What Gun Laws Would Help?

David Frum calls for several measures to reduce gun violence.

Gun Flag

I concluded Monday’s post “Does It Matter Whether Charleston Was Terrorism?” lamenting that “it’s not obvious to me how you’d craft a law at this point short of a blanket ban on firearms possession that would have much impact” on America’s propensity for spree shootings. David Frum agrees that no single law would do much but argues that a series of laws might.

[T]here are incremental steps, building on existing law, that could keep guns out of wrong hands and enhance public safety.

Enforce Laws Against Prohibited Gun Buyers

Under current federal law, it is illegal for many categories of people to own firearms. Among those prohibited owners are:

  • Anyone who has been convicted of a felony whose full civil rights have not been restored;
  • Anyone who is a fugitive from justice;
  • Anyone who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance
  • Anyone who has ever been adjudicated as mentally noncompetent or involuntarily admitted to a mental institution
  • Any alien illegally present in the United States
  • Any alien admitted under a non-immigration visa
  • Anyone who has been dishonorably discharged from the armed forces;
  • Anyone under a restraining order for harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner;
  • Anyone convicted of domestic violence, including misdemeanors.

But while it’s illegal for people in those categories to own firearms, the complementary duty imposed on others not to sell firearms to prohibited persons is weak and easily evaded. Federally registered firearms vendors are required to enter the prospective purchasers’ names into a federal database. If the names are not found, the vendor is clear, without any independent obligation to verify further. Guns sold at gun shows or in other private sales are not subject even to the background check rule in most states.

I’ve long been in favor of closing the gun show loophole and agree that we should start by better enforcing our existing laws. But, as an aside, I’m rather befuddled by some of the above-noted restrictions. In particular, while I have no especial love for dishonorably discharged soldiers or felons, most people in those categories are nonviolent. It’s not obvious why, say, an embezzler or someone who went AWOL should be denied the right to buy a hunting rifle.

Still, Frum’s on the right track here:

A convicted felon clutching a syringe and ranting about his dishonorable discharge can enter a gun dealer’s premises and—so long as his name does not appear in a database—the seller remains legally immune no matter how much objective warning he had that his customer was a prohibited possessor. Under the 2005 federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act and similar state laws, vendors can generally be held liable for a sale only if they can be shown to have had affirmative knowledge that the gun buyer intended to use the weapon to commit a crime.

Contrast this to the laws that apply to people selling liquor. Liquor sellers have an independent legal duty not to serve intoxicated people. Liquor sellers can be sued by injured third parties if they fail in that duty.

Most gun dealers wish to sell to lawful owners. Most—but not all. In 1995, a researcher analyzed government tracing data and discovered that 1 percent of gun dealers sold 57 percent of the weapons found at crime scenes.

By holding these rogue gun dealers to account, it might be possible to significantly diminish the flow of guns into criminal hands. Instead, Congress chose to protect rogue gun dealers from scrutiny and sanction. In 2003, Congress passed a law forbidding government agencies to disclose tracing data that might link a particular dealer to a criminal purchaser. It’s hard to hold gun dealers responsible for selling to unlawful buyers if nobody is allowed to know where an unlawful buyer purchased his weapons.

Now, it’s obviously much easier for a bartender to diagnose whether someone ordering a seventh Wild Turkey is inebriated than for a gun shop cashier to know whether a customer has a TRO out on him. The burden of proof on the state to punish the latter should be high. But if there are a relative handful of dealers who have a pattern on selling to known criminals and other shady characters, we should certainly avail ourselves of reasonable means to track that and go after them.

Require Gun Owners to Carry Liability Insurance

Guns are dangerous products. There are some 15,000 accidental shootings per year in the United States, leading to 600 accidental deaths. Buy a car, and state law requires that it be insured. Dig a swimming pool, and expect to pay hundreds of dollars a year more in homeowners’ insurance, which anybody who carries a mortgage will likewise be required to carry. Guns need not be insured, however, neither in law nor in practice.

The uninsured status of guns means that people injured by them face great difficulty recovering the costs of their medical treatment and other economic losses. Injured persons can sue a negligent gun owner and try to recover from his home insurance, if he owns a home. Most of the time, however, gunshot victims will be left to bear their economic losses on their own.

A requirement that gun owners carry insurance would not only protect potential accident victims—including gun owners, since many gun accidents are self-inflicted—against economic loss. An insurance requirement would create incentives for more responsible gun behavior. Just as insurance companies offer better rates to those who install burglar alarms, so they might offer better rates to those who install secure gun safes. Just as a prior accident raises the future cost of car insurance, so careless gun owners will be encouraged to exercise better care in future.

I own several long guns, all of which previously belonged to my late father or my late wife’s late father, and have no objection to maintaining insurance on them. I’m highly skeptical that this will do much to deter spree shooters or, indeed, people who get drunk or angry and shoot just one person. While gun safes would make it harder to steal someone else’s gun and use it in a crime, that has to be a tiny percentage of these incidents.

Require Meaningful Training for Carry-Permit Holders

After a slaughter like that in Charlestown, gun advocates argue that it occurred because Americans still don’t carry enough guns. If only “a good guy with a gun” had been in the vicinity, the killer could have been stopped! The implicit premise of this claim is that gun owners who carry weapons in public will use them responsibly, effectively, and accurately—that the “good guy with a gun” will actually bring down the bad guy, and not half a dozen innocent victims who happen to be within a twenty-foot radius.

Are these assumptions reasonable? Curtis Reeves, the retired police officer who gunned down a young father for texting during movie previews, was a concealed-carry permit holder. George Zimmerman thought he was a “good guy with a gun” when he tracked and killed Trayvon Martin.

Certified florists in the State of Florida are required to take six weeks of courses at a cost of at least $600. They must pass a series of exams, and purchase a business from the state.

You might think that the power to deal death to strangers in public would be more closely supervised than the right to sell floral arrangements. You would be wrong.

To obtain a concealed-carry permit, a Floridian must only submit a “certificate of competency” from a firearms instructor—and in Florida, literally anybody can represent himself as a firearms instructor and issue competency certificates. The state does not even know how many self-designated instructors are doing business in Florida, but they number in the thousands.

I’ve long thought it would be a good idea to require people who wish to buy handguns—much less carry them around town like Wild West cowboys—to undergo training. Preventing accidental discharge and improving aim are worthwhile ends on their own merits. But, again, it’s not obvious how this measure—even my expanded version—would prevent any of the incidents which constantly re-open this debate. Indeed, Frum mentions George Zimmerman. I don’t know how well trained he was but he could have been Chris Kyle-level proficient and it wouldn’t have made him less likely to get into his tragic encounter with Treyvon Martin.

Again, any or all of these proposals may have value on their own terms. And Frum’s right that requiring that any given measure solve the problem on its own is setting the bar way too high. But I don’t see how even combining all of the above suggestions would have stopped any of the spree shootings that have been in the news the last couple of years.

This isn’t a call for doing nothing. Nibbling away at the issue, as in Frum’s example of auto safety, is worthwhile on its own so long as we judiciously weigh costs and benefits. It’s just to note that the problem is incredibly difficult to solve.

FILED UNDER: *FEATURED, Guns and Gun Control, Terrorism, , , , , , , , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Mark Ivey says:

    But ‘well regulated’ means NO gun restrictions! Why can’t gun grabbin luburals understand that??

  2. gVOR08 says:

    As always, de minimis arguments cut both ways. Yes, what Frum proposes would be only a small improvement and would not have stopped Roof. On the other hand, they also would do little or no harm. What actual harm is done by not allowing your AWOL embezzler to own a rifle? Any small step toward reducing the absurd gun culture we’ve built in this country has to be a net gain. The Roof’s are just the visible tip of the iceberg of 30 or 40,000 people shot dead every year.

    I’ll make a small suggestion following up on Frum. I see C stores with signs bragging that X winning tickets were sold there. IIRC there is a gun store in suburban Chicago that’s sold a third of the guns recovered by Chicago police. Think the Responsible Gun Owners(TM) might be inclined to shop elsewhere if that store displayed a state mandated sign, “This Store Sold Guns Used in X Felonies”?

  3. Mu says:

    As usual, the reasonable compromise is a long way off. I’d have no problems with a gun registration and transfer scheme that is designed to address the safety and prohibited persons issues. But half the country (see MA, CA, NY today) would see that as a license to further their overall goal of disarming everyone. Nevertheless, here’s my idea.
    You register as a federal gun owner, you get your background check done. You get a 10 year ID. Your ID has a serial number, and before any gun transfer the seller has to verify your ID has not been revoked via internet/phone or similar instant means that still allows private party or gun show sales.
    In exchange for that the federal law becomes the law of the land, prohibiting states and local jurisdictions from instituting stiffer rules for gun ownership.
    I don’t mind local rules on carrying, that traditionally has been a state right, as long as “locked up in the car” is a way to transport it through every jurisdiction.

  4. TheoNott says:

    I agree that banning categories of people from buying guns is probably mostly ineffective at preventing shootings, and probably inconveniences a lot of people who aren’t any more dangerous than anyone else. I’d be willing to compromise with the gun rights crowd, repeal all background checks and restrictions on gun purchases in return for a universal gun registry, and an annual tax penalty on gun ownership, cumulative with number of weapons, plus a sales tax on bullet sales. I bet this would be far more effective at reducing gun deaths. (And that’s what we need to be concerned with, not these high profile mass shootings which are only a tiny fraction of gun deaths in aggregate.) Gun ownership has a negative externalities, so treat it like pollution.

  5. C. Clavin says:

    Common sense stuff.
    None of it stands a chance as long as the NRA and the other gun manufacturer lobbyists have Congress and the State Legislators in their pocket.

  6. grumpy realist says:

    1. Registration of all guns (for tracking purposes) (Corollary: unregistered guns are confiscated.)
    2. Require insurance
    3. Require training and demonstrated competence.
    4. You are responsible for what your gun does.
    5. Demonstrated stupidity/irresponsibility in gun use causes you to lose your right to possess a gun. (Ok, maybe you can get it back after 5 years, after you’ve gone through much more training.)
    6. Anger control issues? No gun.

    From a purely mathematical point of view, you’re more likely to be shot by a gun held by someone in your family before you become a victim of some spree-killer punk. If we could at least get the “duh, I didn’t know it was loaded!” types off the road (to mix metaphors) we could cut down on the death rate considerably.

    But of course, none of the above will ever happen….

    I get the feeling that the NRA would love to see the US turned into the sort of society where everyone HAD to carry a gun around at all times. That’s not the sort of civilization I want to live in.

  7. Modulo Myself says:

    There’s this :

    This will not take one gun out of the hands of a single criminal,” State Rep. Richard Belden complained to the New York Times in 1994.

    Even some supporters of the law, which took effect in 1995, called it a “small step” — a gesture to placate residents alarmed at the gun violence.

    Now, two decades later, researchers at Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Berkeley, say that Connecticut’s “permit-to-purchase” law was actually a huge success for public safety.

    In a study released Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health, they estimate that the law reduced gun homicides by 40 percent between 1996 and 2005. That’s 296 lives saved in 10 years.

    Overall it doesn’t seem that hard. Make it tougher to buy guns and gun homicides will decline.

  8. James Joyner says:

    @gVOR08:

    What actual harm is done by not allowing your AWOL embezzler to own a rifle?

    I tend to reverse the presumption when making laws. If there’s no benefit to the law, we shouldn’t have it.

    Given that all manner of comparatively minor crimes are classified as felonies, we should be careful in imposing lifetime penalties against felons. Even if you’re generally in favor of restricting gun ownership, we ought to do so on a rational vice random basis.

  9. MarkedMan says:

    I don’t know what to do about new gun laws or have a strong opinion on whether they would make a difference. But our leaders and our media should definitely attack the bat-sh*t insane gun culture that has developed in this country. I think most of the readers here have no idea just how incredibly racist and paranoid your average gun show has become. Heck, I think even a number of Republican politicians would have second thoughts if they realized just how repulsive the gun nut culture has become and just how many orders of magnitude crazy they are compared to the “safe hunting” NRA and sportsman clubs of the 40’s, 50’s and even 60’s.

  10. Jack says:

    Again, more regulations that would not have changed the outcome after another mass shooting.

    Roof was either:

    Given a gun by his father – legal transfer, even under the Toomy Manchin Bill

    or

    Bought it on his own – Background Check failed. (government is mostly incompetent even on a good day)

    I’m sorry to be a killjoy, but the truth is the truth: Had the Democratic laundry list of 2013 been implemented in its entirety, what happened in SC would have gone down in exactly the same way.

    It was illegal for Roof to possess a firearm – he was out on bond in connection with a “felony drug case.” This alone rendered him ineligible to own a firearm. Per the DOJ, 18 USC § 922(g) & (n) existing federal law holds that “persons awaiting trial on felony charges are prohibited from receiving firearms.”

    http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao-ut/legacy/2013/06/03/guncard.pdf

    He broke at least 3 laws (besides the 9 murder counts) the day he commit this crime (illegal possession, illegal transport, and carrying into a church)

    But, yeah. Let’s keep passing more laws that do not change the outcome.

  11. Jack says:

    @grumpy realist:

    But of course, none of the above will ever happen….

    Because none of your suggestions will keep criminals from getting their hands on guns.

  12. Jack says:

    @Modulo Myself: That study has already been debunked.

    1) Crime was already going down nationwide during the period they studied.
    2) They used a half-assed kluge of RI, CA, and MD as representation of what the results would have been had they not passed the law.
    2a) They cherry picked their representative statistics from the above states and didn’t include high crime areas.

  13. aFloridian says:

    Gun control COULD help, sure. But gun control is not going to be an answer to crime and spree shootings unless it really is a virtual blanket ban and confiscatio. We are awash in guns. And yes, I realize this is generally the left’s ultimate goal, but I don’t envy Australia, for example. There is a comedian bit making the rounds where he mentions the exorbitant black market price for an AR-15 in Oz. But yet there IS a price, meaning that criminals awash in cash, particularly, still have access to these guns. If we can’t stop determined criminals from getting the guns, why should we disarm the people? It’s true that $30,000 is a price that would leave these guns in the hands of professional criminals and likely NOT mentally-ill spree shooters, so that particular horror might be reduced.

    I am not opposed to reasonable restrictions. The insurance requirement strikes me as punitive, intended to punish lawful gun-owners, the sort of responsible people who are not the problem. Automobile insurance is mandatory now, but how many drivers are uninsured? It’s a significant percentage of people who are thereby judgment proof. The gun owners most likely to be involved in shootings (including illegal gun owners) are probably not carrying insurance either way. This is meant to be a tax to circumvent the court’s rulings in favor of the Second Amendment and make firearms financially burdensome to all but criminals and the rich.

    Further, if I was a conservative conspiracy nut, the legal side of me would raise the alarm at the “addicted to a controlled substance” language. Without further clarification, does that not open up any individual with a physical dependence on a prescription drug (even if prescribed) to be barred from purchase? In our pill-happy world that could be virtually everybody. But language could be added clarifying it’s only illegal prescription drug use and/or defining the difference between addiction and physical dependence as whether one is under the care of a doctor, etc.

    All that said, I definitely agree with requiring more training for concealed carry. I am have a CCW, and did undergo on-the-range training, but I know others who went the rubber stamp root and I further know, that while I am competent to carry a firearm, I rarely do, but if I did, I would seek out even greater training. It’s a serious burden to carry a gun, and some people treat it much to flippantly. I suppose you could also more heavily restrict the sale of semi-automatic rifles and treat them to the same waiting period as handguns, something like that.

    Unless we are willing to really scrape all the guns from our society (and I am not willing to do that at this point, nor are most Americans, as opinions swing back against gun control – even if it were possible) then there’s still a power imbalance in having armed police, armed criminals, and a unarmed middle- and lower-class on which the latter can prey. We have a right in this society to choose to arm ourselves against our less-charitable neighbors, reinforcing our right to be secure in our homes (at the very least). Our society is incredibly different from other developed countries in our history, demography, and, yes, our universal obsession with guns and violence.

    Unless we are willing to go whole-hog as in the preceding paragraph, then I’m not sure how much we can do to reduce the threat of public massacres. We can increase safety training and hopefully reduce accidental discharges, etc., and we can do better at keeping guns out of the hands of violent/unstable individuals (including closing the gun show loophole), but when guns are so freely available already, how can we stop the lone killer?

    I’d rather see more focus on the root problems. We never see any attention to the root problems. Like the Confederate flag – the Confederate flag is undoubtedly a symbol of white supremacy, but its lowering does little for the people. How about get South Carolina to expand Medicaid? Improving nutrition, job access, public transit, sex education, healthcare? Those are harder, but we aren’t going to solve anything by removing the symptoms instead of the disease, except create a false sense of progress.

    Similarly, I think one of the most questionable calls the country ever made was the movement towards deinstitutionalization. Some people need the help and protection provided by 24 hour care, but now there is a presumption against this.

  14. Jack says:

    @James Joyner:

    Given that all manner of comparatively minor crimes are classified as felonies, we should be careful in imposing lifetime penalties against felons.

    Either a person has done their time and served their debt to society or they are too dangerous to be among the population.

    Anyone that cannot be trusted with a gun is someone that cannot be trusted without 24/7 supervision.

  15. Dave Schuler says:

    There are plenty of laws already. What is needed is more systematic enforcement of the laws that are on the books. I seriously doubt that more unenforced laws will have a measurable effect on either gun homicides or accident firearm deaths.

  16. Tyrell says:

    With that criteria for gun ownership, you certainly would have a lot of people in some of these cities being locked up for gun violations. The crime rate would really go down then. What they should do in a lot of high crime areas is set up some sort of stations, similar to routine traffic stops, in which people walk through a metal detector. If someone is packing and has a permit, fine. If no permit, off they go to the lockup. There must be a cocerted, organized effort to get gang members, drug dealers, bank robbers, and other criminals off the streets. An effort that is supported by the courts: no more slap on the wrists or the guilty let go on some technicality. Then you will see all these shootings and murders that occur every week in some of these cities stop. Sensible gun control that gets the guns out of the hands of criminals, not law abiding citizens.

  17. markm says:

    Anyone who has been convicted of a felony whose full civil rights have not been restored;
    ◾Anyone who is a fugitive from justice;
    ◾Anyone who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance
    Anyone who has ever been adjudicated as mentally noncompetent or involuntarily admitted to a mental institution
    ◾Any alien illegally present in the United States
    ◾Any alien admitted under a non-immigration visa
    ◾Anyone who has been dishonorably discharged from the armed forces;
    ◾Anyone under a restraining order for harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner;
    ◾Anyone convicted of domestic violence, including misdemeanors.

    Keep in mind what is ‘checked’ and what is not when the gun shop calls the feds to check you out.

    All you have to do right now is check the ‘no’ box on the mental health question and I do not believe that is tied to a record. Similarly, check the ‘no’ box when asked if you are on medication for mental health issues and I don’t believe that is tied to a record.

  18. OzarkHillbilly says:

    As a life long firearm owner, I would go further. Much further.

    #1: No concealed carry except for those who have a demonstrable need.
    #2: Ban expanded round magazines. If you can’t hit what you are shooting at with the first 5 shots, you shouldn’t get another 95.
    #3: Waiting periods. No more walking into a gun shop and walking back out with a gun. This would reduce suicides and murders of passion at very little inconvenience to lawful gun owners. I well remember the days when it would take as much as 2 weeks to get the paperwork back from the local sheriff. I just had to plan ahead.
    #4: Ban armor piercing rounds.
    #5: Ban assault weapons. And don’t give me any bull about how they can’t be defined. An assault weapon is any automatic or semi-automatic firearm with a detachable magazine. There, I just defined assault weapons.***

    Oh… You don’t like my definition? Fair enough, come up with your own definition then.

    If I thought about it, I could come up with more.

    ***Yes, I am well aware my definition would outlaw many popular firearms from shotguns to rifles to handguns. Tuff beans, get over it. My definition would even cover my little Ruger 10/22 as well. Big deal, I’d survive and buy a nice bolt action to replace it.

  19. bookdragon says:

    @MarkedMan: This.

    Honestly I think the best solution, politically and otherwise, would be to ask a task force made up of the sane hunting and sportsman gun owners to make recommendations on what to do. Most of the hunters I know would _love_ to keep rifles out of the hands of guys who never learned not to point a to point a gun at someone unless you intend to shoot them, much less how to shoot straight or even identify what they’re shooting at before pulling the trigger. I think you’d also get strong agreement on pulling the license of someone who ‘accidentally’ shot someone while intoxicated until they completed the sort of course DUI drivers have to (‘hunters’ who spend the day downing beer after beer and then shooting at anything that moves are the reason a friend back in OH gave up on hunting).

  20. Avid sportman says:

    @TheoNott: FYI there’s already a tax on all gun and bullet sales. It’s been in place for nearly 100 years, and was implement at the request of sportsmen. All funds generated are used for wildlife conservation.

    “Notable species that have come back from the brink since the implementation of this act include white-tailed deer, wild turkey, and wood ducks”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittman%E2%80%93Robertson_Federal_Aid_in_Wildlife_Restoration_Act#Economics

    There’s also a similar tax for fish and fishing gear that was started in the 50s. Total payouts for both programs are expected to be around 1.5 billion for 2015.

    http://www.jsonline.com/sports/outdoors/wisconsin-to-get-365-million-for-conservation-programs-b99501114z1-305586621.html.

    I contribute much of my time and money to conservation locally and nationally. It’s been my experience that very few people, including most gun owners, know about these taxes and the amount of money that it and sportsmen generate annually.

  21. C. Clavin says:

    @Modulo Myself:
    Hehehe…
    I live in Connecticut. I’m so oppressed!!! My 2nd Amendment Rights have been infringed!!!
    I think I’ll move to Texas where there is no education, no health insurance, the air stinks and the water is toxic…but I can carry a gun and be a real he-man!!!!

  22. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Dave Schuler:

    What is needed is more systematic enforcement of the laws that are on the books.

    Now I wonder why it we can’t have that? Hmmmmm, who is it that reflexively blocks funding for ATF? Who is it won’t confirm any one to head that agency? Who is blocks any studies of gun violence by the CDC? I just can’t imagine.

    (and for the record, while one party is perceived as the main culprit, this crap is bipartisan)

  23. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Avid sportman: Yep, you beat me to it.

  24. Jack says:

    @Dave Schuler:

    There are plenty of laws already. What is needed is more systematic enforcement of the laws that are on the books. I seriously doubt that more unenforced laws will have a measurable effect on either gun homicides or accident firearm deaths.

    This.

    Alas, Even Joe Biden said during the National Rifle Association’s meeting and the White House gun violence task force, the Obama administration does not have the time to fully enforce existing gun laws.

    “And to your point, Mr. Baker, regarding the lack of prosecutions on lying on Form 4473s, we simply don’t have the time or manpower to prosecute everybody who lies on a form, that checks a wrong box, that answers a question inaccurately.”

  25. James Pearce says:

    @Dave Schuler:

    I seriously doubt that more unenforced laws will have a measurable effect on either gun homicides or accident firearm deaths.

    Yeah, it’s that old political standby: a) laws giving the appearance of “doing something” but b) not actually doing anything.

    @aFloridian:

    It’s true that $30,000 is a price that would leave these guns in the hands of professional criminals and likely NOT mentally-ill spree shooters, so that particular horror might be reduced.

    I’m okay with that actually. I would think a professional criminal would deploy his thirty grand gun very rarely.

    It’s the unprofessional criminals you have to worry about.

  26. Jack says:

    @Tyrell:

    What they should do in a lot of high crime areas is set up some sort of stations, similar to routine traffic stops, in which people walk through a metal detector.

    Even SCOTUS says that there must be a way for drivers wishing to avoid a DUI checkpoint to do so.

  27. Ron Beasley says:

    In the true spirit of the Constitution I’ve always thought that document allowed you to hold all a the muzzle loaders and swords you wanted.

  28. gVOR08 says:

    Let’s take the first, easiest step. End the War on Drugs.

  29. Jack says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    #1: No concealed carry except for those who have a demonstrable need–so either open carry for all or only politicians and judges get guns.
    #2: Ban expanded round magazines. If you can’t hit what you are shooting at with the first 5 shots, you shouldn’t get another 95.– so, if group of two or more people attack you, you’re out of luck. Even the police have a 60-70% miss rate.
    #3: Waiting periods. No more walking into a gun shop and walking back out with a gun. This would reduce suicides and murders of passion at very little inconvenience to lawful gun owners. I well remember the days when it would take as much as 2 weeks to get the paperwork back from the local sheriff. I just had to plan ahead.–So, we get more of these http://therightscoop.com/nj-woman-murdered-by-ex-boyfriend-while-waiting-for-gun-permit-to-protect-herself/
    #4: Ban armor piercing rounds. Just about any round shot through a rifle is armor piercing. My 30.06 deer rifle round is armor piercing.
    #5: Ban assault weapons. And don’t give me any bull about how they can’t be defined. An assault weapon is any automatic or semi-automatic firearm with a detachable magazine. There, I just defined assault weapons. My 30.06 deer rifle has a detachable magazine. All of my pistols have detachable magazines. So, you want everyone to have to use lever action and revolvers.***

  30. Jack says:

    @bookdragon: Hunting has nothing to do with the 2nd amendment.

  31. markm says:

    Just doing a quick snoop of the internets…in 2013 there were 11,208 gun related homicides (I don’t believe this number includes suicide). In 2013, there were 10,076 alcohol related traffic deaths.

    Also in 2013 there were an estimated 35,200 automobile related deaths and 3.8 million accidents requiring medical attention.

    Are we really interested in reducing gun related deaths?

  32. Jack says:

    @Ron Beasley:

    In the true spirit of the Constitution I’ve always thought that document allowed you to hold all a the muzzle loaders and swords you wanted.

    In the true spirit of the Constitution I’ve always thought the document allowed you to stand on soap boxes (with unamplified voice) and pass out literature made with moveable type print presses.

    So, no TV, radio, modern media, magazines, newspapers, twitter, facebook, internet, etc.

  33. bookdragon says:

    @Jack: But isn’t it the hunters and honest sportsmen who are always brought up as victims whenever anyone talks about gun laws?

  34. Jack says:

    @C. Clavin:

    but I can carry a gun and be a real he-man!!!!

    Or you can just move to Vermont where all forms of carry are legal by default without permit.

  35. pajarosucio says:

    I don’t think there’s one law or set of laws that would “cure” this country’s issue with gun violence. Many on the right are quick to point out that Adam Lanza and Dylan Roof didn’t buy their guns, and thus more restrictive gun laws wouldn’t have stopped them. However, it’s relatively obvious that making it more difficult to buy a gun reduces the amount of guns purchased. Perhaps Adam Lanza’s mom wouldn’t have had a Bushmaster casually leaning against her wall if it were more onerous to buy one.

    Yet, what I think would be the best possible solution between balancing people’s right to own firearms with our society’s need for safety is to require all guns to be registered, tracked from manufacturer to dealer to owners, and for people in this chain of custody to be held accountable when one of these firearms goes missing and/or is used in a crime. Unregistered guns are then confiscated and melted down. It might take years for that to take hold, but it would end most firearm trafficking (like what’s done up the 95 corridor), it would close the “gun show loophole” in a sense, and it would place some accountability (and thus more responsibility) on the industry and owners to keep weapons out of the wrong hands.

    This is all a pipe dream. Gun manufacturers are adamant against any sort of restriction because that will bite into the profits. Colt just declared bankruptcy as it is. And conveniently for the gun manufacturers they’ve got a whole population of people who believe that the very things that would eat into their profits are tantamount to tyranny and despotism.

  36. Jack says:

    @bookdragon: People try to bring them up as victims. But people who own guns for self defense far outnumber hunters.

  37. Rob Prather says:

    @Dave Schuler:

    There are plenty of laws already. What is needed is more systematic enforcement of the laws that are on the books.

    This argument seems reasonable, but most of the people who make it do so in bad faith. Last I saw, the ATF, which enforces federal gun laws, is a small fraction of the size of the NYPD. Also, Republicans made the director of the ATF need to be confirmed by Congress, which they refused to do for several years.

    Again, most people who argue this way do so in bad faith. I’m not saying you are, Dave.

  38. C. Clavin says:

    @Jack:

    But people who own guns for self defense far outnumber hunters.

    The number of people who use guns in self-defense is so small as to be insignificant.

    In 2012, across the nation there were only 259 justifiable homicides involving a private citizen using a firearm reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s
    Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program as detailed in its Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR). That same year, there were 8,342 criminal gun homicides tallied
    in the SHR. In 2012, for every justifiable homicide in the United States involving a gun, guns were used in 32 criminal homicides. And this ratio, of course, does not take into
    account the tens of thousands of lives ended in gun suicides or unintentional shootings that year.

    http://www.vpc.org/studies/justifiable15.pdf
    Again…you are wrong about everything you type.
    Does your wife repeatedly say…Damn, you’re stupid, Jack.
    Do your kids repeatedly say…Damn you’re dumb as a rock, Dad.
    You get fired from a lot of jobs for f’ing up, don’t you?
    You should spend more time trying to learn instead of trolling the internet. Or maybe it’s true…you can’t fix stupid.

  39. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Jack:

    My 30.06 deer rifle round is armor piercing.

    How many deer have you seen wearing bullet proof vests?

    My 30.06 deer rifle has a detachable magazine. All of my pistols have detachable magazines. So, you want everyone to have to use lever action and revolvers.***

    My .30/06 is a bolt action without a detachable magazine. They also make pumps, and rolling blocks. My .357 is a revolver and more than enough to stop any home intruder. And I don’t give a r@ts @ss about what you have, tuff patooties, life is rough all over. I gave a definition that will greatly reduce the firepower available to people like Roof. Like I said, if you don’t like my definition, come up with one of your own.

    I’m waiting.

  40. Tyrell says:

    @Jack: I have seen people who make a quick u turn and take off in the opposite direction when they see a license check set up. The police go after them and they get a ticket, every time.

  41. Jack says:

    @pajarosucio: Where to start…

    However, it’s relatively obvious that making it more difficult to buy a gun reduces the amount of guns purchased.

    Making anything harder to buy reduces the amount of that item purchased. Fortunately, the 2nd amendment does not allow the government to that.

    Perhaps Adam Lanza’s mom wouldn’t have had a Bushmaster casually leaning against her wall if it were more onerous to buy one.

    It was in a safe/locked container. After he shot his mother in the head with a different firearm, he took the key and stole it.

    balancing people’s right to own firearms with our society’s need for safety

    Safety is an illusion. Example – TSA

    require all guns to be registered

    Canada did this. It solved zero gun crimes and they disbanded it. Germany did this and went door to door collecting all the registered firearms. NY Safe Act did this for “assault weapons” and the majority of New Yorkers have ignored the law.

    Unregistered guns are then confiscated and melted down.

    Do you plan on going door to door to accomplish this? I think that would be bad news for the confiscators.

    Colt just declared bankruptcy as it is.

    Not because they couldn’t sell firearms, but because of bad management and the loss of the government/military contract(s).

  42. Modulo Myself says:

    @C. Clavin:

    Use is different than fantasize about three times daily. If we were actually dealing with people who needed guns for self-defense or who had real fears, it would be different.

  43. michael reynolds says:

    It is simply a fact that more guns = more homicide.

    It’s also a fact that we have a large, hysterical gun cult.

    Step One is not more nibbling around the edges, Step One should be a fundamental shift in which we stop treating guns as love objects and sacred penis replacements, but as products on the market which represent a threat to public health.

    In short, they are cigarettes: legal but deadly. We should begin a national program of education on the facts of gun’s impacts on society. This is a hearts-and-minds issue.

    Let’s get the facts out there. If we do that we’ll see numbers of gun-owning households continue to decline. The truth will set us free.

  44. C. Clavin says:

    @Modulo Myself:
    If we legislated based on fantasies…oh wait…I forgot about Republican economic theories. Never mind.

  45. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @markm: I read recently that gun related deaths were 30,000 plus. Will look for it. Found it:

    Each year more than 11,000 people are murdered with a firearm, and more than 20,000 others commit suicide using one.

  46. James Pearce says:

    @Rob Prather:

    This argument seems reasonable, but most of the people who make it do so in bad faith.

    I can’t say that I’d call the argument “bad faith,” as I think it’s often sincere.

    But I will note that in response to Colorado’s ammo restriction laws (passed in response to the Aurora theater shooting), I didn’t hear many calls for “more systematic enforcement of the laws that are on the books.” But I did hear a bunch of sheriffs declare out right that they would be refusing to enforce the new laws.

    From a pure practicality approach, I think “more laws” isn’t going to work. This is going to need to be cultural.

  47. Mu says:

    Not an hour in and we’re back to the personal insults. And we haven’t even seen MR and his penis jokes yet. Have fun kids, let me know when you’re up to high school level.

  48. Jack says:

    @C. Clavin: Fail.

    In that study the VPC only counted people who killed another in self defense as “legitimate”. The didn’t count people who fired and missed, those who wounded the suspect, or those that never even had to fire their weapon. The claim that “Gun owners not likely to use firearms for self-defense” assumes that all self defense actions with guns result in the death of the attacker. This completely ignores the times that a defensive gun use stopped a victim from being harmed even when the criminal wasn’t killed. By any measure defensive gun uses, only a tiny fraction of one percent of defensive gun uses result in the criminal attacker being killed or wounded. This claim completely ignores all those benefits and assumes that they are zero.

    Additionally, when the police investigate a shooting and originally classify something as a homicide that turn out to be legitimate self defense, they don’t change the easy-to-recode electronic records

    The notion that one should compare cases where a criminal is killed with all cases of murders with guns is flawed in many ways. It assumes that if you banned guns, all those murders would disappear. In fact, every single time that we have murder data before and after a gun ban, murder rates have gone up. If this line of reasoning were right, you should see both justifiable homicides and gun murders falling to zero when guns are banned.

  49. MattT says:

    Maybe laws like what the passed in
    Connecticut?

  50. Jack says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    How many deer have you seen wearing bullet proof vests?

    My point is that just about any round fired from a rifle will penetrate a bullet proof vest–thus it is armor piercing.

    Actual “armor piercing rounds” as applied to pistols have been banned for decades.

  51. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Another fine example of responsible gun ownership:

    The police chief of Gulfport, Mississippi, expressed his frustration with his state’s open carry laws after a man strolling through a Walmart Sunday night menaced shoppers by loading and racking shells into his shotgun, causing police to dispatch a SWAT team and evacuate the store.

    There are people in this country who have no business owning a gun. Everyone knows this, and yet the NRA and it’s acolytes insist nothing be done. This kind of behavior should be illegal. Plain.and.simple.

  52. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: After saying “Our state law allows for this,” Papania said, “If there was something I could have arrested these people for, I would,” before concluding, “Gun laws should be such that it provides us security. As we look at this fact pattern, do you feel safer?”

  53. Jack says:

    @Tyrell:

    I have seen people who make a quick u turn and take off in the opposite direction when they see a license check set up. The police go after them and they get a ticket, every time.

    Police can only do this if the driver mad an “illegal” turn. They may not stop them otherwise as it would be an illegal stop.

    •There must be the opportunity for drivers to turn around and take an alternate route if they do not want to be stopped.

  54. stonetools says:

    I like Grumpy Realist’s and Ozark Hillbilly’s suggestions.
    BTW, this isn’t rocket science stuff. EVERY modern country has better gun laws than the US’s and they work very well. Mass shootings rarely happen in those countries (they NEVER happen in some) whereas we have mass killings every few months in the US. Only in the minds of the gun nuts is that coincidence. When Jack says nothing works, he is ignoring the rest of the world-which is what gun nuts do. They ignore data and rely on mythology.
    Would GR’s and OH’s suggestions have prevented this mass slaying-along with others? Sure. Waiting periods give nuts a chance to reconsider and give authorities more time to disccover plots. Training requirements allow a (presumably) responsible person a chance to evaluate the trainee and maybe alert the authorities if he thinks the trainee is a nut. The insurance requirement would mean that insurance companies would “vet” that person before they agree to insure them, which means that Roof would sit down with an insurance company person before he gets to keep that gun. I would add a requirement that three persons vouch for a person before he can buy a gun. That would keep the lone wolfs from being able to buy a gun, since I doubt Roof could get three persons to vouch for him.
    The way to keep the guns out of mass killers is simple, really. You have to get responsible people to be actually looking at the person who buys the gun. This would inconvenience the so called “responsible” guy who insists that he should be able to buy a gun as easily as buying a can of beans and to be able to carry it everywhere. But with great power goes great responsibility. You want to able to carry around the power to kill 26 people in 5 minutes? Then society should have a right to vet you.

  55. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Jack: My bad. You are correct about rifle rounds.

  56. Gustopher says:

    Well, we could require the gun owners to actually be in well-regulated militias. I mean, who has time for that?

  57. Jack says:
  58. Jack says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    20,000 others commit suicide using one

    So, without a gun these people wouldn’t commit suicide?

    The statistics from Japan would prove you are wrong.

    “Annual suicide rates in Japan are considerably higher than in most other industrial countries, normally hovering around 24 suicides per 100,000 people, which is roughly double the rate in the U.S. and three times that in the UK.”

    http://thediplomat.com/2013/01/searching-for-answers-japans-suicide-epidemic/

    So, essentially, we are talking about 11,000 homicides per year. That number includes police shootings and legitimate self defense.

  59. Franklin says:

    @grumpy realist:

    6. Anger control issues? No gun.

    I do with this was feasible. But to be honest, anybody can snap. There were a couple situations when I was younger where it was a damn good thing I didn’t have a gun.

  60. markm says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Yes, that’s why I pointed out that stat was minus suicide by gun.
    Including suicide by gun, gun related deaths for that year are on par with auto related deaths for that year.

    One is a seemingly accepted statistic.

  61. C. Clavin says:

    @Jack:
    You cannot just make up a bunch of imaginary situations to fit your pre-determined argement and say…see, that study means nothing. The point of studies like this is fact v. fiction. Yiou live in a fictional world…one in which you are smart.

  62. Jack says:

    @MattT:

    Maybe laws like what the passed in
    Connecticut?

    That study has already been debunked.

    1) Crime was already going down nationwide during the period they studied.
    2) They used a half-assed kluge of RI, CA, and MD as representation of what the results would have been had they not passed the law.
    2a) They cherry picked their representative statistics from the above states and didn’t include high crime areas.

  63. Jack says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The police chief of Gulfport, Mississippi, expressed his frustration with his state’s open carry laws after a man strolling through a Walmart Sunday night menaced shoppers by loading and racking shells into his shotgun, causing police to dispatch a SWAT team and evacuate the store.

    I do not support this. He was loading it in the store. That is not carrying, that is brandishing. He should have been arrested for brandishing.

    If you are going to carry it, keep your hands off it unless you need to draw the weapon.

  64. Modulo Myself says:

    @Jack:

    Please cite the debunking of this study, because all you seem to be saying is that the alternate Connecticut was not created to your liking.

  65. Rafer Janders says:

    @aFloridian:

    If we can’t stop determined criminals from getting the guns, why should we disarm the people?

    Because most of us won’t be shot to death by determined criminals: we’ll be shot to death by ordinary people.

    i’m not going to die from being shot by an AR-15 wielding criminal mastermind. I may, however, die from being shot by the angry loser in a bar fight, my girlfriend’s stalker, a jealous husband, a road-raging driver angry I cut him off in traffic, my five year old son who found my gun in the basement, the co-worker angry at getting fired, a random psychotic, a junkie who’s burglarizing my home and is surprised when I walk in the door, etc.

    I’m in far, far more danger from a gun owned by a neighbor or family member than I am from a gun owned by a professional criminal.

  66. Jack says:

    @stonetools:

    When Jack says nothing works, he is ignoring the rest of the world-which is what gun nuts do.

    The other countries do not have a 2nd amendment. If you want to repeal the 2nd, there is a process to do so, follow it.

    At least you are willing to come right out and state that you want to ban firearms from all but the police and military. I saw a movie once where the police and military were the only ones allowed to have weapons.

    It was called Schindler’s List.

  67. C. Clavin says:

    @Jack:
    Jesus-H-Christ…what a fool…
    http://cdn1.sph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1264/2013/06/Kates-Mauser.pdf

    The article appears in a publication, described as a “student law review for conservative and libertarian legal scholarship.” It does not appear to be a peer-reviewed journal, or one that is searching for truth as opposed to presenting a certain world view. The paper itself is not a scientific article, but a polemic, making the claim that gun availability does not affect homicide or suicide. It does this by ignoring most of the scientific literature, and by making too many incorrect and illogical claims.

    A review of the scientific literature (more than 20 studies) finds that a broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.

    The Kates and Mauser article is simply a one-sided polemic, usually misleading, and does not deserve much attention.

  68. gVOR08 says:

    @Gustopher: Don’t you realize the Supremes failed to see any meaning in that “militia” clause, or at least any they liked, so they’ve ruled it doesn’t exist.

  69. Rafer Janders says:

    @aFloridian:

    If we can’t stop determined criminals from getting the guns, why should we disarm the people?

    Also, too, “nothing that a determined criminal is capable of should be illegal” is probably not the most logical or well-thought out standard when it comes to crafting criminal law….

  70. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Jack: Hmmmm….

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has also periodically made estimates using hospital data, but based on narrow sample sizes and covering only the medical and lost-work costs of gun victims.

    Why the lack of solid data? A prime reason is that the National Rifle Association and other influential gun rights advocates have long pressured political leaders to shut down research related to firearms. The Annals of Internal Medicine editorial detailed this “suppression of science”:

    Two years ago, we called on physicians to focus on the public health threat of guns. The profession’s relative silence was disturbing but in part explicable by our inability to study the problem. Political forces had effectively banned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other scientific agencies from funding research on gun-related injury and death. The ban worked: A recent systematic review of studies evaluating access to guns and its association with suicide and homicide identified no relevant studies published since 2005.

    Time for me to go. Oh and Jack, the point about suicide with guns is that they are 99.9% fatal. Suicide by other means are quite a bit less successful.

  71. Jack says:

    @Gustopher:

    Well, we could require the gun owners to actually be in well-regulated militias. I mean, who has time for that?

    We could require voters to prove who they are and that they have a minimal education, but no.

    Besides, in Cruikshank v United States, decided way back in 1875…

    The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second Amendments means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress, and has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the National Government.

    AND in Heller v DC

    “The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right, originally belonging to our forefathers, trampled under foot by Charles I. and his two wicked sons and successors, re-established by the revolution of 1688, conveyed to this land of liberty by the colonists, and finally incorporated conspicuously in our own Magna Charta!”

  72. Jack says:

    @C. Clavin:

    You cannot just make up a bunch of imaginary situations to fit your pre-determined argement and say…see, that study means nothing. The point of studies like this is fact v. fiction. Yiou live in a fictional world…one in which you are smart.

    I’m not making them up. The study was based upon false data that they made up.

  73. Blue Galangal says:

    Or if you have laws (or even statistics) that might have helped track down, say, rogue gun dealers, what happens?

    By holding these rogue gun dealers to account, it might be possible to significantly diminish the flow of guns into criminal hands. Instead, Congress chose to protect rogue gun dealers from scrutiny and sanction. In 2003, Congress passed a law forbidding government agencies to disclose tracing data that might link a particular dealer to a criminal purchaser. It’s hard to hold gun dealers responsible for selling to unlawful buyers if nobody is allowed to know where an unlawful buyer purchased his weapons.

    1% of dealers are responsible for 57% of guns found at crime scenes? That would seem to be low-hanging fruit. But we are not allowed to keep/track that data now? It’s the “la la la I can’t hear you” method of governing that’s taken over the United States. It’s depressing.

  74. humanoid.panda says:

    @Jack:

    Either a person has done their time and served their debt to society or they are too dangerous to be among the population.

    Anyone that cannot be trusted with a gun is someone that cannot be trusted without 24/7 supervision.

    What is your position on restoring voting rights to felons?

  75. C. Clavin says:

    @Jack:
    Dude…everything you type is made up.
    You couldn’t even get the party affiliation of the SC Senator correct.
    What’s worse is you never have the balls to admit you are wrong.
    Go away.

  76. Jack says:

    @Modulo Myself:

    the alternate Connecticut was not created to your liking.

    You cannot make up out of thin air an “Alternate Connecticut”. The data they used was cherry picked from the kluge of these states and ignored multiple instances of crime in those states by avoiding that particular area.

  77. appleannie says:

    “Yet, what I think would be the best possible solution between balancing people’s right to own firearms with our society’s need for safety is to require all guns to be registered, tracked from manufacturer to dealer to owners, and for people in this chain of custody to be held accountable when one of these firearms goes missing and/or is used in a crime. Unregistered guns are then confiscated and melted down. It might take years for that to take hold, but it would end most firearm trafficking (like what’s done up the 95 corridor), it would close the “gun show loophole” in a sense, and it would place some accountability (and thus more responsibility) on the industry and owners to keep weapons out of the wrong hands.”

    Yeah, this. I’ll say upfront that I have a couple of long guns. Inherited them and know how to use them but we are awash in guns and mass shootings are a very small part of the problem. Jim Jefferies (the guy with the comic bit about gun control) makes some excellent points, especially about how helpful they are when you’ve got to secure them against theft or children. My young grandchildren are here frequently because they live close, which means that if I ever need one of the guns, I’m going to have to ask the bad guy to wait while I retrieve my weapon and ammo. I know several people who have had their weapons stolen and just went out and bought new ones but despite their insistence that these are merely tools, they are not screwdrivers. I also think that you should have to show a damned good reason before being allowed to carry one in public either openly or concealed.

  78. Modulo Myself says:

    The gun rights lobby is very clever. You have to give them that. I don’t believe that guns should be banned. Most people would be happy with a compromise. And yet–under no circumstances do I think Jack should own a gun. I would not past a law against it. I just think that he and the rest of the 24/7 armed society crowd are juvenile idiots. But the lobby is smart. They’ve taken my correct judgement and used it to bolster the case that guns are about freedom.

  79. stonetools says:

    @Jack:

    This is not about whether countries have a 2nd Amendment, this is about whether their gun laws work better than ours-and the data show they do.
    Note that countries that actually have a “well regulated militia” ( Israel, Switzerland) have effective gun safety laws-and much lower gun death rates than we do.

    The myth of Nazi gun control is debunked here.

  80. Tyrell says:

    @Modulo Myself: That is certainly true. Few people ever have need of a gun for self defense – seldom needed, unless they live in Oakland.

  81. Modulo Myself says:

    @Jack:

    Well, if they ignored the high-crime areas of the other states in forming the alternate Connecticut, wouldn’t that have created a less violent alternate Connecticut? I have to wonder if you even understand the study. They wanted to see if the plunge in gun homicides was due to the overall drop in the crime rate or if the law had had an effect. So they created a different Connecticut, one where the law was not in effect. They took this from different states. If you’re saying that they passed over adding to the crime rate, you’re saying they intended to create a more peaceful Connecticut than they could have. Which makes no sense, unless they were cherry-picking in support of the idea that the law had no effect.

  82. C. Clavin says:

    @Modulo Myself:

    I have to wonder if you even understand the study.

    Hahaha…you kill me. (pun intended)

  83. Gustopher says:

    The problem with thinking about gun laws only after one of these sprees killings is that everyone wants to solve that problem, when it makes up a trivial number of the annual gun deaths.

    30,000 are killed by guns annually. Spree killers make up roughly what, 100 per year?

    20,000 of that 30,000 are suicides. I haven’t seen that number broken down by registered gun owner, people in the house of a registered gun owner, and others — there is a lot of potential there, but mental illness is a very tough nut to crack, and we have people like Jack who clearly don’t care about suicides since they think it will never affect them or anyone they love, just some losers somewhere else. Are trigger locks going to be effective at reducing these deaths? Maybe.

    Of the remaining 10,000, the preventable deaths break into the crimes of passion (settling an argument with your gun), and accidents.

    The accidents are the easiest to go after. We don’t hold gun owners liable when their gun gets into someone else’s hands, and we should. Your kid gets a hold of your gun and shoots the neighbor or himself? Yes, that’s a tragedy, and maybe you’ve suffered enough, but you’re getting prosecuted and going to jail to serve as a deterrent to others.

    Require trigger locks when someone lives in a building with other people.

    Require training. Safer handling for your killing tool, and how to defend your home in such a way that you don’t shoot your kid sneaking in at 2am.

    But more gun deaths can be prevented with changes in culture and attitudes than laws (unless we can crack that 20,000). Don’t date gun owners. Don’t let your kids go to a house with a gun. Don’t even be friends with gun owners. If you see someone open carrying and you feel menaced (open carry is flat out menacing), call the police.

    Make gun ownership uncool, unappealing, and unacceptable in your social circle and community.

  84. Jack says:

    @Rafer Janders:

    Also, too, “nothing that a determined criminal is capable of should be illegal” is probably not the most logical or well-thought out standard when it comes to crafting criminal law….

    False analogy.

    A better analogy would be criminals deal mostly in cash so all citizens that use cash should have to undergo a background check.

  85. Jack says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Suicide by other means are quite a bit less successful.

    Well, like I linked to earlier, the Japanese have sure cornered the market.

    Besides, who am I or who are you to tell someone they cannot–by law– end their own life?

  86. Jack says:

    @humanoid.panda: That was my opinion.

    Anyone that cannot be trusted with a gun is someone that cannot be trusted without 24/7 supervision.

  87. Jack says:

    @C. Clavin: Dear Clavy, after you’ve climbed up of your knees having completed your K-9 of the month interaction, please buy a gun and put your whole head in front of the barrel before pulling the trigger.

  88. Jack says:

    @Modulo Myself:

    And yet–under no circumstances do I think Jack should own a gun. I would not past a law against it. I just think that he and the rest of the 24/7 armed society crowd are juvenile idiots.

    And yet, I don’t need your permission anymore than I need your permission to do anything else I desire.

    Isn’t freedom great?

  89. Rafer Janders says:

    @Jack:

    False analogy.

    That wasn’t an analogy, you moron. That was simply a rephrasing of the standard aFloridian used. My god, do you even understand what the word “analogy” means??

  90. Jack says:

    @stonetools:

    This is not about whether countries have a 2nd Amendment, this is about whether their gun laws work better than ours-and the data show they do.

    But these arguments are linked. You cannot pass other country type laws without repealing the 2nd amendment.

    Additionally, other countries that have repealed guns have shown a dramatic increase in violent crime. You want to see a gun free America…look at Mexico.

  91. Jack says:

    @Modulo Myself:

    Well, if they ignored the high-crime areas of the other states in forming the alternate Connecticut, wouldn’t that have created a less violent alternate Connecticut?

    Yes. That’s my point.

    It’s impossible to determine what crime would have been in CT is they didn’t pass this law. There is no alternative world where that reality exists. So, they need to compare CT to some other demographic. They cherry picked their data to say that crime is still higher in these other areas…but not too high…han it is in CT because they don’t have the same law.

    You don’t compare CT to Mogadishu as that would be a false comparison.

    They also ignore the fact that crime has decreased nationwide during the same period.

  92. Jack says:

    @Gustopher:

    Spree killers make up roughly what, 100 per year?

    Cops kill more people than spree killers.

  93. DrDaveT says:

    @aFloridian:

    If we can’t stop determined criminals from getting the guns, why should we disarm the people?

    Because most people who get shot are shot by “the people”, and not by determined criminals? That’s always seemed like the obvious reason to me.

  94. Jack says:

    @Rafer Janders:

    Analogy – a comparison between two things, typically on the basis of their structure and for the purpose of explanation or clarification.

    You were comparing – If we can’t stop determined criminals from getting the guns, why should we disarm the people?

    to – “nothing that a determined criminal is capable of should be illegal” is probably not the most logical or well-thought out standard when it comes to crafting criminal law….

    Suggesting that since we cannot craft laws that only affect criminals, we should not craft them at all.

  95. Jack says:

    @DrDaveT:

    Because most people who get shot are shot by “the people”, and not by determined criminals?

    So, all the shooting in Detroit, Chicago, and NY are not by criminals, but plain old Joe Citizen in your eyes.

  96. markm says:

    @Jack:

    Infections from hospital visits kill more than spree killers and the police combined.

    What is statistically acceptable?.

  97. stonetools says:

    Gun cultists like Jack are never going to be convinced, any more than young earth creationists are going to be convinced that the earth is more than 10,000 years old, so let’s stop even trying.
    The good thing is that the Supreme Court seems to about to put the brakes on the spread of laws allowing people to keep and carry guns anywhere, any time, without regard to others’ safety.I think judges like Roberts and Kennedy-the rational conservatives on the court-aregetting genuinely concerned about the rise in mass killings and the spectacle of toddlers killing toddlers with guns left lying around by “responsible ” gun owners. So there’s a ray of hope.

  98. Jack says:

    @markm:

    Infections from hospital visits kill more than spree killers and the police combined
    .
    What is statistically acceptable?.

    There is no statistically acceptable number that you can put on the loss of innocent lives. Yet, they don’t outlaw hospitals because of the random percent of deaths caused by infection.

    More children are killed in pools, on bicycles, and in fires than in accidental shootings. Children are 14.5 times more likely to die from car accidents than from accidents involving guns.

    Yet no one is gnashing their teeth to ban pools, bicycles, fire, and cars.

  99. Jack says:

    @stonetools:

    The good thing is that the Supreme Court seems to about to put the brakes on the spread of laws allowing people to keep and carry guns anywhere, any time, without regard to others’ safety.

    Based upon what? Federal law cannot ban people carrying except on federal property.

  100. Jack says:
  101. stonetools says:

    @Jack:

    But these arguments are linked. You cannot pass other country type laws without repealing the 2nd amendment.

    Ah, yes you can.

    Additionally, other countries that have repealed guns have shown a dramatic increase in violent crime. You want to see a gun free America…look at Mexico

    First, I’m not asking for a gun ban. Secondly, Mexico is a developing country.There are plenty of modern industrialized countries similar to America-like say, Canada -with effective gun safety laws. So either you’re arguing from dishonesty or wilful ignorance-which is typical for a gun cultist.

  102. michael reynolds says:

    @stonetools:

    I agree, there’s really no point engaging the cultists. They’re like Scientologists, effectively brain dead. No one home.

    The thing to do is change the larger culture. As we have with cigarettes. As we have with gay rights. As we have now with Confederate iconography.

    The paradigm has to be shifted. After that it’s just a case of waiting for the gun cultists to die off, to become marginalized in geographical pockets, to in effect be excluded from society.

    Laws are a waste of time – we’d be playing whack-a-mole in 50 states, wasting resources on marginal improvements. We need first to drive the absolute numbers of gun homes down. They’re dropping, but we need to give that trend a push through education. Education on the facts will change the conversation, will shift the paradigm, will in the end marginalize the gun cult and deprive it of any power.

    And we need to make retailers afraid to sell guns. If Wal-Mart can be induced to stop selling racist paraphernalia, they can be convinced to stop selling guns. CVS stopped selling cigarettes. Same thing.

    Educate, shift to a paradigm the cultists don’t recognize, apply social pressure, drive down the number of gun homes so that gun ownership becomes increasingly identified as being a feature of the same class that flew the Confederate flag, and apply pressure on foreign suppliers. 20 years from now the NRA would be neutered.

    That is the path to victory.

  103. Gustopher says:

    @stonetools:

    Gun cultists like Jack are never going to be convinced, any more than young earth creationists are going to be convinced that the earth is more than 10,000 years old, so let’s stop even trying.

    When gun cultists are the face of guns in America, rather than hunters and people who buy a handgun to protect their home (statistics demonstrating otherwise, there’s a powerful emotional appeal to protecting your own), people will suddenly turn on the gun fetishists with revulsion. And then there will be action on gun control.

    Look what happened with the confederate flag this week. People just stopped putting up with the racist bullsh.t, stopped excusing it, stopped pretending to respect the arguments about heritage.

    There’s no need to convince Jack of anything.

  104. Franklin says:

    @Franklin: “wish” not “with”, if anybody was demanding to understand my profound comment.

    /crickets

  105. Jack says:

    @stonetools:

    First, I’m not asking for a gun ban. Secondly, Mexico is a developing country.There are plenty of modern industrialized countries similar to America-like say, Canada -with effective gun safety laws. So either you’re arguing from dishonesty or wilful ignorance-which is typical for a gun cultist.

    Most of the “Other Country” type laws depicted in this thread are blatantly unconstitutional in this country.

    Canada does not have a 2nd amendment and they have disbanded their firearm registry.

    “Since 1977, individuals who wish to acquire firearms legally are required to pass a criminal background check. From 1995 on, all firearms were required to be registered, but in April 2012 the requirement to register non-restricted firearms was dropped in every province and territory, except for Quebec. In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against Quebec, thus the non-restricted registry records were destroyed in their entirety. Today, there are two kinds of individual licenses for firearms owners—possess-only and possess-and-acquire.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Canada

    How does this prevent a criminal from getting their hands on a gun?

    Mexico bans all firearms from civilian use and stratospheric level of gun crime.

    Mexico and Canada are the two countries geographically closest to the US. So, a comparison between them is common sense.

  106. Tillman says:

    @aFloridian:

    If we can’t stop determined criminals from getting the guns, why should we disarm the people?

    I liked your post, so know I’m not piling on here. This just reminds me of a discussion I had with a security expert about vaults that’s stuck with me. He said most people misconstrue what vaults fundamentally are. They are not there for absolute protection, or to keep everything and everyone out. They are there so that if a criminal tries to break into them, they slow the process down sufficiently that the criminal can be apprehended. All of the safety features added to bank vaults since the days of John Dillinger, such as time locks, haven’t made the vaults more physically secure but more cumbersome to get into and out of quickly. In this way, the vault is made more secure overall by winnowing the possible paths to access its contents.

    The point he was making was that you can never stop a determined criminal with unlimited resources from getting inside a vault if he wants to. No vault in the world is designed to withstand such because that’s not the function of the vault to begin with. It’s not to stop one crime but multiple crimes. Laws can be thought of similarly. Scarcity of resources limits what a law can accomplish from the get-go, and absolute security is an illusion. But you’re not trying to stop all crime, just most of it.

  107. stonetools says:

    @michael reynolds:

    Yup. The gun cultists are winning, not on facts, but on fear and mythology. The only way to beat them is to allay fears and doing a better job of countering their mythology of the hero that solves every problem by shooting it.Liberals are great at amassing facts and figures, assembling them into nice, neat charts, and saying, “Ta da-we’re right!” We are less good at changing culture and coming up with the kind of framing that conservatives are so good at-which is strange, since we have most of Hollywood and most of the publishing industry.Not sure why that is..
    Isaac Asimov used to say , “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent” and wrote heroes that won by non-violent means. Maybe there’s a way there.

  108. Jack says:

    @Gustopher:

    people will suddenly turn on the gun fetishists with revulsion

    Turn on us and what, plead with us to pretty please give up our guns?

    Good luck.

  109. wr says:

    @Jack: It’s really comforting to know that a man too stupid to learn how the quote function works on this site feels compelled to surround himself with deadly weapons for “self-protection.”

    Of course he never says what he needs protection from. I’m thinking it’s his own inadequacy.

  110. Jack says:

    @Gustopher:

    Look what happened with the confederate flag this week. People just stopped putting up with the racist bullsh.t, stopped excusing it, stopped pretending to respect the arguments about heritage.

    And they want it removed from public display on state grounds. There is still and never will be serious discussion of making the ownership or personal display of this flag illegal.

  111. Jack says:

    @wr: Ahhh, the little d1ck jokes.

    That’s funny, coming from a little d1ck.

  112. Jack says:

    @stonetools: The fact is, the government does not have to protect you. SCOTUS said that is your job. You protect you in the way you see fit, and I will protect me and mine in the way I see fit.

    Why do you have a problem with that?

  113. michael reynolds says:

    @Jack:

    Nah, we won’t take them. You’ll give them up. Because pretty soon your insurance rates will start climbing. And then your homeowner’s association or condo board will pass a rule against guns. And your kids’ friends won’t be allowed to come over and play. The cost of guns will start to rise as the discounters get out and the gun shows and private sales stop. And you’ll have a hard time finding a job because gun ownership will be the new “drug use” and be used to screen for mentally unstable employees.

    All without a single law, Jack.

    You can keep your guns and wear your craziness proudly and we’ll let you. It’s a free country, and hey, every working class neighborhood has to have a mental case with a MIA flag flying and a Trespassers Will Be Shot sign on the gate. You can sit in your house stroking your guns and living off unemployment, muttering at the TV. Society will have moved past you.

  114. Jack says:

    @michael reynolds:

    All without a single law, Jack.

    Don’t hold your breath.

  115. grumpy realist says:

    @Jack: Because a heck of a lot of people who think that they need a gun to protect themselves are brain-dead STUPID. The idiots who think it’s fun to shoot in the air? (Disregarding that a ballistic bullet simply due to gravity can and has killed someone.) Or “ha ha, let’s go shoot in someone’s backyard!” Or “gee, I’ll leave my loaded gun out where my five year old can get hold of it and kill my three-year old.” Or “I don’t know precisely what it is that I’m aiming at, but I’ll just shoot at anything that moves in the forest.”

    Too many people who own guns are IDIOTS. And they end up killing a lot of people.

  116. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    Guns sold at gun shows or in other private sales are not subject even to the background check rule in most states.

    I’ve long been in favor of closing the gun show loophole and agree that we should start by better enforcing our existing laws.

    Pardon the language, but the “gun show loophole” is complete and utter bullshit. It doesn’t exist.

    If you are a licensed gun dealer, you have to perform a background check for every single gun you sell. No matter where you are, even at a gun show.

    If you are not a licensed gun dealer, you do not have to perform a background check for any gun you sell. No matter where you are, even at a gun show.

    And the law is very clear about defining who a “gun dealer” is. Sell too many guns in a certain amount of time, and you’re a gun dealer. If you’re not licensed, then you’re in big trouble.

    But go ahead and pass a law about this nonexistent problem. Require all guns sold at a gun show to go through a background check. I see two immediate responses.

    1) Some enterprising dealer puts up a sign “Background Checks — $20.00” buyers line up to get their printed record.

    2) “You want this old .22 of mine? Meet me in the parking lot in ten minutes. Lot D4, green Chevy Suburban. Cash only.”

    Finally, just how many guns used in crimes have been traced back to a gun show sale?

    If you can’t cite actual crimes that might have been prevented by your proposed law, you’re punishing the law-abiding for the misdeeds of others.

  117. Jack says:

    @grumpy realist:

    Too many people who own guns are IDIOTS. And they end up killing a lot of people.

    Then you go after those specific idiots.

    You don’t punish the whole for the mistakes of the few. It was bad policy in the military and it’s worse policy for a country.

  118. Jack says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    Finally, just how many guns used in crimes have been traced back to a gun show sale?

    Based upon the stats I have seen, less than 1%.

    But of course, the left believes this law will fix all the illegal gun problems…until the next time.

  119. michael reynolds says:

    @Jack:

    Hah, I love it. You basically have no counter to the idea of an education program. Your brainwashing has not provided you with a set of responses.

    See folks? The opposition is armed and ready to fight laws. They are helpless to fight social change. That’s the weak spot. That’s the hole in their line of battle. That’s how liberals have won on everything from birth control to gay rights to the racist flag.

    The point is not to take guns away from the cult but to out the cult for what it is, to expose them. This issue is ready for the same kind of flip we saw on gay marriage. Change the paradigm and wait for the Jacks of this world to be even more isolated and thereby lose all political power.

    Then we talk laws.

  120. stonetools says:

    Here are Canada’s gun laws for individuals:

    Individuals who wish to possess or acquire firearms in Canada must have a valid possession-acquisition, or possession-only, licence (PAL/POL); either of these licences allows the licensee to purchase ammunition. The PAL is distributed exclusively by the RCMP and is generally obtained in the following three steps:
    1.Safety training: To be eligible to receive a PAL, all applicants must successfully complete the Canadian Firearms Safety Course[13] (CFSC) for a non-restricted licence, and the Canadian Restricted Firearms Safety Course[14] (CRFSC) for a restricted licence; the non-restricted class is a prerequisite to the restricted licence. Each province/territory’s chief firearms officer publishes information on the locations and availability of these courses.[15]
    2.Applying for a licence: Currently only one type of licence is available to new applicants, the possession-acquisition licence (PAL). People can request a PAL by filling out Form CAFC 921.[16]
    3.Security screening: Background checks and investigations are performed. All applicants are screened, and a mandatory 28-day waiting period is imposed on first-time applicants, but response time may be longer.[17]

    Licences are typically valid for five years and must be renewed prior to expiry to maintain all classes. Once licensed, an individual can apply for a firearm transfer;[18] and an authorization to transport (ATT) for restricted firearms.[19] People may hunt with firearms in Canada only with non-restricted firearms, and this requires an additional “Hunting with Firearms” course.

    Note that they track OH’s and GR’s suggestions quite closely. So such laws can be passed, and there is nothing here that shouldn’t pass constitutional muster.The Last time Canada had a Roof style mass kiiling was around 1995.

  121. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @michael reynolds: What a wonderful example of soft fascism. “We won’t take away your rights. We’ll just make it impossible for you to exercise that right.”

    Bring it on.

  122. Tillman says:

    @Jack:

    Turn on us and what, plead with us to pretty please give up our guns?

    Good luck.

    And horrible people you are, you’d rather keep the guns than be good neighbors. And you wonder why we worry about you having guns…

  123. C. Clavin says:

    @Jack:

    @C. Clavin: Dear Clavy, after you’ve climbed up of your knees having completed your K-9 of the month interaction, please buy a gun and put your whole head in front of the barrel before pulling the trigger.

    Moderators….Seriously?
    He accuses me of bestiality, and invites me to suicide. And you think that is appropriate for your website?

  124. Jack says:

    @michael reynolds:

    They are helpless to fight social change. That’s the weak spot. That’s the hole in their line of battle. That’s how liberals have won on everything from birth control to gay rights to the racist flag.

    I have no response because you idea is right up there with “Hector! Paris! Check out this sweet wooden horse!”

    OR

    “If we all run straight at the Injuns, this day will go down in history as Custer’s Ass-Kicking Stand!”

  125. Jack says:

    @Tillman:

    you’d rather keep the guns than be good neighbors

    I don’t have a responsibility to you or society to be a good neighbor. I do have a responsibility to protect myself and family.

  126. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @stonetools: You brought up an interesting Catch-22 there:

    Individuals who wish to possess or acquire firearms in Canada must have a valid possession-acquisition, or possession-only, licence (PAL/POL); …

    Currently only one type of licence is available to new applicants, the possession-acquisition licence (PAL).

    Logically speaking the “possession only” license should be easier to obtain — it’s what you would need if you have call to possess a gun, but not own it. Security officers, guards, “hunting buddies” who borrow their friend’s gun, someone undergoing training on how to use a gun, etc. But the information you cite indicates that no one can get a POL.

    You didn’t offer a link to your source. Is there a way to actually get a POL?

  127. Jack says:

    @C. Clavin:

    And you think that is appropriate for your website?

    Only Clavin approved personal attacks are acceptable. All others must be banned!

  128. Tillman says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: Did you know there’s an entire Wikipedia article on the term “gun show loophole”? It’s all citations to things that disprove most of what you said. I don’t think a three word Google search has ever paid off that damn quickly.

  129. Jack says:

    @stonetools:

    Note that they track OH’s and GR’s suggestions quite closely.

    Neither of which would keep criminals from getting their hands on guns.

  130. wr says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: Yes, little boy, people disapproving of you is the very definition of fascism.

  131. michael reynolds says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    Bring it on.

    OK.

  132. Tillman says:

    @Jack: Actually, you do have a responsibility to be a good neighbor. It keeps your neighbors from burning your house down or lynching your family, and while a gun or five hundred (I don’t know how many guns you own if any) might make a mob think differently, it won’t stop ’em. Not unless you somehow outnumber the mob with your insane breeding schedule and massive store of munitions.

    Seriously, being a good neighbor is better insurance against danger than being a gun owner. Having a gun is an open badge of distrust for your fellow man, and an open invitation to distrust you in turn. The last time in history we all walked around with weapons for our safety wasn’t known for being a peaceful time.

  133. Jack says:

    @Tillman:

    Seriously, being a good neighbor is better insurance against danger than being a gun owner.

    You’re presumption is that I can’t be both. Nonetheless, I don’t have a responsibility to be a good neighbor. I will also never live in a neighborhood that tries to band gun ownership.

  134. al-Ameda says:

    To me, it’s a public health issue.

    We’re a nation of about 320 million people and nearly as many guns – we’re awash in firearms and related weaponry. Statistically, I believe it’s inevitable that occasional mass killings are going to happen, and given our strong culture of gun ownership, there really is nothing more we’re going to do to regulate the easy availability and supply of guns to virtually anybody who really wants to obtain a weapon. We lack the collective will to do anything about this.

    Probably half the country is moving toward liberalizing their laws concerning open carry of a weapon in public, so now more non-law enforcement people get to show the good people at their local Peet’s or Starbucks just how afraid they are to carry out normal tasks in public without carrying a firearm. Simply lovely.

  135. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @Tillman: That’s an interesting link. I hadn’t seen it before, and I’ll give it a quick read.

    …..

    Not too bad. A few highlights:

    The loophole refers to a perceived gap in the law with regard to sales or transfers of firearms between private citizens.

    Unlicensed private-party sellers are not required to ask for identification, and, cannot initiate a background check without the help of a Federal Firearms Licensee in all but three states, where they may do so voluntarily.

    Gun rights advocates say there is no loophole, and believe any federal law requiring background checks for sales of secondary market firearms between private citizens, whether at gun shows or not, would exceed the government’s authority, be a prelude to gun registration, and endanger gun owners’ Second Amendment rights.

    The Wikipedia article cites several mass shootings: The Virginia Tech shooting, the Aurora, Colorado shooting; the Sandy Hook shooting; and the Azana Spa shooting. None of them involved a gun show sale:

    Virginia Tech: Shooter passed background check, bought guns from dealer.

    Aurora, Colorado: Shooters stole the guns from the legal owner.

    Sandy Hook: shooter took gun from legal owner and killed her with it.

    Azana Spa: bought his gun from a private seller, not a licensed deale, that he found through an online firearms marketplace — what I’d call a virtual gun show, not an actual one.

    So, no, I didn’t read that article before I commented. But it backs up what I said.

    Did you actually read it before you cited it?

  136. stonetools says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    It was in Jack’s post on Canadian gun law. But here ya go.

    New applicants can only get a PAL.

  137. David M says:

    As the percentage of people who own guns continues to drop, and the average gun owner owns more guns, society will eventually get some common sense.

    In a way, I see this playing out like gay marriage. The gun cult refuses to compromise on any reasonable regulations right now, and that is eventually going to come back and bite them, when they are no longer in charge and gun laws are reformed.

  138. Tillman says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: You missed that part labeled Overview.

    bought his gun from a private seller, not a licensed deale, that he found through an online firearms marketplace — what I’d call a virtual gun show, not an actual one.

    Ah, so that’s why I can buy drugs over the Internet but not in person.

  139. C. Clavin says:

    @Tillman:
    Also…statistically speaking gun owners are far more likely to shoot and kill themselves or a family member than ever serve as a protector or defender of any sort. But we’re dealing with people who live in fantasy land. Statistics and facts…if they don’t come from the NRA…mean bubkis.

  140. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @Tillman: He bought the gun in person. He found the seller over the internet. Federal law prohibits shipping a gun unless at least one of the participants is a licensed gun dealer — and if you get a gun dealer to either ship or receive the gun, he is required to do a background check on the buyer, just as if he sold it himself.

    So, why is there a huge push over the “gun show loophole?” Must be more of that standard leftist tactic — “we have to do SOMETHING, even if it’s totally meaningless!”

    Kind of like the sudden rush to go after the Confederate flag. “This crazy person did something horrible, so we’re going to get rid of something he liked!”

    Congrats. What a stupendous achievement. Yay, you.

    Just what did you actually achieve, anyway?

  141. Tillman says:

    @Jack:

    Your presumption is that I can’t be both.

    …the hypothetical I laid out at the beginning of this topic was you’d rather be a gun owner than a good neighbor, with the presumption that you have neighbors who want to take your guns away because they feel threatened having someone in their midst armed. So yes, I have from the beginning presumed you can’t be both because that was the situation I laid out. Why do you think I brought up mobs attacking you? I’m going to absurdity to demonstrate you cherish your guns more than the people around you, hoping vainly this shows your priorities are screwed up.

    I will also never live in a neighborhood that tries to ban gun ownership.

    Sounds like you’d be at home at the Citadel out in Idaho.

  142. stonetools says:

    @Jack:

    Neither of which would keep criminals from getting their hands on guns.

    Canada’s laws have kept Canada free of mass killings for 20 years. I’ll take that deal.

  143. Tillman says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    He found the seller over the internet. Federal law prohibits shipping a gun unless at least one of the participants is a licensed gun dealer — and if you get a gun dealer to either ship or receive the gun, he is required to do a background check on the buyer, just as if he sold it himself.

    A gun show combines the professional business of firearms and the wheeling-and-dealing of a neighborhood yard sale, all under one big roof, and charges the masses $10 a head for the buffet.

    For $66, an individual or group can reserve a table on which to hawk their wares.

    Some are local gun shop owners or other professional dealers, who see the crowded shows as a chance to bring their storefront to many more would-be customers in a day than they might otherwise see. For them, the generally two-day events are a potential boon for sales or, at least, marketing.

    The rest are an assortment of private sellers, many looking to sell or trade individual guns or downsize large personal collections. But among them are private sellers who look very much like licensed dealers.

    It is not uncommon, members of the industry said, for these individuals to set up at show after show, flipping guns, as it were, and engaging in what is essentially a professional gun-dealing operation — without the regulation that goes along with it. And that practice is irritating to more than just those sounding the alarm about the dangers of unfettered gun sales.

    Bill Bernstein, owner of East Side Gun Shop in East Nashville, objects to these ostensibly casual sellers on business grounds. Strictly speaking, they don’t pose direct competition to his business, since he stays away from gun shows. But their regular activities end up looking very similar to his, just without the rules, regulation and red tape.

    “It’s their ‘private collection,’ ” he said, “[but] their private collection changes every week, and every week or every gun show they’re out there with a different table of guns, buying, selling, trading. I’m sorry, to me that person is an unlicensed dealer.”

    Bernstein said the problem is with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives’ somewhat amorphous definition of the term “dealer.” The bureau defines a dealer as a person “who devotes time, attention and labor to dealing in firearms … with the principal objective of livelihood and profit.” At the point when a person is selling and trading firearms as a means to obtain other firearms, which they then intend to sell and trade, they’re encroaching on that definition, Bernstein said.

    “I wanted to engage in this business,” he said, “I went and got a license. I have to go through inspections periodically, I have to present records to ATF when they come calling — and they did last week — I have to pay sales tax on whatever I sell. And these guys don’t.”

    The often blurry distinction between the two groups — private sellers and licensed dealers — and the large gray area populated by those seemingly operating somewhere in the middle, has been a consistent pressure point in the debate over guns and gun control. Gun shop owners like Bernstein and other professional dealers must obtain a c (FFL), and are therefore required to comply with various rules and regulations, including mandatory background checks on all customers, whether at a gun show or in their shop. Due to what is known as the “casual sale exception,” however, background checks are not required on private sales, wherever they take place, as long as the transaction does not cross state lines.

    First citation in that Wikipedia article. http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city-news/gun-shows-internet-keep-weapons-flowing-around-background-checks

  144. stonetools says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    The loophole refers to a perceived gap in the law with regard to sales or transfers of firearms between private citizens.[1] The term may also be referred to as the Brady bill loophole, the Brady law loophole, the gun law loophole, and the .private sale loophole

    Did YOU read the article?

  145. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @Tillman: There are existing laws that define what makes someone a “gun dealer.” Sounds to me like these “collectors” are violating that law. Why not just work on enforcing those laws, instead of making a new one? Again, the proposed solution is a broad brush, and would adversely affect a hell of a lot of people in order to punish those damned few who are already breaking the law.

  146. Jack says:

    @Tillman: My neighbors know I am always armed now. No one feels threatened nor refuses to associate with me because of it. I simply do not personally know any hoplophobes.

  147. Jack says:

    @C. Clavin:

    Also…statistically speaking gun owners are far more likely to shoot and kill themselves or a family member than ever serve as a protector or defender of any sort.

    Also…statistically speaking car owners are far more likely to get in an accident and kill themselves or a family member than ever serve as a driver in the Indy 500.

    Your faulty premise aside, I will never drive a racecar, but it doesn’t mean I should give up my car.

  148. Tillman says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    Why not just work on enforcing those laws, instead of making a new one?

    That’s a great idea. Why not lobby your representatives to do so? OzarkHillbilly already covered this. There is no drive in a Republican-controlled Congress to actually enforce these laws that already exist. This is not a problem to one of our political parties.

  149. Jack says:

    @stonetools:

    Canada’s laws have kept Canada free of mass killings for 20 years. I’ll take that deal.

    Time to update your talking points.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30627630

    To hear you tell it…this can’t happen in Canada because of their superlative gun laws.

  150. Jack says:

    @Tillman:

    This is not a problem to one of our political parties.

    Yeah, because there were no mass murders when the Democrats led the House and Senate…oh, wait.

  151. al-Ameda says:

    @Jack:

    Also…statistically speaking car owners are far more likely to get in an accident and kill themselves or a family member than ever serve as a driver in the Indy 500.

    Not that it matters when one is making specious analogies that compare the carnage of vehicle ownership with the carnage of gun ownership – statistically speaking most car owners do not purchase a car for the purpose of killing themselves, their friends, family, acquaintances or strangers.

    However, setting all of that that aside – vehicle ownership is highly regulated (licensing and insurance requirements) to a level that many gun owners would not accept.

  152. stonetools says:

    @Tillman:

    Has Jenos repeated all of Jack’s fallacious arguments yet?

    Gun Nut Bingo

    I’m still missing the BENGHAZI! square but I expect Jenos will soon get there.

  153. Jack says:

    Olympia, WA – On 06/20/2015, members of the LGBT community reported being refused entrance to a gay pride event. These members also happen to believe in and practice “open carry” when they see fit . A number of event organizers and supporters joined together to form a “human chain” in what appeared to be a successful attempt at preventing the open carrying LGBT members from entering into this public event. They even broke into some kind of really creepy chanting during this incident. It was almost cult-like.

    http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/06/foghorn/gay-open-carry-group-kicked-out-of-gay-pride-rally-due-to-psychological-harm/

    Lefty intolerance on display again.

  154. Jack says:

    @al-Ameda:

    most car owners do not purchase a car for the purpose of killing themselves, their friends, family, acquaintances or strangers.

    Nor do most gun owners purchase a gun for the purpose of killing themselves, their friends, family, acquaintances or strangers.

    vehicle ownership is highly regulated (licensing and insurance requirements) to a level that many gun owners would not accept.

    Only if you use that vehicle on public roads. There are few vehicle regulation applied to vehicles that remain on private property.

  155. stonetools says:

    @Jack:

    Ok, 20 years between mass killings, rather than one every other month. I’ll accept that deal too

  156. Jack says:

    @stonetools: So, some mass murder is OK.

    Just wanted to get a fix on your belief system.

  157. Jack says:

    Good thing New York passed the Safe Act to make all of its citizens safe.

    about 4% were registered as required under the SAFE Act.

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/23/gun-group-cites-low-compliance/29193905/

    If the intent of the new law is to make the average citizens into criminals, then it sure is working.

  158. JKB says:

    First off, in the two states I know of, VA and TN, retail gun sellers do not “enter a name into a federal database”. They call state law enforcement and provide them the information sworn to on the federal purchase form. The state (police or bureau of investigation) then either clears the sell, issues the denial, or puts the request on further review. Any assertion on the form that you are in one of the prohibited categories (needle in the arm, discussing dishonorable discharge) and the call isn’t made, the sale isn’t completed, etc. And, it is a felony to lie on the form.

    In any case, it would never be permitted for the gun seller to adjudicate the information in the federal/state databases as they have no legal right to see the information. The adjudication will always be done by a government law enforcement individual due to the sensitive private and law enforcement information. All the seller or anyone else get is a yay or nay.

    BTW, this is better than I expected as a federal employee when I sent the name of a foreign national visiting our facilities for clearance by law enforcement/intelligence agencies. No news meant they were permitted and if they turned out to be a bad guy we’d never know, they would just not show up having been interdicted by one of the law enforcement or intelligence agencies. The agencies do not let others, especially non-government employees, traipse around their databases.

    So score one point for Frum being ignorant (willfully or naturally)

    Now for the next two, besides the ignorance about how insurance works and training, we can put Frum in the RACIST category since each of those raises the cost of exercising an enumerated right and a protected class minority is more likely to be poor. Intentional or not, it is constructive racism. Are those pushing these items willing to create a subsidy program to ensure they are not used to deny lawful citizens their Constitutional rights?

    As for insurance, well, this idea is not insurance and the association with car insurance shows the proponents ignorance. The government required insurance to operate what is considered a controllable convenience, i.e., car, vs a right, is liability insurance. It compensates for accidents and injuries cause by the owner (insurance holder) and infrequent owner approved drivers who may not have their own insurance. Guess what, someone steals your car, your liability insurance doesn’t pay regardless of the damage the thief does. Which is why we now carry no-fault and uninsured driver insurance, which protects us from losses that cannot be collected from the responsible party.

    Now, is their a problem of lawful owners of firearms having accidents for which liability judgements are not being paid? If you wish to attach liability to an inanimate object, i.e., the gun, then why don’t we attach it to cars, computers, cell phones, steak knives, sticks, etc. that can be taken without permission and used to do damage to other for which compensation can be claimed? Now, if someone is found to have been negligent in protecting a firearm, say by leaving it in a public toilet, then some liability may be assessable.

    Training, well, what training? When this comes up, combat and police training seems to be the wet dream of the advocate. But a private citizen doesn’t need that to use a firearm for leisure or self defense, especially if they do not carry it in public as opposed to transport it to and from the range. As for carry permits, I expect is varies as it is a state controlled matter, but to get my permit, there was a day long training that covered basic safety as well as a fixed target, timed, shooting, but most of the course was on what was most important, the lawful use of deadly force, i.e., imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury in self defense.

    But if it is felt that such training is needed then it should be provided by high schools and colleges, mandatory courses, free of charge on maneuver, targeting kill shots and the marksmanship to put a round through the ear, those are the skills needed to react in the middle of a spree shooting. And we can require the carrying of hollow point and fragmentary ammo to avoid pass throughs and ensure light walls and obstacles stop over shots.

    But again, it will have to be free or at a very nominal cost otherwise, it is a racist effort to deny Constitutional rights to the poor, of which minorities are a large portion.

  159. JKB says:

    @Tillman: And horrible people you are, you’d rather keep the guns than be good neighbors.

    Guns make good neighbors. Not long ago, near me, a woman was living with her mother when her estranged husband came to the door and tried to force himself in. She shot him, twice, but he still got in, maybe she needed some of that training being pushed. So a neighbor came over and shot the guy, then the deputies arrived.

    The only lesson from this incident is those people need to learn some anatomy as the shots were not fatal and no immediately debilitating.

  160. Monala says:

    @Jack: No, we don’t outlaw hospitals, or pools, or cars, or bikes, but we do make policies and enact regulations to make them safer. Public pools have to have a lifeguard, and information is disseminated every summer about watching your kids around the water. Seat belt regulations and speed limits are put in place to make driving safer. Kids are required to wear bike helmets. The CDC and HHS have issued guidelines to prevent hospital-acquired infections. (And guess what? These things work! For example, traffic fatalities have declined event as more cars are on the road.

    In contrast, the NRA and its supporters routinely oppose policies and regulations to make guns and gun usage safer.

  161. stonetools says:

    @Jack:

    As opposed to your belief system, where you’re happy with ALL the mass killings, so long as you can fondle your little toys.

    Look, we’re done here. I think we’ve given James some food for thought. No need to keep playing Gun Nut Bingo with the usual suspects, till all the squares get filled in.

  162. Jack says:

    @Monala:

    In contrast, the NRA and its supporters routinely oppose policies and regulations to make guns and gun usage safer.

    You can put out all the pamphlets, guidelines, and TV advisories you want.

    PUBLIC pools have to have a lifeguard, most drowning happen in private pools. Seat belt and speed limits only apply to public roads. Kids are required to wear helmets on public roads.

    Most of the laws being discussed here apply to private individuals in the privacy of their own home and have nothing to do with public.

    Gun rights advocates have already given in to a multitude of regulation and laws. Brady Bill, NICS checks, automatic firearms, etc. simply top the list.

    The NRA opposes new laws that hinder the average citizen and do nothing to stop would be criminals.

  163. David M says:

    @Jack:

    There’s no such thing as private gun ownership that doesn’t affect the public.

  164. C. Clavin says:

    @Jack:

    The NRA opposes new laws that hinder the average citizen and do nothing to stop would be criminals.

    There you go…proof the troll is nothing but a dupe of the gun lobby. No need to continue.

  165. Jack says:

    @stonetools:

    As opposed to your belief system, where you’re happy with ALL the mass killings, so long as you can fondle your little toys.

    I’m not happy with any mass killing or killing of innocents in general. I simply don’t believe there are any new laws or combination of new laws that will pass constitutional muster and prevent more mass killings in this country.

    I have undergone background checks form the NSA, FBI, and VA State Police and probably a few I don’t know about. I follow the law for the state in which I live and the laws of the states through which I travel.

    This is where I draw my line in the sand. I will not register my firearms. I will not turn in standard capacity magazines, I will not ask for a purchase permit. I will not limit my ammo purchases. I will not limit the number of guns I own–all because certain people fear my gun. I chose to get a CWP and thus agreed to their rules regarding mandatory training–primarily because I must travel between multiple states. Otherwise I could have open carried in VA and never asked permission from anyone.

    I will exercise my freedoms to the fullest extent and will fight their erosion.

  166. Jack says:

    @C. Clavin: Don’t you have some 4 legged friends to “entertain”?

  167. C. Clavin says:

    @JKB:
    Even more recently a toddler was shot in the face by his sibling by a gun left out by an irresponsible gun owner. We can trade meaningless stories all day long. The FACT is that guns are rarely…to the point of being statistically insignificant…used for defense.

  168. Jack says:

    @C. Clavin: Guns are arguably used for defense 1-2.5 million times per year.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_gun_use

  169. David M says:

    @Jack:

    I will not register my firearms. I will not turn in standard capacity magazines, I will not ask for a purchase permit. I will not limit my ammo purchases.

    Just to be clear, you prefer mass killings over those things. Mass murders are preferable to you being inconvenienced.

  170. Jack says:

    @David M:

    Mass murders are preferable to you being inconvenienced.

    Mass murders have nothing to do with my actions.

  171. David M says:

    @Jack:

    Your unwillingness to be inconvenienced has consequences, whether you want to acknowledge that truth or not. The people paying the price aren’t given a choice.

  172. Jack says:

    @David M: No one is paying a price for my choice.

  173. C. Clavin says:

    @Jack:
    That’s an amazing mis-representation of that article. Your either: a). cannot read or b). are a liar. You choose.

  174. C. Clavin says:

    comment deleted by me

  175. David M says:

    @Jack:

    I will exercise my freedoms to the fullest extent and will fight their erosion…..No one is paying a price for my choice.

    Public policy affects everyone. You are advocating and supporting public policies that have consequences, and even though you don’t want people to publicly point it out, you are willing to accept mass murders rather than be inconvenienced.

  176. Jack says:

    @C. Clavin:

    That’s an amazing mis-representation of that article.

    Below is a direct quote from the article.

    Higher end estimates by Kleck and Gertz show between 1 to 2.5 million DGUs in the United States each year.[1]:64–65[2][3] Low end estimates cited by Hemenway show approximately 55,000-80,000 such uses each year.[4][5] Middle estimates have estimated approximately 1 million DGU incidents in the United States.[1]:65[6]

    How did I misrepresent anything? Are there lower numbers, yes. But there are also higher numbers. I chose 1-2.5 the middle to high numbers.

  177. Matt says:

    Mass murders accounted for 0.45% of murders in 2012 and that was the year that sandyhook and the auroa shootings occurred.

    2011 0.13%
    2010 0.07%
    2009 0.15%
    2008 0.084%
    2007 0.31% Virginia tech second deadliest school attack after the Bath School disaster (1927)
    2006 0.079%

    Never does mass murders reach into 1% of murders in this country.

    According to the FBI crime database fewer people are killed in mass murder sprees yearly than killed with hands/fist/feet, Asphyxiation, knives, blunt objects, fire(arson), Strangulation.

    Some years more people are killed via poison and drowning then by mass shooting sprees.

    The majority of murders are related to other criminal activity such as drugs or gang warfare. End the drug war and you will end a major source of income for violent illegal entities. You will also decrease motivation for police misconduct which damages police community relations.

    Aside from murders the USA suffers from a high level of violent crime in general in comparison to other countries.

    Maybe if we as a country stopped worshiping the jock attitude and solving your problems “like a man” we’d have less violent crime? I see changes in this as the nerd culture has become more acceptable to the mainstream. I’m not sure if middle junior and high schools students are still focused on worshiping the jocks while insulting the intellectual as I’ve been out of school for some time. That would surely be a positive development if we were able to move our kids away from worshiping ignorance and violence into worshiping intellectual pursuits.

    Maybe if our politicians focused less on bombing and demonizing but instead focused more on helping others we might be a less violent culture?

  178. C. Clavin says:

    @Jack:
    You used numbers which the article goes on to say are “improbably high”.
    You’re a dupe of the gun lobby…incapable of independent thought. Nothing more.

  179. David M says:

    @Matt:

    The majority of murders are related to other criminal activity such as drugs or gang warfare. End the drug war and you will end a major source of income for violent illegal entities. You will also decrease motivation for police misconduct which damages police community relations.

    I don’t think you’ll get many objections to those proposals here. Unfortunately that doesn’t translate quickly into political action, but I think we’re at least heading in the right direction.

  180. JKB says:

    @michael reynolds: And you’ll have a hard time finding a job because gun ownership will be the new “drug use” and be used to screen for mentally unstable employees.

    See, now you’ve made the argument against gun registration.

    And if gun ownership is an indication of mental instability, what does that say about the government, the military, the police?

    And you miss the alternatives. If denied employment then the gun owner might simply start their own business. Such a surge of small business owners would be resurgence of the independent, self-sufficiency that made America great, not to mention a return of belief in individual liberties and the need for small, less obtrusive government.

  181. JKB says:

    @JKB: See, now you’ve made the argument against gun registration.

    I guess employers could start requiring random gunshot residue tests, but then that might impact minorities more in the same manner the Obama administration is moving to stop employers from doing criminal background checks.

  182. wr says:

    @Jack: ” My neighbors know I am always armed now. ”

    And I’m sure they’re all laughing at you behind your back. Thoughtful of you to give them such a bonding opportunity.

  183. Matt says:

    @David M: That’s part of the problem with our current culture. Solutions require quick political action with immediate effects seen or they really aren’t a solution. Our lack of patience as a country is detrimental to our long term goals.

  184. Tillman says:

    @Jack: Oh right, who voted down the modest efforts to reform gun legislation after second graders were massacred at an elementary school? Fifteen Democrats and all but one Republican. Both Sides Do It!™

    I dislike Democrats as much as the next dude, but that retort of yours is thin.

  185. wr says:

    @Jack: “Most of the laws being discussed here apply to private individuals in the privacy of their own home and have nothing to do with public.”

    Sorry, but aren’t you the assclown who brags about how he’s too terrified of the world to go to Chipotle without packing? Do you own the store and all the streets leading to it?

  186. Matt says:

    @Tillman: That “modest” effort was nothing but show. The law would not of prevented the massacre or future similar minded massacres. It would of merely infringed on the rights of legal gun owners. It was the epitome of “feel good” legislation that doesn’t actually accomplish anything but hurt those that are trying to be legal law abiding citizens. The “one feature test” would of resulted in the vast majority of hunting rifles and shotguns to be re-classified as assault weapons. The majority of the named firearms that were to be banned were hunting rifles. Dianne Feinstein intentionally poisoned the bill because of her desire to ban all guns. She just couldn’t help herself..

    While I would be in theory fine with the amendment that added background checks for private sales. The actual bill did not allow for easy access to private citizens to conduct the background check. The bill as written would of essentially banned private sales.

  187. JohnMcC says:

    I bet Jack has had more fun with you guys than he’s had in years.

  188. wr says:

    @JKB: “And if gun ownership is an indication of mental instability, what does that say about the government, the military, the police?’

    If you show up for work as an entertainer at Medieval Times wearing armor and wielding a sword, there’s no reason to question your mental stability. If you show up for work as an accountant decked out the same way, there is.

    If you honestly can’t tell the difference between the two, someone should track down your elementary school diploma and revoke it.

  189. wr says:

    @JohnMcC: “I bet Jack has had more fun with you guys than he’s had in years.”

    Which says a lot more about the quality of Jack’s life than anything else.

  190. Jack says:

    @Tillman:

    Oh right, who voted down the modest efforts to reform gun legislation after second graders were massacred at an elementary school?

    Those same modest efforts would not have made a difference is SC. So, they would suggest more modest efforts, and more modest efforts after the next one.

    There are no laws that will stop this.

  191. David M says:

    @Matt:

    The actual bill did not allow for easy access to private citizens to conduct the background check. The bill as written would of essentially banned private sales.

    Seems highly unlikely and hurts the credibility of your other claims.

  192. David M says:

    @Jack:

    Those same modest efforts would not have made a difference is SC. So, they would suggest more modest efforts, and more modest efforts after the next one.

    You say that like it’s a bad thing. That’s how the world works. Seat belts, air bags, crumple zones, anti lock brakes, etc. Why should firearms be any different?

  193. Jack says:

    @C. Clavin:

    You used numbers which the article goes on to say are “improbably high”.

    I quoted from the article. You don’t have to like the numbers.

    I guess only the 257 or whatever number the VPC uses are the only numbers acceptable to you.

    Simply google Defensive gun use statistics. For every article you site with low numbers I can site another with high numbers.

    Your membership in Everytown and Moms Demanding Some Action is showing.

  194. Matt says:

    @Matt: Under that bill this would be considered an assault weapon..

    http://picturearchive.gunauction.com/3731070517/7890233/71ee5f95c53eaeb92bf40f769b513968.jpg

    Detachable magazine and a barrel shroud are two features that make it an assault weapon under that bill. It is unclear if the stock would be considered a feature too.

  195. Matt says:

    @David M: The bill merely demanded background checks without allocating any funding to expand the NICS system at all. That would ensure that even if you were able to get access to the NICS your attempt at getting a background check would be greatly delayed. That means that either the three day limit kicks in and most private and commercial purchases are automatically passed due to time constraints or you’re forced to wait months.

    You do realize how the national background check system works as is right?

  196. Jack says:

    @wr:

    Sorry, but aren’t you the assclown who brags about how he’s too terrified of the world to go to Chipotle without packing? Do you own the store and all the streets leading to it?

    Again, most of the laws proposed here are not about carrying, they are about ownership–thus private.

    I never said I was “terrified”, you did. I simply said I carry wherever I go about my daily business.

    I don’t eat Chipotle.

    The laws in VA say it’s legal to carry in public–open or concealed. So I do.

  197. Jack says:

    @C. Clavin: Don’t like that one.

    Try this.

    Researchers compiled data from previous studies in order to guide future research on gun violence, noting that “almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year.”

    The CDC.

    http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cdc-study-use-firearms-self-defense-important-crime-deterrent

  198. David M says:

    @Matt:

    The bill as written would of essentially banned private [firearm] sales.

    That claim is instantly unbelievable without a link. It’s Hillary and the UN are going door-to-door confiscating your guns territory.

  199. Jack says:

    @David M: If the laws aren’t doing what the people wanting to pass them claim to do, then they should be repealed.

    Kind of like the “affordable” health care act.

  200. Matt says:

    @David M: I already elaborated that it required all private sales to undergo a background check without allocating any money to expand the NICS to handle the extra load or to provide methods of communication for citizens who don’t have a federal firearms license (dealers are required to have a FFL as those that engage in sales across state lines). So depending on how the final bill was written either the current standard 3 day max wait kicks in and the majority of gun sales no longer have a background check completed due to backlogs or people are forced to wait months for a private sale. I guarantee you if people have to wait months for a private sale they’ll most likely forgo the attempt at a background check.

    The congestion would effect dealers and those selling/buying guns across state lines heavily.

    In all likelihood the author was intending for the 3 day limit to kick in so that the majority of gun sales would then go on without a background check. That would provide a “wonderful” opportunity to go back and demand draconian laws to fix this “loophole” of a 3 day max wait.

    Of course that’s assuming the final bill wasn’t written so that the 3 day max wait was changed/removed.

    The issue with discussing bills that didn’t pass is that we will never know what the final wording would result in.

  201. David M says:

    @Matt:

    Complaining about the funding is a ridiculous joke, and in no way lends credibility to your claim it would essentially ban private firearms sales.

  202. Matt says:

    @David M: Complaining about an obvious trap and a political trick is a “joke”. It just shows how unserious the Democrats who were involved are.

    Any serious attempt at expanding background checks to private sales would include additional funding for the NICS for expansions required to cover the increased demand.

    Otherwise it’s meaningless and is merely political kabuki.

  203. C. Clavin says:

    @Jack:
    Please provide a link to this CDC study.

  204. Jack says:

    In New Jersey, a man was denied a gun permit (to own, not carry) because his wife is a convicted felon, accused of domestic violence. Well, I guess he shouldn’t be allowed to vote either.

    Would they have denied the woman if their roles were reversed? Stupid gun laws.

    http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/crime/article/Court-Man-properly-denied-gun-permits-due-to-6339589.php

  205. Tillman says:

    @Matt: Y’know, I don’t consider being legally mandated to pay liability insurance on my car as “infringing on my right to own a car.” Then again, I suppose I don’t have a right to own a car in my country’s constitution…

  206. Jack says:
  207. Jack says:

    @Tillman:

    Then again, I suppose I don’t have a right to own a car in my country’s constitution…

    You are correct.

  208. Jack says:

    Article

    5 Problems with the New Study ‘Proving’ that More Background Checks Lowered Connecticut’s Gun Murder Rate by 40 Percent’.

    http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/24/5-questions-about-the-new-study-purporti

  209. C. Clavin says:

    @Jack:
    I’m waiting for a link to the CDC study you lied about.
    Until you can produce why don’t you just STFU.

  210. Jack says:

    @C. Clavin: I did link to it. It’s part of the Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence book above. You can even download it for free.

    I get it, you don’t like the quotes and the related articles, therefore…it must not exist.

    You fwcking asshole. Go back to fwcking your dog.

  211. C. Clavin says:

    @Jack:
    You are such a fool…it’s not by the CDC…and it’s an agenda for research into the gun problem…research that may be complete in 3-5 years from the date of the proposal which was 2013. Why not do everyone a favor and just shut the fwck up until it actually comes out.

    The CDC and the CDC Foundation2 requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM), in collaboration with the National Research Council (NRC), convene a committee of experts to develop a potential research agenda focusing on the public health aspects of firearm-related violence—its causes, approaches to interventions that could prevent it, and strategies to minimize its health burden. In accordance with the CDC’s charge, the committee did not focus on public health surveillance and potentially related behavioral/mental health issues, as these will be addressed separately. The research program envisioned by the committee, which is designed to produce impacts in 3-5 years, focuses on:
    • the characteristics of firearm violence,
    • risk and protective factors,
    • interventions and strategies,
    • gun safety technology, and
    • the influence of video games and other media.

  212. Jack says:

    @C. Clavin: A study commissioned by the CDC.

    “Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies,” the CDC study, entitled “Priorities For Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence,” states.

  213. Tony W says:

    With 210+ comments I’m sensing some passion around this subject.

    I can’t imagine how many responses we’d get to a posting on OTB about a gun that fired a confederate flag.

  214. C. Clavin says:

    @Jack:
    You really are stupid.
    I give up.
    Come back in 3-5 years when the actual research directed by the CDC is complete.

  215. Jack says:

    @C. Clavin:

    the CDC study, entitled “Priorities For Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence,” states.

    Are you unable to read or unable to comprehend anything that goes against your viewpoint?

  216. al-Ameda says:

    @Jack:

    Only if you use that vehicle on public roads. There are few vehicle regulation applied to vehicles that remain on private property.

    Yes, and most people tend to do their driving on public roads, hence most people have vehicle licenses and insurance.

  217. Jack says:

    @al-Ameda:

    Yes, and most people tend to do their driving on public roads, hence most people have vehicle licenses and insurance.

    But you (or others) are making license and insurance comparisons (cars) about people who are not in public, but on their own property (guns). So, I stated that license and insurance on cars is only needed if you drive in public property and not private property to have an apples to apples comparison.

  218. Matt says:

    @Tillman: That had absolutely nothing to do with what I was discussing and you know that.

  219. Matt says:

    @David M: Maybe I didn’t explain it clearly enough. You cannot access the NICS without a FFL number. So requiring private citizens to use the NICS without providing funds for expansion of service means it would be impossible to get a background check without a FFL.

    That would essentially ban private sales.

  220. C. Clavin says:

    @Jack:
    I don’t know where that quote comes from….but it is mis-interpreting (most likely deliberately in order to make it’s pre-conceived point) what is nothing but a survey of studies in order to establish a research agenda.
    http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=18319&page=2

    The committee identified potential research topics by conducting a survey of previous relevant research, considering input received during the workshop, and using its expert judgment.

    It wasn’t done by the CDC. The research isn’t done. It won’t be done for 3-5 years from 2013…when this was compiled.
    Enough.

  221. stonetools says:

    @David M:

    Indeed. Note that the same people currently telling us that gun safety legislation doesn’t work are some of the same people who 20 years ago were insisting that seat belt laws, airbags, and car safety legislation “wouldn’t work” and would just make it harder for “lawful, responsible car owners”.
    Thirty years before THAT, the predecessors of the three Js were yammering about the “individual liberties” of the smoker, were denying the science about smoking , were talking about “responsible smoking”, and were insisting that tobacco regulation wouldn’t work. The times and causes change, but the rhetoric and the people remain the same.

  222. stonetools says:

    @C. Clavin:

    I read some of the book, and C. Clavin is correct. You can read the actual book online, rather than the snippets from a right wing newspaper that Jack quoted. Always go to the original source.

  223. JKB says:

    @wr: If you show up for work as an accountant decked out the same way, there is.

    But if you show up for work at a satirical magazine, a post office, a school, a bank, a church, a mall, ad infinitum wearing a handgun that is just basing your decision on past incidents.

    In any case, why is everyone all hot for gun control. What failed in Charleston was the murder control laws. And everywhere is suppose to be a murder-free zone, yet …

  224. stonetools says:

    @Matt:

    So the real problem was technical defects in the proposed legislation , not the hysterical opposition from Republican legislators and their knuckle dragging constituents who were claiming that the proposal was just a veiled attempt by the Kenyan Muslim ni-uh, black person in the White House to “grab our guns” so that “his people” could rob our houses and do you know what with “our” women. Got it.
    Maybe instead of rehashing that, you could answer James’ question. We already know the position of the Three Js- that nothing can be done, the tree of liberty must sometimes be watered with the blood of innocent black churchgoers.
    I hope you can do better than that. We’ll see.

  225. James Pearce says:

    @Tony W:

    I can’t imagine how many responses we’d get to a posting on OTB about a gun that fired a confederate flag.

    Ha. I wouldn’t even touch that one….

    (So maybe it would only get…150 responses?)

  226. JKB says:

    @C. Clavin: The FACT is that guns are rarely…to the point of being statistically insignificant…used for defense.

    And yet, when laws are changed so that law abiding citizens can keep and bear firearms, personal violent crime declines. So, in reality, the possibility of a law abiding victim possessing a gun is often all it takes for firearm self defense. But if gun possession is illegal then the criminal only has to worry about people like himself, i.e., non-law abiding citizens of the US or other countries.

  227. stonetools says:

    @JKB:

    Data.

    States with more gun laws have fewer gun-related deaths, according to a new study released Wednesday by Boston Children’s Hospital.

    The leader investigator behind the research hopes the findings will drive legislators to pass gun reform across the country and increase federal funding to research on gun laws and violence. However, at least one critic argues that the study fails to take into account several important factors such as the types of laws, enforcement of laws, and gun ownership rates in states.

    “Our research gives clear evidence that laws have a role in preventing firearms deaths,” said Eric Fleegler, the study’s lead investigator and a pediatric emergency doctor at Boston Children’s Hospital. “Legislators should take that into consideration.”

    Fleegler and researchers from Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health studied information from all 50 states between 2007 to 2010, analyzing all firearm-related deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and data on firearm laws compiled by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

    States with the most laws had a mortality rate 42% lower than those states with the fewest laws, they found. The strong law states’ firearm-related homicide rate was also 40% lower and their firearm-related suicide rate was 37% lower.

    I’m citing that for the lurkers. I’m certain neither you or the other Js care about data.

  228. Matt says:

    @stonetools: oh come on that’s so far out there it’s not even a strawman such as a herd of straw. Could you at least pretend to try to have a conversation with a real person here?

    Just to be clear none of what you said applies to me or probably anyone else here.

    @stonetools: My problems with the law was that it was horribly written. Would of banned almost all hunting rifles and shotguns while also effectively banning private sales. Since it was Dianne Feinstein who wrote the bill it’s obvious that those were actually features and not unintentional mistakes. This is the lady who has expressed a desire for banning all guns. Well except the guns she or her body guards are carrying.

    None of this really matters in the long haul. We’re already in a world where you can 3d print a fully functional guns. Where companies are already offering 3d printed gun parts. What are you going to do in that future?

    What are you going to do when the drug cartels which make roughly $64 billion a year decide to start printing their own heavy hardware? Keep in mind these cartels are building undetectable submarines and other sophisticated devices. One of the key positive things about the ol browning machine gun was how easy it was to put together and operate.Hell the ak47 is mostly sheet metal and plywood. Once you can 3d print the bolt/bolt carrier and barrel then it’s easy to mass produce them in your jungle hideaway.

  229. Matt says:

    @stonetools: From that exact same study.

    “Policy makers can really draw no conclusion from this study,” Wintemute said, explaining that the study doesn’t provide critical answers to which laws work and why.

    This study compared Alaska to Massachusetts. As if there aren’t differences involved other then gun laws.

  230. David M says:

    @Matt:

    First, the funding is a minor detail that could easily be addressed, not a valid reason to oppose the bill. Secondly, the bill exempted some or most private sales from the requirement, so the lack of funds may not have even mattered.

  231. Matt says:

    @David M: Which bill are you talking about? The amendment I saw did no such thing.

    What is the point then anyway if most private sales are exempt?

  232. gVOR08 says:

    @Tony W: We’d get more if we make it an atheist gun that evolved to fire Confederate flags.

  233. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @Tillman: That’s a great idea. Why not lobby your representatives to do so?

    Because I don’t see it as a priority. As noted, gun show sales represent a remarkably small number of gun used in the high-profile crimes. I see it as a form of tax cheating, not a threat to public safety.

    You, on the other hand, see it differently, so I offered a suggestion in the spirit of collegiality. I also think that there wouldn’t be a lot of resistance to ramping up enforcement of those existing laws. Taking it further, I think a proposed law to tighten up the definition of a dealer.

    Again, in the spirit of collegiality, I’ll offer a suggestion for a new rule: borrowing from tax laws, gun owners would be limited to reselling more than, say, two guns a month unless they have owned the gun for over a year. One hallmark of a dealer is turnover; they aren’t interested in keeping guns very long. Telling them that they can’t flip a gun without holding it for a year unless they register as a dealer would put a big dent in the cheaters. And the one year term would exclude collectors who chose to liquidate their collection (in part or in full), as they’d be more likely to have held the guns for over a year.

    The numbers I offered (two guns/month and holding for a year) are just pulled out of the air. I’m not marired to those specifics; I’m putting forward the concept.

    I think that could work, especially if put forward as a “going after the cheats” and “protecting the legit dealers” angle, and not as a “get the guns” measure.

    But again, I don’t feel overly emphatic about the “gun show loophole.” It’s simply not a problem. But if you feel the overwhelming compunction to DO SOMETHING NOW, my suggestion might actually have a chance of passing.

  234. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @JKB: I love you and wish to bear your children. Dude, that was beautifully said.

  235. David M says:

    @Matt:

    Manchin-Toomey. The exemption for private sales was well known, but even with that it was an improvement over doing nothing.

  236. C. Clavin says:

    @JKB:
    Did you just copy and paste that from the NRA Gun Lobbyist? What a joke.

    Training, well, what training? When this comes up, combat and police training seems to be the wet dream of the advocate. But a private citizen doesn’t need that to use a firearm for leisure or self defense, especially if they do not carry it in public as opposed to transport it to and from the range.

    Why would we have to train people…just because if you have a gun, everybody in your home is more likely than your non-gun-owning neighbors and their families to die in a gun-related accident, suicide or homicide….we don’t need no stinking training.
    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    I love you and wish to bear your children.

    It’s always fun to watch the mentally disadvantaged bond over their shared fetishes and fantasies.

  237. stonetools says:

    @David M:

    Well, since Matt and the Js have said they don’t want anything to be done, because their convenience trumps frequent mass killings, doing nothing is fine with them.

  238. stonetools says:

    @Matt:

    Dude. Don’t truncate the quote:

    “Policy makers can really draw no conclusion from this study,” Wintemute said, explaining that the study doesn’t provide critical answers to which laws work and why.

    The larger problem is that the United States effectively stopped doing research on gun laws and violence 15 years ago and now has no evidence that shows causes and effect, he said.

    Wintemute added, however, that he believes gun policies are important and can drive rates of violence down. In the future, researchers must look at how several factors including culture, gun ownership, and gun trafficking between states, he said.

    Guess which side made sure the federal government stopped doing studies on gun violence?Somebody is afraid of the conclusions to be drawn from the scientific study of gun violence.
    Thank God young earth creationists can’t make the federal government stop funding biological studies, eh?

  239. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @stonetools: Don’t put words in my mouth, stone. I never invoked my “convenience.” I don’t own any guns, never have owned any guns, and don’t foresee any time I ever would want to own a gun, so “my convenience” is utterly irrelevant. And for you to push that is a transparent lie to personalize an argument of principles and policies.

    A far more honest statement would be me saying that you are so fixated on bing seen to DO SOMETHING, even when it won’t actually prevent the things you’re allegedly so OUTRAGED!!!! about and instead punish those who are doing nothing wrong, even if you have to trash the US Constitution in the process. Your ego-driven need to be seen as DOING SOMETHING!!!!! — anything at all — is overwhelming any sense of reason reason and common sense and common decency you might possess.

    Gosh, isn’t it fun to get all emotional and personal, instead of actually citing facts? I see why you do it.

  240. Hal_10000 says:

    @Jack:

    To second Jack, numerous people have debunked the Connecticut study as bad social science. Really bad social science. It’s extremely cherry-picked. They basically played the stats game — run a hundred studies and if one gives you a result, publish that while ignoring the rest. They didn’t check similar other states. They narrowed their time window to a very specific ten years. They compared it to basically one state. If you change *any* of those things, the huge reduction in gun violence disappears. This is the equivalent of AGW deniers claiming that global warming doesn’t exist because it was cold in Cleveland last week.

    Any effect that large should be suspicious. The NRC’s meta-study concluded that, at best, gun control has little effect on crime rates.

    (This being a Thursday, I now expect the Church of Gun Control to switch talking points from “all the studies show gun control works” back to “the NRA won’t let any studies be done”.)

  241. stonetools says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    I’ve cited facts, and laid out my very constitutional program. You’ve flung poo.
    Don’t who you are thinking you are fooling with that diatribe.
    Meanwhile, looks like James has abandoned the tread, so there’s that.

  242. stonetools says:

    @Hal_10000:

    Already done.

    You’re quoting a site that starts this way:

    More Gun Grabber Baloney

    Posted on 24 June, 2015 by Hal_10000 in 2nd Amendment

    The anti-Second-Amendment crowd has been positively giddy over a new study that claims Connecticut’s gun registration law cut gun violence an amazing 40%.

    I find this claim extremely suspect.

    You can read some good critiques from Reason, Hot Air and especially John Lott. Lott is an object of hate from many gun grabbers because of his “more guns, less crime” theory. Some of the criticism is deserved: he can’t reproduce his original results because, he claims, his hard drive crashed. But what Lott is good at is poking holes in the claims of marginal studies of single states that make grand conclusions

    If you are citing something who quotes approvingly someone as discredited as John Lott, you are really reaching.
    Church of Gun Control, eh? Just remember which side is barring federal funding of the scientific study of gun violence. Says it all, really.

  243. Matt says:

    @stonetools: The rest was irrelevant to the point at hand. What I left out was statements of belief not fact. I do agree with his assessment on what future studies should include.

  244. wr says:

    @JKB: So we’re back to the “laws don’t work 100%, so we shouldn’t have any of them” — which oddly enough never applies to anything other than guns.

  245. Hal_10000 says:

    If you are citing something who quotes approvingly someone as discredited as John Lott, you are really reaching.

    Notice I addressed the complaint against his research. And note that YOU did not address the substance of at least FOUR articles by four different people pointing out the series flaws in the research on the effects of CT’s gun laws. Much easier to address the person than the substance, I guess.

    The substance is this: we have 50 states in this country, most of which have passed or repealed some form of gun law in the last twenty years. Webster’s research method is to pore through those law until he finds something that vaguely correlates to a rise or decline in gun violence. And if he can’t find it, he makes comparisons between states (now giving him hundreds of tries) until he gets it.

    This isn’t research. This is advocacy. And poor advocacy at that. And if you read further into my links you will find time after time after time where the anti-gun crowd has done this — citing marginal studies of a few hundred people over studies of tens of thousands, citing studies of one states instead of studies of all 50, taking facts out of context and data out of the air to support their conclusion that gun conclusion MUST work, dammit.

  246. Tillman says:

    @Matt: You mean, aside from your specific wording that those ineffective gun control laws shot down in the wake of Sandy Hook would’ve “infringed on the rights of legal gun owners”?

  247. Tony W says:

    @gVOR08:

    We’d get more if we make it an atheist gun that evolved to fire Confederate flags.

    Yes, true! Especially if it fired from both sides.

  248. Matt says:

    @Tillman: So you have no issues with a bill that would of classified bolt action hunting rifles as assault weapons? That would of classified the shotgun obama used for skeet shooting as an assault weapon? The end result of the bill is that the vast majority of hunting rifles and shotguns would be banned as one “feature” would be enough to be declared an assault weapon.

    Then there is nothing for you or I to discuss. You wish to ban all guns and I wish to have a rational set of laws. Our goals are not compatible.

  249. Matt says:

    You know you guys put a lot of effort into something that is used in only 0.383% of yearly deaths. The “assault weapons” themselves are involved in 0.000015% of deaths.

    You know if you put half the effort into stuff that would actually effect the yearly death rate you’d see some truly amazing improvements in lifespans here in the USA.

  250. Tony W says:

    @Matt: That statistic is about as cherry picked as they come.

    By the way, America is a much smarter and better country than conservatives think we are. We have lots of people with really great skills. We can focus on many, many things that cause untimely deaths – all at the same time. That’s the biggest difference between Conservatives and Liberals. You see liberals believe in American awesomeness – we think this country can accomplish big things.

    Conservatives think we peaked in 1953.

  251. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @Tony W: By the way, America is a much smarter and better country than conservatives think we are.

    Then why the hell don’t you trust them to make important decisions on their own? Why do you support so many laws that deprive people of their rights to make choices?