I don't see the problem. Just require all guns to be registered...

[Smith_3]

And deny the permit to anyone with a criminal record.

Make it a felony with possibility of probation on first offense to be caught with an unregistered gun.

And make it to were any person with criminal record who gets caught with a gun, no matter if it was with the intent to commit a crime, gets locked up for a long time.


What's wrong with this reasoning?

[scarletwoman]

1. The standard argument against this is that it provides the guv'mint with a database of gunowners,

which can be used to come after the gunowners when the guv'mint decides it needs to disarm the citizenry who might otherwise get up an armed rebellion against guv'mint tyranny.

This isn't MY argument, btw -- I generally stay out of gun discussions -- this is simply the argument I've heard the anti-gun registration people make.

sw

[Smith_3]

3. Well, then let the registration be with the local police force. No need to centralize it.

Besides, the amount of data would be pretty big. The argument is kind of paranoid...

[Harper_is_Bush]

17. Hardly "paranoid". And your counter to it that the database could be regional instead of centralize

and would therefore be unattainable by Federal authorities is a bit naive.

Besides, the "standard argument" point made in post 1 doesn't really lose any impact whether the database is central or regional.

And I don't know why anyone would want to push this crap during an election year anyway. Talk about a wet-dream wedge issue for rightwingers!

[Tejas]

19. LOL @ "local" - California just handed 200,000 patient records to the FBI

So much for hoping to keep things like private information "local".

[Greyhound]

2. Wait, those things have already been done.

Still the desperate, the angry, the unbalanced, use them to take the lives of others. Could it be that the guns themselves are not the problem?

[Selatius]

4. The problem is mentally unstable people getting weapons.

The V-Tech shooter and the mall shooter are good examples of people with mental problems getting handguns.

There should be a screening process to prevent people with a history of mental problems from obtaining firearms.

[AlCzervik]

5. that mall shooter used his step fathers gun.

[Selatius]

6. Well, there, my question is did the father keep his gun under lock and key?

Or was it laying around the house?

[AlCzervik]

8. i'm not sure if the details on that have come out yet.

i'm sure if someone knows they'll post it.

[Fresh_Start]

7. And you also need to prevent people with a history of guns

from getting mental illnesses.

Because its not clear what comes first the guns or the mental illness.

[shraby]

9. Many times a mental probem doesn't

manifest itself until later in life in any form. Maybe years and years after the purchase of a gun for hunting or target shooting. Then is when family members need to become involved. When my father started showing signs of senile dementia, my brother took his guns out of the house so he no longer had access to them and had no idea where they were anymore.
Regular guns..handguns, rifles, etc (not ak-47 types) are not the problem, people who own them are. Screening can only go so far to keep them out of the hands of people with mental problems. I can't begin to know the answer to the problem, but the average gun owner is not the problem.

[Selatius]

10. Maybe if our health care system wasn't so smashed we could better identify unstable people.

As it stands, there's a gaping hole as far as health care, especially when 45,000,000 live without health insurance simply because they're too poor.

[shraby]

11. I agree with you...if we can manage to

get health care on the order of a medicare or medicaid program, health care should be included from day 1, along with eye, ear and dentist car. The whole schmear!

[uppityperson]

13. I don't think the mall shooter had a handgun

[Selatius]

15. Handgun or rifle, it's still a problem in the hands of mentally unstable people.

They should not be there in the first place.

[uppityperson]

16. I agree with that. Just replying to what you wrote about handguns

We need more accessible, affordable non-stigmatic mental health care services by competent providers for all.

[NutmegYankee]

31. Just so you know: Hokies hate stupid contractions of the school name.

Its VT or Va Tech, or Virginia Tech. It's not V-tech or V-tec. Its insulting.

[valerief]

12. Why don't they murder people all over the world like they do in the USA?

That was Michael Moore's question.

Something about religion, I think, plays a part in the USA. And no health care. And no jobs.

[Selatius]

14. I think there is no sense of community or communal identity in America.

When people know each other and are neighbors for many years, they don't seem to be as willing to hurt one another compared to people who are uprooted and flung together because of the rigors of a volatile economy where job security is weak and where one is forced to move many miles to find a steady job in a new community where everyone is a stranger.

Given that your typical worker today changes jobs several times in his adult life, he's likely to move more and more, leaving less opportunity to form a sense of community in the current place of residence. It's happening up and down the income ladder, and the only real winners are the big employers who helped push this status quo in the first place.

In Japan, typical employment is often marked by lifetime guarantees of employment, generous bonuses, and a voice at the decision-making table as far as the employer goes. As a result, people have the time to form communities, which doesn't happen if they're forced to find new work every several years because they were outsourced, laid-off, or even fired.

[valerief]

35. Good analysis. Yeah, the American nightmare cultivates detachment. nt

[Tejas]

27. guess what - they DO. the UN ranks us 24th below such cool places as

Russia, Venzuela..

;)

[Tejas]

18. and this will

slow down (much less stop) the criminals that already possess firearms?

Got a plan for the ones with knives and baseball bats and...?


"caught with a gun"

Catching more criminals with guns would be great. Heck, just catching ANY criminals would be tantamount to nirvana.

But how in the world is registering the firearms of law-abiding citizens going to help catch criminals with guns, much less those that already have them?

[Smith_3]

20. Many criminals are criminals by chance, not by profession.

Such a person does not walk out of the door each morning thinking "I'm going to go commit a crime today."

My point is that you can up the stakes for anyone involved in criminal activity. Criminals already have guns? Fine. Once they become illegal non-registered guns, the person can be busted simply for posessing it. If it is stolen, then there will be additional charges for stealing it.

Its called "law enforcement". Its supposed to work quite well if performed right.

[Tejas]

22. wish away existing criminals in one hand and spit in the other

by registering the firearms of law-abiding citizens and let me know how far you get.

"people don't walk out of the door in the morning..." is about as moot as it gets.

By not addressing my first question concerning existing criminals with guns, much less all the rest that use other weapons in their crimes daily, are you denying that they exist?

To propose that that the majority of criminals have commited only one crime apiece is beyond comprehension also.

Call it what you will, criminals have a bad habit of committing crimes 24/7, that habit needs to be broken. I somewhat stated that with my second question which you didn't address either.


"Its called "law enforcement"."

Yes, how about doing something real like taking current law that states crime is unlawful and using it for a change. Criminals are the problem, throwing more laws at law-abiding citizens is not the solution.

"bust" the criminals? What are you waiting for?

[Smith_3]

23. I'm not in charge of the law enforcement :-)

If I was in that position and had unlimited funding, you would probably be satisfied with my performance ;-)

[Tejas]

26. I'd be right there with you

reminding prosecutors & judges with raises/cuts in pay.

;)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. My father was shot and killed by a legal firearm in the hands of a non-criminal juvenile.

It was not an accident.

My father was a violent drunk who, one evening, threatened to kill the whole family. He went back to the bar, returned, and was shot by a relative with one of his own guns.

If registration were required, my father would have been forbidden guns because he had a criminal record involving violence.

I'm all for the registration of firearms and the denial of the right for anyone with a criminal history or mental/drug/alcohol problems to own firearms.

[Tejas]

24. can you clear the air?

Violent father threatens to kill family.
Leaves.
Comes back later.
Relative picks up father's gun.
(for reasons unknown)
Father shot with own gun.
(again for reasons unknown)
You wish he hadn't owned a gun in that he'd still be alive.


A little more info?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

28. What is unclear?

He threatened to kill the family. The relative picked up the gun to "protect" the family and shot him for the same reason.

Alternatives:

Leave the house.

Call the cops.

If the guns hadn't been available he wouldn't have been shot.

[Tejas]

29. now that you've added what was missing

Chill out. Guess what, some of us have had dangerous situations involving family too. Seriously, your OP wasn't clear. It pretty much said he made a threat, left, came back, got shot.
Your post looked like he (only) made threats when he left, not when he returned, so I asked.

Sorry you and yours went through what you did, past events in our family involved claw hammers and knives but no loss of life.

[Irreverend IX]

32. He had a record of violent felonies?

If this occurred after 1968, there was no way he could have gotten a gun legally. It's illegal for someone with a felony record to so much as touch a round of ammunition unless they've gone through the process to have their civil rights restored, which is often impossible.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

34. Misdemeanors prior to 1948, the year he was killed.

Assault & battery. Usually, bar fights, but once for attacking a strike-breaker on the docks in SF.

[MindPilot]

25. All motor vehicles are registered, their operators tested and licensed

but somehow about 48,000 people manage to get killed every year.

Apparently registration doesn't work as well as advertised.

[XOKCowboy]

30. Ever see Red Dawn?

As soon as the "insurgents" took control the first thing they did was get the gun registration info in order to confiscate all of the registered guns remarking something about the stupid Americans.

That's what the hard core NRA-types see as the end result of gun registration.

I don't necessarily see it that way so I'm just telling you what the argument is against gun registration.

[jmg257]

33. Because history has shown that registration leads to confiscation. And THAT act of tyranny

and the enslavment of the people (and worse).

There is NO other reason to register guns of the people. It is bad enough they outlaw models that the state is allowed.


"Unbeknownst to many Americans, who having seen and experienced mostly the goodness of America, gun registration is the gateway to civilian disarmament, which often precedes genocide. In the monumental book "Lethal Laws," published by Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership, we learn that authoritarian governments that conducted genocide and mass killings of their own populations, first disarmed their citizens. The recipe for accomplishing this goal went as follows: demonizing of guns, registration, then banning and confiscation, and finally total civilian disarmament. Enslavement of the people then followed with limited resistance, as was the case in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Red China, Cuba and other totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. "
...
Governments have a penchant to accrue power at the expense of the liberties of individual citizens. Civilian disarmament is not only dangerous to one's liberties but also counterproductive in achieving safety.
...
Another fact Americans need to understand is that registration is directed to law-abiding citizens, not criminals. Not only do convicted criminals by definition fail to obey the law, but they are constitutionally protected against any registration requirement. In Haynes vs. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1968 ruled 7-1 that compelling registration by those who may not lawfully possess firearms amounts to a violation of the Fifth Amendment's proscription against forced self-incrimination. In other words, the court said that if someone "realistically can expect that registration will substantially increase the likelihood of his prosecution," the registration requirement is unconstitutional."


No, thank You.