Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said Virginia’s gun restrictions need revision.I agree that's a problem which needs to be fixed, but I'm not convinced it's the worst of it. Besides the purchasing of guns without a background check by people who would otherwise be denied, there are other sources to the gun flow.
“The biggest gap is the gun-show loophole,” Horwitz said. “This allows people to go to gun shows and purchase firearms without required background checks or forms.”
Some say theft is the biggest. I don't believe that, although I certainly favor holding gun owners responsible for making theft too easy.
The other way is through straw purchases. I think this is the biggest source, and more than the lax gun laws in Virginia it's the general attitude towards gun ownership that helps this one work. Zorro, for example believes that all gun laws are immoral. I would imagine he's not alone in that wild belief and it doesn't take much imagination to see what a gun shop owner who feels that way would do in his daily work. He'd turn a blind eye on any and all purchasers regardless of how suspicious.
So, here's what we do. Require background checks on all gun transfers. Establish gun storage requirements for the home which will be strictly enforced. And last but not least, require licensing of all gun owners and registration of every gun, to be followed by home inspections for compliance. Gun purchasers who cannot produce the gun they're supposed to own go immediately go jail for a year, let's say.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
And of course, people involved in situations like this should not be charged with anything.
ReplyDeleteWe'll ignore the criminal demographic involved in gun violence and instead make it harder for ordinary people.
That'll work.
Or like this
ReplyDeletehttp://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2010/08/lakeisha-gadson-acquitted.html
Mike wants to ban guns, but keep the gangs unmolested.
I see a lot of "take" here, but no "give". That's hardly fair.
ReplyDeleteHere's some reasonable, sensible compromises:
"Require background checks on all gun transfers."
And reduce the trouble for gun owners by opening NICS to non-FFLs.
"And last but not least, require licensing of all gun owners and registration of every gun, to be followed by home inspections for compliance."
Combined with a repeal of all restrictions and bans on so-called "dangerous" firearms. No NFA, no AWBs, no bans of any kind.
There we go, fair and sensible.
And last but not least, require licensing of all gun owners and registration of every gun, to be followed by home inspections for compliance. Gun purchasers who cannot produce the gun they're supposed to own go immediately go jail for a year, let's say.
ReplyDeleteOh certainly not least! When the police are going door to door checking papers and dragging away the non-compliant, that is the time I most want to have a gun. It's amazing to me how you are just begging to live in a police state.
Frankly, the "door-to-door" hysteria promoted by Ruffy isn't necessary. After all, it's not as if police are doing home searches of medicine cabinets to see if you have a valid prescription for the dilaudid.
ReplyDeleteInstead, licensing and registration is easily enough enforced; you want to shoot at a gun range? Fine, show that your weapons are licensed and registered. Get caught carrying an unregistered/unlicensed firearm during a crime? Great--get some mandatory time added to your sentence.
The only thing I'd add to mikeb's fine suggestions is mandatory insurance.
Your suggestions have been noted and filed in the shredder MikeB and his little bitch.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your suggestions, your thoughts are very valued here.
Jade: “Frankly, the "door-to-door" hysteria promoted by Ruffy isn't necessary. After all, it's not as if police are doing home searches of medicine cabinets to see if you have a valid prescription for the dilaudid.”
ReplyDeleteIt is not Ruffridr being hysterical- door to door inspections is exactly what MikeB is proposing. It sounds you actually disagree with him.
The compromise by Guy Ohki is something I have mentioned before. You want registration, fine- I want all gun bans to be outlawed forever. The good thing for your side is It takes the “registration leads to confiscation” argument away. Anyone who claims to not be a gun ban organization would surely get behind this- given that banning guns is not their goal and all…
TS: You want a compromise? Sorry--what we're proposing passes Constitutional muster. What you want doesn't.
ReplyDeleteI'm unworried abot the "registration leads to confiscation" argument. Why? Because it's bogus; it's for the dupes who believe Medicare is communism as they sit in their motorized wheelchairs paid by Medicare.
Fine, no compromising then.
ReplyDeleteSince when does the constitution say you can’t not ban something?
TS asks Since when does the constitution say you can’t not ban something?
ReplyDeleteHe should read the Heller-McDonald cases closely:
But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. Heller at 64
Heller-McDonald held that background checks and registration pass Constitutional muster.
Laci
Frankly, the "door-to-door" hysteria promoted by Ruffy isn't necessary. After all, it's not as if police are doing home searches of medicine cabinets to see if you have a valid prescription for the dilaudid.
ReplyDeleteMr. Cabot, Mike specifically mentioned wanting the police to go door to door and check. It's not me that is promoting this hysteria.
Ruffy: Try not too get so hysterical. Your spittle will dull the finish of the gun you're fondling.
ReplyDelete"Get caught carrying an unregistered/unlicensed firearm during a crime? Great--get some mandatory time added to your sentence."
ReplyDelete"Sorry--what we're proposing passes Constitutional muster. What you want doesn't."
Except that you cannot charge a criminal or a prohibited person for failure to register their criminally owned gun.
Sorry, you can only force registration on the law abiding.
FWM: Au contraire. You can absolutely charge a criminal for possession of unregistered/unlicensed gun.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing so many gunloons who profess to know everything about the 2A--apparently know nothing about Heller.
Ruffy: Try not too get so hysterical. Your spittle will dull the finish of the gun you're fondling.
ReplyDeleteYou don't need to worry about me Guy. You're better off worrying about how you can improve your reading comprehension to better than that of a 2nd grader.
"FWM: Au contraire. You can absolutely charge a criminal for possession of unregistered/unlicensed gun.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing so many gunloons who profess to know everything about the 2A--apparently know nothing about Heller."
Heller has nothing to do with it. You seem to have forgotten the 5th Amendment. You cannot charge someone for failure to register a gun if they would incriminate themselves by doing so.
One thing that's being conveniently ignored in this discussion is that we have the same kind of sleight of hand going on here that we've had with the "90% of Mexican 'crime guns' come from the U.S. gun market" myth, that still gets tossed around, despite having been thoroughly debunked and discredited.
ReplyDeleteBloomberg and his stooges would like us to believe that traced guns = "crime guns" . . . but traced guns are very often not "crime guns."
More here.
Laci: “He should read the Heller-McDonald cases closely:”
ReplyDeleteThanks for the advice, Laci. My advice to you would be to read why I say closely, because I didn’t say anything about registration being unconstitutional.
I'm afraid I have to insist on the home inspections. You don't have to look at it as jack-booted door-to-door police-state oppression. It could be likened to the social worker who makes home visits to check up on reports of abuse.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, whatever you call it and however you look at it, it's going to be necessary to uncover those folks who have done straw purchases and have since handed over their guns. That's the whole point.
Van Dyke, In your first comment you suggest that we want to "ignore the criminal demographic." Nothing could be further from the truth. We're talking about gun availability on this blog more than general criminal activity, and no one is suggesting we focus on one and not the other.
Jadefool's Biggest (Only?) Cheerleader:
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid I have to insist on the home inspections. You don't have to look at it as jack-booted door-to-door police-state oppression. It could be likened to the social worker who makes home visits to check up on reports of abuse.
Think you're going to find enough "social workers" to pull this off? Enough body bags?
I don't.
I do find it very amusing that Jadefool accuses people of "hysteria" for claiming that anyone is advocating exactly what his biggest cheerleader is advocating.
ReplyDelete"I'm afraid I have to insist on the home inspections. You don't have to look at it as jack-booted door-to-door police-state oppression. It could be likened to the social worker who makes home visits to check up on reports of abuse."
ReplyDeleteI hope you'll be conducting them personally, Sparky...maybe you'll bring your little bitch too as back-up?
MikeB: “It could be likened to the social worker who makes home visits to check up on reports of abuse.”
ReplyDeleteWell, the obvious difference is that there is some “report of abuse” or prior offense. You are advocating police going door to door to every gun owner. Clearly social workers don’t knock on the door of every parent’s house to search for signs of abuse.
Have you addressed yet what this police effort will take time away from?
I agree there are details which will have to be worked out. But, imagine eliminating straw buying of guns. This would do it.
ReplyDeleteNo, it wouldn't. Passing a law against murder didn't stop murder.
ReplyDeletePassing a law against drunk driving didn't stop drunk driving.
Even if we (as a nation) had the resources to conduct door to door searches on people who bought firearms (which we obviously don't) how could your (unconstitutional) law stop straw sales?
Jadefool's Biggest (Only?) Cheerleader:
ReplyDeleteI agree there are details which will have to be worked out.
This isn't a matter of "details" to tweak--the entire idea is, to quote Arthur Dent, "wildly, crazily, stupidly, cross-eyed-blithering-insectly wrong."
I actually kinda wish you could convince enough politicians to take this "plan" seriously, that it got some attention. I can think of no quicker way to get the ACLU to ally with gun rights advocates.
Let’s just say social workers did knock on every single door looking for signs of child abuse. Don’t you think there would be a lot of false accusations causing innocent parents to have to fight for the right to keep their children? Back to guns- Mike’s plan would result in an enormous expense, which would have to be justified with gun seizures and incarcerations. When the numbers don’t turn out like the bosses want (Mike clearly thinks this would result in a windfall of violations) they’ll tell their troops that they are not looking “hard enough”… I am not some anti-government paranoid, but I don’t like where that would head at all. No sir, I don’t like it.
ReplyDeleteWow Mike,
ReplyDelete> Eliminate straw purchasing
You don't realize this is already illegial!?!
You can do all you want to reduce the availability of guns, but if you do that without addressing the criminal element, then you make society worse off.
Let's look back at the pizza delivery driver--what was the reason he carried that gun in the first place? Wouldn't addressing that reason naturally reduce the demand and availability on the market?
The ACLU siding with the pro-gunners, although not unprecedented, is something we definitely don't want.
ReplyDeleteSo let's tweak the idea a little.
Purchasers of weapons must be licensed themselves and each gun they buy must be registered to them. A card or document of some sort would accompany each item. Every year thereafter, the gun owner must present himself with the gun for a stamp to be added to the document. Failure to show will be closely monitored and punished severely.
How's that work for ya?
My point is, forget about the details for a minute, something could be done about this. Resources would come from the tremendous savings as the costs for the ever-decreasing gun violence plummet.
Jadefool's Biggest (Only?) Cheerleader:
ReplyDeleteThe ACLU siding with the pro-gunners, although not unprecedented, is something we definitely don't want.
Oh? "We" don't, eh? Some of us quite like the idea of pro-rights groups working together against anti-rights groups.
As for your licensing idea--still don't see Murdock v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as an obstacle? You could be right--SCOTUS tends to do what it wants, and it rarely wants anything but more government control--but I don't see how they can uphold a licensing requirement for what they have recognized as a Constitutional right, without either overturning Murdock, or just abandoning any pretense of legitimacy.