Only the Police and the Military Should Have Guns

I hope that this won't be a red herring and derail the topic, but. The compensatory argument has merit, not just with guns. I remember a classic cartoon of a building labeled "Penis Enlargement Clinic". The doctor's car park was full of normal sedans, while the client's car park was full of huge SUVs.

Daryl wrote:I hope that this won't be a red herring and derail the topic, but. The compensatory argument has merit, not just with guns.

Let us follow that derail for a moment.
Bigger cars = smaller cock.
Bigger shoes = bigger cock.
No wonder so many people are terrified of clowns...

Daryl wrote:I hope that this won't be a red herring and derail the topic, but. The compensatory argument has merit, not just with guns. I remember a classic cartoon of a building labeled "Penis Enlargement Clinic". The doctor's car park was full of normal sedans, while the client's car park was full of huge SUVs.

And the Guys leaving the clinic were all white haired and walking toward their suvs with the assistance of canes, right...

Old duffers with delusions of glory...

Don

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Oh, goody! A gun control thread!

n7axw wrote:As far as I'm concerned, I don't care how much ammo a responsible gun owner has on hand. He can have enough to fill his basement and blow up his house. It doesn't matter.

Small arms ammunition does not blow anything up. If it ignites as a result of a fire, the ammunition barely has enough force to penetrate drywall. (It doesn't go through the OSB.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SlOXowwC4c

Background checks designed to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally unstable, convicts and I will add, people on terrorist watch lists.

We have that. It's called the NICS system and it only as effective as the data that local agencies put into it. Off the top of my head without consulting any other sources, I can think of two mass shootings where the criminal illegally bought a gun from a licensed dealer and was able to do so because the local agency did not properly put the information into NICS. (One was the Marysville-Pilchuck school shooting where the kid stole the illegally purchased gun from his dad. The other was the shooting down in Texas where the military guy had a DV conviction that should have blocked the purchase.)

Oh, and about those "terrorist watch lists" Ted Kennedy got on one of those and couldn't get himself off of it. That guy was a US Senator, too.

As a corollary to this, a prohibited person that lies on the ATF Form 4473 and fails the NICS check has basically no chance of facing prosecution for that. Therefore, prohibited persons have absolutely no incentive to avoid trying and failing to purchase a firearm because there are essentially no consequences.

Closure of the gun show loophole.

The "gun show loophole" is the invention of the same people that brought you "shoulder thing that goes up" and "full semi-automatic." It's meaningless scaremongering propaganda. An FFL holder has to perform a NICS check on a firearms purchaser regardless of where the transaction takes place. A person without an FFL is prohibited from engaging in the business of selling firearms.

Now, if you want to prohibit private people from gathering and trading their firearms for the purpose of enhancing their collections, then you have to get legislation passed on a level that's as intrusive as Wickard v. Filburn. As a private citizen, as long as my firearm is either C&R eligible or I am not moving it in interstate commerce, I can sell it to anyone I like unless I have reasonable grounds to believe that person is prohibited from owning it. I can stick a dowel in the barrel and walk down the street and sell a rifle if I so desire. A gun show is basically people gathered together to do that, show off their collection of Lugers, sell other random stuff, and for FFLs to also sell guns. Unless you're going to ban me from walking down the sidewalk with a sign advertising a price for a rifle, you can't close the gun show loophole.

A national registry of guns that permits law enforcement personnel to trace guns used in criminal activity back to their owners

...and then what? That accomplishes absolutely nothing, because if the police showed up, a prudent gun owner would shut the door in their face and not say anything. No citizen has any obligation to help the police in any investigation.

If you want an example of how this would work on a smaller scale, take a look at Washington State. The state Department of Licensing is responsible for maintaining records of transfers of pistols. The most recent news story I can find about that is that they're backlogged by 550,000 pistol forms. That's one state and it's from a year ago. I think they just passed a more draconian thing that requires the DOL to keep records of rifles, too.

As a hilarious aside, criminal defense lawyers have started to catch on to a flaw in the ATF's regulations and have been using that flaw to defeat court cases that the DOJ brings against them because of the ATF's definition.

Also, I can't wait until 2036 when I can have machine guns shipped right to my door. If you can't figure out how this will become legal in that year, perhaps you should refrain from commenting on firearms laws.

Panzer wrote:
...and then what? That accomplishes absolutely nothing, because if the police showed up, a prudent gun owner would shut the door in their face and not say anything. No citizen has any obligation to help the police in any investigation.

Er... no. This is a crime - to refuse to assist the police officer - at least in some situations, both in federal and local laws.

Lol.

Claiming the gun show loophole doesn't exist then actually talking about it happening is beautiful.

Personally, every sale, including private, should go through a licensed dealer. If only to enforce the paperwork.
For a fixed fee, but I think people wont mind the fee to know the paperwork and providence are OK.

Annachie wrote:Lol.

Claiming the gun show loophole doesn't exist then actually talking about it happening is beautiful.

Personally, every sale, including private, should go through a licensed dealer. If only to enforce the paperwork.
For a fixed fee, but I think people wont mind the fee to know the paperwork and providence are OK.

I like the principle of that. But I don't think it would be enforceable.

Don

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Dilandu wrote:

Panzer wrote:
...and then what? That accomplishes absolutely nothing, because if the police showed up, a prudent gun owner would shut the door in their face and not say anything. No citizen has any obligation to help the police in any investigation.

Er... no. This is a crime - to refuse to assist the police officer - at least in some situations, both in federal and local laws.

I don't know about any other countries, but, in the United States, as a general rule, there is not really a legal downside to exercising one's Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination.

Obstructing the police in their duties is a crime and lying to the police is a crime, but, not answering questions from a police officer that approaches you and says, "Can I talk?" is not a crime as far as I know.

Annachie wrote:Lol.

Claiming the gun show loophole doesn't exist then actually talking
about it happening is beautiful.

I mean, I guess it is a "loophole" in the sense that Joe Schmoe is allowed to trade is hunting rifle to a guy who wants to exchange money for it in a particular venue.

You may as well call it the "Wal-Mart parking lot loophole" or the "guy on the sidewalk loophole."

Personally, every sale, including private, should go through a licensed dealer. If only to enforce the paperwork.
For a fixed fee, but I think people wont mind the fee to know the paperwork and providence are OK.

Washington State passed I-594 that does just that. Amusingly, based on the state law as it was written at the time, it required people to buy nail guns and gun stores and turned Amazon into an illegal gun dealer.

If you're saying that every person in the United States who wants to transfer a firearm in instra-state commerce, has to locate an FFL, give the firearm to the FFL, and then have the FFL and transferee complete the ATF Form 4473, I'm not sure that such a law would survive a 5th Amendment challenge should the federal government elect to enforce that law against a convicted felon. Essentially in a case like that, the federal government would be penalizing a person for not committing a crime in front of a witness with a legal obligation to document the evidence of the crime. Basically, in that case, the federal government is requiring a felon to go up to an FFL and say, "Oh, hi. I want to sell this gun. Write down all of the information about this transaction in your record book so that the ATF can use it to arrest me because if I don't do this and I sell this gun, the government will send me to prison." In that case, the government has compelled the seller to create evidence of his violation of federal law because as a felon, he is not allowed to possess a firearm and he has created a record that is readily accessible to the federal government that shows that he possessed a firearm.

Just quickly Panzer, by that logic anybody who cheats on their taxes breaks the law if they keep a copy of their tax records as is required by law.