Thursday, February 2, 2012

More on Virginia's Gun Smuggling History


In 1993, Republican and Democratic lawmakers responded by coming together to approve a law that limited handgun purchases to one per month. The law allowed Virginians who wanted to purchase multiple guns to apply for a waiver.

Two years later, the Virginia State Crime Commission conducted a study of the measure's impact on public safety and the illegal flow of firearms to other states. Its findings were clear.

Virginia dropped from first to eighth on the list of states used by illegal gun traffickers. The chances of a gun purchased in Virginia being recovered in a criminal investigation dropped 36 percent nationwide, 66 percent along the northeast corridor and more than 70 percent in New York and Massachusetts. Meanwhile, State Police reported 92 percent of Virginians who applied for a waiver received one.

"Virginia's one-gun-a-month statute... has had its intended effect of reducing Virginia's status as a source for state gun trafficking," the report concluded. "The imposition of the law does not appear to create an onerous burden for law-abiding gun purchasers who apply for a multiple handgun purchase waiver."
We all know what happened, pressure from the gun lobby supported by the gun-rights puplic has succeeded to achieve serious considerations of reversing this very successful and obvioulsy reasonable law. And that, in spite of what Virginia voters think.

What's your opinion? Is it wrong to suggest that gun-rights folks who support this change are supporting criminals and gun smugglers? Usually the gun crowd is crying about being inconvenienced unnecessarily, but that's wrong on both counts. The inconvenience is minimal because they could just request a waiver.  And the claim that the law is unnecessary has proven to be wrong given the improvement 20 years ago in Virginia's gun smuggling history.

So what explains the pro gun resistance to such a common-sense law?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment

20 comments:

  1. You, along with other antis and that idiot mayor Bloomturd were all complaining just a year or so ago that Virginia was the source of all evil illegal guns in New York. So which is it? was the 20 year old law "working" or not?

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    1. I wondered about that myself. In the article it said the smuggling had increased even with the old law in place. I didn't understand it completely.

      That has nothing to do with my opinion about the one-gun-a-month idea being a good one.

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  2. So, your opinion is that if the problem is bad--why not make it worse, eh, FWM?

    I don't remember anyone saying that Virginia was the main source post one-gun-a-month, but it was prior to that. So much so that it was ridiculed in the Batman comic.

    Of course, the pro-gun movement has no real interest in human life, so it makes no sense that "conservative" and "pro-life" people side with this insane movement.

    The real issue is money--money from human suffering,

    If there's money to be made in seeing more guns flow into the black market, then why set up barriers to that?

    No matter what the human cost may be.

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  3. The one gun per month statute did little to curtail gun trafficking and opened up the door for straw purchasers to make a little money. What did curtail the gun trafficking was the arrest of an FFL who was selling firearms without background checks or paperwork. He obliterated the serial numbers but aggressive investigation by a joint task force traced the firearms back to him. The statute wasted taxpayer resources investigating citizens who were unclear of the statute. Some people thought that the one gun per month was a calendar month, however, it was one gun per 30 days. The task force was shut down in 1996.

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    1. Straw purchasing can be much more profitable without the one-gun restriction, obviously. That's why it's a good law.

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  4. This just keeps up with the anti's continued position which is that: gun control always works, except when it doesn't, in which it is always someone else's fault.

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    1. FWM, you lie.

      Our position is that when properly enforced gun laws work, and when gun laws don't work, there is nearly always some element of ineffective, underfunded, or incomplete enforcement, often from an adjoining jurisdiction.

      You further conveniently ignore the legitimate concern for multiple purchases of firearms, particularly on a frequent basis as it relates to terrorist stockpiling weapons, like some of the batshit crazy militias have done, or to trafficking weapons to the drug cartels.

      Like this guy, here in MN:
      http://www.startribune.com/investigators/96346089.html

      You like to ignore all the legitimate reasons for limiting the number of firearms purchased each month, because god forbid anyone inconvenience you for a few days, or deny you instant gratification.

      Well, frankly the reasons that this kind of limitation makes sense far outweighs your damned instant gratification.

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  5. I was told by a gun shop owner that his colleagues in one-a-month states have customers who dutifully buy one gun a month, right on schedule.

    How do we solve trafficking? Make New York's laws like Virginia's and then there'll be no reason to drive the guns up from Virginia.

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    1. By tightening up who can buy guns a great deal more than we do now, and by tightening up a lot on the sloppy private transfers that people like you do.

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    2. No. You've given us no reason to support that. Why should we give up what we have now? There's nothing that you've offered to give up.

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    3. Greg, you're right, the one-gun limitation is not enough to stop trafficking. Licensing and registration is what can do that.

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    4. No thanks. As I asked, why should we give up what we have? You offer nothing in return.

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  6. "Our position is that when properly enforced gun laws work, and when gun laws don't work, there is nearly always some element of ineffective, underfunded, or incomplete enforcement, often from an adjoining jurisdiction."

    How did I lie? That's exactly what I said. Your position is that gun control always works, except when it doesn't, in which it is always someone else's fault.

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    1. You falsely represented our point of view.

      We note that gun control works when it is done properly, and it doesn't work as well - but still is better than a lack of gun control - to the extent that it is done less well or less restrictively (fewer background checks, names not submitted to the NICS).

      What you asserted was that we held an inconsistent position which blamed others rather than fairly looking at how gun control was enforced.

      That is not correct. That is a lie.

      We assert that gun control works when it is done effectively and that it works, but less well, when lax gun control is in force.

      Further, you do something else that is a lie.

      We have never claimed that gun control would be 100% effective, only that it has the potential to dramatically improve reductions in gun violence, particularly illegal guns.

      Yet every time there is an incident - and there will always be a few - you assert that gun control is a failure, completely ignoring the statistical evidence that shows a reduction in gun violence and illegal guns. YOU use a false standard.

      So, yes, FWM, I call that lying. Or if you prefer some other word for it, use that. But it comes down to the same thing by any word you use, a form of dishonest discourse.

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    2. Wow! Did DG jusy admit that gun control does not work and will never work to prevent all gun crimes? So the plan is to remove all legal guns (there is no fundamental right to own a weapon) and then hope that the illegal guns don't kill too many people?

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    3. Anonymous, I stated that reducing the number of guns reduces the number of gun crimes.

      If we did eliminate ALL guns we could, I suppose, eliminate ALL gun crimes.

      But that is impractical.

      The plan is to remove illegal guns, and those legal guns in the hands of irresponsible people ------ like those who are dangerously mentally ill, drug users, felons.

      The plan is to remove a lot of guns, and that makes it harder for people to get illegal guns.

      It works, as evidenced by all the other countries where that has been the case with effective gun control.

      Your skepticism is either feigned, or ill informed. Or maybe you're just stupid. None of the above are mutually exclusive.

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    4. "Anonymous, I stated that reducing the number of guns reduces the number of gun crimes."

      Not necessarily. You could remove every gun from every law abiding citizen and not remove any criminal gun owners and I would bet that gun crimes would either stay the same or go up.

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  7. Do you ever notice how stupid it is when the progunners claim that gun control doesn't work?

    Clearly, it works very very well in other countries, and it works well in states here that practice it in fact, not only with lip service.

    We need to move away from our current toxic, violent, destructive gun culture. It is costly, it is damaging, it is not worth continuing.

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    1. If your plan is to remove illegal guns, you won't find many who disagree with you, but then you reveal the truth by telling us that you want to remove a lot of guns, without regard to whether they're legal or not. We know what you want, and when you call us liars for calling you on it, it's just ironic.

      You keep mentioning other countries, but you won't address the point that I've made time and again: There are hundreds of millions of guns in this country. That means that we're unlike any of the nations that you drool over. Your proposals won't work here.

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  8. "Clearly, it works very very well in other countries, and it works well in states here that practice it in fact, not only with lip service."

    Hmm, which states does it "work well" in? Because usually the tons of stories you post showing gun violence are usually from the states with the best gun control such as California and Illinois. Of course when we point that out, it is always the fault of some other state. But back to my question, which states have gun control that works well?

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