I have to admit that people on the “pro-gun” side tend to be fairly clueless and miss the obvious.
Yes, criminals not only DON’T register their firearms–THEY CAN’T. That’s the whole idea–the criminal is arrested and is charged with possession of an unregistered firearm. They aren’t able to register their gun and THEY GO TO JAIL!
It makes it simpler to prove the person shouldn't have had the gun in the first place.
Get the idea, or are you still too stupid?
Over at Commongunsense they are having the old drunks and cars debate. If someone is inebreated and is driving, they are breaking the law and they lose their licence to drive. They might even serve some time in jail!
A drunk on public transporation is annoying–a drunk driving a car is a danger to society.
Anyway, I like this article by Peter Wheeland from the 26 Aug 10 Montreal Gazette which I am copiously citing since pro-gun people are too stupid to spot citations. It concerns how idiotic their arguments are.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/register+your+guns/3444385/story.html
You register your car -why not guns?
By PETER WHEELAND, The Gazette August 26, 2010
There’s a very good chance that a private member’s bill will be adopted by Parliament within weeks that would abolish the registry of rifles and shotguns owned by Canadians.
Imagine, if you will, the average car owner trying to use the same arguments as gun owners for refusing to register their weapons, to fight storage regulations and to push for dismantling the gun registry.
The following arguments were lifted from numerous pro-gun blogs and websites about the long-gun registry and little was changed except weapons were transformed into vehicles, bullets into car keys.
- ¦ “Cars don’t kill people, people kill people.”
- ¦ “Criminals won’t register their cars, they’ll just go out and steal them or smuggle them into the country.”
- ¦ “Forcing me to keep my car and car keys separate when I’m not using them is stupid. What if there’s a fox in my field and I have to run into the house to get my keys so I can go run the fox over? By the time I get my keys, he’ll be gone. Yet if I leave my keys in the car and some kid steals it and kills someone with it, they think I’m the one acting irresponsibly! That’s crazy!”
- ¦ “Ninety per cent of car crimes are committed with sports cars, not SUVs, so why should SUV owners by forced to register their vehicles?”
- ¦ “The car registry penalizes the majority of vehicle owners, who are law-abiding citizens, by imposing bureaucratic procedures and fees on them, as well as making them vulnerable to prosecution for failing to register their cars.”
- ¦ “If a lunatic decides to take a bunch of people out, it really won’t matter to him whether or not the car is registered.”
- ¦ “It’s not the fear of registering cars, it’s the cost for each car, plus the hassle you have to go through. Plus you have to take a driver safety course in order to get a permit to drive the car. I’ve been driving without a licence all my life, why should I have to take a safety course? My dad taught me everything I need to know.”
- ¦ “The original cost of implementing the registry was estimated at approximately $120 million, with most of the costs being covered by registration fees. Subsequent reviews, however, have shown the actual cost to be closer to $2 billion.”
Well, it’s hard to argue with that last point. Setting up the registry was enormously, ridiculously expensive. The only way to recoup that $2 billion is, obviously, to scrap the registry.
Yes, yes, that argument doesn’t make much sense, either.
But don’t forget that this is the same government that spend $1.1 billion on the G8 and G20 summits without worrying about what five days’ worth of talks would cost, nor were they worried that the expense (not to mention the criminal trials for 300 protesters) would produce nothing of benefit in its wake.
It’s the same government that wants to spend $9 billion to expand the prison system because of a rise in “unreported crime.”
The same government that wants to increase the cost of conducting the census by $30 million because of privacy complaints that, well, are so private that no one has heard of them.
The same government whose only other major privacy concern has been that Canadians not be allowed to obtain information about MPs’ expenses and that journalists making Access to Information requests get only documents with all of the nouns and adjectives blacked out.
It’s the same government that promotes a “law and order” agenda yet refuses to listen to the unanimous position of the Association of Police Chiefs on the usefulness of the long-gun registry,
Laws don’t kill democracy, politicians do.
Peter Wheeland is a Montreal writer, Gazette copy editor, and owner of a proudly registered car.
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazetteread more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/register+your+guns/3444385/story.html#ixzz17wTUYvBi
Cars are registered for revenue purposes, not safety purposes.
ReplyDeleteIf government wants to register guns, then it should be tax free, just like registering to vote.
NO, RedAz, cars are not registered just for revenue purposes. The reason you have to provide your insurance information to license your vehicle, as well as conform to laws regulating things like head lights, tail lights, break lights, windshield glass requirements, seat belts, head rests, and any other number of laws IS precisely because conforming to those SAFETY requirements is part of registration. Ditto the proof of insurance, which is part of being prepared to redress the situation in the event of an accident with a motor vehicle.
ReplyDeleteOr did you think providing proof of insurance was some kind of revenue generating provision, rather than a kind of safety provision for other people?
You seem to lack fundamental understanding of basic civics.
Or do you think that passing drivers tests, eye tests, etc. is also for 'revenue' purposes, not safety purposes?
Or didn't you realize that the DMV is part of the Department of.....wait for it.....PUBLIC SAFETY? It is true that in Oklahoma vehicle registration is handled by the tax department; in MN it is our Dept. of Public Safety. So you are wrong to extrapolate too much about 'revenue' purposes.
Vehicle registration can serve more than one purpose.
In fairness, registering vehicles IS, in part, a revenue raising scheme--much like water and sewer fees, etc.,. One of the things that licensing/permit fees are used for is funding things like the State Police in most states.
ReplyDeleteGasoline taxes, btw, are one of the primary clots of cash used for highway insfrastructure.
One of the unintended consequences of the "Million Moronz March with various sortzagunz" is the cost of patching and refilling (where the "blowout" is not TOO serious) the folks who get perforated by the pureheartedvigilanteslugz-O-doom. I've never seen a piechart on the numbers but I'll make a conjecture here, and guess that a lot of the people who get shot up in incidents involving boneheadz with gunz are NOT buying topnotch health and accident insurance.
Here are a couple of linkyloos.
The first:
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/23/4/280.full
relates to a book review.
The second:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9183471
talks about dollars and sense.
I realize that both are prolly commonist inspired rants funded by George Soros with the bloodmoney he makes not SELLING gunz.