So much for focusing on the Economy...

[top gun]

GenSeneca;82090]We don't have a constitutional right to cars, computer software or lots of other things that require a license... we DO have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms and this would reduce that right to a privilege subject to the whims of politicians.

So it's your belief that the Founders wanted an inalienable right for street criminals and totally crazy mental patients and mass murderers to own and carry firearms?

Of course they didn't! The fact is things were just different back then. These types of people would more likely have been burned on the stake or shot so that sort of ended the problem that way.

And there have been many precedents for various reasonable restrictions on guns all through American history. Many towns in the old Wild West made it illegal to carry a gun into town... or into a Saloon. There have been restrictions put on fully automatic or (military) weapons... weapons with silencers... on and on... So just making sure who owns a gun or transfers a gun to another is not any earth shattering news in my opinion.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the government keeping guns in the hands of only mentally stable law abiding citizens. To say other wise would be illogical and put into immediate danger all Americans and their children who are law abiding citizens.

 

[Dr.Who]

So it's your belief that the Founders wanted an inalienable right for street criminals and totally crazy mental patients and mass murderers to own and carry firearms?

A crazy guy walks into a bar wearing a three corner hat with a feather in it. He takes out his gun and points it at the bar tender. Then four other guys pull out their guns and blow him away.

Seriously, there were hardly any gun control laws in the United States until the 1960's. There were also hardly any school shootings. And the phrase 'going postal' did not exist.

 

[top gun]

A crazy guy walks into a bar wearing a three corner hat with a feather in it. He takes out his gun and points it at the bar tender. Then four other guys pull out their guns and blow him away.

Seriously, there were hardly any gun control laws in the United States until the 1960's. There were also hardly any school shootings. And the phrase 'going postal' did not exist.

That's my point. First... that's certainly not a civilized scenario everyone just shooting it up in a bar. Secondly people aren't allowed to carry guns in bars today.

The fact is that crazy people were dealt with quite differently back then... same with dangerous criminals.

That being the case we can obviously have 2nd Amendment rights while limiting the convicted or crazy. This is (while not perfectly) being done with background checks.

The one big loophole that still exists is that a legitimate law abiding person can buy a firearm and then give or sell it to someone who is not. That's the whole idea behind registration. With registration you can make it illegal to second hand sell your weapon to someone without a background check.

This doesn't bother me in the least. In fact it helps to promote guns for the good guys and less for the bad.

 

[Andy]

That's my point. First... that's certainly not a civilized scenario everyone just shooting it up in a bar. Secondly people aren't allowed to carry guns in bars today.

The fact is that crazy people were dealt with quite differently back then... same with dangerous criminals.

That being the case we can obviously have 2nd Amendment rights while limiting the convicted or crazy. This is (while not perfectly) being done with background checks.

The one big loophole that still exists is that a legitimate law abiding person can buy a firearm and then give or sell it to someone who is not. That's the whole idea behind registration. With registration you can make it illegal to second hand sell your weapon to someone without a background check.

This doesn't bother me in the least. In fact it helps to promote guns for the good guys and less for the bad.

Yeah, like a bad guy wouldn't just steal it. Or like a person who can buy the gun legally, can't scratch off the serial number to sell it illegally. Or like they can't buy the parts to put the gun together by hand, from off the internet.

Why don't you get that more control doesn't result in fewer bad people with guns? Australia has some of the toughest laws anywhere, and they have the a huge problem with illegally imported weapons. No serial numbers, no back ground checks, nothing.

Registration on the other hand, was used by police in New Orleans to confiscate weapons from law abiding civilians, in the face of mass riots murders and brutal beatings. How would you like to live in a city gone mad, and have the police show up at your home to take away the only protection you had?

That's the history of "registration". It provide no help, and allows the government to abuse you.

 

[top gun]

Yeah, like a bad guy wouldn't just steal it. Or like a person who can buy the gun legally, can't scratch off the serial number to sell it illegally. Or like they can't buy the parts to put the gun together by hand, from off the internet.

Why don't you get that more control doesn't result in fewer bad people with guns? Australia has some of the toughest laws anywhere, and they have the a huge problem with illegally imported weapons. No serial numbers, no back ground checks, nothing.

Registration on the other hand, was used by police in New Orleans to confiscate weapons from law abiding civilians, in the face of mass riots murders and brutal beatings. How would you like to live in a city gone mad, and have the police show up at your home to take away the only protection you had?

That's the history of "registration". It provide no help, and allows the government to abuse you.

The bottom line is this... registration in no way hurts or inhibits the ability of people who should have firearms from having firearms.

However it does set up one less easy path for the crazy or criminal to buy firearms. The fact that some of the crazy or criminal will still try to find ways around registration... well at least we're not helping them along.

I know a little about this from my old biker buddies. It was not uncommon at all for them to get a "clean" person to go buy guns for them once background checks were implemrnted... sometimes even guns in mass quantities.

Showing proof that the person you sold your registered gun to passed a background check (which would be as easy as them going to any gun shop and paying the small fee to have themselves ran) seems reasonable.

Especially when it tells anyone who thinks about being a shill for a crazy or criminal if they don't... they themselves can be fined and go to jail.

 

[Andy]

The bottom line is this... registration in no way hurts or inhibits the ability of people who should have firearms from having firearms.

I don't believe you.

However it does set up one less easy path for the crazy or criminal to buy firearms. The fact that some of the crazy or criminal will still try to find ways around registration... well at least we're not helping them along.

Great. You justify a failed and useless policy that adds burdens onto law abiding citizens with "Well at least we're not helping them [criminals] along." How lame.

I know a little about this from my old biker buddies. It was not uncommon at all for them to get a "clean" person to go buy guns for them once background checks were implemrnted... sometimes even guns in mass quantities.

Well of course. It sets up a black market the same prohibition did. Just like it has in Australia and anywhere else that gun controls are strict.

This is the logic I expect from the left. You just proved your own theory of registration being useful, wrong. But yet you still support it.

Especially when it tells anyone who thinks about being a shill for a crazy or criminal if they don't... they themselves can be fined and go to jail.

Yeah just like having mass confiscation of property for those dealing in drugs, has made them think twice. Yeah, the illegal drug market is nearly gone now. No drugs anywhere. I'd have to walk almost two blocks now to find the first dealer.

 

[GenSeneca]

So it's your belief that the Founders wanted an inalienable right for street criminals and totally crazy mental patients and mass murderers to own and carry firearms?

Of course they didn't!

I'll tell you what... Since you can't divorce yourself from making irrational, emotional arguments, lets use the same rules of statist policy your proposing to craft another piece of legislation that turns what's now considered a "right" into a privilege:

From now on, women who want to get an abortion must submit for an application to terminate their pregnancy. They will not be able to get an abortion until a government bureaucrat issues the permit and doctors will not perform the procedure without it. The anti-abortionists will be put in charge of the application process and see to it that the applications take 10-12 months to be processed and are only issued after the birth of the child. That should effectively ban abortion through a backdoor effort... they aren't saying you can't have an abortion, so it gets around Roe v Wade, just that you need permission to terminate your pregnancy and its no longer a "right" you can exercise without government approval.

There are roughly one million abortions a year, this measure would save more innocent life than your vain attempt at disarming criminals by turning the law biding citizens right to bear arms into a privilege that would only be bestowed upon those citizens our beneficent, incorruptible government deemed worthy of exercising it.

I see massive potential for abuse with the policy you find reasonable. Imagine this legislation were law when Joe the Plumber came under the immense scrutiny he did, government officials already crossed many lines and broke many rules and laws in order to dig through his personal records to try and destroy him with the public. Such a law as you're proposing chips away at all our rights, not just the second amendment.

Government could punish gun owners who speak out against the government, or whatever administrations in power at the time, by revoking, or refusing to issue, their "license" and confiscating their guns.

Government won't have to pass laws that forbid citizens from speaking out against the government, we'll stay quiet on our own.... Out of fear. Fear of losing whatever "right" that people like you have determined now requires a "license" as permission to exercise that "right". Fear of losing our property. Fear of becoming criminals for wanting to maintain our rights as rights rather than seeing them reduced to being privileges.

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." --Thomas Jefferson

The big difference between me and you... I want government to protect our rights, all our rights, that's the whole reason we established our government. You want government to decide which "rights" citizens are entitled to exercise and which citizens are lucky enough, or loyal enough to your ideology, to exercise them and worse yet, you think that's the real purpose and role of government.

 

[Bunz]

The bottom line is this... registration in no way hurts or inhibits the ability of people who should have firearms from having firearms.

TopGun,
The problem with gun registration is that for one it emcumbers otherwise gun owners who should not have to deal with registration in the first place.
I would support gun registration as soon as kitchen knives begin to be registered.
Secondly, it puts forward a situation whereas the feds know where those registered guns "should" be. This is a 4th amendment issue, and unfairly targets those who own guns versus other potential weapons such as bats, knives, other hard metal instruments, like wrenches and pliers.

The bottom line is that 99.9% of guns are used for lawful purposes, and if you want to regulate guns in this matter, it would seem idiotic not to regulate other "potentially dangerous" items in the same cause.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

So it's your belief that the Founders wanted an inalienable right for street criminals and totally crazy mental patients and mass murderers to own and carry firearms?

Of course they didn't! The fact is things were just different back then. These types of people would more likely have been burned on the stake or shot so that sort of ended the problem that way.

You've (obviously) forgotten about the good-ol'-days....when the U.S. was so sparsely-populated....that killers were (in a sense) tolerated.​

 

[top gun]

I don't believe you.

Well be that as it may... the reason for gun registration has nothing at all to do with things in this YouTube clip. People that won't follow a forced evacuation? Someone @ any age who's upset and resisting police commands that has a gun in her hand?

Registration just titles a firearm like we do a car... it so not a big deal. Any law ab bidding citizen mentally stable person can still buy firearms.

Great. You justify a failed and useless policy that adds burdens onto law abiding citizens with "Well at least we're not helping them [criminals] along." How lame.

It's not failed... it not even the law yet. But yes I do like setting up problems for criminals & crazy people. If not we could say the same about drunk drivers. All drunk drivers don't kill people. Heck some people drive pretty darn good buzzed.

Why burden law abiding people with sobriety check points and drunk driving laws? It's because it's for the safety of those law abiding citizens out there driving around with the drunks. Will it stop ALL drunk driving... of course not.

Well of course. It sets up a black market the same prohibition did. Just like it has in Australia and anywhere else that gun controls are strict.

This is the logic I expect from the left. You just proved your own theory of registration being useful, wrong. But yet you still support it.

I'm talking about a paper trail for firearms... nothing else. It doesn't limit guns sales to anyone that can pass a background check that is already in place. As far as "black market" that's fine. Those gun traffickers are at least then committing a punishable crime themselves.

Yeah just like having mass confiscation of property for those dealing in drugs, has made them think twice. Yeah, the illegal drug market is nearly gone now. No drugs anywhere. I'd have to walk almost two blocks now to find the first dealer.

One of my best friends was a police officer killed by a crazy man with a stolen handgun. He was killed and his partner lost an eye in the shooting. So I have some pretty good insight from a law enforcement perspective. As far as drugs... the prisons are full of people taken off the streets for selling drugs and confiscations not only fund police anti-drug activity but are a deterrent to some. Just because you can't eliminate a danger doesn't mean you just throw up your hands and say... just let it be legal for all.

 

[top gun]

I'll tell you what... Since you can't divorce yourself from making irrational, emotional arguments, lets use the same rules of statist policy your proposing to craft another piece of legislation that turns what's now considered a "right" into a privilege:

From now on, women who want to get an abortion must submit for an application to terminate their pregnancy. They will not be able to get an abortion until a government bureaucrat issues the permit and doctors will not perform the procedure without it. The anti-abortionists will be put in charge of the application process and see to it that the applications take 10-12 months to be processed and are only issued after the birth of the child. That should effectively ban abortion through a backdoor effort... they aren't saying you can't have an abortion, so it gets around Roe v Wade, just that you need permission to terminate your pregnancy and its no longer a "right" you can exercise without government approval.

There are roughly one million abortions a year, this measure would save more innocent life than your vain attempt at disarming criminals by turning the law biding citizens right to bear arms into a privilege that would only be bestowed upon those citizens our beneficent, incorruptible government deemed worthy of exercising it.

I see massive potential for abuse with the policy you find reasonable. Imagine this legislation were law when Joe the Plumber came under the immense scrutiny he did, government officials already crossed many lines and broke many rules and laws in order to dig through his personal records to try and destroy him with the public. Such a law as you're proposing chips away at all our rights, not just the second amendment.

Government could punish gun owners who speak out against the government, or whatever administrations in power at the time, by revoking, or refusing to issue, their "license" and confiscating their guns.

Government won't have to pass laws that forbid citizens from speaking out against the government, we'll stay quiet on our own.... Out of fear. Fear of losing whatever "right" that people like you have determined now requires a "license" as permission to exercise that "right". Fear of losing our property. Fear of becoming criminals for wanting to maintain our rights as rights rather than seeing them reduced to being privileges.

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." --Thomas Jefferson

The big difference between me and you... I want government to protect our rights, all our rights, that's the whole reason we established our government. You want government to decide which "rights" citizens are entitled to exercise and which citizens are lucky enough, or loyal enough to your ideology, to exercise them and worse yet, you think that's the real purpose and role of government.

That is just one crazy rant. First there is a paper trail on anyone that has legal medical treatment (including an abortion)... might of heard of them they're called medical records

Secondly the government couldn't "punish" anyone anymore or less with or without gun registration because they speak out on something. Just as they haven't punished anyone anymore or less because of background checks.

And I beg to differ with your interpretation of our differences. You want a anti government/anti police lynch mob in the streets, vigilante type mentality. I lean more toward even handed laws that are enforced by professionals.

Not to say it ALWAYS works out this way in every single case. But I can tell you this I'd rather deal with a police officer in a crises than someone with no real understanding of the law and caught up in the emotion of the situation.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on registration... I'd have no problem doing it myself. I've said before I own a Mossberg 12 ga. pump, M1 Carbine, Dan Wesson 357 pistol pack and a Baretta 380... wife is ex-ARMY and still owns a little 25 automatic.

 

[top gun]

TopGun,
The problem with gun registration is that for one it emcumbers otherwise gun owners who should not have to deal with registration in the first place.
I would support gun registration as soon as kitchen knives begin to be registered.
Secondly, it puts forward a situation whereas the feds know where those registered guns "should" be. This is a 4th amendment issue, and unfairly targets those who own guns versus other potential weapons such as bats, knives, other hard metal instruments, like wrenches and pliers.

The bottom line is that 99.9% of guns are used for lawful purposes, and if you want to regulate guns in this matter, it would seem idiotic not to regulate other "potentially dangerous" items in the same cause.

Well we can't always agree.

I can't ride along with kitchen knives being on the same plane as a Glock or an AR15... and I must say I've used them all.

I see no infringement as long as the firearms CAN BE legally purchased. The slight inconvenience does not stop the purchase and hence the right to bear arms in a timely manor.

As far as the Feds knowing about the guns. As long as they don't take them away from law abiding mentally stable citizen there would be no problem. And if the government ever did go sooooo far off the tracks as to confiscated all firearms... they'd have at that point gained the power to just go door to door and search everybody & every place anyway.

Like I've said I have a unique perspective. I was in a motorcycle gang (granted way back in my youth some 25 years ago ) but I've seen first hand how the criminal element works gun laws. We had a Chapter up in Michigan that had a working WW2 Bazooka & ammo for Christ sake... they certainly love weapons & the bigger the better.

But I over the last 25 years have several very close friends that are police officers. I draw from what I personally have learned... that's all any of us can really do.

 

[Dr.Who]

The one big loophole that still exists is that a legitimate law abiding person can buy a firearm and then give or sell it to someone who is not. That's the whole idea behind registration. With registration you can make it illegal to second hand sell your weapon to someone without a background check.

If they sold it to the the bad guy they would not be law abiding would they?

 

[top gun]

If they sold it to the the bad guy they would not be law abiding would they?

Right now they would be law abiding.

Because there's no law as it stands that says a private individual has to be given proof that someone they're selling their gun to has cleared a background check.

Hence the problem...

 

[Andy]

Well be that as it may... the reason for gun registration has nothing at all to do with things in this YouTube clip. People that won't follow a forced evacuation? Someone @ any age who's upset and resisting police commands that has a gun in her hand?

I'll buy that. The clip was to show general example of government denying the public of their constitutional rights. That said:

In Illinois (Obama town), they tried to pass HB2414 which would criminalize the ownership of many popular rifles. People would have 90 days to surrender their property to authorities, and would recieve no compensation for the value of the lost items. If they failed to turn them in, according to their registration, they would have warrants issued for their arrest and could be jailed.

So innocent law-abiding citizens would be jailed, while criminals who of course wouldn't register their fire arms legally, would roam the streets with guns in an ever more defenseless population. Brilliant.

Registration just titles a firearm like we do a car... it so not a big deal. Any law ab bidding citizen mentally stable person can still buy firearms.

Government abuses citizens far more than other people do. I want them having as little information about me as possible. Further, government is particularly bad at respecting peoples property in regards to this area. It is not needed, it doesn't help, it shouldn't be done.

It's not failed... it not even the law yet. But yes I do like setting up problems for criminals & crazy people. If not we could say the same about drunk drivers. All drunk drivers don't kill people. Heck some people drive pretty darn good buzzed.

Yes it has failed. Don't you know anything about the history of other nations? I can't believe you consider yourself informed, and yet don't know how many times registration of guns, and other gun control laws have repeatedly and consistently failed.

Gun control has not worked in Canada. Since the new gun registration program started in 1998, the U.S. homicide rate has fallen, but the Canadian rate has increased. The net cost of Canada’s gun registry has surged beyond $1-billion — more than 500 times the amount originally estimated. Despite this, the Canadian government recently admitted it could not identify a single violent crime that had been solved through registration. Public confidence in the government’s ability to fight crime has also eroded, with one recent survey showing only 17% of voters support the registration program.

So, if this hasn’t worked, what’s the solution? The NDP, which polls indicate may hold the balance of power in Parliament after June 28, has proposed a radical solution: “going across the border to the U.S. and actively engaging in lobbying to have gun -control laws in the U.S. strengthened.”

Yes it has failed.... and more than once, or even twice... In fact, registration was used hundreds of times, never once showing a single positive result. Care to prove me wrong? I'd love to see. Might even change my mind. But in New York, registration resulted in confiscation of arms by the authorities, and of course murder rates are so low in New York now.... right?

Less hearsay and empty claims, more support and evidence, ok?

Why burden law abiding people with sobriety check points and drunk driving laws? It's because it's for the safety of those law abiding citizens out there driving around with the drunks. Will it stop ALL drunk driving... of course not.

There is a huge difference. Registration of vehicles will not likely result is government abusing the public, the way gun registration routinely has. Also, gun control always results in more crime by hindering the public from defending itself. Finely, automobiles are not a specific right of the people in the constitutional, that our out of control government isn't following.

Registration and sobriety check points are completely unrelated, and thus have nothing to do with your point anyway.

I'm talking about a paper trail for firearms... nothing else. It doesn't limit guns sales to anyone that can pass a background check that is already in place. As far as "black market" that's fine. Those gun traffickers are at least then committing a punishable crime themselves.

You still don't get it. Registration will not stop one single gun from getting into the hands of someone who wants one, legal or otherwise.

Are you interested in results, or empty vague pointless exercises in futility? Is it more important to adopt a policy that inhibits criminal activity, or something that is useless but makes you feel good?

Do you even realize how easy it is to make a gun? Guns are not exactly difficult high-tech devices. You need a hammer, a barrel, and handle and a trigger. I know a guy right now, that has the ability to make a fully automatic pistol right from his basement. How do you register that? And what benefit would it be to register it? I know several families that have dozens of guns in their homes. I could go and buy one tomorrow. How are you going to enforce a background check? How are you going to trace it? How are you going to stop it? It's a pointless waste of time, that will accomplish nothing at best, and at worst make the situation worse off.

One of my best friends was a police officer killed by a crazy man with a stolen handgun. He was killed and his partner lost an eye in the shooting. So I have some pretty good insight from a law enforcement perspective. As far as drugs... the prisons are full of people taken off the streets for selling drugs and confiscations not only fund police anti-drug activity but are a deterrent to some. Just because you can't eliminate a danger doesn't mean you just throw up your hands and say... just let it be legal for all.

But your not even going to hinder it. You think registration would have stopped the crazy guy from getting a gun? He'd just steal it from someone else, or get someone to buy it for him, or buy the parts online and build it at home, or just walk through down town and get one. When I was in college, I know several people that would sell you a handgun for quick cash. So what difference does it make?

Registration has never worked in history, and there is zero evidence it will work in the future, and yet you still think wasting the time money and effort on a pointless scheme is "a deterrent to some"? Some who? Where is this some? Show me your evidence?

Btw, my father was a police officer, and I have a cousin that became the chief of police, plus another that worked as a narcotics officer, and guy that lived behind me was a covert narc officer. I think I know a bit about this as well.