Yes, you have to pay a gun dealer to do the background check and if you don’t it’s a misdemeanor. It would be interesting to find out how many were actually sited for that. Homicides are up in all cities because of handgun violence and the city of Denver has a larger population then the entire rural state of Wyoming. 3 or 4 states have the one gun a month law, but they abut states where its as many as you can afford. You bring up some excellent points or problems. For it to work FFLs would have to give up their 4473s they’ve been holding for the last 20 years. They would be digitized and going forward all 4473s would be done online. This will freak out the paranoid right, who claim no social responsibility for gun ownership. You seem to think most gun owners would not comply with the law. I disagree and there are sanctions who don’t act in good faith and sell it to a criminal. I think having open online access to NICS would be a good thing, where the buyer would need to prove they could legally possess a firearm and open access to a stolen gun registry, but making it voluntary means only used by the conscientious. The ATF estimates only 10% to 15% of guns used in crimes were stolen.
Compiling such a database would be illegal, not to mention impractical. See FOPA 1986. The law you propose is unconstitutional. Gun owners, largely, will not comply. How do you propose to impose these sanctions on them without proof? The vast majority of gun owners are conscientious. You are relying upon their voluntary compliance to self-report the firearms they own above. Why would you rely on that, and then not rely on them to voluntarily use the NICS? Anecdotally, I am a firearm owner, and I personally know dozens of others. None of us would knowingly transfer a firearm to a prohibited person. All of us would enthusiastically make use of an anonymous and instant NICS system. That depends on who you ask. A few years back, a study was done by the Bureau of Justice Statistics that indicated that only about 2% of guns used in crimes were purchased by the criminal from a lawful owner. They were stolen by the criminal himself, or purchased from another criminal who had stolen it.
I don't target shoot much anymore, too expensive. But I used to shoot sporting clays a couple of times a week.
The secret is extreme violence toward anyone who might own a gun, immediately, en masse, without warning. Which is why none of us are down for a registry, because we're not ****ing regarded.
Maybe what you don't realize is there are ALREADY laws in place that treat the two the same. We can certainly argue about the Constitutionality of some of these laws, but those laws are in place. If anyone in America misuses a gun, their gun rights will be taken away, and indeed the consequences can be even more severe than drunk driving. At least with drunk driving resulting in a crash, you have a better chance of getting your driving privileges back after just a few years. Often times it seems that gun control supporters bring up arguments that are in fact moot points because laws already exist to address those complaints. Maybe most gun control supporters don't realize what the laws are, how many laws are already in place, and just want to push for more gun control regardless of what laws have already been passed and are in place.
You can make one with metal, too-my uncle did. (Purely because he wondered how hard it was. Answer: not very.) Earlier: the first one widely available (Remington Model 8, originally called Remington Autoloading Rifle) was patented in 1900 and commercially available in 1905. SO...you want mandatory registration. No. SO...do you not understand why this would be useless?
The laws can be changed and whether it is unconstitutional or not depends on the court. Not all gun owners are conscientious and those that are not need motivation to do what the conscientious would be already doing to keep guns out of illegal hands. And here is the Bureau of Justice Statistics saying 9% of inmates used a stolen gun. A handgun would be much easier to obtain, for criminal purposes, through a private seller. I understand that the right feels no social responsibility for owning a handgun. They hold their rights above the greater good and see where we are now. They are living in fear without one.
You have to consider this with the Court you have, not the one you want. Define the "social responsibility] that a gun owner should display for owning a handgun.
Good luck with all that. After all, the right to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. So, you're willing to accept that gun owners will voluntarily comply with a requirement to self-report, but not willing to accept that they will use the NICS to be sure they aren't selling to a prohibited person. Bizzare.. but .. OK. From your link: "According to the 1991 Survey of State Prison Inmates, among those inmates who possessed a handgun, 9% had acquired it through theft, AND 28% had acquired it through an illegal market such as a drug dealer or fence." (emphasis mine) That same 1991 survey also indicated that only about 2% of criminals who used a firearm had gained access to it from a legal owner, private or retail. What?! The EASIEST and SAFEST place for a criminal to obtain a handgun is from another criminal, and that's exactly where most get them. I can't believe you'd even think that to be plausible. The reality is, the percentage of firearms that come knowingly to criminals from lawful gun owners is minuscule, and giving lawful gun owners the tools to anonymously and instantly check prospective buyers voluntarily would nearly eliminate that source all together. If your goal is to reduce the number of guns available to criminals, your efforts would be much more productive going after straw purchasers and gun traffickers than lawful gun owners. But that's not really your goal, is it?
Individual rights are of premium importance. Freedom is scary, deal with it! I will not comply with any criminal laws, I will not register my weapons, I will not bend the knee to any person, and I will not give up the very rights I am born with to make you feel better.
Not that you care - there's a not a single unnecessary, ineffective or unconstitutional law you do not support.
The enshrinement of constitutional rights - necessarily and intentionally - takes certain policy choices off the table.
The weapons you folks feaf most art the ones involved in the fewest shooting and murders. Rifles in general, accord to FBI, account for 5-8% of all gun violence murders.
" the greater good" was the motivation behind the holocaust, the Stalinist Purges, the "Great leap forward" and the Killing Fields. No thanks
Besides knowing how to use it, preventing its theft and using gun safety, the wider social implications should be a concern to gun owners; their misuse and their availability to illegal actors. At present anyone can buy a gun and ammunition but the right wishes to do nothing about that besides arm more people and warehouse after its illegal use….if caught. You don’t see a difference between “conscientious” gun owners and those that are not so much and the inability to differentiate between the two? As I said the easiest way to get a gun is through a private seller (legal or illegal) and that is how most guns are obtained, but 99% of handguns start out their life legally before they enter the black market and its not “minuscule”. Depending on legal gun owners to do the "right thing" has not diminished the flow to the black market. The right feels no responsibility to attempt to control that. Are you for fully funding the ATF and removing NRA approved restrictions on it? There are 140,000 FFLs in the US and it inspected 7,000 last year. They can get to a FFL maybe once every five years and if they are found in violation, like guns sold off the books, they can appeal which takes more years. Thanks for proving my point. Or you can say “no thanks” to things like laws to prevent industry from poisoning the public over maximizing profit, laws that demand drug companies thoroughly test drugs, public health standards, Social Security, which 40% of the elderly would live in poverty without, public funding of police and fire departments…..You're okay with that.
See Article V? Tell me how many states have to agree to any resulting amendment. Now count how many states have permitless or constitutional carry. See the issue? No one cares because SHOCKINGLY CRIMINALS LIE. I'm not "the right" and I owe no responsibility other than judicious marksmanship and compliance with the constitutional laws. RE: "The Greater Good"
You're welcome!! Look, the Constitution says what it says, and what it says is pretty clear to anyone with even an ounce of intellectual honesty, and you can't just change it be wishing for it to be so. You can get it amended if you have enough support, but such support does not exist... Even if you could get it through Congress with a 2/3rds majority, which is currently not possible, you will never manage to find 38 states willing to compromise their citizen's rights to such a degree. Period. And soon, virtually all existing gun control laws will probably be invalidated as the USSC puts more and more laws and cases under the umbrella and spirit of the Bruen decision, which requires all gun control laws to have historical precedents in statutes dating back to 1791... If the government cannot show examples of that, they will lose, which means the 1986 FOP... Gone. The GCA... Gone. The Brady Bill... Gone. Because of our natural birthright to self-defense, which every human is entitled to, even if most governments do not recognize it.
To be frank, the people you're going to have to convince sit on the Supreme Court. The only effective ways to reduce availability of guns to prohibited persons would require infringing the rights of the law abiding, so yes, the law abiding aren't going to roll over and let the government infringe their rights.
