Where do guns belong in our society as civilized people? It seems like this question is almost singular in its ability to polarize people and destroy civil discourse. There are people far smarter than me populating both sides of this debate with arguments that I find compelling in both directions. If I have to sum up my stance, this is how I tend to do it. Do guns belong? Yes. Do they belong everywhere? No. Having watched this argument go by at many family gatherings, I've been trying to think of different ways to mitigate the problems that inevitably come with easy access to guns. Having watched the arguments, they tend to hinge around this notion that bans never disarm the criminals; only the victims. Here is the rough idea: Mandatory minimum 25 year sentence for using a gun to commit any crime. In theory, this should go to the heart of the armed criminal problem, have some sway as a deterrent, and leave the responsible gun owners largely alone. Part of a larger idea? Looking for more resolution? Needing more detail? What say you?
Get tough on violent crime. Make violent gun crime federal crime. Long sentences instead of plea bargains. Fix the revolving door justice system. Do this instead of going after guns, and violent gun crime will drop.
Read lots and lots of the posts from the anti-gun folks. None of them are concerned about combating crime, only controlling guns. Many of them actually DEFEND criminals.
I consider myself leaning toward more restrictions on guns. I think background checks are a good idea; I support the idea that people on terrorist watch lists in the US should not be allowed to buy guns; I support the idea that if you have a restraining order against you, you deserve scrutiny. A lot of these strike me as very realistic, and would not apply to responsible gun owners. For some reason, even these modest ideas seem to lead to unbelievable recalcitrance and anger on both sides, which is how I arrived at the notion of harsh mandatory penalties. Where does this idea come apart and is there some common ground to be found here?
A government black list that you can get on for any reason, are not notified you are on, are not notified of the charges against you, are not allowed to know who your accuser is, and is practically impossible to get off of sounds like a good idea to you? Serious jail time for violent people, using guns or not, is something no one on our side would be against. In fact, we highly encourage it.
I say mandatory death sentence for those who commit crimes using a gun and I'll go even farther to say mandatory death sentence for those in illegal possession of guns. Now that's a deterrent!
We tried that. It didn't work. Smarter solutions are available, like alternative sentencing for at-risk youth, keeping kids in school, keeping kids busy with hobbies, sports and interests, help for single mothers and programs that have proven to reduce offending and recidivism. Prisons are con colleges that just make young males (who perpetrate almost all violent crimes) better criminals -- it also prisonizes them and makes than angrier and less likely to integrate into regular society.
Actually, long sentences do work. The evidence is in the age breakdown of prison inmates. The older the bracket, the fewer prisoners. This tells us that older cons get out and decide not to re-offend. Younger ones do re-offend. Their recidivism rate is much higher. They laugh at that, sir. And it endangers society. I have seen this with my own eyes - how much young offenders hate being locked up. It makes a huge impression on them.
It worked just fine. Heavy penalties like those used in New York and in Operation Exile were highly effective in reducing crime. Going in at 20 and getting out at 60 is a sure fire way to cut down on recidivism. Who cares if its a con college when you don't let them graduate.
We can't afford to lock people up for decades with our current prison system. They get exercise equipment, the best health care, cable TV, education, and learn to be better criminals. Prisons need to be harsh places with mandatory work toward self sufficiency. They need to be forced to grow their own food and build furniture or do other work for the government. They can build solar panels and wind generators. They need minimal idle activities and more work skills. They need to be dreadful places that inmates absolutely fear to return to. Only then can we afford to give long sentences.
What other constitutional amendments are you in favor of the government secretly squashing without due process besides the 2nd? Please share your list of rights you wish to have relinquished in order to "feel" safe.
The problem is not the law, its the gun banners who will abuse whatever reasonable law you put in place. In DC, Chicago, NY City, and other places, the anti-gun crowd convinces people that a safety permit or purchase permit is a good idea because it ensures all gun owners have a basic understanding of safe storage and safe handling, then when the permits are in place they ratchet up the requirements to get the permit until its a functional ban. Your minimum mandatory sentence would fail because the anti-gun state attorneys have great discretion in filing charges and prosecuting cases, they will target gun owners who use their firearm defensively simply because the state or district attorney is anti-gun. That's why the Castle Doctrine laws were created. Anti-gun prosecutors would argue that the home owner had an avenue of escape - even if it was to jump out of a second story window - and therefore had no reason to shoot an intruder, turning the self-defense claim into homicide. Your idea was tried, abused by the anti-gunners, and after a lot of suffering was rejected.
There are problems to be addressed with each of your "modest ideas", before they can become part of any solution: Background checks: In order for background checks to have any real positive impact on the ability for bad guys to have access to guns, they must be performed for every transfer of a firearm. If they are not, then they are just another feel-good do-nothing measure. Since there is no practical way to perform background checks on every transfer, nor to enforce any law that requires it, it's not a viable solution. It DOES make sense to allow public, anonymous access to the NICS system so that individual sellers could voluntarily background check prospective buyers. I would happily use such a system. Watch list exclusions: The problem here has to do with Constitutional rights and due process. Since you can arbitrarily be added to a watch list, via some criteria which is secret, without any notification, hearing, method of dispute, or removal process, they cannot be used to violent your second amendment rights without also violating your right to due process and presumption of innocence. Of course, the larger question I have, is this: If a person is too dangerous to board an aircraft, why in the world would they be safe enough to enter a school, or a shopping mall? If they are too dangerous to fly, aren't they also too dangerous to be free and at large in our country at all? Restraining orders: Very much the same problem as the watch list exclusion idea. Anyone can take out a restraining order against anyone else for any reason. There is no due process involved. I don't have a problem with 'extra scrutiny', but I cannot support one citizen denying a Constitutional right based on nothing but the fear of another. Harsher Penalties: Here you have something. The primary mission of our criminal justice system should be to segregate violent people from the peaceable public, and keep them there until they have been rehabilitated. For, as long as our revolving-door criminal justice system continues returning KNOWN VIOLENT people back into our peaceable society, with full knowledge that police cannot possibly protect me, I feel compelled to keep and bear arms against them. And, I am thankful that our Constitution guarantees that my right to do so shall not be infringed.
Liberals WILL NOT and DO enforce the gun laws already on the books. Why would they bother enforcing new laws? Here is part of an article that explains this: http://www.americas1stfreedom.org/a...ed-could-put-gunrunners-away-for-a-long-time/
Firstly I like the way you are wording your statements and questions. Moving on. "Universal background checks" will do little to curb violent crime. Rather it will hinder law abiding citizens. IE; if I (an instructor) and a buddy (a law enforcement officer) are duck hunting together, try out each others shotguns, decide we each like the others better; under a "universal background check" system we wont be allowed to swap guns. We would have to go find a licensed dealer, do the paper work and each pay a transfer fee. Someone buying a gun out of a trunk in Detroit is not going to go to a FFL and do a legal transfer. I do support having a terrorist watch list, I don't know any good citizen that wouldn't. But when it comes to not being able to own guns because one is on a terrorist watch list; it gets into a grey area, as I see it. Here's why: What, why, how and who determines whom is on a watch list? Can one have a dispute with a neighbor, call in and file a false report about said neighbor and have them put on a watch list (It could happen, ever heard of swatting?). How does one know if they are on a watch list or not? How does one appeal and be taken off the watch list? It could potentially take years to be cleared. A restraining order is not the same as a conviction in a court of law. Also the internet is full of stories of frivolous restraining orders that have been filed. thoughts?
Terrorist watch list are secret government black lists. You sure that's a good idea? There is NO due process with such a list. People need to seriously evaluate what those lists mean. Your neighbor could call the FBI anonymously, report you for suspected terrorism, and now you've been convicted of something and suffer penalties while having no recourse to defend yourself. The no-fly list and any other of these black lists are something NO citizen should support. It is the new McCarthyism.
First of all, thank you to the people who have chosen to respond with a conversational tone to an idea. That's all it is. Take your foot off the pedal hoss. This is a perfect example of how many of these conversations seem to go. How are people supposed to even talk ideas out when this is the tone of the first response? Make no mistake; your attitude is part of the problem. In the constellation of people you could be talking to, I am not your enemy. Interesting link. Thank you for bringing that into the thread. I didn't realize these guidelines were out there. Do you have any notion of how often they are actually applied? I can't help but think that those guidelines do more to gum up the works rather than addressing the problem of criminals getting guns, which is why I favor the idea of real mandatory minimums linked to the use of guns in violent crimes. It seems like there is common ground here. Someone brought up the scenario where a homeowner would be expected to jump out of a second story window rather than shoot an intruder to avoid a murder chargeĀ Can we just set that aside as absurd? The notion here is that the vast majority of gun owners will never ever be involved in a violent crime whereas basically every single gun owner would be subjected to bans and restrictions of trade. It seems like the burden is fundamentally in the wrong place. Thank you for the reciprocal willingness to make it a conversation! Having read some rational responses in this thread, I will read a bit more about the watch lists and think about it some more. Due process should never be set aside. I'm trying to see this as something akin to the way google collects information. Basically a collection of algorithms that run concurrently to see real habits and patterns. Let me unequivocally state that I want NOTHING to do with google deciding anything about our criminal justice system, ONLY that it's a way to think about problems without the baggage of the argument. Maybe there's a lens through which a restraining order and being on a watch list flag a person for more scrutiny (or some such combination of checked boxes within a matrix)? At some point, there have to be a constellation of reasonable reasons to make it hard for a person to get a gun? Yes?
Yeah our prisons should be modeled after the japanese system. Work from dusk till dawn, any form of entertainment has to be earned, and food is only there to keep you alive.
Of course the most dangerous places in the US have the "usual suspects" in their urban ****holes doing the crimes---has nothing to do with # number of guns per household or other liberal talking points. The biggest indicators of crime are murder rates and the conviction and clearance rates. These are deliberately swept under the rug by the major media. The fact that the thugs not not serve time (or are even arrested) for their violent crimes tells the real story. As in Chicago, the clearance rates for murders is less than 30%. The thugs know there is only at best 3 chances in 10 they will get in trouble for killing someone. But the average person living and voting for the people running their courts and city governments DO NOT want thugs to be held accountable. In a nearby city, a big mouthed, racist, city councilman said that the residents should throw rocks at police cars from suburban cities that chase bad guys trying to escape justice in the confines of their corrupt and evil liberal-democrat city.
More anti gun laws will only effect law abiding citizens, therefore making it harder for a person to get guns only makes it harder for good people to get them. There are already MANY laws/statutes already on the books, I'm not sure if anyone has an accurate number of combined fereral/state/local gun laws. Heres an example from Bloomfield Press: "Bloomfield Press has published comprehensive state-by-state gun-law guides for five states, with every statute reproduced (in pertinent part) in an Appendix. In addition, we produce an unabridged federal gun-law guide. Counts from the most recent editions available show: Federal gun law in 2005: 93,354 words in 271 numbered statutes Arizona gun law in 2006: 36,645 words in 183 numbered statutes Virginia gun law in 2006: 45,494 words in 191 numbered statutes Texas gun law in 2005: 49,442 words in 226 numbered statutes California gun law in 1998: 158,643 words in 541 numbered statutes Florida gun law in 1998: 46,585 words in 229 numbered statutes" http://www.gunlaws.com/faq.htm#howmany
And what do they do when they can't get a gun....oh yeah they fashion knives and stab each other to death. So much for "taking guns away ends violence".
