Americans - Would you change gun laws?

[Melchiah]

That's just it Maxx. There wasn't one... just that guns were all of a sudden illegal to buy, which is what I keep hearing from the gun control proponents. They don't have a reasonable method to get weapons out of circulation... I even doubt there is a good method, honestly. It just won't work, especially here in America.

In fact, the article I referenced indicates an increase of availability of firearms to minors in Britain after the ban was enacted. Scary.

[Duvelamilla]

Considering Guns don't kill people, People kill people, I think the right to bear arms shoudl stay as it is.

8/10 time someone is shot and killed it is not by a gun they obtained legally. So banning guns woudl only punish those that follow the rules and obtain guns legally and usually not for illegal purposes.

[Beckwin]

Bravo for avoiding my direct question, but I'll humor your responses.

One way to get guns out of circulation/simply control them better is treat them in a similar fashion to automobiles- VIN numbers, require title and registration, etc. This would directly impact the secondhand firearm market. No papers for a gun = bye bye gun. With monitoring efforts, this cracks down on pawn shops and gun shows. Similarly, any gun found by authorities in any situation would be subject to the same check.

Also a point I've made before (and that Maxx is saying here as well) is that somehow Europe has managed to do it reasonably well. And you don't get to completely write it off, because Europe has a much longer history with guns than America does, not to mention being the site of many more armed conflicts.

Can you eliminate all handguns from civilian circulation? No. Can you eventually get to a much lower level of circulation? I believe so.

[Beckwin]

Considering Guns don't kill people, People kill people, I think the right to bear arms shoudl stay as it is.

8/10 time someone is shot and killed it is not by a gun they obtained legally. So banning guns woudl only punish those that follow the rules and obtain guns legally and usually not for illegal purposes.

even though your numbers are unsupported (they may be close, who knows), are you saying a 20% reduction in murder rate isn't worth it?

[Deejay]

Considering Guns don't kill people, People kill people, I think the right to bear arms shoudl stay as it is.

8/10 time someone is shot and killed it is not by a gun they obtained legally. So banning guns woudl only punish those that follow the rules and obtain guns legally and usually not for illegal purposes.

even though your numbers are unsupported (they may be close, who knows), are you saying a 20% reduction in murder rate isn't worth it?

As opposed to not allowing citizens to protect themselves? I thought the purpose of our government is to protect the security of it's people. How are we protecting their security by not allowing them to protect themselves?

[Remyo]

Bravo for avoiding my direct question, but I'll humor your responses.

One way to get guns out of circulation/simply control them better is treat them in a similar fashion to automobiles- VIN numbers, require title and registration, etc. This would directly impact the secondhand firearm market. No papers for a gun = bye bye gun. With monitoring efforts, this cracks down on pawn shops and gun shows. Similarly, any gun found by authorities in any situation would be subject to the same check.

All guns have a serial number. criminals steal guns destroy the serial numbers and use them. Firearms confiscated from criminal activities are, for the most part, destroyed.

[Melchiah]

Bravo for avoiding my direct question, but I'll humor your responses.

One way to get guns out of circulation/simply control them better is treat them in a similar fashion to automobiles- VIN numbers, require title and registration, etc. This would directly impact the secondhand firearm market. No papers for a gun = bye bye gun. With monitoring efforts, this cracks down on pawn shops and gun shows. Similarly, any gun found by authorities in any situation would be subject to the same check.

Also a point I've made before (and that Maxx is saying here as well) is that somehow Europe has managed to do it reasonably well. And you don't get to completely write it off, because Europe has a much longer history with guns than America does, not to mention being the site of many more armed conflicts.

Can you eliminate all handguns from civilian circulation? No. Can you eventually get to a much lower level of circulation? I believe so.

I addressed the premise your "direct question" was based on, which is that you can manage to take guns out of the hands of criminals. If you had read the article I posted, or even read my summary of it, you would see that in Britain alone gun crime rose 40% in the three years after the gun ban. So no, Europe is in fact NOT controlling their guns like you think they are. Provide me some evidence to the contrary. I provided an article written by a British citizen who also wrote the Encyclopedia Brittanica article on British gun control. It had exactly the opposite effect as intended. So now I'll humor you and your avoidance of crystal clear evidence contrary to your line of thinking. We already have extensive measures in America to regulate gun sales from FFL dealers. Have you purchased a gun in the last 20 years? No? Ok, let me provide you with the information I had to supply before I could buy my Ruger last month: I had to fill out a form two pages long detailing my mental health, drug and criminal histories, provide my name, SSN, DOB, residence and a fuckton of other information to be kept on file. Furthermore, after all this, the dealer was required to phone in and do an immediate background check to verify if I had something on my record that would bar me from owning a weapon. Then after the sale was approved by the background check authority, the weapon's serial number was placed on the bill of sale, on the registration form, and on the form I had to fill out myself. How much more do you want from your FFL dealers?

The problem is that guns used in crime are either stolen, bought on the street or at a pawn shop. You want to tell me I can't have a gun because someone might steal it and commit a crime with it? If you think that reasoning is sound... nevermind.

You still have not presented a method to eliminate pawn shop and street gun sales. Until you do, mouthing off about gun control and being a wise ass to people on the other side is just as effective as sitting in your vacuum and screaming "ban guns k?"

[Demosthenes11]

read freakonomics
then report back here

Relaxing gun laws, as well as tightening gun laws has 0 correlation with violent crime. zero

[Shuemue]

I've lived in London for 33 years. I've lived far from a sheltered life, however I have never seen a gun fired in anger, nor do I know anyone who has been shot personally.

I'd say British gun law is pretty effective.

[Melchiah]

Cliff notes please. Also, London's Sunday Times statistics do indicate a correlation between the tightening of gun laws and gun crime. It's in the article I posted or you can just google "british gun legislation".

I'm not going to say that your personal experience is irrelevant, but it doesn't consider the larger picture. The statistics used in that 2001 article were generated from a much larger sample size than one person's experience. I don't know anyone who has been shot either, except for my father having a weapon discharge into his leg from the holster.

[Demosthenes11]

american data sure as hell doesn't back that up
to put it simply: if you want a gun, you can get a gun, it's really not hard at all

[Melchiah]

You are agreeing with the data from Britain Demos lol. The correlation was a 40% increase in gun crime in the three years after the ban. Also, minors surveyed indicated that guns were more available to them(read: available to minors = illegal distribution) after the ban as well. So yes, if you want a gun in Britain, you can get one.

[BIGSTIC]

I've lived in London for 33 years. I've lived far from a sheltered life, however I have never seen a gun fired in anger, nor do I know anyone who has been shot personally.

I'd say British gun law is pretty effective.

I have lived in gun heaven Montana for 29 years. Every one I know owns some form of a gun. I have never seen a gun fired in anger and the only person I know that has been shot was because they were dumb and forgot to check the safety before crossing a fence and shot them selves.

I'd say American Gun Law is pretty effective. :bagel:

[Kazen]

I live near DC and I have never seen a gun fired in anger or know anyone who has ever been shot. However, I know 3 people I went to high school with that have died, 1 from overdose and 2 from being stabbed.

[sephir]

I'm not American, instead I'm from the hippy loving country known as Canada. I don't consider myself anti-gun, as I do think hunting is a part of our heritage, however guns are different now than they were in the past.

Assault weapons should be banned outright. You do not need a fully automatic to hunt deer, or even skeet shooting. All these things do is provide the need for mass killings (we all know Columbine). These were invented for war purposes and should remain so.

Anti-armor ammunition should also be banned outright. An armor piercing bullet is not used to shoot deer. These provide dangers to police officers and army as they cannot have any protection.

Handguns, and the law of concealed weapons is also something I really don't like. We have a very thorough screening process here for handguns and it takes a very long time for anyone to obtain one. Although they do have these protections, most of our shootings that do occur are from weapons from the US that have been smuggled accross the boarder. I do believe that handguns should be banned. I don't think the public should have access to any weapon that they can easily hide. I'm sure that if the only gun the public could actively get was a 4 footlong shotgun you would see gun violence drastically drop. Another alternative would be to reduce the size of magazines, so that handguns don't carry nearly as many bullets.

[Meat]

I'm from Israel where guns are as much a fashion accessory as handbags are and I've never seen a gun fired in anger, save militarily.

I'd say our "lapse" gun laws are pretty effective

[Melchiah]

To answer Shuemue's title question, this is what I think needs to happen:

Handguns need to be banned from sale in pawn shops outright. In fact they need to be banned from sale by any other person than an FFL dealer. There needs to be a legal requirement of documentation when a handgun is sold between private individuals so that the registration passes to the new owner along with the weapon. This paperwork needs to be done in the presence of an FFL dealer who is able to perform the required background check on the spot, notarized and kept on file at the county or state level of authority. There needs to be a severe enough penalty associated with noncompliance that this paperwork gets filed. It only takes a few minutes to file paperwork, there is no excuse not to.

This only takes care of legal firearm sales, I'm afraid. For illegal firearm sales, it will get messy. There needs to be a severe penalty(read: jail time) for carrying an unregistered weapon or a weapon with the serial number removed. Some collectors will have weapons that either did not have one in the first place or it has become obscured over time due to usage or age, so as long as they aren't carrying it, I have no problem with it.

There needs be to severe penalties(read: jailtime) for the unauthorized(read: non-FFL dealer) sale of handguns, regardless of the buyer's legal standing with respect to ability to purchase. If you sell a weapon on the street without going through the paperwork outlined above, you need to go to jail.

Confiscated weapons need to be kept as evidence until such point as the trial is over and then promptly cataloged and destroyed.

Do I think an across the board ban on handguns is the answer? No, that is ludicrous and it doesn't address the disease, only a symptom.

This is the best I can come up with right now, but I'm open to discussion and new ideas.

[Beckwin]

So basically we at least agree that the current state of gun affairs should be tightened. I definitely agree for better registration/fingerprinting/sales practices/punishments for violations. Getting the idea across that if you decide to use a gun improperly you will be found and punished is a good start.

I suppose the difference for me is eventually in the end, I'd like to see handguns out of the civilian population as close to entirely as possible.

http://www.gun-control-network.org/International.gif

[Maxxthepenguin]

But how do we get them removed, Beckwin?

[Beckwin]

I wave my Magic Liberal Wand and it all goes away.