Gun Policy News

I subscribe to gunpolicy news from http://www.gunpolicy.org/ which is like an international version of the gun guys.

One article that caught my interest was an op-ed piece from the LA Times called America's pointless gun fight. It's by Richard Feldman, so he tries to be unbiased about the issue saying that it's both sides who are being unreasonable. I tend to disagree with that, since most of the lack of reason comes from the more radical segment of the pro-gun side who see any attempt to regulate fireams as an infringement on their "gun rights". Feldman does make a very good point:

What is missing from The Times' editorial and from the ongoing national debate is the following:

First, we need to recognize that guns are present in more than 40% of all homes in this country -- like it or not. Any credible discussion of this issue must acknowledge that reality.

Second, gun owners and non-gun owners alike are in universal agreement in this country that violent, predatory criminals should not possess, have access to nor easily obtain firearms.

Third, we all wish that mentally troubled individuals would not own, possess or acquire guns.

Both sides of the debate need to acknowledge they actually agree on several key issues. I am a gun owner, and I do not intend to surrender my rights because of the acts of criminals, mental midgets or a sentimental wish of how things might be somewhere else (The Times muses about Canada's low homicide rate). I am hungry for action that moves our common agenda forward.

Mr. Feldman, I think we have sentimental wishes coming from both sides. Looking at how gun control has worked in other jurisdictions is merely an academic exercise. It has some value, but the US gun situation is very unique.

Also, I have a question about the figure that "guns are present in more than 40% of all homes in this country" which isn't disputing the figure, but a question of how many of those homes would keep the firearms if registration were imposed?

A realistic scenario for gun registration in the US would be that there would be a period of amnesty in which people were given the option of registering their firearms (which would probably be grandfathered in) or legally disposing of them. How many would turn their guns in as part of a gun amnesty or buyback?

My opinion on the reason the gun lobby fears registration has nothing to do with its efficacy as a tool for controlling firearms, but the fact that it WILL reduce the amount of firearms sold. How many people would buy a firearm if it requires a registration process?

It's not about public safety, but how much money the gun companies can make selling firearms and not caring where they end up.

Feldman does end on a very good point:

The bottom line is this: We must stop debating the polemics of guns and instead show wisdom and maturity to begin to resolve the problems of the negligent misuse of guns. Though a cliche, the following is nevertheless true: Guns aren't ever the problem; guns in the wrong hands are always the problem. How we address this problem will determine the future of gun safety in America.

Does saying that make him anti-gun? Although I already imagine he is seen as a turncoat for having written "Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist". Nevermind that he was an executive director of the firearm industry's trade association and a regional political director for the National Rifle Association.

Not from Gunpolicy.org, but from my past reading and collection we have a couple of interesting articles from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting we have a couple of interesting articles that seem to be lost in the dreck: Jeff Cohen's Gun Control, the NRA and the Second Amendment and Howard Friel's How the NRA Rewrote the Constitution: On Second Amendment, Reporters Side With Gun Lobby Against Supreme Court.

These articles deal with how the National Rifle Association has advanced the view that the amendment provides a fundamental right to private gun ownership that cannot be abridged by the passage of gun control laws. In fact, the actual finding that the Second Amendment provided an "individual right" in DC v. Heller did not come through legal precedent, but from a well planned attack by a special interest group, the Cato Institute.

The problem is that the gun debate like other US policy debates seems to be dominated by continuing misinformation, lies and deception used by ideologically shaped skeptics who deny (in this case, climate change, but it can be gun control or whatever). If deniers can convince the public that gun control (climate science, etcetera) is bogus, then there is no need for legal reforms. There is an industry of those who are paid to say that there are gun rights (manmade global warming isn’t happening, etcetera). The great majority of people who believe this have not been paid; however, they have been duped.

Gun control is a wedge issue par excellence in that all sorts of emotive situations and language can be used. Brainwashing doesn't take any sci-fi gadgetry or Manchurian Candidate hypnotism bullshit. There are all sorts of tried-and-true techniques that anyone can use to bypass the thinking part of your brain and flip a switch deep inside that says "OBEY."

How long will it take before people get fed up with the concept of "gun rights" and wake up?

How many incidents like this one where a NH Man was Charged With Firing AK-47 in a Massachusetts Restaurant:

Authorities said Anthony Gobbi, 30, of East Wakefield, N.H., fired an AK-47 into the restaurant's ceiling as patrons ducked for cover. Police said Gobbi became enraged when bartenders at the China Lion restaurant refused to serve him alcohol, believing he was drunk.

Police said that after he was refused service, Gobbi went to his truck, retrieved a handgun and the AK-47, returned to the restaurant and opened fire.

While most patrons ducked for cover, others managed to tackle Gobbi, wrestling him outside as he squeezed off a few more bursts of gunfire, police said. Gobbi was pinned to the ground while others called 911.

People didn't need guns to stop this shooter, they just needed to stand up to him and be fearless.

People need to stand up to the US gun lobby and not take it anymore.
(I was trying to figure out how to get the AK-47 story in there)

NRA Has Yet to Explain Why It Wants to Help Killers, Criminals, Lunatics, and Imbeciles Acquire Guns

Because that's its membership base?

A N.Y. probe exposes loopholes that let criminals buy firearms -- and the need for greater regulation.
LA Times Editorial (Editorial comment: For the fucking morons who don't understand a page link)
October 16, 2009


For shock value, they may not rank with the videos released last month showing ACORN workers giving tax advice to a couple of undercover investigators posing as a prostitute and her pimp. But New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's covert recordings of what really goes on at gun shows are appalling nonetheless.

In the midst of a reelection campaign in a Democratic-majority city, the Republican (sort of) Bloomberg has latched on to an issue that appeals mainly to liberals: gun control. Though New York state has fairly restrictive gun laws, Bloomberg believes firearms bought out of state play a big role in Gotham's crime problems. So he sent private investigators to seven gun shows in three states between May and August and posted the results, including video shot with hidden cameras, on a city-sponsored website.

"So no background check, right?" the investigators ask. "Because I probably couldn't pass one." The response, over and over, is laughter, a shrug or even admissions from gun sellers that they couldn't pass one either. Out of 30 vendors approached, 19 sold guns to people they knew were barred from owning them. Also captured on tape were dealers selling weapons to an obvious straw buyer -- someone who buys a gun for someone else, usually because the actual buyer couldn't pass the federal background check. Sixteen of 17 vendors approached sold guns to straw buyers, which is a felony.

Gun shows are thought to be a key supplier of guns used in crimes, though how big a role they play is the subject of heated debate. To understand why they're considered a problem, one first has to understand the contorted nature of federal gun laws.

New-gun retailers are closely regulated, with laws forcing them to obtain licenses, keep transaction records so that guns used in crimes can be traced, and perform background checks on buyers to ensure they aren't legally barred from owning guns. Convicted felons, drug addicts, the mentally ill and illegal immigrants are among those who fall into that category. Meanwhile, nonprofessional used-gun traders are subject to none of those requirements, although even resellers are forbidden from transactions in which they know the buyer couldn't pass a background check (something Bloomberg's investigators caught on tape repeatedly).

The absence of regulation of second-hand sales is often referred to as the "gun-show loophole." Any criminal can go to a gun show in most states and buy an armful of used firearms, including semiautomatic assault weapons, knowing they're untraceable and that no one will check his conviction record. Bloomberg and other activists seek to close this loophole, and they have powerful friends. During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama agreed, as did his Republican opponent, John McCain. Yet bills that have sought to close the loophole have never gone far, and there's little reason to think that current efforts, including a bill from Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), will be more successful. That's because the gun lobby enjoys political power that greatly exceeds the number of hard-core gun enthusiasts in the United States, and because many Democrats believe they lost their congressional majority in the mid-1990s because of their aggressive pursuit of gun-control laws -- and they're terrified of a repeat.

Democrats' cowardice is distressing, particularly when it's exhibited by Obama, who has been silent on the issue since the campaign and has made no attempt to back Lautenberg's bill. But even if it were to pass, it wouldn't go far enough. In truth, the phrase "gun-show loophole" is a misnomer, because unregulated secondary sales don't just happen at gun shows. Used guns are sold at swap meets, through classified ads and even over the Internet. What's more, criminals get their guns from many sources besides gun shows, including straw buyers and licensed dealers who break the law.

What's really needed is a federal law patterned on California’s tough restrictions on firearm sales. Lautenberg's bill, S. 843,:S.843: regulates gun-show transactions exclusively. In California, it is illegal for anyone to sell or transfer a firearm, whether at a gun show or not, without processing the transaction through a licensed dealer, who must perform a background check. Opponents claim that this would be overly burdensome, but it has had no discernible effects on gun sales in California, which, according to a recent UC Davis study, hosted 100 gun shows in 2007 and like many other states saw a 30% year-over-year sales increase in late 2008 and early 2009. Though there's little evidence that this law has reduced gun violence in the Golden State, that's probably because it's still so easy for criminals to get guns from elsewhere, especially from anything-goes border states such as Nevada and Arizona. A federal law would change that.

But it still wouldn't go far enough. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigates a gun show only when it gets a tip that illegal activity is expected; as a result, it conducts operations at less than 5% of them. If nothing else, Bloomberg's investigation proves that more attention is badly needed. The agency should be given the funding, and a mandate, to post undercover operatives at most if not all gun shows. Though the lunatic fringe that believes the ATF to be a Gestapo-like arm of a repressive government would loudly object, most legitimate merchants wouldn't, because they're tired of unfair competition from resellers who don't follow the rules.

None of these measures would restrict the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens; their intent is solely to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals. Though the gun lobby raises a hue and cry whenever such proposals arise, it has yet to explain why it wants to make it easy for murderers, armed robbers and other criminals to obtain the tools of their trade. Bloomberg's gun-show expose has the whiff of a political stunt, but if it gets politicians and the public talking about gun control again, it's a stunt we can applaud.

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
Another editorial comment for assholes too stupid to understand the word "plagiarism": this article is not my own but an editorial from the LA Times. I never took credit for it, but you are too fucking stupid to understand that.

So

FUCK YOU!

Found this little goodie in my research

Yes, gun control does work when there are effective laws. The problem with Washington, DC's gun laws weren't that they didn't work, but that there were other jurisdictions, in particular Virginia, that allowed for the easy access to firearms.

Effects of limiting handgun purchases on interstate transfer of firearms

Article Abstract:

Limiting the sale of guns to one per person per month could substantially reduce interstate gun trafficking. Many traffickers can buy guns cheaply in states with liberal gun laws and sell them at a higher price in states with more restrictive gun laws. Researchers used a firearms trace database compiled by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to estimate the odds that a firearm used in a crime in the Northeast could be traced to Virginia before and after a law was passed in Virginia limiting the sale of guns to one per person per month. Virginia and other Southeastern states are the principal supplier of weapons to the Northeast. Before the law was passed, 27% of the weapons used nationwide could be traced to Virginia. After the law took effect in July, 1993, that percentage dropped to 19%. This represents a 36% drop in nationwide gun trafficking originating in Virginia. Within the Northeast, gun trafficking originating in Virginia was reduced 66%.
author: Weil, Douglas S., Knox, Rebecca C.
Publisher: American Medical Association
Publication Name: JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0098-7484
Year: 1996

Read more: http://www.faqs.org/abstracts/Health/Effects-of-limiting-handgun-purchases-on-interstate-transfer-of-firearms.html#ixzz0TTepejNg

More RKBA illogic

I read that the "gun control" crowd is the "guns for criminals" crowd because they prevent law abiding citizens from having guns. That's a lot of a distraction from reality there. I mean John Allen Muhammad, Steven Kazmierczak, and Seung-Hui Cho bought their guns legally, not through the black market.

Gun enthusiasts often claim that there is no link between legal ownership of guns and gun crime - legal guns are legal, illegal guns are illegal and, according to them, never the twain shall meet.

The problem is that guns are the only commodity that start out legal and then end up on the black market. Some are bought directly from a gun dealer (above), some enter through straw purchase/traffickers, and others are stolen. To understand how guns are acquired on the illicit market, we must also look at the legal trade, since the majority of guns on the black market began as part of the legal trade. In the United States alone, approximately 500,000 small arms enter the black market every year due to theft from private citizens.

Legal gun ownership creates a pool of weapons from which crime weapons can be obtained through theft and other means such as fraud. The more guns in circulation, the larger the pool of guns that can end up in the hands of criminals. This is especially true if the penalties for selling to disqualified persons are non-existant, or weak enough that they could be non-existant. Also, we have seen the Government give immunity from lawsuits to gun dealers who sell to disqualified persons.

It's funny how we hear the "Guns for criminals" crowd scream about enforcing the gun laws on the books (which they have structured to be ineffective) on one hand, yet work to repeal them or make them weaker on the other. More than enough times I have pointed out that a finding of an individual right in DC v. Heller will lead to litigation regarding existing firearms laws. It is not strong guns laws that put guns in the hands of criminals, but weak and ineffective ones.

DC's experience shows that having strong gun laws in one jurisdiction while another jurisdiction has weak laws will indeed lead to criminals having guns. DC's crime guns come from outside DC and from legal sources. Crime guns don't come from outer space. Ambiguous or ineffective domestic laws concerning the purchase of small arms contribute to the quantity of guns available on the black market. For example, "straw purchasers" can buy several weapons at once and then illegally resell them if there are no limits to how many guns a person may buy at one time. These illegal weapons are often sold across state lines from a State with lax regulations to one with quite strict gun laws.

On the other hand, the "guns for criminals" crowd refuses to allow for the tools to prevent guns from falling into the hands of criminals. Even simple actions like reporting stolen guns are fought as infringing upon the rights of "law abiding" citizens. The problem is that "stolen guns" find their way into the hands of criminals. In fact, stolen guns by definition have entered the black market. The Tiahrt amendment blocks law enforcement from accessing useful statistics regarding the source of illegal firearms.

Sorry, by doing everything in their power the alphabet soup of "gun rights" organisations (NRA, SAF, GOA, CCRKBA, SAS, etcetera) have ensured a steady source of guns for criminals. This is a pool which won't dry up anytime soon even if SCOTUS does the correct thing and upholds the Miller standard.

Unfortunately, instead of talking about gun responsibilities and enforcing gun laws which had teeth, the "gun rights" organisations have been working to eliminate gun laws. This means more guns for criminals. Gun owners would have been far better served had the talk been of gun responsibilities.

So, to be quite frank with you, crime guns start out as legal guns. We have to look at who is responsible for blocking any serious solution to this problem until the flow of legal guns into the black market is stopped.

Why I don't call myself a US citizen.

I loved living in Washington, DC. It is a city which tries to show an image of what the United States really deep down wants to be. People come there and love the metro, yet go home to their private cars. There are loads of cool museums and loads of restaurants.

And, strict gun laws. These gun laws bother the heck out of people who don't live in Washington, DC. Probably because Washington, DC is the capital of the United States, yet it has strict gun laws. These gun laws have been found constitutional up until a legal aberration happened in Parker v. DC. That legal aberration was that a rogue judge decided he didn't like precedent and wants to make his own law. The same people who get upset when this happens in situations they consider "liberal" applaud this as a correct decision (smell the hypocracy?).

The United States doesn't have leaders. Leaders are people who lead when the followers go astray. They have the guts to say this is a wrong idea.

I cannot support Barack Obama because he cannot say that the Second Amendment only means that we have a citizen's militia (as opposed to a standing army). What the Second Amendment means is that we should not have a trillion dollar military budget because people are willing to give up their personal time for training and militia duties. But, the Second Amendment is meaningless since most people aren't willing to take the responsibilities incumbent with that right. How many of these Second Amendment "supporters" are willing to volunteer for Iraq or Afghanistan? Yes, this means giving up their liberty to defend the United States because their commander in chief commands it.

It's not about saying that you belong to an "unorganised militia" and demanding to bear arms. The unorganised militia is a draft pool for the organised militia. Actually, it was better explained as a construct so that the "universal militia" could be kept up "in spirit" because people weren't willing to give up their time to be an actual militia member. The "unorganised militia" comment is a silly as saying that Ted Nugent was a Viet Nam vet because he had a draft card. Never mind Terrible Ted, who is happy killing things that can't shoot back was a sniveling coward who showed up at his draft board physical, with no personal hygiene. having eaten nothing but junk food and Pepsi, and with a week to go until the physical, he stopped using the bathroom altogether. When the big day came, he had been living in excrement-caked and urine-stained pants.

And he boasted about this in a 1990 Detroit Free Press interview.

No, the RKBA crowd want the guns without the responsibilities.

So, Yes, THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS MEANINGLESS! It is an anachronism which prevents the people of the United States from being able to have sane gun laws. It doesn't need to be repealed, it needs to be understood. The real meaning needs to be taught rather than the lies pushed upon us by "public interest groups" which don't serve the REAL public interest.

I am not proud of the United States since it lacks leaders. It seems to lack people with any intelligence. And it definitely seems to lack people who are willing to stand up for their principals when they are being trampled.

Gun Myth #2: Gun control caused the Virginia Tech Shootings

That comment might make sense if the Virginia Tech shootings occurred in Massachusetts, New Jersey, or California.

But they didn't.

It happened in Virgina, a state with liberal gun laws. It was pretty high up there on the NRA good state scale. Brady gives it a grade of 18 out of 100. Virginia must be doing something correct from a "gun rights" standpoint. So, Just how did gun control cause the Virgnina Tech Massacre?

Virginia has shall issue concealed carry. Heck, you can strap on a holster and carry openly in the part of Virginia where the shootings happened. It's not unusual to walk into a gun store in Virgina and see machineguns for sale.

According to the RKBA crowd beliefs, this kind of gun culture should have prevented the shootings.

But would an armed citizen have stopped a lunatic intent on committing suicide on a grand scale? I mean Klebold and Harris engaged in a shoot-out with an armed Sheriff at Columbine. That's a real trained Law enforcement agent.

Didn't stop them from killing 13 people besides themselves.

What would some armed citizen do to stop the violence if a trained cop couldn't?

First off, a private citizen does not have all the legal advantages a policeman does when he engaging in his official duties. The private citizen can legally only protect himself if he, or his family is faced with immediate bodily harm. That harm must be resisted with the least amount of force necessary to stop the attack.

So, if someone is coming at you and you could stop that person with somehting less than deadly force, use of deadly force makes the victim the aggressor!

Not to mention if Rambo with the gun there mistakenly hits someone besides the gun toting maniac. Bimbo with the gun has just added to the chaos, confusion, and carnage. Think of the liability there!

Hero to zero in nothing flat.

Anyway, I've seen in posts that Cho Seung-Hui wasn't a US citizen (in gun groups where this is a thread no less). Not to mention the guy had psychological problems.

Now, shouldn't that have disqualified him from owning a gun?

Nope, Cho Seung-Hui plunked down the money and passed the instant checks to walk away with a Walther P22 and Glock 9 mm handguns, not to mention how many rounds of ammunition.

Now, does that sound like gun control contributed to those shootings to you?