Gun nuts proposal for gun control

[zukiphile]

Originally Posted by GLG

Playing devil's advocate, though, the fact that only one registered machine gun has ever been used in a homicide since the 1934 NFA was passed is a powerful argument that registration works to prevent crime.

How does NFA registration serve a low homocide rate? (the question isn't rhetorical.)

If the item used in the single homocide was a long gun, it's already in a minority category of crime involving the use of arms. Yet, one in 80 years is still quite low.

The combination of the stamp and the machine gun is quite expensive. Early on, the $200 stamp was almost prohibitively expensive; later, the stamp's cost had been eroded by inflation, but the cost of the item after the closed registry was almost prohibitive. This raises two questions:

1. Are people less likely to use prohibitively expensive items to kill people? I'd hate to use even a beautiful S&W 41 in a defensive shooting knowing I could lose it. I'd bet that very few people are strangled with Faberge necklaces.

2. Are people with ample resources less likely to solve a problem via homocide? That may well be, but it points to a conclusion some won't like -- registered machine guns are almost never used in crime because poor people don't have any registered machine guns. That doesn't indicate the utility of the registry as much as it indicates the utility of keeping an item away from the poor.

[jimbob86]

Since 1934, there appear to have been at least two homicides committed with legally owned automatic weapons. One was a murder committed by a law enforcement officer (as opposed to a civilian). On September 15th, 1988, a 13-year veteran of the Dayton, Ohio police department, Patrolman Roger Waller, then 32, used his fully automatic MAC-11 .380 caliber submachine gun to kill a police informant, 52-year-old Lawrence Hileman. Patrolman Waller pleaded guilty in 1990, and he and an accomplice were sentenced to 18 years in prison. The 1986 'ban' on sales of new machine guns does not apply to purchases by law enforcement or government agencies. -from Guncite

I note that Guncite says nothing of the other homicide.... google truns up nothing, either, save that it happened in 1992 ..... I wonder who Google is covering for now?

[Glenn E. Meyer]

For discussion, does the idea that this proposal breaks the restricted laws in some states have any positive merit?

We know that currently the Congress and SCOTUS show little interest in taking this on. That's one of my pet peeves about both these organizations.

Of course, they probably wouldn't take this proposal on either.

Please don't wander into denouncing those states or the people who live there. There are good progun folks who have to live in these places for a myriad of real world reasons.

[seeker_two]

Nope.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

[spacemanspiff]

I read thru, and hopefully I am not repeating something already stated here.

Would the government or licensing agency have the ability to suspend issuance of licenses at will? For whatever reason? and for however long they wish?

And when the government is having difficulties figuring out a budget would this licensing agency be one of the services to lose funding and have to shutdown until a budget is agreed upon? Seems to happen once a year, right?

And who would come up with the criteria that determines a person will pass such careful vetting? An impartial party, I am sure!

[s3779m]

to convince me that our government is serious about lowering gun violence, I would want to see them go after the guns which are used by gangs, nut jobs, criminals, ect. To do so, our government will not need any new laws, they just need to enforce the ones they have. As of now, they aren't. Going after law abiding citizens with their gun laws will not reduce crime and they know it.

[turkeestalker]

For discussion, does the idea that this proposal breaks the restricted laws in some states have any positive merit?

Good question, but I would be inclined to think that the opposite would likely happen.
States that are restrictive now, would likely be just as restrictive and find some means to impose some of their restrictions on others should a brain phart scheme like this ever be implemented.
Those of us with more liberal laws in our individual state would likely lose some of that liberty to restrictive states influence on the final phart.
Then again, maybe I'm just too cynical.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer

For discussion, does the idea that this proposal breaks the restricted laws in some states have any positive merit?

We know that currently the Congress and SCOTUS show little interest in taking this on. That's one of my pet peeves about both these organizations.

Of course, they probably wouldn't take this proposal on either.

Please don't wander into denouncing those states or the people who live there. There are good progun folks who have to live in these places for a myriad of real world reasons.

I live in one of "those" states. I'm still not interested in this proposal.

My great grandfather was a professor of law. An ancestor farther back in that same geneological line was a Supreme Court justice. I was raised to believe that it you think a law is bad -- work to change it. I was also raised to believe that words have meanings. "Shall not be infringed" seems to have lost track of the meaning of either "infringe" or "not" -- or both. I don't think the solution is to create yet another layer of infringement; I think the solution is to work toward restoring the Second Amendment to what it meant at the time when it was written.

[Tom Servo]

Would the government or licensing agency have the ability to suspend issuance of licenses at will?

That's a good point. What would the disqualifying criteria be, and who decides what it is?

We could very well see legislation to disqualify people for all sorts of things. Second drunk driving offense? First? Moral turpitude? Fibbing on taxes? Wrong political views?

[turkeestalker]

I think the solution is to work toward restoring the Second Amendment to what it meant at the time when it was written.

Absolutely.
The only way to accomplish that is through rulings by a conservative Supreme Court that defines the Second Amendment once and for all.
Understanding that once and for all does not mean forever, but it has the potential to be for the rest of my life time and the largest portion of my son's lives if the next several years go as I believe that they will.
Vote to that end and for the love of pete STOP handing victory to our oppostion in the mean time.

[44 AMP]

For discussion, does the idea that this proposal breaks the restricted laws in some states have any positive merit?

If you mean that the proposed semi auto license would free one from the various state laws prohibiting such, Stokes kind of dances around the point, saying a bit of both.

he claims his idea would allow you to have items prohibited by certain states currently (Assault weapons and "oversize" magazine) and once you have his semi auto license, the states can't prosecute you for having them in their state.

BUT, he also says his license wouldn't interfere with state and local laws about carrying them, etc. (see "can I carry an AR in Times Square in his Q&A section).

He's touting the benefit of his license (freedom from spurious prosecution) yet at the same time downplaying the fact that still enforced local laws preventing you from carrying the weapon give no benefit to the "protected" out of state owner, being essentially the current status quo, plus the addition of the federal semi auto license and what ever its requirements wind up being.

it is the verbal matador's cape, concealing the sword (still) held behind it.

[Spats McGee]

Originally Posted by spacemanspiff

. . . .Would the government or licensing agency have the ability to suspend issuance of licenses at will? For whatever reason? and for however long they wish?

And when the government is having difficulties figuring out a budget would this licensing agency be one of the services to lose funding and have to shutdown until a budget is agreed upon? Seems to happen once a year, right? . . . .

Let's not forget what Congress has already done to the gun-rights restoration section (whatever it's called) at BATFE. That section hasn't been funded since something like 1992.

[44 AMP]

Are people with ample resources less likely to solve a problem via homocide? That may well be, but it points to a conclusion some won't like -- registered machine guns are almost never used in crime because poor people don't have any registered machine guns. That doesn't indicate the utility of the registry as much as it indicates the utility of keeping an item away from the poor.

People with ample resources have options that "poor people" do not have.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that because some connection can be found or manufactured between two different things that one must cause the other.

If you stretch parameters enough, you can make a correlation between anything that happens on this planet. The Butterfly Effect. Chaos Theory. Call it anything you want, you can find some kind of connection.

That does NOT mean the connection is causation. Maybe, just maybe, its not the fact that there is a registry, but the fact that the kind of people who voluntarily endure the cost and hassle are simply not the kind of people who commit violent crimes with firearms in the first place??

(note the one verifiable murder committed with a legally owned machine gun was committed by a POLICE OFFICER (and not in the line of duty)).

The Pulse Nightclub killer was a licensed security guard, who had taken and passed all the psychological tests.....

Absolutely 0 (zero) gun crimes have been committed by prison inmates within prison walls, with legally owned machineguns, or any other type of legally owned firearms within the past century. (at least)

Why isn't living in the general prison population considered to be a safe thing???

Its got nothing to do with guns...

[doofus47]

After a cursory reading, my primary question is "how is your license validation scheme" different from the current background check scheme?
In both cases, the gov't checks databases. In your scheme, the user must be entered into 1 DB. plus. In both cases, people could be left out of the DB or added to the DB incorrectly.

Neither the existing system nor the proposed system solves the problem of freewill. We're in the current pickle b/c someone decided it was time to vent frustrations against his fellow citizens. When that happens under the proposed system, what is the failsafe to ensure that this anomalous behavior won't dis-allow the legal right of all others? In fact, it seems easier to sweep the field when all firearms are registered and there's a mandatory jail term for citizens owning a previously legal but currently non-registered firearm.

I see also that the proposed license would have "revocation" options for people accused of committing crimes. We already have that scheme. Again, this would be a similar technology applied at the Federal policy level with all of the waffling and vagaries that has historically seen.

I'm not seeing the beauty of something new here.

I"d much prefer that the courts would do their job and stop the legal nibbling and that people opposed to the 2nd Amendment would just recognize that they need to move away.

[riffraff]

Originally Posted by 44 AMP

People with ample resources have options that "poor people" do not have.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that because some connection can be found or manufactured between two different things that one must cause the other.

If you stretch parameters enough, you can make a correlation between anything that happens on this planet. The Butterfly Effect. Chaos Theory. Call it anything you want, you can find some kind of connection.

That does NOT mean the connection is causation. Maybe, just maybe, its not the fact that there is a registry, but the fact that the kind of people who voluntarily endure the cost and hassle are simply not the kind of people who commit violent crimes with firearms in the first place??

(note the one verifiable murder committed with a legally owned machine gun was committed by a POLICE OFFICER (and not in the line of duty)).

The Pulse Nightclub killer was a licensed security guard, who had taken and passed all the psychological tests.....

Absolutely 0 (zero) gun crimes have been committed by prison inmates within prison walls, with legally owned machineguns, or any other type of legally owned firearms within the past century. (at least)

Why isn't living in the general prison population considered to be a safe thing???

Its got nothing to do with guns...

The problem with statistics - in a college engineering sort of statistics class I was told "if the numbers do not work out how you want them to, you just run them different ways until they do".

Lies, dirty lies, and statistics - not that they do not amount to anything but it takes a truly objective/isolated study in a scientific manner to get down to the bottom of things, which sometimes ends up being there is no correlation. If you start with a theory and try to prove the theory often you can make up correlations to that affect.

I suspect a lot of what the anti and pro gun groups "prove" via statistics actually falls into the no-correlation bucket - they typically make 100% contradictory arguments using what is probably the same data; both are wrong but we need the pro gun groups to do that for PR I suppose...

My stance I don't care if guns make me safer or 300 X more at risk to be brutally murdered - either way is fine I'd rather have them .

[rwilson452]

According to Samuel Clemens AKA Mark Twain. There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damn lies and statistics.