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Its not against the law to sell a gun to a criminal, or someone who you don't need to know if they are or aren't a criminal.rayjay wrote:It's against the law for criminals to own guns. Laws are pretty useless against people that don't respect them.
Yes it is against the law to sell a gun to a known felon. It's stupid to think it isn't.JamesH wrote:Its not against the law to sell a gun to a criminal, or someone who you don't need to know if they are or aren't a criminal.rayjay wrote:It's against the law for criminals to own guns. Laws are pretty useless against people that don't respect them.
There are no checks or balances in place to prevent it happening.
That, frankly, is stupid.
Closing that loophole would restrict no-one's freedom.
GREAT answer!!!dronning wrote:Yes it is against the law to sell a gun to a known felon. It's stupid to think it isn't.JamesH wrote:Its not against the law to sell a gun to a criminal, or someone who you don't need to know if they are or aren't a criminal.rayjay wrote:It's against the law for criminals to own guns. Laws are pretty useless against people that don't respect them.
There are no checks or balances in place to prevent it happening.
That, frankly, is stupid.
Closing that loophole would restrict no-one's freedom.
Felons buy from legitimate dealers all the time and go through the NICS check by committing another crime - it's called identity theft. You see first they steal someone's identity (or create one) then they purchase a gun through legitimate dealer the NICS is done and guess what the felon gets his/her gun. They don't get caught on the identity theft because they don't use the identity to pay for it (they pay cash) so the identity theft goes undetected.
Criminals will always find a way.
So what loophole did you close??
Its not a requirement that you ask if they're a felon, its not a requirement that you check to see if they're a felon, its not a requirement that you keep a record of their name, address etc in case the gun you sold them turns up in a crime scene.dronning wrote:Yes it is against the law to sell a gun to a known felon. It's stupid to think it isn't.
The one where felons don't have to hide their identity when buying a gun?So what loophole did you close??
I answer your question from a country where we have universal registration of all kind of firearms, with mandatory background checks to be allowed to have one, so in certain wicked way I'm living in what could be your future scenario..........RandomShotz wrote:I don't believe my logic is flawed - so far, I have been laying out the question and some facts (as I see them) and watching what happens. Gun control of any kind is a topic that is rarely discussed without emotion, even among people of intelligence, good will and good intent such as the contributors to this forum. This makes me hesitant to go further, but I will risk it just once.
I accept that background checks as currently used are ineffective at reducing the flow of guns into the hands of criminals. One reason for this is that they are easily circumvented by purchasing guns through unregulated private sales. Guns also come into the hands of criminals through theft, dishonest practices of (I am sure a very small number of) FFL holders and some are sold to eligible buyers who subsequently become criminals. None of those routes will be closed off by background checks. It is not possible to cut off all the streams feeding the river, but that is no reason not to do what can be done.
I see the problem this way: background checks will not work without an effective national registry and laws making gun owners responsible for securing their guns and only legally transferring them. (I feel as if I have just dropped a toad in the punch bowl.) I believe some states and municipalities have such registries and laws but they are necessarily ineffective because there is no way to restrict commerce across state or municipal borders. The key to the problem is that there is a significant, and to an extent justified, mistrust of the federal government. IMHO, the essence of the solution is to find a way to make such a registry so that it does not bar gun ownership by citizens legally permitted to own guns and will not be used to do so. The Supreme Court has made clear that the right of individual ownership is Constitutionally guaranteed. I regard that as sufficient to check the dreaded "gun grab" that many gun owners fear will be the result of such a registry but obviously many others do not.
So we are left with the problem of fear and mistrust. Once it is acknowledged that these emotions dominates the discussion and motivate the opposition, the problem becomes is it possible to structure the laws so that those fears cannot be realized. I have no answer for that.
Roger
Actually, history teaches precisely the opposite. For most of human history, anyone anywhere could be captured in a war or by a raiding party and sold into slavery. For centuries, feudal Europe was a patchwork of territories where the laws of a local noble were enforced at his pleasure, embedded in a matrix of dangerous lawless regions. In some places, serfs or peasants, while not strictly speaking slaves, were tied to the land and had no freedom of movement. In classical Greece and Rome, while most religions were tolerated, non-belief could be dicey and certain practices deemed threatening to the order of the State, such as some Bacchic cults and early Christianity, were harshly repressed. By the fourth century, Catholic Christianity was harshly repressive of other Christian sects as well as Jews and "believers in the old gods". The very concepts of personal freedom and basic human rights are rooted in the Renaissance and were largely developed during the Enlightenment. Considering that there were more 10,000 years of human culture before that, I'd say we are moving in the right direction.Erud wrote: History has taught us(if we've been paying attention, anyway) that we never get any more free, only less.
Roger,RandomShotz wrote:Erud -
Two points - first, you may not have heard opinions like mine from other gun owners because the discussion is so fraught that people are afraid to bring the subject up in front of someone who might disagree. Several range personnel at Bud's, who are mostly ex police or military, have opinions similar to mine to some degree.
Second -Actually, history teaches precisely the opposite. For most of human history, anyone anywhere could be captured in a war or by a raiding party and sold into slavery. For centuries, feudal Europe was a patchwork of territories where the laws of a local noble were enforced at his pleasure, embedded in a matrix of dangerous lawless regions. In some places, serfs or peasants, while not strictly speaking slaves, were tied to the land and had no freedom of movement. In classical Greece and Rome, while most religions were tolerated, non-belief could be dicey and certain practices deemed threatening to the order of the State, such as some Bacchic cults and early Christianity, were harshly repressed. By the fourth century, Catholic Christianity was harshly repressive of other Christian sects as well as Jews and "believers in the old gods". The very concepts of personal freedom and basic human rights are rooted in the Renaissance and were largely developed during the Enlightenment. Considering that there were more 10,000 years of human culture before that, I'd say we are moving in the right direction.Erud wrote: History has taught us(if we've been paying attention, anyway) that we never get any more free, only less.
Even in the brief history of this country, from the very beginning chattel slavery was legal. Men had to own land to have the vote into the 1820's and the first presidential election in which women voted was a century later in 1920. In my lifetime, we have ended legal racial segregation (although de facto segregation still persists) and we have just begun to extend the full panoply of political rights to individuals without regard to sexual orientation.
I have given such attention to a throw-away line because I believe that such throw-away lines inhibit genuine discussion. We as a country decide what our politics will be and we will decide what freedoms we will have and where we will compromise and where we won't. And we have the freedom to decide whether we have made a bad decision and then make a better one.
Roger
I just don't see how taking a few simple steps to reduce the ease with which criminals can get hold of guns, but which won't impact non-criminals in the slightest, has any connection with Hitler or the end of the world.Eric U wrote:James,
The freedom to keep our guns is what we're talking about. You gave yours back in 1996 or so.
We've always been a little rebellious over here and value our independence highly. The reason we have the constitutionally guaranteed right to keep our arms resulted directly from having to kick the British out in 1776. You guys never did fully kick them out so I guess it's just a matter of perspective.
We'll just have to agree to disagree. I'll never convince you and you certainly will never convince me.
Eric U
