Do we really want enforcement of current laws?

[Come and take it.]

If you get to thinking about it enforcing current laws is a very scary thing. There are a lot of laws on the books that could disenfranchise a large number of gun owners of their guns, especially in states like California where many types of guns must be registered.

Now if you or I are perfect citizens and we ain't never had no run in with the law in our life or ever getting in a fight where we broke someone's glasses more power to us!

However there are a large number of gun owners who made some very foolish mistakes in their late teens and early 20s who after all these years are responsible people. Even at the level of the FBI these offenses have been overlooked even if the records were available to the FBI.

These people will now no longer be able to own a gun.

As a member of the gun owners of America I believe there are a lot of laws on the books that should have never been passed including NICS and the required form 5573. So my stance is quite clear.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

No it's not. Are you saying the convictions should be ignored and not reported? That is what triggers NICS. If not convicted what is the problem?

Or are you saying the youthful criminal offenses should be ignored such that said miscreant can get a gun later?

Or we should let domestic violence or mental status adjudication slide?

Not liking this suggestion.

Clarify what you mean in specific legal terms.

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by Come and take it.

If you get to thinking about it enforcing current laws is a very scary thing....

Nonetheless, it is what it is, and we can not expect that the laws will not be enforced.

If laws are unsatisfactory to you, you can get politically active and try to get the laws changed, if enough other voters are willing to go along with you. And the courts are open for business for those who want to challenge existing law there.

But while laws remain on the books they might well be enforced.

Originally Posted by Come and take it.

...As a member of the gun owners of America I believe there are a lot of laws on the books that should have never been passed...

So? That doesn't change anything.

[BarryLee]

I believe we need the very minimum number of laws necessary to function as a society. However, I also believe that existing laws should be enforced. When we don’t or what happens more often is when we enforce them arbitrarily we end up with problems. If we have a bad law on the books we need to petition our legislature to make a change.

[Come and take it.]

Criminals will get the guns they want. No background check laws have ever prevented a criminal from eventually getting a gun.

The problem is what happens if an assault weapons ban is passed? Are the people who responded in this thread going to comply with the law and support enforcement of that law?

For real?

The first US gun laws were used to disarm law abiding people who suddenly became a criminal and hand their guns over to the authorities or the Klan would come knocking.

If a person is too dangerous to own a gun than they are too dangerous to be free out in society.

[manta49]

Criminals will get the guns they want. No background check laws have ever prevented a criminal from eventually getting a gun.

True but you could say that about any law. Whats the point of having driving laws as people brake the speed limit anyway.

If a person is too dangerous to own a gun than they are too dangerous to be free out in society.

The law is what is people get out of prison even violent criminals. I don't think they should be legally able to get a firearm. It depends on the crime believe it or not serving a jail sentence in the uk for certin crimes doesn't stop you getting a firearm. I am not sure if a prison sentence in America prevents you legally owning a firearm i am sure someone can enlighten me.

[Evan Thomas]

Originally Posted by Come and take it.

However there are a large number of gun owners who made some very foolish mistakes in their late teens and early 20s who after all these years are responsible people. Even at the level of the FBI these offenses have been overlooked even if the records were available to the FBI.

These people will now no longer be able to own a gun.

Originally Posted by Come and take it.

Criminals will get the guns they want. No background check laws have ever prevented a criminal from eventually getting a gun.

Methinks you're contradicting yourself here. A "criminal" is someone who has been convicted of a crime. If the people you're referring to in the first statement were convicted of offenses that make them prohibited persons, they're criminals. So you're saying that background checks will prevent those criminals from obtaining guns, and that directly contradicts your assertion that "No background check laws have ever prevented a criminal from eventually getting a gun."

You can't have it both ways. It goes against every notion of equal justice under the law to say that some people who are convicted of crimes shouldn't have those convictions count against them, while convictions should be counted against other people.

What's your criterion for deciding who is above the law in this regard?

[Old Grump]

Other than safety and quality standards there are no good gun related gun control laws and all of them going back to the 1800's need to be rescinded. Every single one of them.

Kentucky and Georgia were the first to pass them and fortunately both got knocked down by the Supreme courts but ever since then we have been gathering them by the book full and it is time to burn those books and ban the ability of legislators at any level from passing those kinds of laws.

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by Old Grump

...Kentucky and Georgia were the first to pass them and fortunately both got knocked down by the Supreme courts...

Exactly what laws were those, and when were they tossed out?

I seem to recall a Georgia law banning concealed carry being upheld by the Georgia Supreme Court, which case was cited in Heller.

[jimbob86]

If all the laws were strictly and impartially enforced, there would be fewer laws in a very short time, and the existing laws would be far simpler and easier to understand. Folk would not stand for being hassled every time they turned around.

It would be a far better place if everytime some idjit jumped up and said, "Why there oughta be A LAW!!!!!111!!!", he or she was pummeled mercilessly for a full minute on the spot .......

Instead, we have hundreds of councils, boards, assemblies, committees, senates, and congresses and legislatures doing what comes naturally to folks that seek power: writing laws to codify that power.

...and the majority of those folks are Lawyers..... it seems to me to be a self perpetuating system ......

...... hmmmm ....are there not laws against "conflict of interest"? If those were enforced strictly, then Lawyers could not write laws, then, no?

[Come and take it.]

Some say that we should be cautious about future laws that would prohibit a greater number of mentally ill people from owning guns because it would cause a slippery slope.

I believe we are already on the slippery slope.

[KyJim]

Blue River -- I would also like to know what Kentucky law you are referring to. Kentucky routinely rates at or near the top of gun friendly states. Before the Civil War, the state's highest court struck down a local ordinance that prohibited open carry in parks because it violated the state constitution.

[Old Grump]

Go back to 1813, Kentucky passed a law banning concealed carry, it was knocked down by the Kentucky Court of Appeals in 1822 because it violated the state constitution of the right to keep and bear arms.

Georgia passed a law in 1837 banning the sale of pistols small enough to be carried in a pocket or otherwise were concealable. The Georgia Supreme Court overturned it in 1846.

Both laws were racist in origin as their attempt to keep arms out of the hands of Negroes who were considered then to not be full citizens or fully human. The genteel south had a very dark side and that side kept pushing and pushing till we ended up having a civil war over it. Look around the web and even on this site about all the talk of secession, and civil war against the establishment as represented by the lawmakers inside the belt line. Our 2nd amendment is that important and any attempt by the anti-gunners tend to make us a little testy.

[Webleymkv]

The problem with this whole line of reasoning, in my view, is that the laws I find most objectionable are usually the ones that are most stringently enforced. For example, if you or I was caught with an unregistered NFA weapon, you can almost guarantee that we would be prosecuted in a heartbeat even if we'd committed no other crime. Likewise, if you or I was convicted of a non-violent felony like counterfeiting, it would still be reported to NICS and we still wouldn't be able to pass a background check to buy from an FFL.

The existing laws which are not commonly enforced usually fall into one of two categories: they're either so poorly written that they're extremely difficult if not impossible to enforce (922r is a good example of this) or they're the ones which might actually prevent violent crime, but enforcing them would take a lot of the steam out of gun control advocates' arguments. An example of the latter is the ridiculously low number of people who are prosecuted for lying on the 4473. I cannot help but wonder how many prohibited persons resorted to acquiring guns through theft, straw purchase, or other such means only after being denied on the NICS check. By refusing to prosecute such people, we're essentially letting them go free to figure out how to get a gun some other way.

If we look at most of the more notable mass shootings in recent history, we can usually find and existing law that, if more vigorously enforced, may have prevented it or at least mitigated the damage. Had it been widely known that straw purchasing and lying on 4473's was aggressively prosecuted, the straw purchaser who provided guns to the Columbine shooters may have been more hesitant to do so. Had the states been required to report mental health data to NICS, the Virginia Tech shooter might not have been able to acquire his guns. Had the drug offenses and terroristic threats made by the Tuscon shooter been prosecuted by local authorities, he likely wouldn't have been able to pass a NICS check to acquire his guns. And finally if the COPS program hadn't been defunded by the current administration, the Sandy Hook shooter might not have been able to kill as many people as he did.

[SPEMack618]

I know my county in GA had a law prohibiting the carrying of any revovler other than a Colt or Remington so to place them above the price point that any Freeman or Sharecropper could buy.

I would like to see every law on the books enforced equally, the David Gregory thing comes to mind.

And the cops that accompanied Bloomberg to D.C. were supposedly carrying in contrivance of D.C.'s myriad of gun laws.

And above all, I want to see 4473 violators prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

And denials investigated fully.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Aren't legit LEOs allowed to carry most anywhere - HR 218 but I'm no expert on that

[xtphreak]

Question 11. on the AFT 4473:
"...
a. Are you the actual transferee/buyer of the firearm(s) listed on this form? Warning: You are not the actual buyer if you are aquiring the firearm(s) on behalf of another person. If you are not the actual buyer, the dealer cannot transfer the firearm(s) to you. ...
...
I certify that my answers to Section A are true, correct, and complete. .... I understand that answering "yes" to question 11.a. if I am not the actual buyer is a crime punishable as a felony under Federal law, and may also violate State and/or local law...."

He says he was buying it to give to the police dept, not for his own use.

I wish the store owner had called the cops and had him arrested for this instead of refusing to sell him the Sig.

Then Mr. Captain USN / NASA Astronaut Pure-As-The-Driven-Snow would be fighting a felony bust, no more guns for him and he would STFU.

Sorry, hot button is poking out a bit these days

[ScottRiqui]

He says he was buying it to give to the police dept, not for his own use.

I wish the store owner had called the cops and had him arrested for this instead of refusing to sell him the Sig.

Then Mr. Captain USN / NASA Astronaut Pure-As-The-Driven-Snow would be fighting a felony bust, no more guns for him and he would STFU.

Sorry, hot button is poking out a bit these days

Keep reading the instructions on the back of the Form 4473. If you're buying a firearm with the intent of giving it to someone else as a gift, you're still the "actual buyer" and you can answer "yes" to Question 11.

[wally626]

He says he was buying it to give to the police dept, not for his own use.

That would still be a valid purchase as you are allowed to buy guns and gift them.

[xtphreak]

Sorry the pdf didn't show the back and hey ... I flat out forgot that point.

Everybody ready??


I was wrong

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by Old Grump

...Georgia passed a law in 1837 banning the sale of pistols small enough to be carried in a pocket or otherwise were concealable. The Georgia Supreme Court overturned it in 1846....

Well, in Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. 243 (1846) the Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a law banning carrying a concealed gun (while overturning a ban on open carry). So you might have your facts a bit garbled.

[44 AMP]

I actually think that vigorous enforcement of existing firearms laws would be a good thing.

The base problem is that gun banner types see that current laws "do not work" (and what law CAN work if it is not enforced?), and so constantly call for new more restrictive laws.

Personally, since we always have had laws that say you cannot shoot people for fun and profit, why do we need ANY gun control law?

Sadly, some people just cannot understand that people who break a high moral law will not obey any other law they consider inconvienient, either.

[Old Grump]

Well, in Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. 243 (1846) the Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a law banning carrying a concealed gun (while overturning a ban on open carry). So you might have your facts a bit garbled.

Nope, just looking at the law from another angle. The law forbid the sale of small cheap guns and only allowed what was commonly called horse pistols. Something a law officer or military man might carry on his horse, not something you would ordinarily walk around doing your daily routine with. Guess who could afford the small pistols but not the big ones. Think of it as their version of the Saturday Night Special Law.

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by Old Grump

...Nope, just looking at the law from another angle...

Nope, the point is that the Georgia Supreme Court upheld gun control -- a ban on concealed carry. Nunn was cited in Heller. You've cited nothing.

[Old Grump]

The Nation’s First Gun Ban

Georgia’s state legislature passed a law in 1837 that banned the sale of knives “used for offensive or defensive purposes” and all pistols except “horseman’s pistols.” Possession of those weapons was also prohibited, unless the weapons were worn in plain sight.

History did not well record the reasoning behind the legislature’s vote. What we do know is that the legislation stood as the law of the land in Georgia for eight years before the state’s supreme court declared it unconstitutional and voided it from the books.

The court ruled that the Second Amendment guaranteed “the right of the whole people, old and young, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not merely such as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in on, in the slightest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying of a well regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free state.”

The court went on to ask, since when does “any legislative body in the Union have the right to deny to its citizens the privilege of keeping and bearing arms in defense of themselves and their country.”

http://civilliberty.about.com/od/gun...a-Ban-1837.htm

Don't know what you are looking at but I found several writeups on the 1837 law and this was the end result.

Freed slaves still weren't free to own guns though because in 1877 The Georgia state legislature passed their version of the 2nd amendment and freed slaves were still denied the right to own guns. Gun laws are racist in their origin and that includes the anti-gun laws passed in California when Ronald Reagan was governor. All of them inspired by Bobby Seales and the Black Panthers open display of guns at the capitol.

This is when the NRA got motivated to join in the pro-gun side and fight the anti-gun laws. Besides disarming blacks they would disarm the rest of us too and suddenly the abuses of the state and federal agencies became a big deal to conservatives. There is more to it than that but the point is gun control legislation has been with us for 200 years and it's base is racism.