Obama calls for assault weapons ban, background checks. - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Van-man;39266932]And guess how the government can make a huge dent on the amount of illegal guns on the black market. Considering most of them are stolen I'd say tighter regulation & rules are the answer, but also promoting alternatives that can temporarily inhibit whatever malicious person(s) there is. Obviously there should be special exceptions for people living in rural area's in the middle of nowhere.[/QUOTE] I guess I'll quote myself: [QUOTE=GoDong-DK;39220177]That's bullshit argument, and you know it. Murder and crime rates in general are social problems, but to say a lenient gun law isn't influencing it at all is just blindfolding yourself. Read through this: [url]http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/guns/procon/guns.html[/url] Straw purchases are a direct result of easy to buy firearms, and they're used in almost 30% of gun crime. if you read the article, it's also reasonable to assume that some gun dealers are also selling guns illegally on the side. At last there's the comparatively minor, but still relevant amount of guns that come from theft: 10%. All these three (quite common) ways for criminals to get guns, are spawned directly by the fact that guns are legal in the US. The problem isn't that the criminals can buy guns, it's that's criminals have friends that can. The fact that about 40-50% of the guns used in crime can be accounted for by these factors is troubling to say the least, and I think it shows that lenient gun laws most definitely have an impact on murder rates. Yes, they could use knives as well, but knives aren't nearly as effective. [/QUOTE] Stolen guns are a source for criminals, but the biggest offenders are straw purchases and gun dealers that sell on the side, pretty much. Just put some tight regulation - mandatory and extensive background checks, waiting periods, permits, registration, etc. - on guns and I personally believe the situation would turn for the better, without it being too harsh on gun owners. Sure, it sucks having to wait for something, but if it saves lives, it shouldn't be a problem, as it is still very much legal and practicable.

Registration is useless and accomplishes nothing, and there are plenty of national and international examples of the massive failure of registration to stop or prevent crime.

The only purpose registration serves is when a gun crime occurs, someone can flip through a book and say "yep the gun is legal/was owned legally once." And I'm not quite sure that helps, well, anything. The bar for entry to gun ownership does need to be set higher though.

[QUOTE=DaCommie1;39267072]Registration is useless and accomplishes nothing, and there are plenty of national and international examples of the massive failure of registration to stop or prevent crime.[/QUOTE] But you agree on the other stuff, I guess? And I think registration could be fairly useful for police forces, in the case of straw purchases for example. When a gun registered to you ends up in a crime where one of your friends could be involved, they might take a look at you as well. I don't think it's necessarily as stupid as you make it out to be. Still, I have no real data on it, so feel free to disregard the last part.

[QUOTE=Protocol7;39267082]The only purpose registration serves is when a gun crime occurs, someone can flip through a book and say "yep the gun is legal/was owned legally once." And I'm not quite sure that helps, well, anything. The bar for entry to gun ownership does need to be set higher though.[/QUOTE] It doesn't even do that, for registration to be at all useful, it requires 2 conditions be met by police at the scene: 1) They recover a firearm 2) That firearm is registered These 2 conditions have never been met in the 79 years Canada has had a pistol registry, nor in the 17 years it HAD a rifle registry, by the police at the scene of a crime. The registry is therefore completely useless. [editline]18th January 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=GoDong-DK;39267241]But you agree on the other stuff, I guess? And I think registration could be fairly useful for police forces, in the case of straw purchases for example. When a gun registered to you ends up in a crime where one of your friends could be involved, they might take a look at you as well. I don't think it's necessarily as stupid as you make it out to be. Still, I have no real data on it, so feel free to disregard the last part.[/QUOTE] Canada just abolished its long gun registry because of how useless and wasteful it was. I don't agree with waiting periods either, at least, not for each gun purchased. I believe getting a license that has as a requirement a background check and a mandatory safety course and test would sufficiently remove the need for background checks for each purchase and any need for waiting periods, as the waiting period would be the time it takes for you to receive the license. As long as such a license was shall-issue so long as one met the requirements for issuance, and as long as it only covered the acquisition of firearms, and not the possession of them, then such a license would not be in contradiction of the 2nd Amendment.

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;39263607]Firearm Education as of the moment is privatized for the most part, and to ensure less accidental deaths we should open up government hosted firearm safety programs/campaigns which allow adults and children a like to have a greater understanding of firearms and safe handling of them.[/QUOTE] They'd never do a government safety program to educate people for free when no other education is. That'd be like choosing guns over education. There's a long step between now and untill that can happen. [editline]18th January 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=DaCommie1;39267259]It doesn't even do that, for registration to be at all useful, it requires 2 conditions be met by police at the scene: 1) They recover a firearm 2) That firearm is registered These 2 conditions have never been met in the 79 years Canada has had a pistol registry, nor in the 17 years it HAD a rifle registry, by the police at the scene of a crime. The registry is therefore completely useless.[/QUOTE] Why not make it illegal to own an unregistered firearm then?

[QUOTE=MrJazzy;39268856]They'd never do a government safety program to educate people for free when no other education is. That'd be like choosing guns over education. There's a long step between now and untill that can happen. [editline]18th January 2013[/editline] Why not make it illegal to own an unregistered firearm then?[/QUOTE] It's already illegal to transfer one and there aren't a whole lot of ways to legally get your hands on one otherwise.

[QUOTE=MrJazzy;39268856] Why not make it illegal to own an unregistered firearm then?[/QUOTE] It was/is, that doesn't matter to criminals, because they're breaking more important laws than ones about bullshit paperwork. Criminals don't register their guns. That law was also was met with mass non-compliance from hunters because they didn't want to be treated like criminals and were worried about the government confiscating their guns, and there were just as many unregistered guns as registered ones. Due to the non-compliance in protest, the registry was at best 48% accurate. Now the long gun registry has been abolished, so nobody will be arrested due to a law that is useless and should have never been enacted in the first place.

[QUOTE=DaCommie1;39269047]It was/is, that doesn't matter to criminals, because they're breaking more important laws than ones about bullshit paperwork. Criminals don't register their guns. That law was also was met with mass non-compliance from hunters because they didn't want to be treated like criminals and were worried about the government confiscating their guns, and there were just as many unregistered guns as registered ones. Due to the non-compliance in protest, the registry was at best 48% accurate. Now the long gun registry has been abolished, so nobody will be arrested due to a law that is useless and should have never been enacted in the first place.[/QUOTE] But if it's illegal to own an unregistered gun, you could stop murders before they happen if you manage to spot a suspicious gun or whatever, right? And if you can't arrest someone who doesn't have a registered gun then how will background checks and licenses work.

[QUOTE=MrJazzy;39269146]But if it's illegal to own an unregistered gun, you could stop murders before they happen if you manage to spot a suspicious gun or whatever, right? And if you can't arrest someone who doesn't have a registered gun then how will background checks and licenses work.[/QUOTE] No, you can't stop a murder before it happens just because guns need to be registered. A registry doesn't stop a gun from being used in a crime, and again, criminals will not register their guns. And like I said, the license should cover the acquisition of guns, because covering the ownership would be in contradiction of the 2nd Amendment. In Canada up until 1995 you only needed a license to get a gun, not to own one, and still from the '70s through the '90s murders continued to drop. The issue now is that since the license covering both ownership and acquisition of a gun expires every 5 years, the system creates a "criminal-in-waiting" out of the gun owner, because they can be arrested the minute their license expires.