That is not what you said. You implied the US would be the safest place in the world if not for gang bangers shooting people over nonsense. What is your solution that allows donut operator to own a hundred guns while not letting guns get in the hands of those who are irresponsible?
I think what would help your cause, and those who unilaterally support no gun restrictions, is to acknowledge there is a gun problem in this country that goes beyond the 2nd amendment. Gun proliferation is expanding, not contracting, and that is a very big problem. That said, I am sympathetic to the 2nd amendment, especially against people who don't know the first thing about gun culture and fire arms in general. There are too many anti-gun people who have never touch a gun who think they completely understand the subject. These same people pick up an ar-15 and shoot it for the first time, discovering why gun enthusiast love the weapon for target practice but yet still act like the gun possesses people into going on random killing sprees. These same people also refuse to acknowledge we have a mental health crisis that has nothing to do with guns. We also have an entertainment culture that embraces gun violence. Its not just 'one' thing. And banning a scary looking gun while leaving a less scary gun legal that has the same functionality does nothing. There are too many ignorant anti-gun people running the narrative. One the other hand, people like yourself refuse to acknowledge the problem and refuse to 'police your own', thus creating a deep divide on the subject. At least the ignorant anti-gun people have an excuse ... they simply do not know any better. The fact remains - The 2nd amendment does not absolve a persons accountability and responsibility of firearm ownership. To put it in simple terms, there are too many stupid 'responsible' gun owners. There is no reason why a person shouldn't be able to demonstrate the ability to use and store firearms. While I don't believe an individual should have to register every firearm, I do feel the individual should show some proof of competency of the use of the weapon and the laws and responsibilities. I also believe the state has a right to regulate firearms in public spaces. The idea of the government coming to confiscate your guns is largely overblown. As an individual, they can take your gun regardless. Collectively, that wont happen.
There are plenty of loop holds and no, you can not figure out the owner of a gun by looking up its serial number today. There are no consequences for illegal gun sales, so it's illegal per se, but in actuality it is not. No, I don't want all individuals to have a gun. Your expectation is irrelevant. It's hard to be able to drive a car then get a gun. Any idiot can get a gun license - not everyone can pass a drivers test. They don't already do this. We know there are tons of loop holes. We know that when guns are found at a crime scene they can't trace it back to the last owner. How can you make these claims with a straight face? Rights are never iron clad and most often conditional. In this case, you have a right to bear arms, but you have to show you are responsible to do so. That doesn't infringe upon your right. "Law abiding people" should have no problem with this. Only someone who benefits from the sale and illegal transfer of guns would oppose greater gun control measures designed to keep guns out of the mentally unstable.
My solution doesn't involve limiting access to guns, it involves limiting the bad people's access to the public. It is because we don't condition Constitutional rights on proof of competency to exercise those rights. We don't test people's civics knowledge before letting them vote. We don't make them take an IQ test or submit a writing sample before we allow them to speak. We don't make sure someone isn't hiding contraband before keeping them free from unreasonable warrantless searches. We don't make sure they don't know the law before providing them access to counsel. We don't test their knowledge of religions before allowing them free exercise thereof. You don't only have the right to bear arms if you can prove you have a gun safe or that you know every firearm law or that you can qualify on the pistol and rifle ranges, you have the right because you are a human. The state does have the right and ability to have reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on firearms in public places. You can't take your gun into court or the airport or the jail. What the state cannot do is say you cannot have your rights until I am satisfied that you will use them safely and wisely. As to absolution of accountablity and responsibility, I agree. That's why we have laws against misuse of firearms, just like we have laws against misuse of speech or voting or movement. You can't legally shoot your gun most places except under very specific circumstances. You can't threaten people with it or shoot people (again, except under specific circumstances). You can't give or sell it to someone you know is a felon or drug addict. You can't even posses it if you are a felon or a drug addict. That's how we enforce accountability and responsibility in use of the 2nd Amendment. It would be great if everyone were constantly responsible in their lives, but we don't and shouldn't condition people's rights on some arbitrary demonstration of that responsibility. Is a precursor to something the same thing as the thing itself? There are loopholes to car registration and certainly car possession, and you cannot figure out who had a car when a crime was committed by looking up a VIN or license plate. Yes, that is what I said. The laws people want already exist, but they are impossible to enforce. I don't either. Felons and drug addicts, for example, cannot lawfully own guns. That is already the law. The law requires that they do it, but you cannot enforce the law. That is the point. Which other right requires that you get a psychiatrist and two other people to sign off before you can exercise it. I have asked multiple times now, but for some reason no one will answer.
If you are saying you can't have a registry because the will result in a gun ban, and then turn around and say you are not arguing a registry is a gun ban, you're being disingenuous in your debate. It certainly appears you are trying to dance around contradictions so that you can feel like you are in the right. You can figure out the owner of a car from the crime that was committed. And if that car was not reported stolen, then you know the owner is hiding something. And even if it was you now have linked the criminal to a place and time where the car was stolen. All of this helps solve the crime. The same is true for guns. They are possible to enforce. It's just that we have contrived to make them not enforcable - the NRA has played a big hand in making gun control weak and existing laws not to be enforced. Many of the shootings are not done by felons. The only way to stop would be criminals from getting a gun legally is to make them go through a process to more sophisticated than a background check. You have to go after both illegal gun sales and unstable people. In terms of your question - I don't see why it matters. There's no other right that we have that's a grave danger to others.
You are for reasonable gun reform. I'm just going to point out that you have your own level of ignorance (we all do to some extent) when you say that all politicians talk about is banning guns. The fact remains that actual gun reform legislation is very modest and very popular. It's the perception that it's not moderate (all they want is to ban gun), as spread by people like you, that helps to create fear around the gun debate. As you advise others on what creates a deep divide on this subject, you can also help clean it up by being more informed.
Historically, gun confiscation has been preceded by registration. The registration is not in itself confiscation. I don't support a gun registry because it can be used to facilitate confiscation and confiscation is being pushed by a significant number of politicians. So registration is not in itself a ban, and does not in itself result in a ban. When I was doing defense work, one of my clients was charged with DUI and hit and run. The victim/witness of the hit and run got the license plate of the vehicle, and said the driver was a black male. My client (a black male) was the registered owner of the vehicle. The police went to his house and he was standing near the vehicle drinking a beer, looking at the damage to the vehicle. The police arrested him and measured his BAC as over 0.08. He denied driving the car, saying he had lent it to a friend (who he referred to as his cousin, but clarified they were not actually related). The case was dismissed because they were unable to prove that he was driving the car. That is what happened when they found the registered owner in possession of the registered vehicle. That's what a registry is able to get you in terms of solving a crime, and that's with the victim of the crime testifying about the registered number of the vehicle (which is not going to be possible in a gun case, because the victim will never be able to tell you the serial number of the gun). I think a gun registry is going to be far less helpful in crimefighting than you believe (and I say that being in law enforcement on gun cases in a state that registers firearms). California has most if not all of the very laws that you are asking for. They are not able to be enforced because the evidence available in a criminal investigation does not lead to convictions under those laws. It has nothing to do with a contrivance by the NRA. We have a gun registry. We have mandatory background checks including on private transfers (no "gun show loophole"). We have mandatory prohibition when there is a restraining order. We have mental health and domestic violence restraining orders without convictions. We have assault weapon bans. None of these things keep the guns out of the hands of criminals. None of them help solve gun crimes. Most of the shootings are done by felons. Voting rights are far more dangerous than gun rights. Hitler was elected and guns were banned in Nazi Germany.
Gun registry is not a prelude to gun ban. The 2nd amendment protects that. This is a false worry - what are you talking about historically? America has never banned guns. Your defense is just a few cases. Someone bought our car once decades ago without a title transfer - the car was used in a crime, but they were able to catch the guy because my dad was able to give a description and that left a trail. It won't work in every case no, but it helps in some cases, you can't just say because it didn't work in a case you did that it's useless. That makes no sense. California does not have a national gun registry nor mental health requirements. That's what it is I am asking for. And California has alot less gun homicide gun death rate than gun states anyway, so another questionable example you are bringing up here. Finally, the idea that voting rights is more dangerous than gun rights is ludicrous. You don't actually believe that.
America has also never had a nationwide gun registry. Germany did. It didn't work out too well. Your father describing someone also is one case. California is not a nation, that's true. Why is a national gun registry the triggering point, instead of a state gun registry or a global gun registry. You have cited vehicle registration multiple times as a parallel, and that is done at the state level. I don't know why you would look at the homicide gun death rate as opposed to the actual effect of the laws, as though there are no other variables that might affect homicide gun death rates between states. New Hampshire has no gun registration and no license open and concealed carry and has among the lowest homicide rates. I guess that proves their laws are better than California. Far more dangerous. Nation-states have killed hundreds of millions of people. I don't think individual gun owners will ever come close to that.
Someone who believes that 2 cells constitute a baby and that women should be punished for 'killing' it is not only ludicrous but also morally reprehensible. The stupid argument he makes about voting being more dangerous is as baseless as saying simply being alive is more dangerous. This level of argument has been used to justify genocide.
A) American has the 2nd amendment - you yourself have said that is not going to get overturned. So how is a national gun registry an issue? Because of Hitler? Are you seriously saying that the national gun registry is the cause of Hitler> B) I am pointing out that registries can be useful in fighting crime. That's an easier standard to show than saying they can't be helpful C) NH given its demographics doesn't do as well as you think from a gun homicide rate. California is doing a lot better D) Are you kidding? It's not democracies that have done most of the killing, it's autocratic rulers. It's the lack of voting and the circumvention of democracy that leads to death. It's not the vote that's dangerous - it's power in the hands of the few. How you can twist this to putting the blame on the voter is incredible. So you are saying it's better to have Kim Il Jong as the ruler of the country than have democracy?????
Other posters have already pretty much responded with the points I was going to raise but wanted to respond to this. We do have age restrictions for voting and rights can be removed based on declaration of incompetence. So yes we do actually condition rights.
No, voting was the cause of Hitler's rise to power. Hitler used a national gun registry to confiscate privately held firearms, then killed millions of the disarmed populace. I don't think we will overturn the 2nd Amendment, but that will not stop the continued push for banning all sorts of firearms (the AR-15 for example) and for confiscation of same. I wouldn't trust the government with a list of every gun and who owns it, and the potential for misuse far outweighs any benefit. I was pointing out that registries are less helpful in fighting crime than you think, because all they tell you is who the owner of something was at the time it was registered, not who possessed or used something at the time a crime was committed with that thing. In 10+ years of practicing criminal law in California, I have yet to see a single prosecution that used the gun registry for any purpose except charging people with having a concealed, unregistered gun. Not one case where the defendant being the registered owner was used in a murder, robbery, rape, etc. prosecution. That doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't happen, but I have been personally involved in hundreds of cases and have some knowledge of thousands. If a gun registry were useful in these cases, it seems like it would have popped up at some point. List of U.S. states and territories by intentional homicide rate - Wikipedia California's murder rate is more than 5 times New Hampshire's. Nope, I am not saying democracy is bad or that it is better to have Kim Jong Il as the ruler of the country. I am saying that voting has more potential for harm than firearm ownership because while you can vote for Gandhi, you can also vote for Hitler. I never said we didn't. We condition firearm rights on not being a felon or a drug addict or subject of a restraining order. We don't condition any rights on getting a pre-exercise clearance by a psychiatrist and two other people, which was the suggestion made.
True voting does have the potential to do more harm than firearms but that is why we also have age conditions and other conditions on voting and many of those same politicians removing restrictions on firearms are trying to put more restrictions on voting. It’s also why we have the checks and balances system and things like the electoral college. Also this frequent trope trotted out that firearm regulation leads to Nazi Germany ignores that first small arms didn’t make much of a difference for the Warsaw ghetto. Also if that argument actually was that potent then Australia and NZ would be going fascist since they out in very strict firearm regulation. I guess I missed the Brownshirts parading in Wellington when I was there. Again though your argument shows that you’re putting the right to bear arms above other rights. You said we don’t condition rights on “arbitrary” basis. Arbitrary is subjective and certainly age could be considered arbitrary. What you decide is arbitrary someone else might not. The objective fact is that we do condition rights. Again though no less defender of rights than Antonio Scalia made it clear that firearms could be regulated, ie the right can be conditioned.
Minnesota looks to pass new gun control measures including red flag laws. https://apnews.com/article/gun-cont...senate-house-5982edf49e4f20071b08d81b1c8b6208 Democrats in Minnesota Senate hold firm to pass contentious gun control measures More at link
WTF, so now we have people trying to make themselves out to be hero`s over these situations! I watched that guys interview like 3 different times and I just assumed he was telling the truth..............SMH
So you are saying Hitler would have been stopped if he didn't know which Germen's had guns? Most Germans supported him and no one was going to rebel against him with their pistols. So the scenario you are worried about is if America elects a tyrant who will then ban guns using the registry? Here's a different scenario - if in America a tyrant ever asked for people to give up their guns - that alone would be the impetitus for a rebellion and you'd have civil war just on that alone. So I will argue that the registry will work to save America because it will help the rebels organize. Such a high percentage of Americans have guns that a registry isn't useful to confiscate them - and the very effort to do so will result in the overthrow of any tyrant. So there, you happy? In your chart, you are only looking at "intentional homicides" - this doesn't include all types of homicides. Also, you are comparing a rural area to urban areas - it's a terrible comparison to say homicides are the same in a city vs the country. But when you look at gun violence - you can see NH's gun culture leads to as many gun fatalities as Cali: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm You are neglecting the fact that that having a gun registry will make it more difficult for criminals to obtain their guns legally or semi-legally - as owners will be taking a larger risk selling guns to criminals.
