Yes, but that's just a background check. I'm talking about a license similar to a driver's license and also making sure every gun is registered to a licensed owner.
For legal purposes by the Constitution but that sort of gets to the question I asked earlier. Where do the Framers specifically mention they right to arms for personal self-defense and hunting?
Thanks Wes. I recall seeing that quote before but it still seems to me to be an statement regarding citizens engaging in collective self-defense rather than personal self-defense of the sort of someone breaking into your house. That quote also doesn't address hunting. I think that personal self-defense and hunting are rights but have always been curious that they don't seem explicitly spelled out. My own guess is that things like that were considered apriori if you had arms and wasn't needed to be spelled out.
I am all for requiring gun training. In fact, I have known people who give their children gun training who are safer with a gun than most adults I know. As for registration, I am torn. I know the benefits, but I also know that Butler used the registry to target people that may be dissenters.
Of course this ignores the fact that the only potential gun owners we are talking about are those that obey the law. Most law abiding citizens are not the danger to society. It is not like we are taking a bastion of peace and turning it into a dangerous place.
That's why I think every gun manufactured should be registered and tracked like a car. That way when a gun is used to commit a crime, the person who last held it legally (and therefore allowed it to go to the black market) can be gone after as well.
Who is Butler? I just think if every gun manufactured is registered than you're going to have to think twice before selling a gun on the black market since they can trace if back to you if the weapon is used to commit a crime.
They are. That is how the ATF tracks guns. But the information isn't available to everybody who has a cousin with a state clerical job. Which I'm glad for.
I am totally uncomfortable with casting the assumption of guilt on one who may not deserve it. Your example ignores the possibility that a family member or a guest may have taken it without the knowledge of the owner. There are more hypotheticals as well I am sure.
But it should be registered with some individual, that way when it's used in a crime they can trace it back to that individual who last lawfully owned the gun.
Who's talking about guilt. My example only brings a trail to the person who last lawfully owned it. If the owner is leaving their gun around for a guest to take, well...that's pretty dumb and dangerous if you ask me. In any case, even if a family member or a guest took the gun, at least the police would have a trail back to the eventual criminal.
That is what they do. If someone commits a crime, and if they have the serial number of the gun, they are able to trace it to its lawful owner. Of the several thousand guns I've transferred, I've only had one ATF trace, but the gun was traced to the owner. It's why I'm required to keep every piece of paperwork that I have until I die or retire at which point I send it to the ATF, where they keep it until the end of time.
if that's the case, how is there a black market for guns? if a gun is coming off the black market, the police can find a lawful owner to that gun and hunt them down. If they can't show that they sold the gun and transferred ownership, than at the very least you can go after them for allowing a gun to go onto the black market. This system should be able to prevent people from selling guns on the black market by leaving a trail of accountability.
Well, mostly because people break into gun shops, gun factories, or the homes of gun owners and steal guns. Or they make unregistered receivers if they have a very good machine shop. Guns which are more than 45 years old, also, were around before this registration, though I don't know of too many gangsters rolling around with their C96's and other ornate antiques. And people bring guns illegally into the country, and they never make it into the registration. Or a gun criminal modifies the gun so that it doesn't have a serial number, which is a crime by itself, but would render the gun impossible to trace. But all legally purchased and transferred guns are traceable, which goes back to the point that focusing your attention on the people who buy and sell guns legally is misplaced. I mean, why are there people who are able to buy and sell stolen cars, given this great automotive VIN registration system that you are putting up as the model for how guns should work? EDIT: For the people who didn't get what I was saying about Cabrini Green and warehousing poor black people earlier, check out this Norwegian prison: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1989083_2137368,00.html
I agree that self-defense was considered a right. I think that the right to have organizations with arms that might at some point in the future be able to overthrow a state government was a lot more radical than defending oneself from an attacker. Individual self-defense had been a right for British citizens (maybe just Protestants?) since at least the 1688 Bill of Rights. I don't think that hunting was ever really considered a right. We have had hunting regulation in some states for a really long time (though they didn't always apply on one's own property), because game was generally considered a common good. In the West, game management laws generally came soon after statehood.
Possession of a black market gun should be a serious crime then. Because the only reason to own a black market gun is to be able to get away with a crime. If anyone has an unregistered gun it should be prosecuted as intent to commit a violent crime. By the way, I'm surprised Republicans are so supportive of this ruling, I thought they were against the Fed interferring with the state / local gov't. I guess the Tea Party and Libertarians only want gov't out of their lives when it's positions they disagree with.
