The reason there are time limmits built into these laws is that in the past and present their lack has been used to deny people their rights for many reasons. Two years later, “that freedom of information request is not denied, we just need more time to get it prepared”. You end up in legal limbo through one of the oldest governmental trick in the world having effectively been denied.
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Unles the purpose of public arming is to deter govermental tyrany. That could be argued as a legitimate civilian use in my oppinion.
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Seriously? How are car registrations “Largely positive”? Other than I suppose collecting tax revenue, what, exactly, is the social benefit of gov. knowing what cars I own?
What’s really fun is when you get rid of a car, it is never re-registered, and now I have 2 years of taxes to pay on it, even though I haven’t owned it for two years.
Because the PURPOSE and REASONING for registering the two are completely different. Registration wouldn’t be a necessity except that the state wants to tax you on your property. It really is as simple as that.
You can keep a record of everything you need if something gets stolen or to get insurance .You point out registration plates are used to solve crimes, but they are also now instrumental in police harassment, where they are constantly scanning plates as a means of active surveillance. Drivers LICENSES are independent of the registration (you don’t need a licenses to own or register a car. Just drive one on a public road.)
But what ever, clearly you think registering guns is a good idea. We actually do do that on a federal level with NFA items, and some states do it as well. But I am telling you as a matter of fact that a federal wide registration will be opposed fiercely by rights advocates because of how often registration leads to turn ins down the road. You will be fighting a very up hill battle, so good luck with that.
A licensing scheme I believe would be met with less opposition, especially if one can show some benefits, like faster NICS checks. It would even help your 2nd hand sales fears by letting the seller see the buyers license (which I mentioned before was a popular ask during FB BST days to ask to see a CCW card.)
Yes - “vast majority” is used because it is important to put things into context and understand the proper scope of an issue. For example - the vast majority of illegal immigrants aren’t rapists or criminals and we shouldn’t treat them as such. The vast majority of Muslims aren’t terrorists and we shouldn’t treat them as such. The vast majority of prescription drug users are not abusers and we shouldn’t treat them a such. The vast majority of people who drink alcohol do so responsibly and don’t drink and drive. If we treated everyone like alcoholics and put in those breathalyzers to start every car, we would save ~10,000 lives a year, thousands of more injuries and millions of property damage. Why don’t we? Because we know it wouldn’t apply to the vast majority of people and it’s rather insulting to treat everyone as a potential drunk. The vast majority of gun owners are also not hurting people or selling to criminals and we shouldn’t treat them as such.
I said earlier not EVERYONE who fails a NICS should be in jail. But more than 12? How about some penalty? Probation? Are any of them on probation now? We want to pass nebulous red flag laws - and yet when we have a prohibited person rejected on a NICS check, that doesn’t throw up a red flag??
But hold on, what if your new system is enacted and we find 100,000 felons trying to buy a private gun. Or they are caught with a gun they didn’t register. Now what? The CURRENT system is pretty soft on enforcement. You are sounding a bit soft on enforcement. If we go through the expense of a national registration system and require NICS checks on private sales, are we going to enforce these new laws? Or just do what we do now, ignore most of the people trying to obtain a gun who shouldn’t? What do you think that enforcement should look like? I actually agree there are waaaaayyyyy too many people incarcerated in the US. But still, you want to expand the law to stop prohibited people from trying to buy guns, don’t we also need repercussions?
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There’s a big gap between 3 days and two years. It’s entirely possible that 7 or 14 days would be a more reasonable limit.
This hanging in limbo problem also isn’t quite a justification for the ‘default allow’ stance we have. We could require a response within a fixed period, sure, but nevertheless explicitly deny requests that can’t positively be cleared in time, and then provide documentation to the applicant as to the reasons. That doesn’t leave anyone hanging in limbo, and provides a clear path for someone to clear up the conflicting records or whatever was causing the problem.
It’s not, never has been, and isn’t really a plausible thing to do in the future.
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And yet the GOP baseball game shooter is vilified…
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Because there’s a central database of the previous ownership history of the vehicle that I can use to determine if a car I am considering buying has been in accidents before, and how well it was repaired. There is often little visible difference between a vehicle that runs perfectly and one that has enough frame damage to make it dangerous to drive.
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This is a fair point that should be repeated. NICS needs to be constantly updated to remain effective. Not only are the systems old, but we don’t have all the state and local agencies reporting like they should. This is 2020, though, and it should all be more or less automated or at least systematic. This isn’t 100 years ago where you would have some one rifling through boxes of files. If we are going to have NICS it should be properly working.
(Granted nothing will be 100%, but the fact is the government isn’t doing al they can in that area.)
You can also go to any large metropolitan area’s website and the police department usually has an annual crime report. Their statistics get broken down way more specifically. Where homicides were, what weapon was used, age sex and race of the victim and murderer (if known), criminal history of both, reason for murder, did the two know each other, etc. There is a lot of stats out there. Also the CDC does still track murder deaths, they just don’t comment on the analysis (although they could.) I mean, I tell people the facts I’ve learned and just get ignored, so I am not sure what more you people want. I guess numbers that back up your views, some how.
But still, if there is some burning info one wants, why doesn’t Bloomberg or one of the various “pro gun control” groups pool some money and fund a study on what they want to find out.
For what ever reason - it failed to help solve one crime in 15 years.
Ah, from the bureau of facts pulled out of no where. Nice.
I feel like this whole idea is more or less the “CSI” effect where we expect police work to be based on clear factual evidence that we can positively link to criminals. The reality is long interrogation times used to wear down criminals into confessing or messing up their stories enough to “catch them”.
You would think, as the penalty for lying on the form is a felony that can bring up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. 
Yes exactly. I mean, i can compromise, make it a week? But like I said above, it is 2020, if you can get rejected or approved for a credit card in 5 min, or checked for warrants at a traffic stop, your status as a prohibited person should be attainable very quickly. If not, then fix the system in place.
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Collecting tax revenue is a perfectly valid reason. So is (pro-actively) ensuring that cars meet safety requirements. That emissions tests are passed. That someone is held accountable if the car is improperly parked or abandoned. Etc.
You could have all of those as separate systems, I suppose. A ‘has two headlights’ sticker number from one agency. A ‘passed NOx emissions’ sticker number from another one. A ‘who to contact if the car turns up abandoned’ sticker. A ‘who to bill if the car gets a parking ticket’ sticker. But that’s all effectively tantamount to registration, just a less centralized and efficient way of doing it.
And the net social benefit has to be weighed against the cost. What, exactly, is the cost of registration beyond the literal 50 bucks + taxes and perhaps an occasional trip to the DMV or whatever?
Harassment can be an issue, but isn’t intrinsic to the system. Ubiquitous scanning is already running into constitutional challenges, or could be outlawed separately.
I’d say it’s a pretty clear net gain.
Car registration is not only about taxes. If you really think so, then, clearly that’s the only justification needed for a registration system. So again, fine, let’s tax guns the same way.
This is begging the question. If requiring something to be registered is the same as “treating someone like a criminal” then why doesn’t the same logic apply to car titles, or building permits, or birth certificates…
I think someone who sells a gun anyway should be punished. Duh.
The purpose of the system is to prevent certain people from buying guns. If someone tries to buy a gun, and is, in fact, denied, then the system is working. They don’t also need to be arrested, unless there’s some specific reason they would be – e.g., parole or domestic order terms explicitly saying that even an attempt is a violation or whatever.
Obviously there should be verification built in – if the dealer is potentially untrustworthy, then followups would need to be done, at least on a spot basis, to make sure nothing had changed hands anyway. Send the local sheriff out. But if it really hasn’t, what’s the problem?
The issue with the current system, that might make you want to followup even more often, or proactively lock up people who seem to be inappropriately seeking out weapons, is that there are a lot of holes in it. If someone gets denied at a retail outlet, there’s a fairly large concern that they might now be out trawling gunswaps.com or whatever instead.
Universal background checks make that, at least marginally, less of a concern, not more.
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Just want to reiterate how dumb this is.
The vast majority of immigrants aren’t criminals. Which is why we’re not allowed to have a system of…visas and green cards?
The vast majority of prescription drug users aren’t abusers. Which is why we’re not allowed to have an official system of…a prescription from a licensed provider dispensed from a licensed pharmacy?
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Um - we have a huge system of gun laws. Don’t act like it’s a free for all. I have two licenses in my wallet related to firearms. There is the NICS and FFL system. There are major federal laws on the books, specifically the National Firearms act of 1934, Gun Control Act of 1968 being the most broad laws, and many more smaller ones. Plus each state has its own laws, and even some city specific.
Just like people who are against the wall aren’t advocating for open boarders, I’m not advocating for zero gun laws.
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I’m not even sure what this is in reply to.
I’m not saying it’s a free for all. On the other hand, big piles of laws and regulations aren’t the same as having an effective system. It’s actually quite common for the reverse to be true – it’s a classic dodge for folks like, say, the banking industry, to in a perverse way, want more complicated regulations.
That makes it easier to 1) hide the loopholes that are useful to them – and which effectively obviate the nominal purpose of the regulation, 2) point at the huge, complex morass of regulation and say “hey, what do you mean we’re not adequately regulated, look at all the rules we have to deal with!”, and 3) make it hard for smaller competitors to get started, because the rules are so complicated, and the loopholes might not be as specifically tailored.
The same sort of thing is going on with guns, hence the industry opposition to even obvious improvements and simplifications – like centralizing databases – and closing loopholes like private sales.
Edit: It looks like this was a reply to the ‘just to reiterate’ comment. That comment was not saying that there’s no system in place for guns at all.
It was pointing out that you’re arguing that universal registration is immoral and objectionable by pointing at things which literally already have universal registration systems*, ones that nobody finds especially morally objectionable.
* Or the domain-appropriate versions, anyway.
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Examine that one level deeper and you find that the flaws in NICS are not due to incompetence or neglect but built into by lobbying efforts by the firearms industry.
If the pharma industry was as corrupt as the firearm industry, you’d be calling for them to be shut down.
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I feel like the dot marked ‘guns’ in particular is a weird kind of singularity in the political multispace, especially for “conservatives”.
https://twitter.com/lukeisamazing/status/1219788159996825600?s=20
Clever, but not sure it entirely fits together.* Maybe it’s just the well-known way the .jpg format flattens out all the higher order unholy dimensions and non-Euclidean angles.
Points to how many ideologies and issues are involved though. Even radically oversimplified, that’s a busy chart.
* Like, left-authoritarian Stalinists were pro- everbody having guns in order to…protect workers? News to me. Soldiers, sure, but otherwise Soviet-era gun control pretty much peaked under Stalin.
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Denying someone a right because the bureacrat cant get it done in a timely manner is a bit backwards dont you think? Now, all they have to do is say it will take too long and deny it. Now it is no longer a right but rather a privilage handed out at the discretion of the current bureacrat.
I’m not sure if you are aware but the 2nd amendment of the US constitution was not put in place for hunting or for self defence, It was explicitly placed there so that if the government ever had tyranical inclinations in the future they would have to consider an armed citizenry in their calculus.
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I’m sure, when the senate votes against convicting and removing the most tyranical and power-abusive despot to ever be president of the US, that all the gun-loving patriots out there will rise up and remove him!
Any day now.
/s
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I did not like his signing of the digitall millenium copywright act and thought he should have just owned up to messsing arround with the intern but I would not call Billy a despot…
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But the entire purpose of having a background check is so that such officials are able to deny that right to individuals that shouldn’t have it. Making such a system more fail-safe in rare ambiguous cases isn’t the same as putting it entirely at the “discretion of a bureaucrat”.
No, the 2nd amendment was put in place to facilitate arming the militias which hunted down escaped and rebel slaves. The state-level measures that preceded and inspired it are pretty explicit about that, and suspiciously more common in the South than the North.
Even in the 1700s, citizen militias were never envisioned as something that could stand up to the vastly superior training and equipment of actual nation-state armies, such as those that would be fielded by a foreign invader or tyrannous domestic government. (Harass a little, maybe, until a real army could be raised, but not actually oppose.)
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