posted
You're right, Orion. Control is the key aspect. You keep guns out of the hands of criminals and in the hands of law abiding citizins. What's the problem, here?
------------------ Mephistopheles's Repossessions and Furnace Works C/O Mephistopheles, Cain, Brutus, Medici, Torquemada, Richelieu, Metternich, Tweed, Rasputin & Daley, Attorneys-at-Law 1 Perdition-on-the-Styx Plaza Dis, The Nether Regions
posted
Of course, if someone is found driving under the influence, they immedietly loose their licence. I'm not to sure, but it seems that a lot of you are saying that people SHOULD loose their gun licences and not be able to purchase another one for several yewars if they broke the law. What happens at the moment then?
------------------ "Obesity. Adiposity. Corpulence. Whatever word you use, it represents one thing: being a big fatass."
Saltah'na
Chinese Canadian, or 75% Commie Bastard.
Member # 33
posted
Because Conservatives and Pro Gun Activists don't WANT them to be enforced. They think it is an intrusion of their free speech. So what's wrong with following the law?
The U.S. had a good chance to enforce their Gun-Control law. And yet the Conservatives and Pro-Gun Activists scrubbed it again. What's WITH these people?
------------------ I can resist anything....... Except Temptation
posted
[The opinions expressed are not those of an expert, but someone who has read a large volume of material on the subject, much of it from professional police-oriented publications. I still might be wrong.]
When someone is convicted of a crime, the punishment of which includes forfeit of second amendment rights, their guns are most likely confiscated. Any weapons which were used in the commission of a crime or are patently illegal for the former owner to possess (shotguns with barrels less than 20" in length, fully automatic weapons for which the owner has no license, etc.) are never returned, and that is also very likely the fate of any other confiscated firearms, regardless of their legality.
Depending on the laws of the community (or state, or federal, depending on who has jurisdiction) the confiscated weapons which are illegal but not required for evidence will either be destroyed or added to the arsenal (battery is the "gunner's term) of the confiscating authority. Depending on the applicable laws, the remaining "legal" weapons will either be destroyed, auctioned off to a legal firearms dealer, auctioned off to a certified disposal company, or added to the confiscating authority's battery.
The person who formerly owned the guns is SOL (Seriously Out of Luck [G-rated definition]). If it once again becomes legal for the convicted felon to legally own guns, it would only be after he served the full term of his sentence or at the end of his parole, whichever is longer. I am not certain that a convicted felon may ever have his second amendment rights restored. In that case, he may never legally possess firearms again, nor may he legally attempt to obtain them, even if the means he uses would otherwise be legal.
Parole (for those who may not use the term in daily conversation) means that a convicted criminal has been released before the end of his term of imprisonment. It does not mean that all his civil rights are now in full force. He may not associate with known felons, may not drink intoxicating beverage, and may not violate the law in any way or he will be returned to prison. Persons on parole for a felony offense may not own, possess, or purchase firearms. Violation requires the felon to return to prison to serve out the remainder of his sentence. According to Federal law, an additional 5 years in federal prison is added on to the felon's sentence when the violation includes possession/use of a firearm.
Licensed firearms dealers (I have several friends who have dealer's licenses) must strictly observe the laws regarding who they may and may not legally sell a firearm to. They are subject to penalties much more severe than you or I if they were to sell a firearm to a person who may not legally possess or purchase them (and the penalties if you or I were to attempt to do so are quite severe, indeed). They may only sell firearms to legal residents of the state they are licensed in or other licensed dealers. If someone who may not legally possess firearms attempts to purchase a weapon, the dealer must inform the police immediately (and, of course, may not sell a firearm or even ammunition to that person). No-one can just walk in off the street and buy a gun.
If I were to go into Texas (the state next door) and see a gun I wanted to buy in a store, I could not buy it. I could, however, contact a dealer in my own state and have him purchase it for re-sale to me upon my return. I would still have to fill out all the applicable forms (any firearm) and wait the appropriate amount of time for a background check (for a handgun) before I could claim my purchase.
Possessing firearms is a responsibility I do not take lightly, nor is it a right I will willingly allow to be taken from me, especially since I neither aid nor encourage the people who misuse guns and cause all the uproar. I do not recommend you purchase firearms if you are not comfortable with the idea of carrying lethal force upon your person, but I do not appreciate the assumption that all firearms owners are a threat. This is as absurd as blaming all Arabs for middle-eastern terrorism, or blaming all blacks for the high crime rate in communities with a significant population of blacks (not all of which will have a high crime rate, by the way).
If you want to ban handguns, you should extend the logic to it's inevitable conclusion and begin setting up internment camps for potentially troublesome groups of people, so they can't cause trouble even if they wanted to. It's "guilty before innocent" applied with a very broad brush.
posted
I was talking to someone on ICQ and they asked me a question about what I thought good gun control constituted. After I decided not to answer "Keeping all the bullets in the 10-ring" (shooter's joke ) I gave the following answer. It's pretty long, so bear with me.
[Warning: This turned out to be rather long. You might want to cut-n-paste it into an HTML or text document and read it at your leisure. I'm going to post this at the forums, so I'm putting in HTML tags so you can see where it ought to be in italics, etc. I know you are from Canada where gun use is severely restricted and am not suggesting Canada change its laws unless they choose to do so. I am only making my case for the U.S.
I am uncertain it would be wise to liberalize gun laws where they are already restrictive -- there is no tradition of gun lore in most places where guns are currently banned, such as well-known and widely-disseminated rules to safely handle them.
Sorry I ran on for so long.]
Good gun control consists on keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. Failing that, it is taking the guns out of their hands and locking them away for a very long time.
Project Exile, tested in Richmond, Virginia, proved to immediately cut crime and save lives because every violent felon caught with a gun goes to jail for 5 years, period. Just like the law says they should.
Federal law already has many provisions that, if enforced, would very effectively decrease violent crime. It's one of the reasons I get annoyed when people call for further restrictions on firearms ownership. It isn't the legal owners who are the problem, and the new laws will have no effect on the people who are already using guns criminally. It's already illegal for them to procure guns for the purpose of using them in the performance of a criminal act, it's illegal for them to have guns when they do commit a crime, whether the guns are used or not, and it's illegal to use a gun to commit a crime.
Banning all guns because some guns are used by criminals is morally equivalent to placing all newspapers under federal censorship because some information that is printed may incite civil disorder. It's happened before -- remember the riots in L.A. when Rodney King's police abusers were not convicted?
Should the government examine and approve all use of any potentially dangerous substance on a case-by-case basis? How about household cleaners? You might decide to poison someone with that box of D-Con Mouse-Pruf. Afer all, it is poison. Better get a license and prove you can use it responsibly. The federal officer will be by later to ensure you have it properly stored.
Beer? Let's see that Alcohol Consumption Certification Course Diploma. Hmmm... Sorry, but you are only certified for red wine (not white) and bourbon whiskey. Denied. By the way, you're under arrest for attempting to purchase beer without proper accreditation.
Cigarettes? Let's see that prescription. Good. Everything's in order. Proceed. Hope you don't mind the mandatory 5-day waiting period. You're completely out of cigarettes and are having a nicotine fit? Too bad. See ya in 5 days.
How about that fertilizer, "Mr. Farmer" (if that's your real name). Sure, it can be used to make your crops grow, but the same exact substance was used as a component in the bomb used to destroy the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Better show us a license. Better yet, get a federally-licensed fertilizer-applier to spray your farm. Sure it costs more and you don't make enough to pay for such things and still feed your family, but if it saves the life of even one child...
Orion Syndicate
He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy!
Member # 25
posted
So saving lives doesn't appeal to you does it Frank? Controlling drink driving saves lives. That alone makes it worthwhile. Sure, the potential still exists but that's all the more reason to clamp down on it. You'll never get a zero death rate from drink driving, but all the lives that are saved will be worth the money put into the scheme.
Guns are the same. People will always be killed by guns. Does that mean that you just screw everyone else and just make them more freely available?
"Shit, after all the money we've spent on this, a person's still died. It's not working, so lets pull the plug"
Yes it's tragic if one life is lost, but if you consider all the people who could have been killed, you'll find that the control aspect is worth it.
------------------ Worf: He is an overgrown child and she is...confused.
posted
No, I mean, shooting people is illegal, just as drunk driving is illegal. But that doesn't necessarily mean that both alcohol and guns should all be taken away.
------------------ Frank's Home Page "Ou tou kratountos h� polis nomizetai" - Creon
posted
It's not your principles we disagree with, OS. It's your methods. We don't question whether it would be worth the money the government would poor into a program (or rather, its accompanying bureaucracy) to save even one life. We're questioning whether your ideas will actually save lives at all.
------------------ Mephistopheles's Repossessions and Furnace Works C/O Mephistopheles, Cain, Brutus, Medici, Torquemada, Richelieu, Metternich, Tweed, Rasputin & Daley, Attorneys-at-Law 1 Perdition-on-the-Styx Plaza Dis, The Nether Regions
Saltah'na
Chinese Canadian, or 75% Commie Bastard.
Member # 33
posted
So for each life that isn't saved by Gun Control is money wasted huh? So to save money, you'd rather risk the lives of every American in your continent, huh?
Some logic you must have.
------------------ I can resist anything....... Except Temptation
posted
>"Because Conservatives and Pro Gun Activists don't WANT them to be enforced. They think it is an intrusion of their free speech. So what's wrong with following the law?"
Entirely incorrect. Possibly slander. Demonstrably untrue, as in the case of Richmond. Gun laws that keep them out of the hands of CRIMINALS, while still allowing honest citizens to possess them, have ALWAYS been supported by both the NRA and myself.
It is rather, the 'social engineers' who pervade the legal system, plea-bargaining away most lesser charges, running police departments and courts like schoolyards, allowing paroles to slip through the system, and calling prohibiting ANYTHING to felons "racist" (you know why) who are responsible for the lack of enforcement.
What you have repeatedly failed to do is show EXACTLY how your proposals will help alleviate the present situation... especially when case studies have all shown to the contrary.
------------------ Calvin: "No efficiency, no accountability... I tell you, Hobbes, it's a lousy way to run a Universe." -- Bill Watterson
Orion Syndicate
He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy!
Member # 25
posted
I'm sorry to resurrect a dead thread, but I've been away for a while and haven't had a chance to post.
I'm not talking about taking alcohol and guns away completely. I'm talking about control. If you control drink driving, there's less risk of someone being run over by a drunk driver. Same with guns - the outlets where guns are available need to be cut back drastically so they aren't as freely available. I do understand that most of you across the pond fully support your right to own guns and potentially kill others. Although I don't support it, I'm not naive enough to believe that the situation here in the UK can be transferred to the US. You can however make guns less freely available which is what I'm advocating.
I'm not sure if this is done already, but background checks into the buyers could be carried out before handing over a weapon. It is a very large country and may not be feasible, but it's an idea. All the recent problems surrounding guns have been from them falling into the wrong hands. Before you say it, if people REALLY want a gun, they will probably be able to get it but I doubt everyone will go to drastic lengths to break the law and obtain a gun just for the sheer heck of it.
I'm sure you have some laws there where it makes it difficult for certain people to buy guns - enforce them. If laws are just there for show, they don't do anything. Ever since the 50s and 60s, there has been a lot of anti racism/sexism legislation all over the world. Imagine what the world would be like today if they weren't enforced. You still get racism/sexism today, but not as much as there likely would have been because attitudes have changed. People realise that racial discrimination is wrong and legislation has enforced that.
Clinton tried to get tougher gun controls through, but was blocked. This just shows the way attitudes are and how politics comes before saving peoples lives. Education is a way of changing this, but it'll take time - a long time. You need to start with the young and teach them about gun use because although you'll probably never stop them ever owning a gun, they will own one some day. If you teach them the rights and wrongs of gun use at a very early age, it could stick.
I don't know if these ideas will work, but then again, no-one ever knows if it's going to work until it's put into practice. Case studies are fine, but how many times have people seen an idea look good or bad on paper, but it's turned out the opposite in reality? People are dying unnecessarily already and something needs to be done to control this.
------------------ Worf: He is an overgrown child and she is...confused.
posted
>"I'm not sure if this is done already, but background checks into the buyers could be carried out before handing over a weapon. It is a very large country and may not be feasible..."
I'm sure. It IS done already. Thus far, its advocates claim it has prevented some 3000 people from obtaining guns.
This is all well and good... until you follow up, and discover that the overwhelming number of people refused purchase weren't actually guilty of anything... they just happened to have the same name or address as somebody who WAS prohibited from owning one. Or the computer system glitched. Or any number of things.
Not to mention the potential abuses of this power... "Orion Syndicate doesn't share our political viewpoints? Well, let's just type his name in here under 'prohibited'... This group opposes us too? let's plug in their entire membership roster. Then, if any of them already have guns, and we want to 'get' them, they can be arrested for illegal possession."
------------------ Calvin: "No efficiency, no accountability... I tell you, Hobbes, it's a lousy way to run a Universe." -- Bill Watterson
) I gave the following answer. It's pretty long, so bear with me.
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