Will most gun owners see it as a draconian prelude to gun grabbing? Yep. My question is, which system is more likely to work?

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

42. Far far worse

Unless you're getting behind the whell of a vehicle stoned out of your mind a gun sold illegally is far worse..

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

41. Maybe the manufactures should be forced to keep

A list of Ballistics vs serial number..

[slackmaster]

68. They have been doing that in Maryland and New York for handguns for many years

The manufacturer has to provide the fired cartridge case from a test round with every pistol they sell.

I have two handguns that came with little envelopes labelled "Maryland test case" containing a fired case (provided by the manufacturer in the event they were sold in either state). I've kept those with the documentation and original packing materials.

Last I heard, neither state had yet solved a single crime with that accumulated information. At some point a reasonable person has to ask whether the money they've spent on that system could have been better applied somewhere else.

[doc03]

22. So we get the (NICS) and that stops

people from buying a gun, they then will just have to steal one. The (NICS) sounds reasonable to me and may help some but the NRA opposes that and any Democrat that brings up the subject will be labeled a gun grabber and there goes the red states. The NRA always claims responsible gun owners don't commit crimes but on the other hand they oppose any attempt to make sure only responsible gun owners buy them. I remember after the Oklahoma City bombing there was an attempt to put tracers called taggets in explosives, the NRA opposed that. The NRA claimed that violated our rights and the taggets could damage a gun barrel. I quit the NRA when I finally realized they are more of an arm of the Republican party than any gun rights group. But most of the members I know are working people and you talk to them they will talk like a Democrat but they will vote against their own interest in any other way because the NRA scares them about Democrats taking their guns.

[Captain Hilts]

12. My friend didn't even need to show an i.d. to get a pistol on a plane in Calif. He was never asked.

[slackmaster]

15. I have taken pistols on planes before

You have to show ID to get on a plane at all.

Taking a firearm in checked baggage is no big deal. You have to declare it and show it to the person at the counter when you check in.

[Pavulon]

63. A locked checked piece of luggage.

That is the only non law enforcement can travel with a weapon.

[I work for workers]

8. I'm VERY wary of any law that ties mental health to Second Amendment rights.

The idea of the state determining who is mentally healthy enough to keep their rights disturbs me. I have experienced the bias against the people with mental illnesses first hand. Most people simply do not know enough about the many conditions to make an informed judgment, and their views are colored by prejudice and stereotypes. I have no reason to believe that bureaucrats and judges would be exceptions to this rule. These situations should be determined on a case by case basis, not a bright-line rule.

The simple fact is "one size fits all" legislation will be useless at best, and counterproductive at worst. People will still slide by with their problems unnoticed, and I fear that laws designed to prevent the criminally disturbed from obtaining guns will mostly end up targeting good, law abiding people with histories of mental health issues.

[jpgray]

11. There's a difference between say, depression and violent psychopathic fantasies

Let me put it this way, is there no mental illness that should disqualify one from gun ownership? Is there no way to reasonably determine this if it has been diagnosed in the past? Based on hospitalization records, etc.?

[mdmc]

13. An ill person can get better

Why should a hunter that suffers from MH issues (but receives treatment and is stable) not be allowed to hunt?

[jpgray]

18. A felon can be rehabilitated. Yet their right to vote?

Rather more significant than owning a gun, I would say. If you would restore the right to vote to rehabilitated felons, would you restore the right of gun ownership as well?

[I work for workers]

24. This kind of slander against the mentally ill is exactly my point.

You just compared mentally ill to convicted felons. I doubt you meant to, but you did.

There are plenty of good people who suffer or who have suffered from mental illness and who pose no risk of violence. Don't hold the many responsible for the sins of the few.

[jpgray]

26. The basis for comparison is "losing rights based on institutional-judgments"

I don't pretend to compare the two in any other way. This is simply to show that it's not as if there is no precedent for this. Whether it's right or wrong in either case (which are very different cases!) is what I'm asking.

[mdmc]

33. felons should be able to vote once they serve their punishment

but they should not have guns.

What comparison are you trying to make regarding folks with MH issues?

Peace,
mdmc

[jpgray]

35. I agree with you. My comparison was not one-to-one, as I indicated below,

[mdmc]

31. being ill is not a crime yet

MH consumers are not criminal felons.

[jpgray]

32. The comparison is not direct, but indicating precedent for institutional abridgment of rights

I'll ask the question again: Is there no reasonable standard by which mental health can be a factor for gun ownership?

[mdmc]

36. Thanks for the clarification

Right now there really are no barriers for MH gun ownership. Obviously, if a MH consumer was residing in a gun free facility (such as a community residence, apartment program, or hospital) they would lose their rights to bear arms (actually, they could sign out of the facility and own a gun - they choose to live in the program they give up the right to bear arms).

Most MH consumers come into the system with police contact or criminal records. The criminal justice system can impose any restriction needed to ensure the safety of the community.

MH consumers have the same rights as every other adult American. At least for now.

[jpgray]

38. I should point out I'm trying to understand this issue better

These replies are really providing me with great insight into the dangers and sacrifices gun control (even in its current form) can entail, and I want to clarify that I do not support MH checks at this time. I am trying to understand how such would be viewed by various sides of the debate, so thanks for taking some time to respond. My "final judgment" (for all it's worth :P) has not been reached, so I am trying to get some more perspective on the issue rather than trying to bully people into agreeing with me under cover of asking questions. Sorry if it seems like the latter.

:hi:

[mdmc]

39. The world of mental illness is very hard to look in to my friend

I think that the scariest thing is someone without hope, armed.
The mentally ill can easily fall into hopelessness. And guns are very powerful tools.

One more thing to add - so far I have not seen anything from the NRA (nat. rifle association) or NAMI (national alliance for the mentally ill) regarding gun ownership. To date both the NRA and NAMI are silent on gun ownership rights for the mentally ill.

So the questions that you are asking are at the forefront of a future debate. I doubt this debate will surface in 2008 cause the dems don't want to rob MH consumers of rights and the GOP does not want to go against the NRA.

This debate will be interesting. And it has not even started (except on the interents, DU).

Peace and low stress and keep communicating!:patriot: www.nami.org

[LeftCoast]

49. Would you be ok with having a schizophrenic next-door neighbor with a gun collection?

Generally, I agree with you, but I do think there are some mental health conditions that should preclude an individual from owning fire-arms.

[I work for workers]

64. Yes. I have a good freind who is a schizophrenic. We often shoot together.

He's a nice guy, and I'm not afraid of him at all. Even before he got on medicine, he was never deluded towards violent behavior. At his request, I nag him about keeping up with pills.

Not every case is as cut and dry as we would like. The majority of schizophrenics are not violent, even when they experience hallucinations. I oppose any and all legislation that would rob such people of their Second Amendment rights without recourse. I don't support any bright line mental health rule on the Second. I do believe that certain people should not have access to firearms, but that this should be decided on a case by case basis.

[slackmaster]

69. That is too broad a question to make a specific answer

Not even a formal diagnosis of schizophrenia means that a person is mentally incompetent. It comes in many flavors and degrees. Some schizophrenics are able to live relatively normal lives with only counseling and no medication.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

44. Once you put the infrastructure in place to filter out the

'mentally ill'

Setting the bar lower and lower becomes trivially easy..

[BurningDog]

25. Taking rights away from people with mental health issues would ...

discourage people from seeking treatment.

I'm sure that a reasonable middle ground exists on this issue, but that should be determined after a logical debate on the issue, not as a knee-jerk reaction passing "feel-good" legislation to score political points. In fact, this debate is already being hashed out in H.R. 2640, which was introduced after Virginia Tech.

[jpgray]

27. I guess my question is: is there no reasonable standard for making mental health a factor?

[I work for workers]

29. I think there is. I just feel it should be decided on a case by case basis.

I don't support any law that establishes a mental health bright line rule for gun ownership.

[jpgray]

30. Goes to show how arbitrary this all is. Drawing the line anywhere will affect innocents

[spoony]

51. Aye, I'm wary of it when it comes to anything

When boards, committees, employers or whoever looks at medical information--without being a doctor or professional in the field--and uses that as the basis for a decision impacting rights, the results can never be good.

[NeedleCast]

34. My Answers

How do you ensure that gun owners are responsible and following the law? How do you ensure that gun sellers are responsible and following the law?

The short answer is you can't. No more than we can ensure that someone won't get drunk and then drive a vehicle. That's why we have criminal penalties for those who are caught violating the law. If we lived in a world where we could predict crime ahead of time, we wouldn't have to worry about it. It's been shown many times though that those who legally purchase and own fire arms are very rarely the people committing crimes with them. That's the rub here. You can't ensure the items in your question above without violating someone's rights. So you have to ask yourself, do I think gun violence is such a problem that I'd support a repeal or changes to the bill of rights to ensure that it doesn't happen.

But to the problem. Guns provide a higher risk factor than, say, knives or most other easily obtainable weapons. Killing an average person with a gun is something that anyone can do with very little or no planning.

I don't really think this is true. There are a lot of easily obtainable substances for more dangerous than guns if one wants to kill big batches of people. For the untrained, a gun is very inaccurate, even at close range. It doesn't take much planning to kill someone with a gun, but it doesn't take much planning to kill someone with a knife, brick, baseball bat, lead pipe, etc. etc. either.

So you're the fan of owning guns freely--how do you ensure that illegal gun ownership doesn't happen on an unacceptably high level? Is the level it is at today okay by you? If not, what should change in terms of the law and in terms of enforcement, specifically?

Are you asking is the level of illegally obtained guns today acceptable to me? If so, the answer is no. One is an unacceptable amount. One drunk driver should be an unacceptable amount. That is why we punish the ones we catch and don't say "well, drunk driving deaths are down, so we're going to let YOU go." As far as changes to the law are concerned, I don't think changing them will affect - especially in the short term - the amount of gun violence. As I pointed out yesterday evening in another thread, even if the level of gun violence goes down, one has to look at the amount of violent crime as a whole to see if the law as effective. If, for example, gun violence goes down but people getting smashed in the head with a brick goes up, you've haven't made any positive change, you've just forced those who are going to commit violent crime to use a different tool.

Is it fair or silly to say forcing responsible gun owners/buyers to jump through more hoops (in terms of licensing, registration, inspection) would be worth the prevention of a -single- innocent death? If not, how many deaths would hassles be worth to you? Remember responsible gun owners aren't the problem, but the law has to apply to all. Even if gun owners/sellers were 99% responsible, law-abiding folks, that 1% can do an inordinate amount of damage.

Silly, and I think you know that. When it came be demonstrably shown that a crime wouldn't have taken place had a gun not been available, then maybe I'll re-think this. Again though, your question basically boils down to this: How much of my rights am I willing to give up to reach a point where I'm comfortable with the level of safety I feel in regard to gun crime. My answer is zero.

[jpgray]

37. Thanks for the thoughtful response

Just a few more questions. (I should probably edit my OP title to say "mostly reasonable") :D

Do you feel current gun laws represent a loss of your rights? What is the line you would draw? In my response to slackmaster, I realized a major problem with current laws is that they can only tack on a weapons charge in almost all cases after an initial arrest, as such is usually the only opportunity to discover the crime. Further, tracking criminals' illegal gun ownership is next to impossible. Barring a totalitarian state, first offenders will not be tracked, the severity of crime to initiate the tracking will be extremely debatable, and criminals are far more likely to be uncooperative and deceitful than non-criminals.

However, most illegally possessed guns originated from a legal sale somewhere down the line. Tracking secondary sales, providing NICS to secondary sellers, and having an annual inspection wherein gun owners bring in their registered weapons to prove chain of ownership would mitigate this problem. Harsher punishment for illegal sale in conjunction with this could not help but decrease proliferation to some extent. The question then becomes:

Is this an abridgment of rights that goes too far? If current laws are not, how does this differ?

Are penalties for illegal sale enforced effectively? How could they be enforced better?

[NeedleCast]

43. Thanks for your reasonable debate on the subject

Do you feel current gun laws represent a loss of your rights? What is the line you would draw?

I don't feel that current gun laws represent a loss of my rights. I think that a small amount of common sense tells us that things that can be deadly need to have some level of control. As you pointed out in your OP, that level of control will be endlessly debated. Again though, here's the catch for me. It'll be endlessly debated until the right for a private citizen to legally own a gun is taken away, then the government can dictate whatever they want with far less fear of reprisal. I am, in general, against the banning of almost everything, as I think it's a horribly slippery slope (please note that I'm not suggesting you are in favor of banning guns, just making my position clear). Considering who is currently (trying) to run the show in the white house, the last thing I want to see is people saying "the 2nd amendment needs to be repealed" because the response from the white house right now would probably be "Yeah! That's a good place to start..."

Again, I think a lot of the line drawing needs to be in the field of people educating themselves about the difference between scary looking guns, and things that are actually scary. People need to get over the fear of the "scary black rifle" which is really the least scary thing you could own. Generally low powered and very hard to conceal when compared to a hand gun. I guess my answer is I think that the line is drawn pretty well right now.

However, most illegally possessed guns originated from a legal sale somewhere down the line. Tracking secondary sales, providing NICS to secondary sellers, and having an annual inspection wherein gun owners bring in their registered weapons to prove chain of ownership would mitigate this problem. Harsher punishment for illegal sale in conjunction with this could not help but decrease proliferation to some extent. The question then becomes:

Is this an abridgment of rights that goes too far? If current laws are not, how does this differ?


I think legal gun owners having to bring in their registered weapons for inspection on a set basis is pushing it. I don't think I'd get bent out of shape over it, although I'd understand the argument of those who would. I'm not sure that I believe harsher punishment for those found guilty of violating the law would work and I think in some cases that could become a slippery slope as well.

Let me set up an example for you. If someone buys a gun legally, then sells it illegally, should they be criminally punished if the weapon they illegally sold is later used in a crime? How about if a person purchases a gun legally, has their house robbed while they're not present, the gun is stolen, and then later used in a crime?

Are penalties for illegal sale enforced effectively? How could they be enforced better?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no, I'd imagine. I can't argue case by case enforcement because I don't have any statistics on it.

[dysfunctional press]

48. regarding the "annual inspection" idea- it doesn't seem workable.

what about people who have a dozen or dozens or more firearms? where would the inspections take place? what about transport issues for multiple weapons?

and ultimately, wouldn't it just lead to lots of guns being reported lost or stolen and then sold under the table, exponentially increasing the size of the black-market for unregistered weapons?

[jpgray]

50. It's tough to get a system that closes a few holes yet isn't too invasive

I was trying to get my head around a way to decrease proliferation by discouraging illegal gun transfers, as at present such charges are mostly tacked on after the fact, and the chain of ownership is difficult if not impossible to determine. As you say there are loopholes (as there are in any security system) which at a certain point provides a smaller and smaller return for adding more hoops to jump through. Effective measures for dealing with them? Difficult to say. If a guy gets brought up on a weapons charge says he bought the gun from someone, and that someone reported it lost, where do things go from there?

I'm open to any other ideas that attack the problem of illegal gun sales only being identified at the very end of the chain, in the criminal's hand. This occurs almost certainly after an arrest or search of some sort, but possibly at the conclusion of a violent crime, so in a sense the gun may have already done its damage. How to prevent that?

[dysfunctional press]

52. you just have to accept the fact that it cannot be prevented in a free society.

because it can't.

[jpgray]

54. I'm not yet convinced of that. Do you believe current gun laws infringe on your rights?

I mean we all draw the line somewhere, no? The NFA doesn't get a whole lot of flak (so to speak) for example, so there must be some level of danger that people do support strong regulation for. In other words everybody, even the most absolutist interpreters of amendment 2 would agree there are some weapons that must be restricted. What is specific about current gun laws that is not infringing on your rights, and what sort of laws would be clear infringements on your rights? What is it about full automatic weapons, etc. that requires regulation in your view? Or is that regulation unconstitutional?

[dysfunctional press]

56. personally, i think that the bans on assault weapons and full auto are pointless

with the assault weapon ban- there are plenty of guns just as deadly that aren't covered, and with full auto- there are already kits to convert many semi-auto guns to full auto anyway.
but also personally- i don't have any of the types of guns covered by those bans, and wouldn't even if they were lifted...as such, i don't feel that the current gun laws are infringing on any of the rights i intend to exercise through my life- but obviously some people do.
and I could NEVER support any kind of total handgun ban, which some people seem to favour.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

40. Test, Test Test

Do major background checks! set high standards but do not keep the records...

I dont like the Idea of the Government having a list of who they have to worry about when they decide that King George should stay on the throne..

[Marrah_G]

45. I wish more threads had such civil discussion

Thank you for asking those questions in such a polite and civil manner.

[BoneDaddy]

46. Not a gun "fan" per se

and don't own one currently, I just think that the rabid anti-gun nuts are as ridiculous as the NRA right wing gun nuts. Gun ownership does not equate to immorality in my eyes like it does for many on this board.

[The Straight Story]

47. Responsible person buys gun, gets a divorce, drinks, get's depressed, uses gun

I don't think people are wackos from day 1 of life, so no matter how decent when they are when they buy gun (ie, no matter what new checks people want to add) it still won't stop people from snapping later on.

And tracking the guns? Well that would not have helped in a case like in Nebraska as the gunman was not trying to hide his crime and intended on dying anyway.

[benEzra]

53. Thoughts...

The argument I hear most from the gun crowd here (at least the more rational ones) is that responsible legal gun owners are not the problem. That's true. Responsible gun -sellers- who obey the law are also not a problem. I hear quite a bit that all we have to do is enforce current laws, and that most of the dangerous people who get guns do so illegally. Fair enough.

Here's where the tricky part comes in:

How do you ensure that gun owners are responsible and following the law? How do you ensure that gun sellers are responsible and following the law?

The BATFE polices gun sellers very tightly; all guns are tracked by serial number, and the BATFE is currently going around shutting down gun dealers for violations as minor as abbreviating the word "Baltimore" to fit it in the tiny little box on the Form 4473, or not having the right posters on the walls.

The biggest gap in the system is probably that of straw purchasers, people who knowingly buy a gun for someone else who is a prohibited purchaser. The most straightforward way to deal with that, IMHO, would be to trace all guns used in violent crimes to the original purchaser, and determine if that purchaser illegally transferred the gun into the underground market.

Determining a response to risk is always arbitrary. Determining a security for freedom tradeoff is even -more- arbitrary, as total security is impossible. We've hashed this out with the first amendment since it was written, and we still haven't reached a balance everyone can agree with.

In general terms, however, we all agree. All agree that we should have reasonable, effective laws that don't infringe too much on the freedom or rights of our citizens. The problem is that no two people will agree -exactly- on what "reasonable," "effective," "freedom," and/or "rights" mean, and therefore no two people can agree -exactly- on how to balance security and freedom. In general? Maybe. In the most specific details? Almost impossible.

I think applying the same strict-scrutiny criteria to the Second Amendment that we apply to the First and Fourth Amendments would go a long way toward resolving that.

But to the problem. Guns provide a higher risk factor than, say, knives or most other easily obtainable weapons. Killing an average person with a gun is something that anyone can do with very little or no planning. Killing many average people in the same place with a gun is something that anyone can do with just a little planning (plenty of spree killers have proven this). The same is not true of almost any other widely-proliferated weapon. (Have a counter-example? I'll shoot it down for you, so to speak!)

Chains, a couple of padlocks, and gasoline were the method used in one of the worst mass murders in U.S. history, IIRC (a nightclub fire). But in general, I grant your point here.

Given that, lapses in gun owner/seller law adherence and responsibility provide far more risk and therefore require at least some greater amount of security than owning another readily available weapon, or a totally benign object like a car or restaurant.

But not alcohol, which kills 100,000 people/year according to the CDC. It's not a weapon, but it does alter behavior in violent ways.

how do you ensure that illegal gun ownership doesn't happen on an unacceptably high level? Is the level it is at today okay by you? If not, what should change in terms of the law and in terms of enforcement, specifically?

Two things I'd suggest--going after straw purchasers, and prosecuting people who use guns in violent crimes instead of plea-bargaining the gun offense away as usually happens. In this country, you are probably more likely to go down on a gun charge if you are law-abiding and run afoul of an arcane regulation, than if you are a violent criminal who can turn in someone else or plead to other charges.

Is it fair or silly to say forcing responsible gun owners/buyers to jump through more hoops (in terms of licensing, registration, inspection) would be worth the prevention of a -single- innocent death?

No--because that is EXACTLY the argument that the Bush Administration makes about warrantless wiretaps, torture of suspects, and detention without trial--that civil liberties don't really matter and can be tossed out the window with impunity, if doing so could be argued to save lives. But I don't think that such measures would, in fact, save lives, honestly.

If not, how many deaths would hassles be worth to you? Remember responsible gun owners aren't the problem, but the law has to apply to all. Even if gun owners/sellers were 99% responsible, law-abiding folks, that 1% can do an inordinate amount of damage. The danger of any person's misbehavior with regard to a tool is maximized by the power of the tool. For even more powerful weapons, like grenade launchers, nukes, or the presidency :P, this becomes even more valid.

The problem is, you are looking in the wrong place--like the proverbial drunk who is looking under the street light in the parking lot for his keys, even though he knows he dropped them in the ditch, because the light is better in the parking lot. Yes, the law-abiding are an easy target--just pass more laws; we tend to comply, so it's not that hard. Actually doing something about criminals with guns would take serious funding and investigative work (see above), but would make for poorer fundraising and less lurid press conferences. What's the fun in talking about tracing guns used in homicides and armed robberies, when you can be scaremongering about how target rifles can shoot down airliners?

I don't advocate the banning of any gun which is currently legal to buy, sell, and own. The resistance to that would be immediate and in some ways justified. My suggestion? Regulation that tracks each gun sold, licensing to put a check on mental stability and law-abiding status of buyers/sellers, and inspection to ensure responsible ownership (i.e. to ensure the gun wasn't sold in a neighboring state's urban areas 24 hours later.)

What do you think? What do you support?

I would not support registration in the current political climate, because there is a vocal and extremely well funded movement that wants to ban many currently legal guns, and the primary obstacle preventing the implementation of such a scheme would be the lack of a comprehensive "who owns what" list.

Licensure? Criminals and the mentally incompetent are already barred from owning guns, just like they are barred from owning bongs, crack pipes, pot, and heroin. Licensure wouldn't change that. Those states that do have de facto licensure and registration (e.g., Illinois) don't see much difference compared to states that don't, IMHO. Tracing guns used in crimes to locate traffickers would be a better use of funds. But my biggest objection to licensure is the way it has played out in most places it's been implemented, e.g. NYC, the UK, etc. Once licensure was implemented in the UK, it was a simple matter to keep ratcheting up the requirements, and reducing the scope of the licenses, until UK gun owners have little left.

Home inspections after the sale? Absolutely no way. No way whatsoever. It would do nothing to stop straw purchases (the straw purchaser can hold the gun until after the inspection, after all), and would result in an immense invasion of privacy that would do little or nothing productive.

I do appreciate that you aren't following the Bradyite "let's ban as many lawfully owned guns as we can" mold, though.

Honestly, in a different political climate, with some sort of inalienable guarantees against future abuse, I might not object to most of those things. But the history of gun ownership around the world in the 20th and early 21st century shows that the prohibitionists would abuse such a system with almost 100% certainty, IMHO.

[jpgray]

55. Thanks. I think it's hard to disprove the possibility of a slippery slope

Especially when some organizations propose regulation from an already stated goal of eliminating handgun ownership, etc. If strong regulation ideas don't come from a place that gun owners trust, then deep suspicion will (perhaps justifiably) be inevitable. With the NRA tied to gun industry profits, I don't see that they would be very enthusiastic about additional regulation for sales, unless there was strong public support. Which organization would be trustworthy in supporting new regulations, in your view? Or does none exist?

The inspection idea I should have clarified--I was thinking more in terms of something similar to what we have for vehicles, wherein a gun owner could bring in his weapons once a year (differing times for each owner, obviously) to show that the chain of ownership is intact, and the weapon may be reported lost or stolen. Now obviously there are many loopholes in this arrangement, and some loopholes will never be closed. The nature of some of these loopholes means that adding hurdles after a certain point brings a smaller and smaller return of security for each comparable infringement on freedom. However, additional hurdles to casual secondary sales -will- decrease proliferation to some extent. To what extent? What extent would be compelling in the face of the lost freedoms? I don't know.

As I've asked others, what do you think would be the least invasive way to ensure chain of ownership? It's true that illegal possession is a serious crime, but often such is only enforceable after the weapon is discovered during the investigation of a crime that already occurred. That's hardly ideal, as if the crime is a violent one the gun may have already done its damage.

The reason I advocate more regulation for responsible owners is, as I stated in another reply, that criminals are impossible to effectively track without either a wholly totalitarian state, or vastly greater expense in terms of freedom. Tracking of criminals would not stop first offenders from illegally owning weapons, there would be much debate over which felonies (if any) should allow the government to track you or periodically inspect your home, and in general all the problems relate to the uncooperative and irresponsible nature of criminals. They won't make it easy, and will try to make it impossible.

While it isn't fair to make ostensibly responsible people jump through all these hoops, how else to determine which gun owners and which gun sellers -are- obeying the law and being responsible? Is there a less invasive method for ensuring this? Because the illegal weapons possession odyssey almost always starts with a legal sale -somewhere-, and consequences for driving up from VA and unloading your latest gun show haul aren't really being felt, in my view. How to fix this?

[stanwyck]

57. Good thread. I also have a question for parents who own

guns. And I've never yet been given a rational answer. How do you simultaneously have guns "for home protection" and make sure your children can't get their hands on them? This is really personal to me as I had a first cousin who shot and killed his younger brother, by accident, of course, when he got his hands on the family gun. I've been told trigger locks, password codes, all kinds of ingenious hiding places. OK. But if you have all of those safeguards, how are these weapons still immediately available for home invasion? Do you ask the intruder to wait while you unlock/decode/retrieve from the hiding place? And you're able to do all of this in the middle of the night when you've been sleeping? And then get the bullets from the 2nd hiding place? So, if you have your weapons immediately available, at the ready, then they must be accessible to your children. And remember, children are extremely curious and can find anything. You'll tell me you've taught your kids NEVER to handle your guns when you're not around. What about their friends? And, how many of you ALWAYS did exactly what your parents told you? How do responsible gun owners handle being good parents and being gun owners? The statistics on accidental deaths by children with guns in this country say we're failing in this respect.

[benEzra]

59. Thoughts...

Here's our system.

Most of our guns are kept in a full-size safe for security, but it can be accessed very quickly (~3 seconds or less). If we are home, one carbine in the safe will generally have a magazine containing ammunition inserted, with the chamber empty and the rifle on "safe." We may also keep a handgun in a smaller quick-access pistol lockbox, magazine and chamber loaded (my wife and I both own 9mm's). Both alternatives are more secure than if they were trigger-locked in a simple gun cabinet, while at the same time being very quickly accessible.

Or, I or my wife may have a handgun discreetly on our person(s), where it is both accessible and secure from the kids (she did that a while back when we had a couple of home invasion robberies in our neighborhood).

At night, suffice it to say that the kids cannot gain access to the guns, but we can, very quickly.

I agree with you that hiding guns around the house is a bad idea if you have children, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense from a defensive standpoint either. But there are ways to have guns secure from kids and at the same time accessible for use.

BTW, trigger locks are a bad idea. Not only do they still allow the gun to be loaded by a child (and possibly even fired, depending on the gun--the trigger lock bar can pull the gun's trigger), but they are one of the slowest storage methods from the standpoint of getting the gun into a usable condition.

The statistics on accidental deaths by children with guns in this country say we're failing in this respect.

Actually, the statistics show we are succeeding. Accidental gun deaths are the lowest they have ever been, and IIRC have fallen by 50 or 75 percent over the last two decades. In 2007, owning a swimming pool is 100 times more likely to result in an accidental child death than owning a gun, on a per-owning-household basis. I'd say that is very, very good progress.

[stanwyck]

66. Thanks for the excellent response

If more parents followed your lead, the stats would be even better. Are you including in your stats the number of school shootings? The incidents when children have taken guns from home to school in order to shoot classmates? Agreed, those are not "accidental" deaths. But the guns came from the households. And those incidents are not, sadly, on the decline. What is your source for "accidental gun deaths are the lowest they have ever been"? The boys in Oklahoma who took guns to school to murder their classmates broke into one of the boy's grandfather's gun cabinet. Never under estimate the ingenuity of children.

[benEzra]

73. Gun accident stats...

http://www.nssf.org/PDF/IIR_V2N5.pdf

These were compiled by the NSSF, but I think the data is from the National Safety Council, which is widely regarded as one of the most impartial sources there is.

According to those figures, the per capita gun accident rate has declined by 60% since 1995, and the number of child gun accidents (age 14 and under) have declined by 69% since 1995.

[slackmaster]

60. I didn't keep a firearm deployed for defense when I had a child in the house

I kept the three rifles that I owned at the time locked up.

I kept a big Buck knife and a baseball bat for defense. Also, I felt that the fact that there was another adult in the house (my then-wife) reduced the need for self-defensive weapons.

Now that I am a divorced empty-nester, I keep a firearm handy.

[WildEyedLiberal]

61. Strict enforcement of existing laws.

It is already illegal for someone with documented mental illnesses or a felony record to own a gun, and most rampages are caused by - you guessed it - people with histories of mental illness or people with prior criminal records. People who are not legally allowed to own guns, and yet fall through the cracks.

So the answer is not to create more laws, which will only have the effect of punishing people who do cross their t's and dot their i's when it comes to gun ownership. The answer is to patch up the cracks - make it nearly impossible for someone who shouldn't buy guns to do so, and make the penalty for those who illegally obtain/sell guns very, very serious.

I heard about a case recently in which a man whose girlfriend had taken out a restraining order on him lied on his background check form at a gun shop and bought a gun. When his lie was discovered, he was arrested - and given a $100 dollar fine and probation. WTF?? For LYING ON A FEDERAL DOCUMENT? If we are serious about keeping guns from getting into the wrong hands, we need to stop being afraid to enforce the existing laws to their fullest extent. That man should've been slapped with a hefty (5-10K) fine, at least six months in jail, and been put on a national registry banning him from ever being able to purchase guns in this country again. We will never stop this problem until we start taking existing laws seriously.

Furthermore, there needs to be a nationally streamlined database whereby anyone who is committed to a mental hospital or receives treatment for a significant mental health issue is entered into some kind of federal database that is easily accessible when running background checks, no matter what state they try to purchase in. That would have prevented the VA Tech shooting, most likely.

So, more laws are not the answer, but strict and diligent enforcement of the laws we already have could do wonders.

[Tejas]

65. even though you blew it all away

with the last line in your post ("and inspection to ensure responsible ownership" but you knew that when you wrote it :) ), I still appreciate you taking the time to write it. Except for what i put in brackets there is no sarcasm intended, I really do appreciate your effort.

That said, law-abiding citizens (and their guns) are not the root of this mysterious problem everyone keeps trying to figure out. The problem is that law-breakers exist, they are called "criminals" (aka rapists, murderers, armed robbers, etc).

Know idea why guns keep being brought up as the culprit, especially when half the homicides in this country are committed by other means than guns.

When is SOMEBODY going to start trying to figure out the solution to the other half of the homicide problem?


hmm?

[ileus]

72. Single shot 20ga shotguns should be the only legal firearm.

[derby378]

74. That's freakin' hilarious...

Why not try to address the OP's question instead? The only reason I haven't yet is because I'm trying to give it some thought.