The Solution: Licensing of gun owners and registration of guns would put an end to the popular option of pawning stolen guns.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Keeping an Honest Man Honest
That's the common-sense home-spun advice that should be acceptable to anyone. Lock up your guns at home. But in Tennessee, where this report comes from, as in many other gun-friendly places, they don't like to hear that. It's blaming the victim. What do you think?
The Solution: Licensing of gun owners and registration of guns would put an end to the popular option of pawning stolen guns.
The Solution: Licensing of gun owners and registration of guns would put an end to the popular option of pawning stolen guns.
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"The Solution: Licensing of gun owners and registration of guns would put an end to the popular option of pawning stolen guns."
ReplyDeleteSo, what's the problem with firearms ending up at pawn shops. It's 'off the street' and it gets returned to the rightful owner. The person pawning it, goes to jail and another criminal is off the street as well. Sounds like a win - win to me.
Licencing gun owners and registering firearms will solve nothing. Criminals don't follow the laws now, what makes you think they'll follow some licencing law? What makes you think they'll do background checks on their friends and family that they give or sell a firearm too? Maybe if they require licencing of firearms in Mexico, the drug cartel will be unarmed, oh, wait..... never mind, that already required.
someguy writes:Licencing gun owners and registering firearms will solve nothing.
ReplyDeleteBecause the person who legally own will face greater penalties than they do now for the transfer of a firearm to a prohibited person -- something they don't face under the existing loophole (and it IS a loophole).
What makes you think they'll do background checks on their friends and family that they give or sell a firearm too?
Because that firearm will be attached to them; because if they want to claim it was stolen, it will be required - as it is now in some but not all states - that the theft be reported.
So either they will have to lie, and claim a firearm was stolen when it was not, putting their friend or relative on the hook for an additional crime. Or, they'll have the friend / relative admit they didn't steal the weapon, that it was a voluntary transfer, putting them in jail too. Which is where they belong.
Criminals don't follow the laws now, what makes you think they'll follow some licencing law?
I don't expect criminals to stop being criminals.
I expect - and reasonably so - to cut off substantailly the supply of legal firearms being transferred into the hands of criminals by careless or too trusting family and friends, by making it more costly for them to be caught making such transfers. I expect to change that transfer 'tipping point', making firearms much more scarce than they are now to bad guys by holding the original owner much more accountable than they are now.
dog gone said...
ReplyDelete"I expect to change that transfer 'tipping point', making firearms much more scarce than they are now to bad guys by holding the original owner much more accountable than they are now."
I appreciate your point of view on this subject, but registration doesn't work to reduce violence.
Mexico requires registration to the point that most Mexican citizens cannot own a firearm and they are plagued with crime. If registration were required in the U.S, it would be at the whim of whoever was in office of who can own what. Remember the "assault weapons ban"? That was because the administration at the time didn't like those types of firearms. There was no data then, or now, that those listed weapons were prevalent in crime. The data showed just the opposite, that those weapons were used in (IIRC) 2% of crimes.
In the UK, not only is registration required, but the UK subject has to get permission and have an inspection prior to purchasing a firearm. They have the right to own a shotgun, but everything else at the discretion of the police. Their tight gun control has failed to keep the subjects of the Queen safe. According to the EU Commission, UN, in 2009 the violent crime rate in the UK was 2,034/ 100,000 residents. According to the same report, the U.S. was 466.
I know your standard reply is "where there are less guns, there is less gun crime" and you are correct, but fewer firearms don't lead to fewer violent crimes, it only changes the criminal's approach to the violence.
someguy writes:
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your point of view on this subject, but registration doesn't work to reduce violence.
Mexico requires registration to the point that most Mexican citizens cannot own a firearm and they are plagued with crime.
Mexico is unable to enforce their registration laws.
In other countries where they do so, gun violence decreases markedly.
While there are other crimes committed, they are less violent generally, and specifically they are less lethally violent.
I would refer you, for example, to the wikipedia article, List of Countries by intentional homicide.
We're bad. Europe - and the UK - are enormously better, as is most of Australia.
For example, using the year 2010:
the U.S. had a homicde rate of 4.8,per 100,000, Canada 1.62,
Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Japan were all LESS THAN 1.
We are emphatically not Mexico; we can hold people accountable, we are capable of registration and making it effective, as are other countries than Mexico. We are more like the UK, the countries of northern and western Europe. This IS possible for us.
dog gone said...
ReplyDelete"Mexico is unable to enforce their registration laws."
Mexico enforced their registration on the law abiding citizens, but couldn't on the criminal element. You've claimed that gun trafficking from the US led to the state of affairs in Mexico, if that were true, what's to stop the guns from coming back north? Wouldn't we see "trucks full of guns" coming back?
"In other countries where they do so, gun violence decreases markedly."
and other violence goes up.
Gun violence is not the problem, it's the symptom of a problem. DC had an outright ban on guns, but consistently had higher violent crime rates than the national average. I've asked you to explain why a number of times and you haven't. Either you weren't interested or couldn't, but I'll tell you. At one time, DC was safe and was so for many years. It seemed as though their gun ban worked. Then, there was the introduction of crack cocaine and that's when their violent crime rate shot up. That's when DC started to be known as the Murder Capitol. It was the introduction of a new criminal element, crack dealers. So, when the drug dealers realized that another drug dealer was encroaching on their turf, they had to turn to violence to protect their business interest and thus, started importing weapons. So you see, the ban and registration process didn't work.
Also, if you look at crime trends over the past decade, you'll see that the U.S. rate is dropping faster than comparable countries.