What I’ve Learned from the Guns In America Symposium
Now, some points I think there is some general agreement on.
1) The AWB was/is bad law, as it poorly addresses a type of firearm used in a very small subset of crimes. Continuously attempting to revive said law (or it’s variants) distracts considerably from any effort to craft meaningful gun laws. (i.e.: Gun rights advocates will dig in their heels hard and stop listening to you.)
2) The major issue in this country is crime and violence committed with handguns. Said crime (I believe) predominately affects those involved directly, or peripherally with drugs and gangs. Clearly this is where the focus should be.
3) There is, as BlaiseP and Morat have pointed out, a growing fascination – fetish? – with military style arms, along with a growing population of gun owners who are irresponsible with firearms. (And there appears to be some overlap of the two groups). I personally don’t think that the growth of military style arms is significantly affecting crime rates, but I do think there is something there. I’ll come back to this.
4) The transfer of legally purchased firearms to prohibited persons is a significant problem, and there needs to be some action in this regard. I’ll come back to this as well.
5) The current state of firearms regulations is a mess. The laws are a horrible hodgepodge and patchwork of offenses that have illogical penalties, inconsistent enforcement, and are causing considerable grief to law abiding citizens; meanwhile, they are doing little to stem the violence or the black-market trade in firearms. While I do think each state should be able to set their own laws, there needs to be greater uniformity, less arbitrary restrictions, and a measure of full faith as people travel around.
I attempted in my first post to lay out some ideas for a regulatory system that nobody would like, but everyone could live with. I had some new ideas come around through the comments as well, so I’d like to lay this out again here at the end of the symposium and see what everyone thinks.
Regulations – Clean them up, make them logical, consistent, and make the penalty appropriate. (e.g.: Misdemeanors for technical violations, felonies for violence and transferring to a felon.)
Gun Registry – The primary goal (and only purpose) of a registry is to tie a person to a gun for the purpose of solving a crime. (If you do not think that is the only reason to have one, you will never get the buy in of the gun-rights crowd). The primary objection to a gun registry is that it would be used for confiscation. So, we could create a database that is encrypted and can only be searched/accessed via firearms serial number. That way, if the police find a gun at a crime scene they can enter the serial number into the database, get a return on all who have owned the gun, and go have a chat with them. Without the serial number you could get the database to produce a name, and so you could not just print off who owns what guns and go start confiscating. Firearms would be entered into the registry at the point of sale and/or during the NICS check (enter a serial number, assign a name and address, or state ID number, and it’s done). Police have a database; gun owners have general anonymity. Make this registry only apply to handguns, and you’d get even more buy in from gun owners. Allow the NRA to inspect the database to make sure it can’t be used to print a list of names, and you’ll put a lot of minds at ease.
Concealed Carry – We need a national standard, if not a national system. While the background checks for a CCW are pretty consistent across most states (with a few exceptions), the training requirements are not. That needs to change.
Safe Storage – I’m all for this, with a few exceptions. The requirements can not be so onerous as to be unaffordable for many. Children who are trained should be able to access their parents arms in an emergency if the parent wishes, and that there should be no rules requiring a gun be stored unloaded. (If it’s an arm for defense, it kinda needs to be ready to go in a hurry).
Insurance – Insurance should be mandatory, at least for liability purposes. There should be no price meddling by government.
Hoarding/Arsenals – This isn’t honestly something I think is a problem, but I’m going to put this idea out there regardless. The basic three firearms are handgun, shotgun, and rifle. So, how about if any adult with a clean record can own one handgun, one shotgun, and one rifle (or maybe just a 3 gun limit) with no questions asked. That would satisfy a large number of gun owners, right there. However, there are legitimate enthusiasts and collectors out there, people who truly enjoy firearms and own dozens. For them, there might be an extra hoop that would be similar to what owners of machine guns go through (extra background check, tax, verification of secure storage, local LE knows you have a collectors permit, etc.). It’s a one-time thing, and once you are cleared you don’t have to worry about it again – unless you get convicted of a felony.
Magazine limits – Someone suggested 10 for rifle, 15 for handgun; this seems reasonable.
Finally, regarding military style semi-autos and the tacti-cool/mall-ninja gun owner. A week or so ago I read an interesting observation. The arms that civilians purchase for self defense closely follows the arms the police choose for themselves. People used to own a .38 revolver, because that is what the police used. Then the police started carrying 9mm semi-autos and shotguns, and people followed suit. Now they carry large caliber (0.40/0.45/10mm) semi-autos and patrol rifles (AR-15s/M-16s), and guess what the most popular rifle and caliber of handgun is these days? I think that the militarization of the police, coupled with ad campaigns highlighting AR-style platforms, the entertainment media that features them heavily, and the visibility of PMCs using them in the news and elsewhere has made the AR-style rifle the “Barbie for Men”.
Since I doubt the police will be giving up their patrol rifles anytime soon, I don’t think you’ll be seeing the demand for such rifles diminish; any ban against them will, at this point, be closing the barn door long after the horses got out. As for irresponsible owners, honestly all I can say is: training, training, training. Require training to own a gun, and you’ll cut down on accidents, improve safe storage, and help reduce the strutting cock with a gun.
I think such a setup would respect the rights of gun owners, assuage some of everyone’s fears, and at maybe put gun laws in a place where we can stop messing with them and start to address the parts of our culture that seek out guns for the purpose of violence.
Did I miss anything?
Allow the NRA to inspect the database to make sure it can’t be used to print a list of names, and you’ll put a lot of minds at ease.
I’ve seen how irresponsible the NRA are and how worthless their “safety certifications” are firsthand. No sale there. Find me a responsible group and I’ll agree to the inspections.Report
Some of my point regarding this is in a post I submitted which has yet to be posted. In the spirit of Mike Dwyer and Ramblin’ Rod, I wrote up three of my own experiences regarding firearms. They’ll probably surprise the heck out of you.Report
Fair point, and I’m not wedded to the idea of the NRA doing it, just a group that would, ideally, be trusted to keep Uncle Sam honest.
And I look forward to your post!Report
Perhaps ANSI.Report
To my knowledge, ANSI deals with materials, and not components.Report
Sure, but they’d probably have the competency to change. Or more generally, they’re the type of non-governmental, non-capitalist organization that we might want to look to. Not them necessarily, but their general type.Report
Comparing your first post to now, one question still bothers me.
You had harsh words for the newspaper that published an interactive google map of gun owners registered in New York; I can see the argument, though the registry itself was an open public record that anyone could have used to create such a map at any point.
In the time since, the gun advocates crowd have made some serious threats against the newspaper. They’ve gone after current and former newspaper staff members.
In the most egregious case, a few friends of mine who are members of the gun-nut crowd were passing around (via facebook) a picture that included the newspaper’s head editor’s picture, address, phone number, and an exhortation to “do whatever you feel is appropriate with this information.” While it didn’t actually use the words “lone wolf”, that’s the vibe I got from the way they set the picture up and were spamming the information around.
I’m interested in your take on the situation. To me, it doesn’t speak well of the gun “enthusiasts” that they responded in this way.Report
Such behavior is not exactly a way to cover oneself in glory, but this is not the first, or even the second time, a local newspaper has decided to treat legal gun owners as sex offenders. In the past the worry has been that abusers would be able to locate their victims who had obtained firearms. This time, prisoners started using the map to locate their prison guards homes & use that to threaten the guards (not sure why they needed this map to do it, but they did).
Gun owners are getting tired of being outed like they are somehow bad people. So they are thinking turn about is fair play.Report
I dunno what your reason for posting here is, but it’s clearly not to make friends and influence people. This comment serves to confirm my bias: guns rights enthusiasts are just a bit too … enthusiastic.Report
I’m sorry, did you have a point to make? Something constructive to say?Report
This all makes sense to me. I don’t see a reason to limit people to a certain number of guns or even a hoop to go through. The only thing that really clanged for me was having the NRA inspect any database. The NRA is a powerful lobbyist but in no way deserves some special oversight role. They are one group and don’t represent even a majority of gun owners. I’m not sure i even see much of a reason for mag limits myself.
FWIW i think the NRA would go bonkers over most of this.Report
The NRA shouldn’t have a special oversight role, but keeping the database in private hands strikes me as having merit. Most particularly, have a certification process* and if the NRA wants to do it and can meet the certifications, let them. If some other sportsmen group wants to do the same, let them. This would probably lead to much greater compliance than a government-administered database.
By ‘certification process’, basically assure that they are keeping records, and that they turn them over when there is a warrant for them. Put into law that the government cannot access the data without a warrant. Use accounting firms or somesuch to verify that appropriate records are being kept.
In other words, keeping access to the data as far from the government as possible – again, except in the event of a warrant – would lead me to throw my support behind a registration plan.Report
Because private companies have NEVER had a data breach…Report
It’s not a question of competence. It’s a question of who actually has the records at their fingertips and how motivated they are to maintain the privacy of gun owners.Report
Just for an instance, I have far more trust in the lady at the Social Security office who is earning a middle class living with a pension than the guy making $10/hr as customer support for my local bank.
Making something private or public doesn’t mean there’s going to be great oversight. Ironically, I think a database that’s being run by evil gubermint workers would be better for gun owners since Republican’s might actually take breachs of it seriously instead of say, when massive multinationals screw people over and they just shrug.Report
I must have missed where I actually said “we should turn it over to a multinational corporation.”
I can respond further, but only if you will listen to what I am saying rather than assuming it.Report
I share Jesse’s worry about where the data is. Where is a private corporation going to store the records – rentable space through Google or Amazon? Or perhaps with a “redundancy backup” in Sweden?
Multinationals may get involved pretty quick. especially when you bring in private contractors cutting corners.Report
I’m not talking about private corporations, contractors, or for-profit entities. I’m talking about people that (a) the gun owners trust and (b) that meet some certification criteria.
If that’s the NRA, then great. If it’s a private corporation, then great. If it’s directly with the government, that’s okay, too.Report
Because when things like a registry of a couple of hundred million guns needs to be done, it’s not going to be done by a couple of IT guys on commission. It’s either going to be the government or a pretty big tech company (even if they’re not necessarily multinational) handling things.Report
You’re assuming a single registry of a couple hundred million guns. I’m not talking about a bidding process through a single entity. I’m talking about allowing gun owners to decide who they trust (so long as they meet certain compliance criteria).
If someone wants to register their firearm directly with the government, then I wouldn’t have a problem with that being an option. I would just not make it the only option.Report
These folks trust in government is touching. Doesn’t seem to be based on past performance, but it’s touching nonetheless.Report
In the past year, I have had about ten problems with billing that required hours of time to sort out.
None of them were from the government. The government’s penalties for screwing up billing are honestly fair (pay back taxes, and a bit of a fine so you don’t do this On Purpose).Report
Your trust in private enterprise is touching. Doesn’t seem to be based on past performance, but it’s touching nonetheless.Report
M.A.,
I didn’t suggest that private sector employees were more trustworthy, did I? Did you need mechanical assistance to leap to that conclusion, or are you capable of jumping that far all on your own?Report
If big gubmint wants the data (after the inevitable Cylon takeover that people seem to be afraid of***) why won’t they just buy the data or coerce the private company to give the data up. Imsee no serious protection that comes from he data being private.
Also, you can creat governmental bodies that have a degree of independence from the president and or the legislature (and even a private body isn’t that secure as they could be required to give up the info as much as a governmental body could be so required.)
*** I for one welcome our new Cylon overlords.Report
If big gubmint wants the data (…) why won’t they just buy the data or coerce the private company to give the data up. Imsee no serious protection that comes from he data being private.
Because the existence of the private firms will rely on the integrity of keeping the data private. I don’t think the NRA will eagerly sell the data to the government. If the government tries to coerce them, we will hear all about it as it unfolds. If the data is already in the government’s hands, then… well… it just becomes dreadfully simple for them to work something out.
(As mentioned elsewhere, everybody who is expressing some sort of concern that it just doesn’t matter if it’s in the government’s hands or a private entity’s hands are those who are not particularly concerned about the gun owners to begin with and/or express hostility towards them. Those of us on the other side of the discussion are saying that we would be more comfortable with it that way. Given that gun owners are the ones who will need to comply with the directive, this is not an insignificant thing.)Report
Your second paragraph is a red herring. There is a factual question about whether private or public organizations are best (or equally good) at keeping such and such data from being misused. My attitudes to gun ownership or my owning or not owning of a gun is not relevant to whether it is a fact that the public or the private organization will do a better job keepin that information. Ultimately, your argument is a kind of ad hominem where you are accusing me of being wrong about X because I don’t have the right personal characteristics (like the right attitude towards or experience with or ownership of guns.)
My point is that if the government decides to act contrary to the constitution or to the laws passed by the legislature and use the military and police to attack people, private organizations won’t be able to hold on to data.
On the other hand, if the government is acting according to the laws passed by the legislature and the constitution, thenwe can pass a law saying that the data in the registry, help by a public organization, won’t be shared with law enforcement except in such and such circumstances.
That is, if the government is willng to violate laws, it will get the info from any organization (private or public) and if it isn’t willing to violate the laws, the law can require that the independant public body not give up the information.Report
Shaz, what I am saying is that those with the most to lose by the government improperly using the data that is collected are likely to feel more secure with that data in someone else’s hands. Those that are saying “Oh, it makes no difference” have little investment in data privacy. So I am inclined to put more weight in what is being said by those most interested in the thing that I am interested.
As such, I have said that I am skeptical of a national registry. However, if we were to keep it out of the government’s hands directly, I am much more likely to be convinced. You may think I am being silly, stupid, or paranoid, but as someone ideologically (if not personally) motivated to keep the list from being abused by the government, I see a difference here.
Whether the government – or any organization or person – is going to play by the rules depends at least in part by how easy it is to break them.Report
Feelings of security and who is invested i n what don’t enter the debate, only facts and reasons do.
The question is whether there is evidence, i.e. reasons, to believe that private or public bodies are more (or equally) reliable at protecting potentially dangerous information from being misused.
Maybe some on my side have feel a certain way, or those who disagree feel differently, but that is irrelevant to the question at hand. What is relevant is whether the belief that a public body is as good at protecting the information as a private one is justified by evidence or not (or vice versa).
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“So I am inclined to put more weight in what is being said by those most interested in the thing that I am interested.”
You can’t seriously mean this as a general rule for determining what to believe about facts. Do you put more weight in the opinions of polluters when discussing possible pollution regulations?
IMO, a case can be made that disinterested parties are the most reliable. But I’d say in general, the interest level of the parties about whether or not X is factual is irrelevant to any argument that concludes that X is or isn’t factual.Report
for keeping secrets, feelings no, vested interest yes,,, those with no vested interest can easily be swayed to ‘share’ information…
as for believing facts presented by those who have similar interest, that is different question..Report
Shaz, it’s not a question of facts insofar as we are talking about what has happened or is happening (or hasn’t happened or isn’t happening). It’s a question of what we believe will happen. And the scenarios in which gun owners and their defenders believe their information is more likely or less likely to be passed on. Since it is their information we’re talking about, that’s why I think their concerns should carry more weight than assurances that nobody has anything to worry about from people who personally have no risk of being compromised and ideologically are indifferent to the concerns of gun owners (often believing that they shouldn’t have guns anyway, sometimes considering the as a group to be dangerous people).
If the government asks for more information than it should technically be able to get, I have more faith in the NRA to push back and go to court.
If the government is consistently asking for too much information, I have more faith in that sort of organization to bring it to the public’s attention.
By keeping the registry in the hands of people who are motivated not to give it up unless they legally have to and only give up the information they are legally required to, it creates an adversarial system that I am more comfortable with than I am comfortable with it all being kept “in house” even if there are statutory walls put in place in effort to prevent sharing from occurring.
There are times when it is the case that a neutral observer has a more objective view. There are other times that I am more likely to trust people with a skin in the game. As I’ve said, any registry is going to require the cooperation of gun owners to be remotely effective. So even if you disagree with their concerns, that’s at least a reason to take them seriously.
(The funny part is that the proposal probably wouldn’t fly for exactly the reason you mention: the holders of the data will be compromised. The alternative to that, though, for a lot of us, isn’t to just give the information to the government anyway. It’s to oppose a registry altogether. This is at least a way to win Trumwill and MRS over… which is a start.)Report
As I’ve said, any registry is going to require the cooperation of gun owners to be remotely effective.
Why? Is it the general case that for a law to be effective you have to get buy-in from the affected groups? What would make you think that?
Make possession of an unregistered firearm (handgun, at least) a heavy misdemeanor entailing a big fine and maybe jail time and you’ll get compliance. If it’s worth doing I’m not sure how much I do or should care about people’s fe-fe’s.
That being said, I actually agree with the basic proposal although I have grave misgivings about the NRA in particular or any particular gun rights group that I’ve run across. You would probably have to start something from scratch.Report
Rod, when enough people refuse to follow the law, the law doesn’t work. Carrying drugs on your person can land you in jail, but people take their chances. The sheer number of unregistered guns will obviate the purpose of the law, to great extent.Report
Will, I get what you’re saying, and FTR a proposal along these lines is something I’ve been thinking about for quite a while now.
BUT, we need to be clear about what the problem is and who’s causing it. When 80% of guns used in crimes are purchased legally through straw buyers, and 40% of all gun sales are through the unregulated market, and 62% of online gun sellers would be willing to sell a weapon to someone who stated that they probably couldn’t pass a background check…. well, then I get a little tired of hearing how we have to get buy-in from the vast majority of LawAbidingResponsibleGunOwners (TM).
The real LARGO crowd will see the wisdom of this and voluntarily comply, if for no other reason that to preserve some semblance of their existing gun rights. The ones that don’t are highly correlated with the crowd that’s a problem in the first place and I want them to be greatly inconvenienced. Frankly I want them to go to jail for aiding and abetting prior to the fact, and I don’t particularly give a crap whether they like it or not.Report
Rod, by my understanding, gun owners in California who did the responsible thing (and had the wrong guns) lost their guns. Gun owners in Australia who did the responsible thing lost their guns. That’s the hard thing for me to get around when they say “We don’t want to register our guns” even if it’s deemed the responsible thing.
To be honest, I do not see a good reasonableness bargain in the works here. That allowing guns to be registered now – and registering them – will actually make further laws down the road less likely rather than more. The NRA previously went the route of reasonableness (which is how the GOA was born).
The more people who refuse to obey the law, the easier it will be for others to disobey the law, the harder it will be for juries to come down on people (or to do so based on how scary-looking they are or some other undesirable criteria), the more random the process becomes, the less likely it is that the law will actually work.Report
“By keeping the registry in the hands of people who are motivated not to give it up unless they legally have to and only give up the information they are legally required to, it creates an adversarial system that I am more comfortable with than I am comfortable with it all being kept “in house””
But why can’t a governmental body be as motivated to not give up this information as a private one? Suppose the law that creates a registry and a body to run it says something like, “the information in the registry shall not be shared except in narrowly defined circumstances X, Y, and Z, and the head of the registry shall be appointed (like the head of the Fed) and will act independently, but is mandated to look out for the privacy and rights of the gun owners, etc. And the head of the registry will be prosecutable if he does not act according to these rules.”
Hell, you could even have a board with members voted in by the individual states (guaranteeing that some pro gun states would pick pro gun members) in conjunction with federal appointees. Or just ensure that appointments are long enough, guaranteeing some Republicans and Dems to create an environment where either side could blow the whistle.
I should point out that we have lots of governmental bodies that act independently of and sometimes even contrary to the best wishes of the federal government. The fed is one such organization. Federal prosecutors and aspects of the justice department is another. The FEC is another. The whole judicial branch is, in a way, another.
Moreover, I agree that you cannot have a public body that is completely free of legislative and executive control in the sense that a law could be passed in the future that would require the gun registry to be turned over to the military as a prelude to, say, the Cylons taking away everyone’s guns. But a private organization running the registry would be just as powerless to prevent a law that required them to turn over the information or that just disbanded them as an organization.
Again, I see no reasons to think that a private organization would be more motivated or more able to protect the information as required by law.
IMO, a private orgamization might have different problems. Suppose the NRA runs the registry. And the FBI comes calling and tells them there is a Muslim terrorist plot that they need help with and they need to see the names of Muslims to look for gun ownership. Would the NRA be more or less likely to withhold that information than a independently appointed government actor, sworn to uphold the law?
Surely, the NRA would protect the rights of right wing militia members who are their members against the FBI, but would they protect innocent Muslims to the same degree? (What would their membership like them to do?)
You could say that we will require the NRA to protect all groups equally, but if the requirements themselves are what cause the body running the agency to behave properly, then you can cut the NRA out of the picture and have a government appointee run the show.Report
“Make possession of an unregistered firearm (handgun, at least) a heavy misdemeanor entailing a big fine and maybe jail time and you’ll get compliance., ones that don’t are highly correlated with the crowd that’s a problem in the first place ”
Think that is a short sided statement… thats like conservatives saying majority of abortion are ‘oops’ birth control, abortion is murder, it is going to be highly regulated and require atelast one ultrasound and counseling, womens rights be damned… deal with it. And birth control, be responsible and get your own or deal with consequences. ie.. personal responsibility…
maybe the ones that don;t want to participate in registry see Austrailia and Nazi Germany in between the lines and small print… Those who highly promote this mandatory gun registry, others be damn, have made clearly evident that they have no qualm banning all guns…. gun control/bans ultimately only serve to discourage law abiding from owning (increased paperwork and costs), but does nothing to address gun smugglers and criminals, you have to ask then, what was purpose of so called gun control, confiscate guns SLOWLY.
The crowd that is already a problem are already criminals under current laws… All those involved in ATF Fast and Furious should be in jail…Report
To make my point simpler.
Suppose that by law, the registry must be run by a federal judge (they will be required to alternate, say, so that none ofthem get bored running the registry instead of doing other judge stuff) sworn to not give out the information except in circumstances X, Y, and Z, who will use federal employees to administer the program in the same way that the FBI and NSA use federal employees to administer their programs involving sensitive data.
Wouldn’t that be better or at least as good as than the NRA running the registry in terms of protecting the legally ensconced privacy of the gun owners (all of them, including suspected Muslim terrorists who may or may not be hate by the membership and leadership oof the NRA) listed on the registry?Report
Also, I think you might find that the NRA would become persona non grata with many of its current members the moment that rumors started to swirl about the NRA leaking names on the list to the feds.
And if that happens, and the far right militia began to hate the NRA and not trust them, and stopped “buying in” to the program out of fear that the NRA (rather than federal appointees) was now colloborating with the feds, would that give us reason to appoint a new private group that the far right militia trusted (say, some survivalist group) to administer the program?
You can see the problem. If it is true that we should only put the gun registry in the hands of a group that the militia gun owning right will trust, so that we get maximum “buy in”, we might very well find ourselves putting the information in the hands of groups that are more extreme than the NRA, and ever more extreme as some portion of gun owners will continually find new ways to mistrust whatever organization runs the registry.Report
That allowing guns to be registered now – and registering them – will actually make further laws down the road less likely rather than more.
I’m not sure I understand the worry here. Is it about individual rights? Or individual sovereignty? Does the unregulated possession of guns equate to either of those two things? If so, under what ideology or worldview – that you have the right to kill another person for reasons of your own determination?
Dos that in itself require the enactment of law?Report
Shaz,
Re: NRA & Muslim, in case you missed it, my proposal is not that the NRA and only the NRA would keep track of such things, but that people would choose someone (certified) that they are comfortable with. If a Muslim is more comfortable with the federal government than the NRA, then I don’t have a problem with the federal government being an option. Or CAIR. Anyone willing to meet the certification requirements. Even state governments. I would prefer there be options.
Re: NRA being persona-non-grada, this is a reason why my plan might not work. Which is to say, those that gun owners are most likely to trust would be less likely to participate. Those that would want to participate, are not going to be seen as trustworthy. I don’t know if we can square this circle or not, but I consider it an idea worth floating and I don’t really consider “and so we should just give it to the government” the next most viable alternative.
Re: Your ideas on building barriers between the executive and the registry, some of them have merit. I can imagine a scenario in which I might come around on the idea… but it’s honestly a tough sell. But I’d generally prefer the government have to earn the trust and have safeguards that they can sell to people, rather than saying “trust us.”Report
Still, judging from your comment, my comment was apparently very unclear (because I do not understand your comment at all). I’ll try to rephrase:
A lot of people argue that legislative half-measures now will forestall more severe measures down the road. I don’t think that’s the case. It might be, but it appears more likely to me that half-measures make the more severe measures more “within reach”… especially when I don’t see the half-measures having sufficient effect for gun-skeptics to be satisfied with the results and when the half-measure makes the more severe measure logistically easier to accomplish (it’s easier to confiscate later-banned guns when you know where they are).Report
I just reread your comments above to see where I am losing you. (Let me know what specifically you don’t get.)
I now see that you don’t want a single gun registry (or single gun registry per state), run by one bif private organization like the NRA, you want a plethora of private gun registries run by any group that is certified to do so. This strikes me as an obviously unworkable plan for reasons along the following lines.
Suppose each state has 1000 registries (run by the NRA, the Michigan Militia, the DCCC, the XMen, LKaiduh, etc. Now suppose FBI agents have discovered that X is committing violent murderous crimes, proven to a judge sufficient for a warrant for X’s arrest. The agents find his house amd aree concerned that X and his friends may have dozens of weapons and want to quickly see if X has registered weapons before he comes home. (Or maybe the agents, after cathcing X, want to see if the weapons he has are registered). They now have to contact all 1000 registries. Suppose some are slow to reply or refuse to comply. Suppose X has friends in one registry that deletes his registration or adds his weapons as registered to avoid his being punished for owning unregistered weapons.
Now, you might respond by saying that sort of thing will be illegal for any registry to do, punishable by the feds. But if the federal government doesn’t have access to the registries, how would they catch or prosecute the private agencies that are withholding or manipulating data in their registry?
On the other hand, if the federal government does have access to the data to prosecute bad private registries, then the private registries are just a middle man because the feds could access the data just as much as if they ran the program (or if an independantly appointed official ran the program).
In short, if we don’t trust the federal government to enforce and execute laws, and if we don’t pledge to live by the laws passed by the legislature and not deemed unconstitutional by the judiciary, we can’t have laws at all.
We could all get together and choose one entity that we trust to run the gun registtry. Indeed, we could have a vote about who we trust most to execute the laws passed by the legislature, as long as they are not deemed unconstitutional. We could even call that person “President.” (Sorry for the snark)
If the NRA wants to run for president, let LaPierre take a go next time.
Until LaPierre wins, the job of “person trusted to execute the laws of the U.S.” is Barack Obama. And if you think he does not have that authority, you have a good reason to move.Report
By analogy, imagine if we scrapped federally appointed prosecutors (and their employees) and let anyone “certified” to do so become a prosecutor.Report
Shaz, I believe that there are technical solutions to what you refer to. (Whether these solutions will be acceptable to gun owners, I do not know. But I think they’re an easier sell than putting it into the government’s hands.)
Namely, I don’t have a problem with the government having a list of individuals and the appropriate entity that they need to contact. (The ability to respond in a timely manner would be a part of the certification process.) Sort of like MRS says… registering people is better than registering guns (like we do with CCW permits and the like).
The “raid” scenario you refer to doesn’t actually strike me as being too problematic. In large part because I don’t envision access to the registry as being instantaneous or even necessarily quick. I view it as being more of an investigative tool (the ability to track illegal guns to where they came from) rather than a “We need it right now because of this thing we’re about to do” tool.
A lot of people don’t trust President Obama, just as many did not trust President Bush. The notion of “Well, then, elect a better or more trustworthy president” doesn’t really work for me (and not just on this issue). We have limits on power precisely because of limits on how much we want to trust them.
Instead of “Elect LaPierre if you’re concerned about it”… it’s actually easier and more straightforward to say “Actually, we’ll just oppose the collecting of that information to begin with.”Report
The raid example is just one vexing possibility. (What if some of the thousands of registries just dissolve. Maybe I pick some older people to fill put forms to become registries. When they die, the data on the registry disappears and gun owners, including organized criminals, can claim that they registered their guns and it is no fault of theirs that the registry itself disappeared.)
I also mentioned that the illicit private actors could lie about the data (armed militia groups and hate groups might be certified registry holders), and if the feds didn’t have independent access to the data in the registries, they couldn’t prosecute the lying registry owners. If the feds did have independent access to the data to check to see if the private registry owners were fudging data, then all of the supposed problems that are supposedly caused by the feds having access to the data are, ex hypothesi, not dealt with. There would thus be no need to give the private actors access to the information in the registries if some federal regulator already had independent access.
In brief, your proposal would only work if the federal government (or federally appointed independent agents, drawing salary from the federal government) had access to the data in the registry, but the goal of your plan is to avoid that.
—
“A lot of people don’t trust President Obama, just as many did not trust President Bush. The notion of “Well, then, elect a better or more trustworthy president” doesn’t really work for me”
Well, I’m sorry to sound snarky, but that means the Constitution doesn’t work for you. The executive is ordained with task of executing the laws as long as those laws are deemed constitutional. You may prefer, personally, for Walmart or the NRA or the SPCA to execute the laws, but we voted and the result of that vote gives Barack Obama (and his appointees) the power to execute the laws, including the power to regulate a gun registry if the legislature creates one.
Indeed, no matter how you create the registry, the executive branch will, by definition, be tasked with running it, even if their job is overseeing private entities. And I don’t see how the registry could be run without the federal government being able to check to see if the private groups were not fudging the data in the registry, which can’t be done without the federal government having broad access to the data in the registry.
I didn’t trust Bush. Nor do I trust Obama. Nor do I like many of both of their policies. But I don’t promise to break the law. For example, I don’t threaten to stop paying taxes if Bush or Obama doesn’t do X.
I should point out, I have never done or purchased illegal
drugs (am proud of this) entirely as a result of respect for the law, even though I disagree with the law entirely. (What a nerd, right.) And I have considered violating the anti-marijuanna law publically and then accepting full punishment as an act of civil disobedience. (But I haven’t out of cowardice.) But I would never act against the constitutional laws, passed by a democratically elected government, of the U.S. without demanding full punishment according to the law. I certainly wouldn’t proudly threaten to do so as if it were my right. (If you disagree, let’s talk about the Crito.”
Of course, I understand that not everyone is so law-loving. And I am forgiving to an extent with law breakers, especially with recreational drug users. As I would be with gun registration-law breakers to an extent, but there are limits. For instance, I have no forgiveness for people who knowingly violate the laws banning the sale and production of meth, even though I think the current criminal penalties for such an offense should be weakened or rescinded. Meth lab cook “buy in” is irrelevant to the question of what drug laws should be and I have no empathy for their position. So it is with people who vow to not follow a law even if it is constitutional and democratically enactted and enforced by the democratically elected executive. The buy in of people who swear to commit crimes is irrelevant.Report
Shaz, atleast you show some signs of understanding lack of trust of the government, silly laws, and thought or consideration of not following them as civil disobedience or peaceful protest. This is pretense what AWB was all about.. Not in as much as the government in lying today, but that things change
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Germany
Funny how those who had so much mistrust in Bush/Reps, now want us to just trust Obama/Dems.. Personally, like you, I don’t necessarily trust anyone in gov just because they are voted in, you gotta look at the policies.
AS for registries, IF, big IF, I agree we can’t have hundreds catering to every culture, too complicated and useless, part of whats wrong with gov budget now, too many ‘special’ programs/accounts to keep up with… But we should have more than just one, maybe two, one by gov, and one privately controlled by a few pro-gun advocate groups (NRA, GOA, Pink Pistols, GOAL, 2AFoundation). Along with Conceal Carry groups possibly handling the CCP/CCDW permits. ALL with strict guidelines on how/when information can be released, as to not allow what happened in NY…
Now the problem,, databases can be hacked… and things change.. Several have made it clearly evident that they would like to see (most) all guns banned, you (Shaz) even suggested renting of hunting rifles with GPS track.Report
Shaz, failure to trust the president is not against the constitution.
As for the rest… I never said that records would expire upon death. I’m not sure why they would. I’m not going to play whackamole with every objection you have to something that may or may not be a part of what I have in mind.
A decentralized registry was my attempt to meet the side half way. If you convince me that it is unworkable, I simply revert back to opposing a gun registry altogether.Report
Will,
I also said I personally don’t trust Bush or Obama.
Yes, the Constitution doesn’t require that you personally trust anyone. However, it does ensure that the President (and no one else, not even the NRA or the SPCA, or Code Pink) is the person who has the authority to execute the law (passed by the legislature and not deemed unconstitutional) regardless of whether you personally trust him or her. This is why it would be wrong for me to threaten to not pay my taxes or that I will pay them only to Code Pink not the IRS, or to not obey some specific law if Jeb Bush is elected.
—
“As for the rest… I never said that records would expire upon death. I’m not sure why they would. I’m not going to play whackamole with every objection you have to something that may or may not be a part of what I have in mind.”
Well, if the feds don’t know who is on the registries to check them for accuracy, the scenario I described where the people in charge of a registry died or fled the country or refused to participate would create a very real problem. If the feds did have their own copy of the registries, to prevent loss of data in the registries or intentional fraud in the registries, then we have not solved the problem that you are worried about, namely that the federal government has access to the information on the registries. (BTW, you are worried that the federal government has access to information that it needs to execute the law, which is the federal governments constitutionally enshrined authority and duty.)
“A decentralized registry was my attempt to meet the side half way. If you convince me that it is unworkable, I simply revert back to opposing a gun registry altogether.”
Well, then you cannot support a registry, which is a sane and sensible policy enacted in lots of different modern, wealthy countries for reasons that are pretty thin.Report
Shaz,
To repeat what I said two comments or so ago, I have less of a problem with a gun owners registry. So they would have the name and registry referral, but nothing else. (You wouldn’t have to own a gun to be on the registry. You’d merely have a license to buy a gun.)
Otherwise, I think a part of our disconnect may be that you see the registry as a “government registry” and thus, should be in government hands. I see the registry as something the government can requisition access to, and therefore I would prefer it not be in government hands.
You liken the registry-keepers to prosecutors. In my model, I would liken them to defense attorneys or accountants. I want that adversarial relationship.
Well, then you cannot support a registry, which is a sane and sensible policy enacted in lots of different modern, wealthy countries for reasons that are pretty thin.
It’s precisely what has been done with some of those registries that has me concerned.Report
“I see the registry as something the government can requisition access to, and therefore I would prefer it not be in government hands.”
But if the government can’t verify that the information in the registry is accurate and not fraudulent and put pressure on the registry’s private keepers to only keep accurate information, then what use is the registry? If the government has access to the information on the registry to check to see if the private record keepers are not lying or making massive errors, in what sense is the information more protected from misuse than it would be if it were kept by a federal agency with an independent head (say a federal judge) who was lawfully required to keep the information secret in such and such circumstances.Report
Data verification is another question where I already alluded to the answer upthread. Look, I don’t doubt that you’re acting in good faith here, but you’re pretty clearly not open to the idea, so we should probably both save ourselves some time.Report
Republican’s might actually take breachs of it seriously
LMAO!
Oh, wait, you’re serious…
(The only way the GOP would take it seriously is if they could use it to smack the Dems around. I wouldn’t put it past the GOP to allow the database to be breached specifically so they could try to pin it on the Dems. GOP friendliness to gun owners is, IMHO, largely on of political expediency).Report
At least some of those guys “making $10/hr as customer support for” local banks are conscientious people trying to earn a living to doing the best job they can, but sometimes falling short, as all humans do.Report
Seriously, the policies I support tend to put me on the “liberal” side of most (or at least a large number of) issues, but I dislike identifying myself as a liberal because of the contempt some liberals or leftists exhibit for working people as a sort of Lumpen class of venal underminers of all that is joyous, true, and virtuous.Report
The only thing I wonder about “working people” as you call them is how so many can be on forms of government assistance (child tax credits, often being on food stamps) and simultaneously scream about government “taking my money.”
The cognitive dissonance required to behave that way is startling.
I’ve often noticed that there’s not a little racism and other troublesome bigotry involved in some of the arguing from some of the “Lumpen“, specifically in the way the GOP have targeted racial minorities and spent such time demonizing sexual minorities. It was quite telling when Rick Santorum had his moment-of-truth slip and said “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money” when, in fact, the vast majority of recipients of welfare and food aid are not of african descent at all.
I want people to get educated. Some will never pull their heads out of their rear ends, but the better educated our society, the more we’ll find that many do.Report
I always wonder how Republicans believe that government work isn’t work.
I’m sure the soldier in the field, the post office worker on delivery, or the engineer working on a satellite feel their job is indeed “work”.Report
Oh, to be clear, I do think government work is work. But I also think the $10 per hour customer service rep at the bank is also doing work. And I interpreted Jesse’s comment to be denigrating that fact.
However, I do think I was probably overly harsh and too quick in my interpretation. It’s one of the chips I carry on my shoulder, and I shouldn’t have taken the offense I did.Report
I think you were right, Pierre, but maybe in a different way. Jesse seemed to be implying that government workers are inherently more trustworthy than private sector employees. Whether that’s supposed to be due to some magic of government or to the type of person who takes public vs. private sector jobs is unclear. But whatever the mechanism is, it’s a bit silly. People are people and they take the jobs they can get.
My dad worked in the private sector for years, then moved into a state bureaucracy. Did his essential honesty and dedication change? My brother worked in a city bureaucracy for years then moved into the private sector. Did his essential honesty and dedication change? Both of them would look at you like you were nuts if you asked them that.Report
James,
I thought he was implying that a.) workers with higher salaries, health benefits (amd maybe union protection more generally) were more likely to be committed to their jobs and loyal, and that loyalty and commintment would make the sale of secrets less likely, b.) workers in the federal government are more likely to have higher wage, benefits, and union protections than some private organization that tries to squeeze labor costs.
That is, the distinction isn’t between public and private sector workers but workers who are treated with respect and loyalty versus workers who aren’t, with the latter being more likely to be loyal as a result of being respected.Report
Shazbot’s,
Let me make clear that I’m not bashing bureaucrats. They’re, on average, no different from the rest of us, on average, and studies show that most people report good experiences in their interactions with gov’t employees.
But their higher salaries* and good pensions aren’t a deterrent to, fir example embezzlement. People are people, and paying them more can certainky affect their job satisfaction, but it doesn’t change the essence of what any individual is. The troublesome ones will be trouble, regardless of pay, and the good ones will be good, regardless of pay.
Certainly private v. public creates some different incentives, with up and downsides each way, but to assume that the employees of either are necessarily more reliable than the other indicates a reliance on preconceptions, probably stemming from ideological commitments, rather than a well grounded analysis.
*if they actually have higher salaries. Conservatives and libertarians often claim gov’t employees get paid more than their private sector counterparts, all in, while liberals often deny it.Report
Well that link is just to a google search. I didn’t find any peer reviewed, scientific research in a good journal showing that there is or isn’t a correlation between pay and benefits and loyalty to employer. Sure, some public employees are disloyal and criminal. The question is whether they are less likely to be so than low paid workers in some private company (a well paid private company might be fine.)
But I get that is is an empirical question. I’m not sure if Jesse is right, only that his claim is not exactlty what you made it out to be. His claim sounds right on an intuitve level to me, but I doubt that will persuade you.Report
I guess it depends what the certification is supposed to do. I don’t see why the NRA or Ducks Unlimited should be turned into a quais-gov org. I have no problem with the info only being accessed by warrant. On the other hand that would co-opt gun rights orgs into slightly softer versions of the cali prison guards unions. Well that is bit overboard, but only a bit. But if the info is accessed by warrant having the NRA hold the info doesn’t protect anything. They will have to give up the data in a sec.Report
I guess it depends what the certification is supposed to do.
To simplify that records are being kept and appropriate safeguards are in place.
They will have to give up the data in a sec.
Yes, but if inappropriate requests start being sent through, I would expect the NRA to bring it to everyone’s attention just as soon as they can. Mostly, though, if you can get organizations on board that gunowners feel comfortable with, it would help with compliance considerably.Report
It might make gun owners happier. I’ve always thought the NRA was fairly cop friendly so i’m not seeing them acting as much of stop. The NRA membership skews very R, not exactly news i know. As a generalization, that same segment of the R’s that are NRA members are pro-gov power in the realm of law enforcement/military/etc. I’m not all that fond of gov contracting out functions to private orgs.Report
The NRA folks may be generally cop friendly, but guns are a very conspicuous counter-example. Police groups were among those calling for gun control in the 90’s. NRA folks were unmoved.Report
You are correct the NRA and cops aren’t always on the same side. I see giving a role to NRA as a way to make gun owners comfortable but i don’t see much else good. If multiple groups could operate any cert process they would all have to follow the same rules and regs to prevent people shopping for the most lax regime.Report
I agree with you completely on this, especially in the certification process. What I think that MRS is getting with the NRA is they are a group that would be trusted by gun owners.Report
Will,
Would you support strict civil liability for private organizations who suffer a breach of security. I think I would, because it’s probably easier to sue such an organization than it would be to sue the government.Report
Pierre, this would have to be negotiated. If the liability would make it so that nobody would want to host this sort of list, then that would be a problem. The strongest thing is, to me, that if they want to maintain such a list, they do have some pretty strong incentives to keep a lid on it.Report
Good point.Report
I just don’t get this argument. If you are going to have such a list, why not make it public? If the government really becomes sufficiently tyrannical to confiscate guns, they aren’t going to let some lousy NGO to get in the way. The NSA is a hell of a lot smarter than Wayne le Pierre, thank God.Report
You act as though “sufficiently tyrannical to confiscate guns” is some dystopian future and not… commonplace among western liberal democracies.
Ultimately, it’s a question of how easily the data can be accumulated and used by the government. If the NRA has it, it is not subject to some executive order that undermined the privacy aspects put in the law by congress.
If you write “A certified registrar cannot voluntarily or be compelled to turn the data over without a warrant” a future president cannot weasel out a way to hand the information over. I would, on the whole, feel a lot more comfortable with that data being in the hands of people that are naturally very resistant to turning it over.
Thus far, almost all of the people arguing that it doesn’t matter who has the data or that the data would be safer with the government are those who care the least about the data privacy to begin with.Report
The NRA is just a suggestion.Report
As to a gun limit: Never fly. Hunters routinely use a variety of guns, for purely legitimate reasons. (Mostly related to, you know, bullet size.).
Shotguns are the same way — different tools for different jobs. You might be able to fly with a single rifle per caliber, single shotgun per gage, but you’d be better off focusing your efforts on handgun restrictions and validation.
Hunting rifles and shotguns are simply not the problem handguns are, and most hunters will own several of one or both.Report
Eh, probably. It was a weak suggestion, but some folks on the control side seem to have a problem with people owning more than one gun. The media likes to treat a any gun collection of more than 2 as “an arsenal” of weapons, and some people seem to find that idea disturbing (as if a person can reasonable shoot more than one firearm at a time).Report
It’s hard to explain, but there’s a sizeable difference between a guy who owns several guns for the same reason he owns several fishing rods (different tools for different jobs) and the guy who has a room full of fishing rods and never actually fishes.
Basically its’ one thing to be an avid hunter. It’s another to own an armory, especially when your armory’s collection is aimed at man-killing, not animal killing.Report
And it’s yet another thing to own live, dangerous weapons that you’re afraid to touch, to go near, for fear that they’d kill people.
Name the University.Report
thats your right, if you scared of them don’t own one or take it to buy-back.
But that does not give anyone right to limit all others simply because some fear or are irresponsible…..
That doesn’t mean I beleive there is not a problem, and nothing needs to be done, just not in the realm of bans or increased/costly restrictions on law abiding.
“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
Benjamin Franklin
If you don;t trust your neighbor, and he doesn’t trust you, and you lock one another in each others house as to reduce potential harm, and you rely on third person to oversee logistics, who is FREE?Report
… you own chemical weapons in your backyard? Sarin? Mustard Gas?
I guess I done slipped you a card you didn’t want to hold, then. Unless you want your own pocket nukes.
If I’m scared of grenades, I move out of places where people carry them and use them regular like. See, I’m rich enough to do that. Lotta people aren’t. Lotta people die, ain’t nobody ever give a shit.
And I’m offtopic and not talking about guns nomore, so I’m gonna stop running my mouth.Report
Gave my fishing rods to a friend 4 weeks ago. Its to much hassel to buy a fishing license every damn time you want to go. I don’t mind really, but my family members will do without to.
The family friends I gave the rods to will be fishing without a license. What a great country we have.Report
Overfishing is a real problem.
License systems are the answer to that. Limit what people can take, make sure they understand the rules and balance the competing interests so that the system is itself sustainable, otherwise tragedy of the commons brings another species the way of Steller’s sea cow.
I don’t know if you lack the ability to understand this simple concept, or if you just ignore it while screaming “FREEDOM COMMUNISM”, but that’s what is involved here. Licensing systems don’t curtail all freedoms, they aim to make sure that our children and grandchildren will be able to enjoy their freedoms in the same way we have.Report
Is it? How many wild troutstreams you been on, son? Where I live, nearly everything gets stocked to sunday. And the rainbows all die anyhow, sure you occasionally see a brownie or something holding out over the winter.
Licenses, where I’m from, are actively destroying the old-growth forests. The deer, you see, aren’t getting shot enough, so they destroy all the young trees (and starve to death!). 1 in 40 cars gets hit by a deer each year in my state.Report
http://overfishing.org/pages/why_is_overfishing_a_problem.phpReport
And this is when I say fuck you. We were TALKING about NON COMMERCIAL RECREATIONAL troutfishing. Or crappie fishing, or muskie fishing. NOT ocean fishing at all. Let alone netting, let alone CHINA.
You honestly think I don’t know about studies friends of mine helped WRITE?
Fuck you and stay on topic.
Your stories ain’t doing jack to talk about stocked trout.Report
http://www.takemefishing.org/fishing/fishopedia/fishing-and-conservation/the-importance-of-fishing-laws/
And I just realized how an article titled “The importance of fishing laws” could be misread given the standard league euphemism for a word you’ve just abusively used a few times.Report
not following, Kim, are you saying you are against fishing license? they serve to help fund wildlife management to better outdoorsman experience, increase deer population has little to do with licensing, and more to do with fewer new hunters due negative perception of redneck ‘gun-nuts’ going hunting, new generations stick to electronics. Most states allow additional tags and nuisance tags. Start encouraging younger generations to responsibly take up shooting/hunting and maybe you won’t have to worry about such deer problems.Report
I do what I can, Jason. And you’re making decent arguments for licenses.Report
The problem is my children and grandchildren will not have the freedoms i have had. If you understood the likely hood of fishing perch into extinction I would say you had a dog in this fight.
If licensing is so grand we should license the hell out of laws. For every law you support there should be a $5000 license fee that requires bi-annual renewal.
3 law max per license hugging law mongers.Report
“license hugging law mongers”
Hoookay. You realize exactly how much willpower it is taking for me NOT to reply with a link to an animated gif of a cuckoo clock right now?Report
say it..say it….
wa…
Naw man, I feel what your saying, and MRS and Pierre. It just doesn’t make life better for me no matter how many times it runs the cycle.Report
But what is the difference between an avid firearms collector, and a nut with an arsenal? Are you just a collector until you shoot someone?Report
yes, it is hard to explain, or quantify… especially in regards to avid hunter with largish collection of guns that could be ‘viewed’ as arsenal from non hunter, inherited guns, or military collectors such as Gunny R. Lee Ermey from Mail Call which accounts for most Class 3 weapons (50 cal). But yeah, you still have that gun nut just preparing for the next revolution or Zombie Apocalypse..
I would say that by far most crimes are not committed by any of the above, but by recent new purchase/acquisition/theft and little respect or understanding for safety.Report
Oh, it’s very very easy to get a list of the crazy people.
Just run a good few ads featuring jackbooted obamathugs taking people’s guns.
Then sell ammo.
Only the stupid are buying “tons more Now!”Report
or the ones that do NOT own one and want to get it before they can’t,
like Twinkies, unless you imply that was just bunch obese junk food lovers..Report
sure. they’s dumb either way.Report
Re irresponsible owners, just put liability rules in place. You register the gun, you’re responsible for whatever damage it causes unless you can prove it was stolen from an adequately secured location.Report
See Insurance up above.Report
So if a gun merchant sells a gun to a mass murderer,is he liable?Report
no. but he ought to be liable, big time, for selling to gun runners. He can plausibly be expected to pick up on gun running (hmm… this man seems to be buying a lot of handguns… in suspicious batches…)Report
kinda like ATF Fast and Furious??
regardless of amount of insurance, licenses, laws, regulations and bans restricting lawful ownership, criminals will have them illegally…
quick search reveals regardless of liquor laws, bar licensing and responsibilities, and brewery/distillery liabilities and effort to promote ‘drink responsibly’, DUI’s account for ~10000 traffic deaths, ~30% total traffic deaths, not to mention and nobody is proposing another prohibition, think we know how that one turned out.
and you may say that was unitentional, or an accident… but was it? someone CHOSE to drink and drive. and that does not relate to intentional homicide, but yet everytime gun control debate turns to addressing actual crime, it turns to “what about accidents”, those irresponsible gun owners. personal responsibility!Report
Nope. not getting on about accidents. Not about long guns either. Long guns are strategically useful in a home defense type scenario. I’ve seen little to indicate that handguns, as commonly used, are even a decent defensive weapon.
(and yes, ATF ought to be shook down about fast and furious. That was more than a goofup. that was profound groupthink).
I’m not saying we ought to ban guns, even. Just that someone selling large quantities of them to particular individuals ougth to be responsible for calling the cops, or being prosecuted if they don’t. We do it for SUDAFED, for christ’s sake! Name and address, kept at every single dispensary.Report
Point (& I made this earlier), a restriction does not change the amount in circulation. We restricted sudafed, and meth cookers found ways around it (paying homeless people to buy up the max, stealing shipments, etc.), and now, they don’t even bother, because chemists working for the cartels have found new ways to make meth that don’t need sudafed.
Any kind of restrictions, registries, or bans will merely cause the criminals to shift tactics & find new ways to acquire handguns.
Remember, firearms technology is about 700 years old. It’s essentially a tube closed at one end. Firearms are relatively simple to build with common tools (see Gunsmiths in the Khyber Pass).
Also remember that we incarcerate a lot of people, people who spend a lot of time in prison, some who use that time to acquire skills such as metal working. We then release these people, and we have built a system that now refuses to trust these people on the outside. We make it hard for them to find work that pays well (everyone cares about the auto-worker who got laid off, but no one gives a rip about the ex-con – who is more likely to turn to crime to make ends meet?). I would not be surprised if such people start turning out handguns to make a few extra bucks because the demand is high.
Bans, etc are truly a waste of time if we do not address the underlying demand for illegal firearms.Report
not to mention alcohol related abuse, poisoning, and other non-vehicle related deathsReport
I often wonder if we should have insurance on liquor instead of automobiles.Report
I like this list for the most part.
A few exceptions:
As I noted in my post (or kinda threw it out there), I really don’t have a problem with felons having a rifle for hunting, under certain conditions. If they’re out with a guide that’s willing to go out in the woods or the hills with them, then fine; let them go hunt.
And I don’t have a problem with them keeping a shotgun around the house, as long as they’re limited to rock salt rather than lead shot.
I think the states can do a much better job of oversight of a registry than the NRA. Or the local sheriff.
I don’t care for concealed carry at all. Too many people walking the streets packing heat is a big part of the problem. I don’t see it as a part of the solution.
And I think the police need to get away from the use of deadly force, and go for lower caliber weapons. More tasers, less firepower.Report
I think the level of felony matters; non-violent/non-victim crimes don’t rise to the level of curtailing bill-of-rights rights.
I’m not cool with giving the NRA any oversight of legal matters; they’re not a legal entity with court-like powers, and they have no credible accountability; they’re a lobbying agency for members/industry.
But otherwise, KUDOS.Report
Rock salt, or bean-bag roundsReport
“I think the states can do a much better job of oversight of a registry than the NRA. Or the local sheriff.”
I think there’s a lot of merit in this. In some cases, however, effective local regulation might require some sort of federal enabling law. Chicago, as you probably know, borders on Indiana and is in spitting distance from Wisconsin. So any registry scheme (and any sales prohibition or regulation scheme….although I’m not sure what that’d look like) would have to take account of incidental restrictions on interstate commerce.Report
I, too, would probably want to fiddle around the edges (find someone else to certify the database!), but in general I could sign on to this pretty easily.Report
I said this in Mike’s post yesterday, to me, at least, it bears repeating:
Every time we’ve one of these news-looped shootings, there’s a surge in gun sales. Because people fear the bans and restrictions coming as a result. Which makes me think that gun owners expect some additional regulation, and perhaps, on some level, recognize that it’s necessary.Report
Putting on a libertarian “free market” hat, it seems to me that right now there’s a perverse incentive for gun shop owners and gun show dealers to cheer whenever this happens. After all, there’s a run on guns and they make out like the proverbial bandits in the wake of each deadly shooting.Report
yeah, I know someone who was cursing ditching ammo stocks before this happened.Report
Yesterday afternoon, local radio actually had an ad from one of the gun stores about how you could “still get AR-15s from us, Wal-Mart won’t carry them anymore, get them before it’s too late and Obama bans them.”
Sigh.Report
Does anybody know if the NRA has any official suggestions on what should be done. I don’t mean LaPierre’s arm everybody plan but other more serious/less scary paranoid ideas.Report
See belowReport
Militarization of police forces around the country is a big problem. I’m not advocating a British system of batons and pepper spray, but how many municipalities need armored vehicles and machine guns? It’s over the top, and unnecessary.
Radley Balko has been reporting on this topic for years. I highly recommend giving him a read.Report
Radley is a favorite & he’s in my reader.Report
I LOVE the picture!Report
For what it’s worth, I think a large part of why such things haven’t seriously been proposed is because groups like the NRA are, currently, happy to let the gun control extremists run with the ball on “common sense” regulations (seriously, in the gun rights community, “common sense” is treated with derision, because the laws the extremists propose are anything but in their eyes).. They propose extreme measures, and the NRA/GOA just sits back and stirs the pot. They have zero incentive to try & work for better laws because right now, every time the control extremists start banging the drum, their membership numbers spike.
Also, I will add registration will not stop illegal arms sales. I expect, even if a registration scheme was put in place, criminals would still steal firearms, as well as steal identities and use those to legally purchase firearms.Report
as well as steal identities and use those to legally purchase firearms.
Here’s an idea: take the fingerprints of everyone buying a gun, keep that on file with the registration.Report
Fingerprints are not a very good long term biometric, since they change as we use our hands (scaring, etc). Still, with modern digital scan technology being pretty cheap, it probably would not be hard to encrypt a single thumb print with the owner data, as long as there was a secondary way to verify should the print change.
The key for any of this is to prevent owner data from being available to law enforcement unless the serial number of a firearm pops the owner up in a search.Report
Scarring is readily visible, though. It doesn’t look like a “standard” print. What I’m more pointing out with this is that taking and storing some biometric data would make it possible to verify, should someone’s “identity” be stolen for purposes of gun purchase, that a person’s claim they weren’t the one who bought the gun was true.
Then again, in 20 years we might have thumbprick DNA scanners. Who knows?Report
So we agree that any bans of any weapons not currently banned are (or should be) off the table, correct?Report
I see no real value in banning any currently legal firearms. And constantly threatening a ban is preventing any meaningful action to happen with regard to firearm regulation.Report
Does your latter point square with the concession you make at the outset of this summary post? Has there been such a constant threat going back before December 14th? Aurora resulted in essentially no calls to reinstitute the AWB by major Congressional leaders.Report
No, but Sandy Hook has, with Feinstein pushing one right now (she said she would introduce it to Congress on the first day of the new session, 01/22/13, I believe).
Before then, there hasn’t been much push for much of any gun control at the federal level in the past few years. Which is pretty much what I admitted to at the start of the post.Report
So does it square that a threat that only reasserted itself three weeks ago is what’s been preventing the pro-gun community from working with gun control advocates toward better laws? Is that problem only three weeks old?Report
…I’d prefer to say that the problem is not the gun control advocate’s threats of extreme measures, but perhaps simply a lack of interest on their part in more restrained, arguably smarter ones that gun folks would agree to. Because I’d prefer not to have to say that it’s merely imagined threats of extreme measures that have been keeping them from joining together over those measures for year prior to December 14, 2012.
The problem is that I’m not sure that actually bears out as a true fact in the world.Report
If your response is that, hey, it was an actual thing from 1994-2004; we can allow resulting fear of a return to an AWB/similar ban to be an excuse for not working toward better laws that we don’t really want but know really should be in place, and even if not, then your silence has not yet been deafening or long enough, I actually accept that, more or less.
It’s just not the same thing as the threats you talk about actually existing and causing the fear. If what needs to happen for gun folk to active pursue these alternative ideas is for high-placed ban advocates to shut up and they shut up and things still don’t happen or are resisted, well, what would you have them do? (Obviously you’d have them just keep on shutting up, come what may. But that might not be what they’ll do.) And there’s always a limit to just how shut up an opinion can be in this info age. Yep, dig not very long and you’ll find plenty of folks (elected reps at that!) were calling for bans all along.
At some point your side just needs to get over all that and just be for what you’re for, and if you’re not for it, then you’re not for it. It’s not someone else fault on the other side who spoke his mind.
Or else we’ll have no smart measures, and the tide will eventually turn and we’ll go back to bans. Which may be where we are at right now (though I’m not as convinced as Jason).Report
I think this comment addresses your question.
In essence, the hysteria on both sides is, as usual in American politics, running at full steam. The political power players really have gotten very good at using the various media outlets (news, internet, etc) to make sure that the fear stays close to a fever pitch, such that nothing can get done, and our elite politicians are not interested in being reasonable.
I may have some very good ideas, but unless both sides start demanding the power players shut-up & act like adults, it’s all for naught.Report
Which latter point do you refer to?Report
You got the right one above.Report
So I’m clear: this comment was addressed to the community. I’d be interested in hearing from as many who want to say a quick aye or nay on:
1) if you think that this is among the consensus viewpoint results generated by the Symposium, and
2) if this is where you personally stand, or not.Report
— All the whining about “gun grabbers” really is a bunch of whining and needs to stop. Even if Obama and Feinstein want to ban guns, that doesn’t mean such a ban will make it past the courts now that Heller & McDonald are on the books. —
This is a pretty poor argument.
Both cases were, embarrassingly enough, 5 -4. Should any of the 5 not wake up tomorrow, those cases are dead and buried and the prohibitionists can get their freak on.
Now, had Heller been the 8-1 case its facts mandated (it should have been 9-0 but we cant expect Ginsburg to disappoint the party) you’d have a point. And it was a really easy case. But the Democratic party has made clear that turning the 2A into an ink blot is not just acceptable, but is the preferred (if not the only) position. It can not be reasonably argued that those precedents should suspend the concern over gun control.
There are also other concerns- like letting trial lawyers try and bankrupt the industry again- but the basic facts are pretty simple, a substantial segment of the Democratic party wants to restrict access to gun ownership. One can’t reasonably deny this and one certainly can’t ask people who find gun ownership important to pretend such isn’t true.
The entire “don’t worry they don’t want to take your guns” is simply false. It’s pretty clear that to the extent that “they” don’t, it’s only because “they” can’t. Yet. In addition to the reality that none of the current barriers are permanent, in such a situation, trust isn’t warranted.Report
Only 23% of the country wanted a full gun ban last time I checked national polls, which was after Aurora but before Sandy.
Even if they were all Democrats, that’s still not the whole Democratic party. It’s maybe half.
So, yeah. I think you’re overestimating how many blue dog Democrats there are, and how many registered Ds really *don’t* care about a gun ban.Report
There’s no doubt that what he said si true – that a substantial part of the party would restrict access to at least some guns if they could. But to my conversation with MRS above, what the ones in high places mostly did about it in almost a decade before four Fridays ago is shut up about it. There’s not a lot more you can ask.
If anything, a backlash argument could also be made about McDonald‘s having taken away the right of communities to deal with these urges as they see fit, according to local culture and lifestyles (IOW federalism). Now, what have ban advocates got to lose by going national on whatever bans McDonald would allow?Report
I’m one of the token liberals, and pretty pro-gun control here, and I wouldn’t go for a gun ban. I’d fight against rifle and shotgun bans, and I’m iffy on handguns. (Even though handguns are like 90% of the problem).
Now, turning concealed carry back to “You need a darn good reason”? Count me in! Registering guns? Yep.Report
The problem with “You need a darn good reason” is that you get places like New York, where if you are not a friend of Mikey, you don’t get no gun permit.
People shouldn’t have to have a 3rd party judge their personal threat level.
I do think a carry permit should require comprehensive training, and regular qualifications. That would discourage all but those committed to carrying & keeping proficient.Report
Yes they should. They REALLY should. State, local, and federal cops. Maybe need two of the three to sign off.Report
MRS,
I see most of 1-5 creating a stronger black market that could lead to higher violence rates as more funding is syphoned to criminals.
The other part of this that no one has covered in detail is how this could create criminals out of honest everyday citizens. Maybe we should regulate, register and insure all the freedoms to make damn sure we kill any resemblence of a “free state”.
Maybe what we need is a law tax. For anyone that votes or supports a law into existence you have to pay the price. The rest of us would have to settle for freedom.Report
Do you actually believe this drivel, or are you just trolling people for a reaction?
how this could create criminals out of honest everyday citizens.
The same pathetic argument was once made about seatbelt laws.
Maybe what we need is a law tax. For anyone that votes or supports a law into existence you have to pay the price. The rest of us would have to settle for freedom.
You mean anarchy.Report
I do believe it. There is no pathetic argument against the proliferation of law.
Blaise once commented that he didn’t understand the supremacy of the individual. He received exactly no response. What most folks seldom recognize is that every morning people get up, shove their feet in shoes and go meet the world. An act of anarchy. This has nothing to do with state. No law or leader creates this condition. People will do this with a president or not. With or without a government.
How much control should one person have on another?
Your post received 4 comments. You asked for honest discussion. I think my position and your position are nearly opposite. If it interests you I would offer we could have a discussion there. All I ask is that you drop the wacko and gun nut labels and understand that I am not: tea party, NRA, militia, republican or democrat.Report
How much control should one person have on another?
More sophistry. The point of law is to create a framework in which society can exist, and the rights and freedoms of all people can (ideally) be maximized.
There’s the old saying about your right to swing your fist ending where my nose begins. As technology progresses, as society progresses, and as we learn and study new information, more and more things have direct impact upon other people.
Seatbelt laws were opposed by those who thought they needed the “freedom” to drive dangerously. There are still a few yokels and deluded people who think that way, but seatbelt laws have generally been good law. Likewise for many other laws, including environmental law. Anti-dumping laws alone have done very good things for ALL of us in helping to clean up waterways.
How much control should the collective have upon the individual? Precisely as much as the individual’s actions affect the collective. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.”Report
‘There’s the old saying about your right to swing your fist ending where my nose begins…Seatbelt laws were opposed by those who thought they needed the “freedom” to drive dangerously…How much control should the collective have upon the individual? Precisely as much as the individual’s actions affect the collective. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.”’
OPREReport
M.A.
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.”
This is misguided in that all those “ones” add up and its top down instead of bottom up.
It is also phrased in the “All for one and one for all”. Only your position leaves out the “all for one part”. From my perspective there is no balance in your position.Report
From my perspective there’s no balance in yours. You don’t worry about the ways in which “absolute rights” can be abused to harm others. You want everyone to be subservient to your whims.Report
Yeah. When is the last time I took my whim out and made you subservient to it.
Hell, I would just like fewer laws resulting in fewer of my countrymen and women in jail.
Your position lands more people in jail, which is real subservient.Report
—The same pathetic argument was once made about seatbelt laws.—
And alcohol laws. And marijuana laws.
Yeah, you’re right. Prohibition just doesn’t have a down side.
The sad part of this rhetoric- and a point I haven’t seen brought up (though I may have missed it)- is that the largest driver of gun violence in this country currently is tied to to the drug trade. Accordingly, you have people looking at the down side of prohibition (the homicides related to drugs) and concluding that the best way to fix the problem is with…. more prohibition.
Is there any way to take that sort of thinking seriously?Report
The sad part of this rhetoric- and a point I haven’t seen brought up (though I may have missed it)- is that the largest driver of gun violence in this country currently is tied to to the drug trade.
Currently. But before the drug trade, we still had gun violence, and quite a bit of it. The problem is guns being used as a “problem solving” or “disagreement solving” method in general.
The drug question is a separate question, with no easy answer. To believe that legalizing all drugs tomorrow would dry up gang crime? Not going to happen.Report
But before the drug trade, we still had gun violence, and quite a bit of it
Is this really true? When I think of the periods in which gun violence really seemed rampant, I think of alcohol Prohibition (Capone and moonshine bootleggers and tommy guns and such); then after that ended, things seem (and again, this may just be my impression) to be fairly tame until we get to the tail end of the 60’s, when many more new drugs start entering the popular landscape, and subsequently being prohibited.
To Bill’s point, I have seen “ending the WoD” called out in many comments and even mentioned as an aside in one of MikeD’s posts, but as the WoD wasn’t the symposium focus (and, as the WoD’s the rare thing that almost everybody here agrees is, at the very least, in dire need of ramping down or modification) it may seem like it is being ignored; but I don’t think that’s the case.
To M.A.’s point, the gangs we shall always have with us, and even sans WoD there will no doubt still be violence and score-settling and turf beefs and the like, and many of these will no doubt still be settled with a bullet.Report
Mass-produced, easily accessible guns helped create wider spread gang violence. Prohibition of certain things, and the black market thereby, has always been related to turf wars.
In America, gang violence amongst ethnic groups has been just as common as that from competing gangs, historically. Some of the bloodiest feuds have nothing to do with drugs, or a tertiary relationship at best; they’re the feuds between white supremacists, black gangs, asian gangs, hispanic gangs. And then there are the internecine feuds when ethnic gangs split into separate groups, such as the longstanding Bloods/Crips feud.
If it hadn’t been prohibition driving the violence, Capone and his gang members would have been using their tommy guns to intimidate shopkeepers all the more. An ironic twist to the prohibition era is that the mafia almost completely ended their involvement in the protection rackets, because it was easier and more profitable to focus their manpower on booze.
Take away drugs, and what you’ll see is an uptick in kidnappings for ransom, girls sold into sex slavery, and similar trades. And there’ll be plenty of violence there just the same.Report
Take away drugs, and what you’ll see is an uptick in kidnappings for ransom, girls sold into sex slavery, and similar trades.
There may be more than a few variables left out of this analysis.Report
I don’t really disagree with any of that, but I suspect the astronomical profits in the drugs black market, if removed as an incentive, also would mean a reduction in gangs’ purchasing power (guns and ammo aren’t cheap; particularly ones whose prices are inflated by themselves being untraceable, black market products).Report
The largest outbreak of gun-based violence in American history was the Civil War, followed by about 100 years of gun-based enforcement of Jim Crow and segregation. Clearly, the best way to address this would be to reinstitute slavery.Report
“The other part of this that no one has covered in detail is how this could create criminals out of honest everyday citizens. Maybe we should regulate, register and insure all the freedoms to make damn sure we kill any resemblence of a ‘free state.'”
I share the fear, at least partially, from your first sentence.
But the second sentence is not particularly helpful because it declines to address an important potential counterargument: no right, even freedom of speech, is regarded as absolute, and all undergo at least some restriction in some particular that most of us agree are reasonable (a lot of people support some civil libel laws, for example). Why not have some regulation if it really does tend toward public security and invades only minimally the right to keep and bear arms? (I’m not writing a brief for GUN CONTROL. I’m undecided as to what the best solution is and am probably inclined to support less regulation instead of more. But I’m not going to dismiss some regulation out of hand, either.)Report
Civil libel or slander laws, defamation of character, incite-to-riot, classified information (e.g. state security).
There are plenty exceptions to the right of “freedom of speech.” And there should be. Rights are fine, but when there is a category of action where exercise of a right can become abuse meant to harm others, it’s right and proper to say that no, we will not allow that under law.
“Freedom of religion” isn’t absolute either, for the same reasons. There are some things we’ve allowed exceptions to the law for (native american ceremonies that use peyote, the giving of a sip of wine to underage individuals in christian ceremonies) and some things we don’t countenance (forcibly marrying 12 year old girls to 40 year old men).Report
Pierre,
The problem here is that there is a notion that if people are somehow behaving unreasonable that passing a law can bring everyone to a reasonable place. To me this ignores root cause and is poor practice in view of the consent of the goverened.
The bigger picture this brings to bear is law and law enforcement. In anarchy if you have a dispute typically the escalation will have a diminished return on both parties at some point.
With law enforcement there is no end to the ability of escalation. All you see is one sided domination that leads to civil dissent.Report
consent of the goverened
“Consent of the governed” doesn’t entitle the wackos to a heckler’s veto.Report
What a helpful comment.Report
M.A.’s Enemies List
Libertarians
Wackos
Hecklers
Trolls
FYIGM’ers
Gun Nuts
Libertarians
Anybody to the right of M.A.
Conservatives
Anybody who’s not M.A.
People Who Put Mayo On Hot Dogs
Seriously, did I mention LibertariansReport
But if he puts Alabama and Notre Dame on there, it’s all good.Report
You’re just plain nuts.Report
Whew! I missed the list!
It’s a fair cop, actually.Report
So the bulk of my suggestions focuses on:
1) Reduce technical penalties to misdemeanors (only violent crimes are felonies)
2) Get gun owners trained!
3) Ensure responsibility!
If I want to drive a car, I have to demonstrate proficiency, & I have to carry insurance. Neither of these requirements can force anyone to be a better driver, but they help.
I see zero problem with requiring people to carry liability insurance if they want to own firearms. I see zero problem with, if they want to carry said firearms in public, that they demonstrate that they can do so safely, that they can shoot straight, and that they understand the legal ramifications of doing so.
I believe, that if you require insurance, safe storage or home use training laws will not be terribly important, since insurance companies will want to know that people are trained & that they have secure storage, so they will want to see proof of both, and adjust rates accordingly.
The cost of insurance does more to promote good habits than the threat of the cost of a ticket.Report
We are back to root cause. In your example of cars, there are plenty of people who drive without licence, registration, or any safety training. This is still happening after how many years of laws and requirements?
In the end its not the responsible people that you have to be concerned with, and it makes no sense to burden the responsible drivers for the costs of the irresponsible. The logic just doesn’t follow for me.
I haven’t been in a car accident when I was at the wheel. Also I don’t have any interesting gun misshaps.Report
Ah, yes, very true.
Here is the problem, people, for the most part, suck at two things rather spectacularly: assessing their own abilities, and assessing risk.
Training helps put one in perspective, insurance the other.
So yes, if we had training requirements & insurance, people would still go around without either, & those people would, when caught, would be identified & punished. However, the large majority of people would, provided they were not onerous, follow the requirements & get trained & get insurance. The training would show them what they need to work on to be proficient, the insurance cost will encourage good habits.
It’s not perfect, but right now, there is a growing population in the gun owning community that did not grow up with guns, did receive firearms training in the military, and is currently getting too much of their firearms education from Tacti-cool Mall Ninjas on the internet, if any at all.
They do stupid stuff, like carry concealed without using a holster & they leave their gun in a theater after it falls out of their pocket, or they remove their gun from their holster and flub it up, creating a negligent discharge in public. They do this because they don’t know any better, because no one taught them any better, & to date, they’ve had no incentive to learn the right way to do it.
These aren’t bad, irresponsible people, they are just people who don’t know any better, & probably, if they did, they would do the right thing.Report
errr. did NOT receive firearms training in the militaryReport
It still doesn’t wash. 10 years down the road the laws will not prevent people from being irresponsible.
As with automobiles the only thing that is changed is that the fees generate revenue, insurance companies get theirs at a gradual uptick in pricing. People who can’t meet the requirements have to do without or just say fish it and go illegal.
Will Truman had a good post awhile back on insurance covering multiple cars. This would indicate that in the future we would be insuring each damn gun. So given the 3 gun scenario, rifle, handgun, shotgun we would be paying 3 units of insurance.
It just boggs down into what freedom isn’t, who can afford freedom, and more reasons to say to hell with it cant we just give anarchy a chance.Report
What was it I said about the perfect being the enemy of the good?
People are, measurably, more responsible when they have a financial incentive to be so. No, it won’t get everyone, but it will get a lot of them. They will become aware, & it will improve things.
As for insurance & how it would be priced, that is kind of up to the actuaries, isn’t it. The expense of car insurance is precisely because auto accidents are common, the damage costly, and insurance companies have to price for that. My home owners policy is a fraction of the cost of my auto policy, because even though my home is far more expensive than my car, my home is unlikely to cause damage, and unlikely to take damage.
Firearms, for most legal owners, would be the same way. The actual cost to the common gun owner would, I expect, be relatively small, and that cost would be mitigated by demonstrating safe storage, proper handling, & training (since gun owners who are trained tend to have considerably fewer accidents).Report
I’ll tell you what, do with firearms insurance what many states do with car insurance. If you have the money, you can put up a bond & self insure.
Failing that, insurance is the way we all protect ourselves from the unforeseen, or the momentary slip.
Now, if you have a better way to get gun owners to be responsible, I am ALL ears. I will be happy to hear you out.
But if all you got is, “No, that won’t work perfectly, so boo.”, then we are done here.Report
It just boggs down into what freedom isn’t, who can afford freedom, and more reasons to say to hell with it cant we just give anarchy a chance.
Some seriously faulty logic here. You are free to own a gun, but owning a gun does not make you free. You are also free to own a car, buy a house, or go blow $100,000 in Vegas if you can afford it. Just because you are free to do these things does not mean you can afford these things, and not being able to afford them is not, in a capitalistic society, a limit on freedom.Report
[i] not being able to afford them is not, in a capitalistic society, a limit on freedom [/i]
not exactly following logic… guns are not free, placing additional irrational expenses (taxes, insurance, fees) only discourages use from lawful (cigarette tax), and does nothing for criminals…
think the same logic is used by OWS for entitlements, but in reversed
people are free to earn money to get what they want,, artificial inflation as means to limit is not capitalism, its COMMUNISMReport
artificial inflation as means to limit is not capitalism, its COMMUNISM
It’s foolish policy, but it’s not communism. Communism actually has a fairly specific meaning, not just “anything government does that has redistributive effects.” And specifically communism is about actual government ownership of productive capital, not about monetary policy.Report
I seriously do not see how insurance is irrationalReport
“specifically communism is about actual government ownership of productive capital, not about monetary policy”
true, in Communism, gov would actually own everything, not just dictate associated costs. However, acceptance of such added costs for sake of safety, oversight and redistribution may be first step, Socialism..Report
insurance would become irrational in the same sense as original AWB…. type, qty, storage and coverage costs based on ‘scary’ factorReport
Sure, except government is not determining what factors to use to price insurance, the insurance actuaries are.
They’ll do studies, and determine what are likely actual risk factors. Maybe it doesn’t matter how many long guns you own, as long as you have a safe big enough to hold them, but it does make a difference the number &/or type of handguns, so that will raise your rates. Etc.
I carry insurance on my home, and on my guns. I maintain a $500K balloon policy, just in case. Costs me an extra $100/year.
I spend more in ammo in a year.Report
does your current gun coverage cover liability of someone getting killed/hurt, either accidentally by you or your stolen gun, or just replacement costs from theft, fire, ect? Once you you tie in those type of liabilities it will be exactly like AWB, insurance will skyrocket because certain guns used in criminal activity, and social stigmata…
It can somewhat be acquainted to Mustang 5.0 LX, limited, GT, Saleen, Cobra, maybe insurance risk based on % sold vs cost paid out can justify increase cost, but have some doubts, Saleen/Cobra owners much more responsible than high schooler with LX. Then you have AGE, 21 vs 50 buying 9mm/40 HiPoint/Glock vs SW/Rugar/HK. ect…
AND would def tie into healthcare costs and ObamaCare…Report
The balloon policy covers accidents, etc.
Last time I checked, a cars potential use in a crime is not a factor in its rates. Its theft rate is, but then, cars are easy to pick out & steal. Much harder to know which house has what kinds of guns (unless there is a registry & some news site makes the weapon types public).Report
“In the end its not the responsible people that you have to be concerned with, and it makes no sense to burden the responsible drivers for the costs of the irresponsible.”
But there are degrees of responsible drivers. Some responsible drivers will get liability insurance because they’re responsible. Others will get liability insurance because the state requires it. And others will refuse to get liability insurance but promise themselves that they’ll drive really really really really really carefully. In the second instance, at least, the state regulation does indeed nudge some people toward responsibility.Report
I see zero problem with, if they want to carry said firearms in public, that they demonstrate that they can do so safely, that they can shoot straight, and that they understand the legal ramifications of doing so.
Emphasis mine. That they can shoot straight under what circumstances? The people who scare me the most are the types that came out of the woodwork here in Colorado after the theater shootings. “Why, I’dda whipped out my Glock and nailed that sucker — head shot so it didn’t matter that he was wearing body armor.” In bad lighting; on a possibly moving target; with someone screaming in your ear; another person jostling your elbow; and the adrenalin pumping like mad. Hunters get buck fever, and that’s a relatively well-controlled situation by comparison. Yeah, I’d like people with concealed carry permits to have demonstrated that they can at least shoot straight on a range. But in a stressful situation, I still expect a bunch of them to miss badly.Report
As I said before, in another thread, the average cop is just as bad.
Honestly, aside from requiring people to shoot competitively, or run drills with simunitions, there is no good way to truly simulate the adrenaline response of a gunfight. All we can do is attempt to drill in good targeting practice so when the mind is in fear mode, muscle memory takes over and the bullet goes where the shooter wanted.Report
This seemed particularly pertinent:
Man shoots wife in the leg over dinner at the Longbranch SteakhouseReport
and so does this, 2 days after CT school, and no national coverage.. WHY?
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2012/12/media-quiet-about-san-antonio-theater-shooting-2524596.htmlReport
Or this
Gunman Killed at High SchoolReport
Again, training & the information exchange it entails may have helped. Many companies make pocket holsters that cover the trigger so you don’t do stuff like that. People avoid them because they think the holster will prevent them from drawing quickly (as if you will ever draw a pistol out of your pocket quickly). With a little training & practice, you learn that such is not the case.
But no, people just assume they know best without any experience.
Sigh…Report
Yep. And in most of the places I’ve lived, cops are required to show proficiency periodically, and if they discharge their firearm on duty, there’s going to be some sort of hearing to make sure it was justified. I don’t object to concealed carry — but have long argued that anyone who discharges their weapon inside city limits and outside of a firing range ought to have to go through the same sort of hearing. Was it justified? Did they take reasonable care to protect the public when they shot? The same sort of questions that a police officer is going to get asked.Report
Michael, that’s an interesting notion. Thank you for suggesting it.Report
Honestly, unless no one notices the discharge, this already happens, as most municipalities have prohibitions against the discharging of firearms in public (excepting ranges). You fire your gun, the police WILL be having an uncomfortable conversation with you, as will the DAs office.Report
Citizen (sorry, I was at work and just got home, so I’m late answering):
“The problem here is that there is a notion that if people are somehow behaving unreasonable that passing a law can bring everyone to a reasonable place. ”
I agree that “there is” that notion. And I agree that people like me would do well to heed that that notion is overly simplistic, that simply outlawing something or mandating something means it’s gonna get done. I get that. But it doesn’t follow that any and all laws or regulations get nothing done whatsoever. (You didn’t quite go that far in your comment, but your other comments and the tone you use suggest that you’re willing to go that far, perhaps if only for the sake of being provocative.)
“To me this ignores root cause and is poor practice in view of the consent of the goverened.”
The problem here is that there is a notion that if people The problem here is that there is a notion that if people are somehow behaving unreasonable that postulating some sort of root cause can convince everyone that nothing reasonable can be done. To me this ignores the practical effects, for good and not only ill, that laws, regulations and, sometimes, the lack of laws or regulations can have.
As for consent of the governed. Well, there are a lot of ways to approach what “consent of the governed” means. One way is to deny the efficacy and legitimacy of any law and endorse, either anarchism, or perhaps minarchism, or perhaps hope for a spontaneous order that people as a general rule will follow. This direction appears to be where you’re headed, and I can’t dismiss it altogether–there are examples of order that one might call “spontaneous” and that seems to work pretty darn well and that we oughtn’t dismantle just because people like me might say “well, we just need a law.”
Still, there are other approaches to “consent of the governed.” One is that people agree that certain types of decisions are good decisions–or at least decisions that can obligate others–simply because they are approved by a majority and that certain types of decisions are bad because they impinge in an unconscionable way on a basic liberty. In this scheme, “in an unconscionable way” and “a basic liberty” are probably loaded terms, but a workable (in theory) differentiation is made and has the added advantage of being something we can approach in most of the available states of governance out there. I suppose there are some outliers, such as the totally self-sufficient who lives in the mountains and hunts his food with a rifle who’s wooden stock he carved himself from a sharp stone he found and whose metal barrel he smelted himself in a hot fire started by a lightning bolt that hit a pile of iron he mined himself. And there are other outliers that while not as quite autarkic as our friend in the mountains are probably good enough so for (ahem) government work.
“The bigger picture this brings to bear is law and law enforcement. In anarchy if you have a dispute typically the escalation will have a diminished return on both parties at some point.”
Does this mean I am free from being robbed as long as the police do not exist? What if my command of, or access to, weapons is not as, err, generous as yours or my fellow armed citizen, does that mean I just have to placate him, maybe with a
small gifttributetax. Perhaps if I pay enough, and do so consistently, he’ll promise to “protect” me from other brigands (and if there are no other brigands, perhaps he’ll promise to “protect” me from himself). And before you know it, we have an according to Hoyle government, with a tribute collecting law enforcement, which it seems to me you were trying to avoid in the first place. I see a lot of problems with the current protection racket as it is (Chicago police are notorious for using torture, for example, but they might give me a pass because I’m white and don’t live in the wrong neighborhood), but I’m not too eager to go back to the original position and roll the dice unless I can be assured that I get to be the protector.“With law enforcement there is no end to the ability of escalation. All you see is one sided domination that leads to civil dissent.”
Yeah, I guess you’re right. For example, I stopped by at the neighborhood deli this evening to by my fiancee some cherry blintzes. Some guy stepped in front of me in line, and, well, one thing led to another and let’s just say the deli burned to the ground and now all of Chicago is on the verge of total chaos. If you live nearby (or even if you don’t), I suggest you start arming yourself, because the end is nigh.
The bigger picture this brings to bear is law and law enforcement. In anarchy if you have a dispute typically the escalation will have a diminished return on both parties at some point.
With law enforcement there is no end to the ability of escalation. All you see is one sided domination that leads to civil dissent.Report
I admit, this is not the most literate comment I posted. I should’ve edited more.Report
Pierre,
I was less than generous about the gains that regulations do achieve. The problem I see is there is no way to present the gains versus the costs.
The obligations are continually increasing and there is no sanity check with the governed on how much is reasonable. Right now, at this very minute, my obligation bucket is full as are many of my fellow citizens.
We need to talk about how I can increase the capacity of that bucket or what we may be able to trade that is in that bucket. Why does it matter? Because to have the society that you have invisioned I have to carry the bucket. My vision of society would have the bucket only half full or maybe no bucket at all.
I very much appreciate your candidness in this.Report
First, thanks for replying despite the (partial) snarkiness of my comment. (Actually, I was trying to be humorous, and it might have worked better if I had actually done a bit of editing.)
Second, you certainly have a point. I cannot deny that you describe a real problem.
Third, I think one of the ways you and I differ is in our assessment of the urgency and primacy of the problem. I see the problem as less urgent than you seem to, and I’m willing to allow other concerns to supersede that problem, even to the point of aggravating the problem because I think doing so is worth the benefit.Report
The current laws already create criminals out of everday citizens (See Three Felonies a Day).
The horrible hodgepodge of gun laws already catches innocent people all the time. What I am saying is strip it all away. Delete all the regulations & start over. Make it consistent from place to place, with the fed setting guidelines & the states making the rules.
The black market for handguns will never go away, and absent other changes to US law, you are right, a stronger black market would evolve. Dump the drug war and the demand for black market handguns falls. Not gone, but reduced. Since guns will still be legal to many (unlike drugs), the black market will have little cause to grow, unless the government does something else stupid & bans another thing that people want.Report
Scratch a federalist/conservative…Report
err, huh?Report
Good post, one of the more logical/meaningful discussions… comments on each pro-gun perspective
1. AWB – correct, too vague, based on media ‘scary’ perception
2. crime/violence – yes, address the criminals, not the tools, (alcohol, car and cyber crime cliches)
3. fetish – maybe, we all want toys, whether auto, boat, iPad, or any other gotta have it gadget
4. transfers – there are some issues, personally I would not be comfortable selling firearm to stranger without some ‘paperwork’. not sure about database, more on registry
5 current regulations – exactly, need to address, clean-up, make logical and enforce current laws before creating more mess, more mess/spaghetti is typical problem with politicians..
6 database – like the idea of serial # search only (no lists) and private/NRA oversight, regardless a database full of info always has potential to be adversely used and/or hacked. I too have wondered this myself (see #4), but use for ultimately confiscating is big concern
7. conceal – a consistent training program is always good
8. storage – responsible educated kids is always debatable, kids need to KNOW it is not a toy, rather than just be afraid, or not easily accessible to all, definitely not unloaded, not much good in safe either, and but what is out of reach????
9. insurance – can of worms
10 hoarding – special ‘collector’ permits for greater than X number seems harsh, what is X..
11 – magazine capacity – definately valid point, bu again, what is X and why, detachable/fixed.. or just fix capacity at current standard mfg supplied mag capacity, usually ~5-10 for rifle, and 8-16 for pistol (to not exceed handle capacity, ie no extended magazines), but again that is all arbitrary, especially for detachable.. Maybe say >15 goes into Class 3 category, but not banned..Report
I really am spitballing a lot here, just trying to find that middle ground. Some of this is just trying to see what is really important to people. For instance, it seems like large gun collections aren’t that much of a concern to many.
One thing about the database is that I said it would be encrypted. Basically, the gun information would be the decryption key, which is how you would prevent the printing of owner lists (unless law enforcement somehow got a list of legally held firearms).Report
I would say a ‘large’ collection has to be something above three rifles & two shotguns.
It’s easy to see a need for a hunter to have that many.Report
MRS,
“Finally, regarding military style semi-autos and the tacti-cool/mall-ninja gun owner. A week or so ago I read an interesting observation. The arms that civilians purchase for self defense closely follows the arms the police choose for themselves. People used to own a .38 revolver, because that is what the police used. Then the police started carrying 9mm semi-autos and shotguns, and people followed suit. Now they carry large caliber (0.40/0.45/10mm) semi-autos and patrol rifles (AR-15s/M-16s), and guess what the most popular rifle and caliber of handgun is these days? I think that the militarization of the police, coupled with ad campaigns highlighting AR-style platforms, the entertainment media that features them heavily, and the visibility of PMCs using them in the news and elsewhere has made the AR-style rifle the “Barbie for Men”.
The police are constantly experimenting with new rounds. The trick is to find the right balance between stopping power, accurate shooting and a round that won’t go through a suspect and then through the wall of someone’s house. Civillians like to match them because the theory is that if the shit ever hits the fan those are the rounds that will be most readily available.
As for the police escalating their firepower, I disagree. The .223 round most are using in their tactical rifles is a smaller round that the .30-06 police were using in their M1 Garands forty years ago.Report
Oh, I know why the police make changes as time goes on, I’m just saying the public tends to follow suit. And with reason.
I don’t think the police are escalating their firepower, per se (I wouldn’t call the .223 an escalation unless the last rifle round was .177 & you had to pump the rifle 10 times before you fired). Rather, I believe they are escalating the visibility of their firepower. I mean, I’m only 38 years old, but I never recall seeing a police cruiser with a rifle in it. Maybe a shotgun, but rifles were for SWAT. Now every cruiser has them, and the police are very visible with their tactical units, & almost EVERY department has a tactical unit.
People see that, & respond.Report
I mean, I’m only 38 years old, but I never recall seeing a police cruiser with a rifle in it. Maybe a shotgun, but rifles were for SWAT. Now every cruiser has them, and the police are very visible with their tactical units, & almost EVERY department has a tactical unit.
There’s a joke here about “use it or lose it.”
Erik Kain (this site’s own, if I’m not mistaken) had a pretty good article on the subject at Forbes a while back. The essence is: jurisdiction creates “SWAT Team” (or “tactical response team”, or whatever other naming).
Jurisdiction sees that said team isn’t getting used very much if at all, but needs to justify the cost.
Jurisdiction starts using the team for things that it really shouldn’t be used for, in order to hit deployment numbers to justify keeping the team.Report
That is exactly how it goes.
The catch-22 of government budgeting. Well, a lot of corporate budgeting too.
It’s big part of the reason police tend to be all for the drug war, keeps them busy & funded.Report
Thing is, such behavior helps set the tone of the public.
If the local cop is armed to the teeth & armored, I have to wonder what in the world is so dangerous, and should I be afraid of it.
Fear is a viscous cycle, especially when it is eagerly fed by our politicians.Report
I have learned that the anti-gun control crowd believes that the widespread prevalence of guns (especially handguns) is not a causal factor in increased homicide and suicicde rates. As long as they believe this, there is no need to worry about gun control or gun regulation or bans of certain weapons. because guns don’t cause any damage to society.Report
somewhat true in regards to need for gun control… no doubt guns are dangerous and have capability to harm society… as did items used to boobytrap Aurora apartment, and lots of other household items, and in some utopian society would not exist
However, inanimate objects have no ability to plan a crime… The anti-gun control crowd would prefer to address the issue (morals, mental health, ability to cope), rather than control of dangerous tools. There needs to be return to individual/personal responsibilities, rather than blame the objects, from guns, switchblades and brass knuckles to large sodas, trans-fats and super-size meals.
gun control/bans ultimately only serve to discourage law abiding from owning (increased paperwork and costs), but does nothing to address gun smugglers and criminals… Then one may say decrease sales and criminally confiscated guns over time would result in gun depletion overtime = eventual less (gun) crime How long, and what do unarmed do in meantime? And you have to ask then, what was purpose of so called gun control, confiscate guns SLOWLY.
What about cyber crimes? Do we need to start regulating/monitoring everyone who chooses to transmit data online.. Federal MAC / IP registry?Report
Well, to make my point hyperbollically, suppose I said the following:
There is no need to ban tactical nuclear weapons, because “inanimate objects don’t plan murders.” Rather, I “prefer to address the issue (morals, mental health, ability to cope), rather than control of dangerous tools.”
John Perry (Stanford) made a cool analogy on Philosophy Talk the other day. Suppose we created a small device that would shoot a beam that would give cancer to whoever it struck. Would we prohibit or strongly regulate the sale of such a device? (Uh… yes.) Really, as Perry puts it, guns are, rather obviously, devices that put holes of various sizes in distant objects with great ease. Is putting a big hole in someone easily, at great distance, worse or more dangerous than giving them cancer?Report
Shazbot,
nuclear, chemical, scuds, patriot missiles, C4, cancer beams , ect have never been sold to civilians, and have never been part of any 2A debate.. falls under “utopian society”
guns, specifically non-Class III which is already heavily regulated (50-cal), have entered society to tune of millions,, which falls under criminals vs law-abiding and new imposed gun restrictions of items that already exist in society… law abiding would not want the liability (gun buy-backs) and criminals won’t care
and to quote myself correctly , “inanimate objects don’t plan crimes” , I’m sure ‘murders’ was used to add that media spinReport
The point is that some tools are so dangerous they need to be strictly regulated such that people either can’t get them or can get them only when hey can prove that the tool woll be used safely.Report
this is flatly false. check the seismographs if you don’t believe me.Report
Oh sheet, forgot about seismographs, guess will have to lay off the tannerite for a couple weeks.Report
+1.Report
Thanks Jesse,
I really feel like this debate could’ve used more of your POV as a counterweight to a lot of the OP’s and comments.
I know you feel like the whole debate is to the right of you so far that participating feels like peeing in the wind, amd after the symposium, I feel sort of the same.Report
I’ve tried my best, but I have limited time because of my job and timing. Also, a lot of the times, my basic point is made by other people with better words and more impressive backgrounds with guns.
I don’t think all people who want to continue to own guns are crazy. For instance, Mike Dwyer’s post earlier today or yesterday about what restrictions he’d be OK with seemed reasonable to me, with some tweaks. The problem is, of course, that if Barack Obama put out the same plan Mike put forth, it’d be seen as the socialist Kenyan taking away your guns, just like a corporate-friendly healthcare plan was a takeover of government. Modern conservatism is opposition to Democratic policies, updated daily.
However, I did find it interesting this past few weeks or so both here and especially on other less liberal friendly websites that not knowing fine details on calibers of pistols and shotguns means you shouldn’t be taken seriously in a debate about gun control, especially from a group of people who probably largely opposed the ACA without not knowing a damn thing about how health care provisioning works.
But yes, to your larger point, as long as somebody like me and somebody like MRS looks at the same statistics and sees two different narratives, we’re boned.Report
“less liberal friendly websites that not knowing fine details on calibers of pistols and shotguns means you shouldn’t be taken seriously in a debate about gun control”
Agreed.
By analogy, imagine that someone with no detailed knowledge on fetal development, or what it was like, personally, to be pregnant couldn’t have their argument on abortion respected.Report
Did you miss anything? Yes.
An astonishing number of gun deaths are familial, and an astonishing number ate murder-suicides. None of your discussion acknowledges this.
consider the batman movie massacre: the guy bought multiple weapons, munitions, explosives, and body armor, but no vendors can be held liable for selling to this nut, because each sale was made without knowledge of other sales. In a rational world, either this guy should have been required to undergo a psychiatric exam, or the vendors should be liable.
Really, there’s more danger in people owning guns with
• a history of domestic violence
• recent psychotic episodes
• criminal history, including active misdemeanors (unpaid traffic fines don’t count)
• gun-nut-ism, where masculinity becomes tied up with owning a weapon.
• gangsterism
Additionally, any weaponry tied up with gun-nut-ism shouldn’t be sold. (Bushmaster, e.g. This outfit sells guns with ads for “man card reissues”, and sees sales increases after the murder of a bunch of kindergarteners.) Really, this is enough to focus on the “well-regulated” part of the second amendment, and not on the indefinite”right to bear arms.”Report
Way to place yourself into the “So far from the table that he’s no longer in the building” category.
Sigh…Report
issue (morals, mental health, ability to cope), and return to individual/personal responsibilities
• a history of domestic violence
• recent psychotic episodes
• criminal history, including active misdemeanors (unpaid traffic fines don’t count)
• gangsterism
‘scary’ irrational stereotype.
• gun-nut-ism, where masculinity becomes tied up with owning a weapon.
What is the definition of gun-nut-ism?
“man card reissued” – wasn’t aware, but its similar to any other gotta have marketing tagline. What are trying to imply? Maybe ‘fun’ beer ads should not be shown during Super Bowl..Report
MRS, good post. To be perfectly frank, I found the tone of your first post a bit confrontational and off-putting. This one, however, I find very little to disagree with. In fact, your proposals sound very similar to my thinking with only minor quibbles.Report
First post was intentionally confrontational. This one, intentionally not. In two posts, I said a lot of the same things, but got very different responses to them.
Says something…Report
Oh, and Thank you! 🙂Report