So far so good. A slight improvement or stalling is good, right.The pace of shooting deaths in the Cleveland area has stalled slightly in the past three years, some say because of stepped-up efforts by local and federal law enforcement agencies to remove illegal guns from the urban center.
Police confiscated more than 3,200 guns from the city streets from 2008 through 2010. People voluntarily turned over 488 more guns during the city's last two gun buyback programs.
So where are all these guns coming from? "Hordes" of them are coming in. Well, the story goes on to mention straw purchasing as one of the sources. "Some are stolen and others are purchased with no background check at gun and knife shows -- like ones held almost monthly at the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds."But police believe that for every gun they take off the streets, hordes of cheap, illegal guns appear to replace them. The death and injury toll attributed to firearms is still overwhelming, with more than 277 -- mostly minority men and boys -- being gunned down since 2008. And more often, it seems, teens are the ones with the guns.
In a 10-day span beginning July 26, seven people were shot and killed in the city -- five of them were under age 25.
But, none of that really gets to the heart of the matter. The guns, all the guns, come from lawful gun owners. They all start out manufactured legally and transferred to FFL gun dealers, and after that in various ways, flow into the criminal world.
This is why gun control laws must be aimed at the lawful gun owners, that's where the problem is. Either through apathy, or greed, or stupidity, they are allowing this.
How can we prevent it, you ask? Well it's simple.
1. Background checks on every firearm transfer.
2. Licensing of every gunowner, which requires written, practical and mental health exams.
3. Registration of every gun bought. The licensed owner of the gun will have to renew the registration after three months and yearly thereafter, showing proof of possession.
Those are the main things, after which we can talk about magazine capacity and safe storage laws.
What's your opinion? Would gun control laws like those improve the situation in cities like Cleveland, yes or no?
Please leave a comment.
The Majority opinion in the Heller-McDonald line of decisions has no problems with these provisions--they only rule that a ban on firearms in the home was contrary to the spirit of the Second Amendment.
ReplyDeletemikeb302000:
ReplyDeleteI don't know about the "all" gunz coming through FFL dealers. I'm with you on all the new gunz going through such channels. There are, of course, plenty of guns out there that have been around for years and for a variety of reasons wind up in the hands of criminals (current and future). Just my 2cents.
democommie, even those guns that have been floating around for a while, if you could trace them back, which you can't, thanks to the gun labby, you'd eventually come to a lawful gun owner and/or an FFL guy.
ReplyDeleteThat's my idea.