A wanted University of Georgia professor killed himself with a single gunshot to the head after he dug his own grave and covered it with brush, police said Tuesday.
"Zinkhan's body was found in a small dugout area in the ground, covered with leaves and debris, and it was apparent that he took significant steps to try to conceal his body from being located," a statement from Athens police said.
Does that mean he dug the shallow grave, got in it, covered himself with leaves and debris all the time holding the gun with which he shot himself in the head? I certainly can't see any reason why investigators would invent such a wild story. Can you?
The particulars of his suicide combined with the way he decided to spare his children by leaving them with the neighbor, make this one of the weirdest cases we've discussed.
One of the things that happens in cases like this is information about the gun, its provenance, its history, its role in the crime is lost. Who cares about that when we've got suicide, murder and attempted murder to deal with? This is exactly where the Tiahrt Amendments come into the picture. Tracing the firearm from its manufacturer to the criminal owner is extremely useful information. The more complete the information is the better the recommendations would be as to finding solutions to gun violence. I find it absolutely unconscionable that people who consider themselves upstanding lawful gun owners would support provisions like the Tiahrt Amendments which hinder this process.
What's your opinion? Why do gun owners not cooperate in the efforts too police themselves? Why do they resist even common sense initiatives like a gun trace information database?
Please feel free to leave a comment.
In this case, what data do you think was unavailable to law enforcement due to the Tihart Amendment?
ReplyDeleteHow does society benefit by giving access to trace data to the people who sued Glock for criminal misuse of a gun sold to police?
I think you misunderstand what the Tiahrt amendment does.
ReplyDeleteUnder the system we have right now (_with_ Tiahrt), the police take that gun, contact the manufacturer, and the manufacturer tells them what dealer it shipped the gun to. Then they contact the dealer, who checks his own physical records (which he's required by federal law to keep for, I believe, twenty years), and tells the police who he sold that gun to. Tiahrt does nothing to interfere with this kind of investigation.
What Tiahrt does is prevent the compilation of computer databases of gun purchases that could be used to instantly generate lists of guns _not_ used in crimes that were sold by or to specific people.
We have a robustly enforced system in place to ensure that police can track any firearm they find to the last person who bought it from a dealer. You may still disagree with Tiahrt (lots of people _want_ to be able to pull up a list of what guns a giver person owns or has sold), but it's unrelated to this particular concern. If you want a ationwide gun registry, campaign to make a nationwide gun registry. Perverting justice by misusing an existing system to get a de-facto registry without legal authority is unacceptable.
Why do [gun owners] resist even common sense initiatives like a gun trace information database?
I think we just answered that. Gun control advocates are misrepresenting the laws they call "common sense".
You may be right that I don't understand what the Tiahrt amendments do. But I am learning, and one of the first things that stands out is the pro-gun resistance to changing it. Usually increased transparency is preferable, in compiling information, in controlling inventory, in everything. But in this, you seem to prefer secrecy. I trying to understand.
ReplyDeleteYou may be right that I don't understand what the Tiahrt amendments do. But I am learning...
ReplyDeleteCan we at least agree that taking a statement from one side of the debate and stating that it's "commmon sense" policy that "so-called lawful gun owners" show their "criminal attitudes" by opposing is, at best, premature?
Usually increased transparency is preferable, in compiling information, in controlling inventory, in everything. But in this, you seem to prefer secrecy. I trying to understand.
Increased transparency isn't preferable in everything. I want to know what my President's doing, but I don't want a schedule of when my thirteen-year-old daughter plays in our neighbor's back yard posted on the internet.
As a more relevant example, I want a great deal of transparency with regard to how my police department works, but that doesn't mean I want other private citizens having access to the police license-plate database. It's the difference between giving private citizens data about government, and giving private citizens data about other private citizens; there's a much stronger privacy concern.
The BATFE maintains sensitive records of private citizens' property and behavior. Tiahrt prevents access to those records by anybody but law enforcement. It's one thing to agree to let police know when I purchase a gun as a tradeoff for public safety; it's quite another to let _everybody_ know.
You honestly think there isn't a single anti-gun crusader out there with the wherewithal to write a "Megan's law"-type website to tell you which of your neighbors are "threatening your children's safety" by owning guns?
Incidentally, I'm not familiar with what Tiahrt does or doesn't do with regard to inventory control; I remain agnostic until good information comes along.
ReplyDeleteIt took a bit of digging, but I found a copy of the actual amendment from the Mayors Against Illegal Guns website. The legalese is a bit daunting, but to my not-a-lawyer eye, it looks like the only way Tiahrt affects inventory control is by declining to fund any potential new projects to send BATFE agents around to check a store's inventory. I welcome better informed commentary.
ReplyDeleteMichael asked, "Can we at least agree that taking a statement from one side of the debate and stating that it's "commmon sense" policy that "so-called lawful gun owners" show their "criminal attitudes" by opposing is, at best, premature?"I suppose we could agree on that, however, by way of explanation, I'd offer the fact that after looking at both sides of this argument to the degree that I have in these months, I feel the anti-gun folks have it right. So, when something comes from them, and not just the Bradys, but from the entire spectrum of anti-gun sources, and on top of that the hopeful presidential candidate speaks out against it, I tend to accept that as "common sense" and anything opposed as "criminal." (you're right that bit's a little strong).
ReplyDeleteI'd hasten to add though, I do find the Tiarht situation a bit confusing and I am still learning about it, so in the meantime I will strive to keep an open mind.
In my area, we have a mall with several jewelery stores. There's JB Robinson, Kay, Osterman and Rogers inside the mall, and a Jared in its own building in the parking lot.
ReplyDeletePeople go to the mall, and think they are comparison shopping. In reality, all these stores are owned by Sterling Jewelers.
A large percentage of prominent anti-gun groups are effectively "owned" by the Joyce Foundation, in that they get the majority of their funding from, and in many cases were founded by Joyce. Your "entire spectrum of anti-gun sources" are mostly Joyce Foundation funded or founded, including "the hopeful presidential candidate".
I feel the anti-gun folks have it right.
ReplyDeleteSo far, I believe you and I have discussed only the "assault weapons" ban, the Tiahrt amendment, and the "gun show loophole". All of these have a motivation that you agree with (the attempt to save lives through more regulation of, and less access to guns), but at least the first two are in practice nonsensical and not especially productive. One bans guns that look a certain way but aren't functionally different from non-banned guns, and the other has nothing whatsoever to do with law enforcement, and at the very best trades safety and privacy for the hope that somebody _might_ use some information to find some policy that _might_ alter the "flow" of guns in the hope that it _might_ save some indeterminate number of lives. And the anti-gun groups' proposed solutions to the "gun show loophole" are either to shut down private sales entirely, or to shut down gun shows entirely, both of which go far, far beyond the stated problem.
I think one of the problems we're having is a failure to distinguish between motives and methods. The motive of decreasing the number of tragic deaths is an undeniably honorable one, but the anti-gun lobby isn't proposing good solutions. They're pushing questionable, overreaching, and often incomprehensible laws that will at the very best have much higher costs to individual rights than is necessary to achieve the stated goal.
It's fine that you agree with the core philosophy of "the entire spectrum of anti-gun sources", but you must admit that they have a pretty poor recent track record when it comes to identifying clear, strong, narrowly-drawn solutions. The entire movement has been getting behind obtuse, costly, and confusing policies that _mostly_ promise very small returns.
However much you may agree with their philosophy, I think experience demands at least taking their proposed solutions with a grain of salt.
By way of comparison, I feel this way, generally, about Al Sharpton. His motivation, racial equality, is something I wholeheartedly believe in. But he has such a poor track record on his proposed solutions that I approach his statements with a huge amount of skepticism.