NRA executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre speaks on universal gun registration. (Photo: NRA)
The Blaze
The Blaze
I agree that background checks should be combined with licensing and registration in order to be optimally effective, but who says the one necessarily leads to the other?National Rifle Association executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre continued speaking out against President Obama’s recent gun control proposals Saturday night, zeroing in on “the real consequences of background checks.”The organization has been targeted by many on the left in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary last December. While the NRA argues that more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens creates a safer community, many in the administration and on the left disagree, saying it leads to more gun violence and accidental deaths.Most recently, the NRA has been publicizing a memo it by from the Justice Department that says the success of universal background checks would depend in part on “requiring gun registration,” and says gun buybacks would not be effective “unless massive and coupled with a ban.”
Well, obviously the Supreme Spin Doctor La Pierre says so and for the same obvious reasons he lies about other things like "jack-booted thugs" will come to your house. He wants to increase the fear-driven resistance to reasonable gun control laws.
The fact is most gun owners are law-abiding and would continue to obey whatever laws are implemented. There are exceptions of course, but since most would cooperate, it would be that much harder for criminals and mentally ill people to get guns.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
Background checks and a law to retain documentation would form a strategy to stop gun running to criminals. But since gun running to criminals is a major component to the profits of the gun manufacturers and gun stores, they will fight hard to stop this. Gunsucks make huge money selling guns to criminals, and anyone who opposes background checks is involved with this trade, or complicit in it.
ReplyDeleteAgreed.
Delete"...gun running to criminals is a major component to the profits of the gun manufacturers and gun stores..." You're undoubtedly correct. In fact, they have senior members from each of the major criminal gangs and drug organizations on their secret boards of directors. Most people, of course, don't know this. In addition, they set in motion the factors that led to each of the major wars of the last 100 years and decided, in secret meetings, who would win and exactly how long the wars would be allowed to continue. Not to mention, one of the most outspoken groups in favor of gun rights is JPFO and we all know what THAT means, don't we?
DeleteOkay, all joking aside, my opinion is that the Justice Department memo speaks for itself.
DeleteWhat's the Justice dept. memo have to do with it? Your sarcasm above is to say what, that the gun manufacturers are unaware of the fact that some of their product flows into the criminal world?
DeleteMy sarcasm was directed at nick's absurd comments for which neither he nor you offered any support. Was my characterization of his comment ridiculous? Of course it was. That's not the real question. The real question is, at what point does it become ridiculous. I suggest it became ridiculous at the start when he suggested that gun manufacturers, gun store owners and gun owners or anyone opposing his views are guilty of willful complicity or active participation in this crime.
DeleteUnfortunately, this sort of argument, while fallacious, is difficult to oppose because it presupposes the guilt of any who disagree with it.
Actually, that bit about gun manufacturers, gun rights advocates, the NRA and other being complicit in a (moral) crime is something I can support. I believe it's just like that.
DeleteOkay. I'll bite. What support do you have?
DeleteAs for the memo (bear in mind, all I know of the memo is contained in this posting), it says that the success of background checks would depend in part on requiring registration. But, we keep hearing from Washington that no one is considering registration. If that is the case, the memo would seem to suggest success of background checks is questionable. So, which way is it? Are we being asked to go along with a plan that will be of dubious success or are we being asked to go along with background checks with registration to follow?
DeleteI don't know who authored "the memo," but it could have been someone who really has nothing to say about policy. The gun-rights fanatics are painting it like a secret agenda has been uncovered.
DeleteAbout the complicity between the NRA, gun manufacturers and gun rights activists, are you really asking for proof or evidence? Isn't it obvious?
Obvious? You mean, like the obvious guilt of Communist sympathizers during the McCarthy era? Or perhaps like the obvious inferiority of slaves? Then again, you might mean obvious like the truth of eugenics was obvious. Now, clearly, we all know you don't endorse any of those deservedly despised points of view. Yet, they were accepted by so many because they were considered obvious. So, I am asking for proof or evidence because guilt, including moral guilt, should be assigned based on proof or evidence, not because you, I or anyone else finds such guilt "obvious". It's an inconvenient thing, I suppose, the idea that an accuser should be required to prove his or her accusations. It's also both right and fair. So, will you provide proof or evidence, or will you accuse and then, trusting that the hint of guilt remains on your targets, move on?
DeleteThat's a convenient defense. Do you apply the same strict standard to the DGU estimates? No, of course not because we all know many of them are simple brandishings and there is no proof. What we do is try to estimate in good faith.
DeleteThere are many similar things for which proof is not available or would take too much effort to dig up that we understand to be true. The symbiotic relationship between the NRA, gun manufacturers and gun-rights folks is one.
Sorry, Mike, but assigning guilt based upon "it's obvious" statements are dangerous and I suspect you know it. The very idea of assigning guilt on the basis of such reasoning is offensive to fairness and decency.
DeleteI have an offer.
I'm willing to subject the DGUs to rigorous research. Want to design a study with me? We'd have to do most of the work online and via email, but I'm game. There are some statistical packages available for free or at a nominal charge for that part of the analysis (the student version of SPSS comes to mind if it's still available). We'd design, conduct and analyze the study together to avoid bias. Then, once we've analyzed the data, we publish the results here and on my blog.
Hmm...apparently I missed the class on subject-verb agreement. The last post should read "is dangerous".
DeleteIt's a serious offer, Mike. Are you interested?
DeleteNo thanks. You go ahead though and I'll publish the results.
DeleteSo you just missed the memo from the Justice Department or you're ignoring it?
ReplyDeleteMikeb asks, "but who says the one necessarily leads to the other?"
ReplyDeleteI sez, that's who sez. Originally, anyone could smoke a cigarette anywhere, then the smoke Nazis appeared on their knight errant mission. First, cigarettes were only banned on airplanes. But, it wasn't long after, they were banned in airports, then all public buildings, then private buildings, now almost everywhere. Companies can fire you, even if you only smoke in your own home on your own time.
So, F U, and your fellow gang of Nazis. We know how you operate.
orlin sellers
Nazi tobacco banning. Will wonders never cease? How deep is the ocean? How stupid are gunsucks?
DeleteThese are questions that no one can answer. Because the answer is "How stupid do you need us to be?" and Orlin will be there to meet the need.
Actually, if you knew anything about smoking and bans you'd know that the original smoking Nazis were the frickin Nazis. Sorry I went over your head with that bit of info.
Deleteorlin sellers
The bigger issue for me is the criminalization of private transfers, also stressed by the NRA. This potentially affects millions of people who haven't done anything wrong. Mike, do you think two lifelong friends at the gun club should be imprisoned the next time they trade guns? Or loan a gun for a hunting trip?
ReplyDeleteI'm for universal background checks. As you well know, I'm not for throwing people in jail indiscriminately.
DeleteMike one of Obama's people even said this so how can it be a lie?
ReplyDeleteYou can probably fine "one of Obama's people" who said guns are as American as apple pie. That doesn't make it administration policy or likely to be true.
DeleteI'd be surprised if you could find any person in high levels in the Obama administration who takes that view of firearms.
DeleteOne concern is based on previous malfeasance with the check records where they have been preserved in "Audits," becoming partial registries that are preserved however long the audit records are preserved--people fear similar games being run.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the bigger concern is that, as the Justice Department said, background checks wouldn't work without registration--you water this down a bit but still admit that registration would be needed to "optimize" the system. You know how incrementalism works, and as soon as we capitulate on this, you'll move to a push for a database preserving the checks, and then a full registry. When you're on record wanting such an outcome, it sounds silly to say, Just give us this, it doesn't necessitate we get what we really want.
To say "the Justice Department said," is a bit misleading, isn't it?
Delete