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Now that we can develop these huge databases all the feds have to do is make everything a felony and ..voila!...no more firearms for you!

"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." -- Ayn Rand

Maybe just a presidential directive.

Maybe just bust down the door of everyone on the database.

Do you actually think that the feds have disposed of all of the information from all of the NICS checks as requird by the law?

Like I said before, dream on. You are already in the database as a firearms owner and if you think the jbt are going to accept "I sold that gun years ago", keep dreaming.

Anygun

If someone is going to be denied the use of a firearm, it should be part of a judicial decision with an expiration date, i.e. for parole or provisional release. That order should have an expiration date that's reasonable (i.e. not 100 years) Owning a firearm should never be a crime otherwise. Martha stewart and G Gordon Liddy are both so dangerous that they can't own guns in current society. There are thousands more like them.

That's wrong.

Using it in a criminal way is the crime.


If they are too dangerous to be trusted, they need to be locked up.

If it's okay to infringe someone's 2nd amendment rights, maybe then it's okay to infringe their 1st? Their 4th?

We all know that laws only affect teh law abiding. Criminals get their guns through illegal channels. We KNOW this.
Let's stop wasting my tax dollars on NICS.
Then again, we already do that. Free speech zones, and warrantless wiretaps.

nuparadigm wrote:Because of that membership, the NRA is my Association, too and I'll disagree with it whenever I believe it to be wrong.

Disagreement is fine, even healthy. False statements about what the NRA supports, what it passes and what is prevents isn't honest disagreement. It wasn't only GOA that freely threw around the blatantly inflammatory and false title "Veterans Disarmament Act!"

When opposition must rise to the level of outright lies, gross distortions and inflammatory rhetoric, then any semblance of honest disagreement is lost.

BTW, I'm not talking about you nuparadigm, or your post.

Chas.

Liko81 wrote:

KBCraig wrote:You're this close to finishing that thought to its logical conclusion, but you can't get past the notion that some people should be denied guns because of a past conviction.

You're durn tootin'. There are way too many repeat/multiple offenders for anyone to be able to say of any ex-con "I trust him with a gun" without having spent serious time getting to know that person.

And the vast majority of them never used a gun nor any form of violence. Banning them from owning a firearm accomplishes what, exactly?

nitrogen wrote:If they are too dangerous to be trusted, they need to be locked up.

And you think there's a problem with jail overcrowding now... Would you ever trust a murderer, in general, with a gun? A rapist? You are advocating life without parole for any violent criminal. We're not talking about meth-heads and inside traders anymore; violent criminals, rapists and molesters, and maniacs/crazy people would go away permanently; no second chances. Why? It's a Catch-22; you have to prove you aren't dangerous in the real world to get out, but you can't prove you're not dangerous in the real world UNTIL you get out. How you behave in a structured prison environment is by no means a measure of how you'll fare on the outside.

I still fail to see how you think your logic behind getting rid of NICS seems valid to you. It isn't 100% effective and a waste of tax dollars so get rid of it and the law it enforces. Condoms aren't 100% effective. You'd be crazy not to wear one with a new sex partner or if your main squeeze wasn't on the pill. It ain't a law, but you're playing the lottery with the rest of your life without one. Underage drinking laws and all the TABC beaureaucracy and educational programs aren't 100% effective at keeping under-21s from drinking, and you wanna talk about a money hole for this state; should we do away with ID checks for alcohol and just arrest teens who drink and shut down liquor stores who contribute to the delinquency of minors? DWI checkpoints don't keep all drunks from getting behind the wheel; So we forget about trying to keep drunks from driving and just arrest 'em after they've killed someone else at an intersection?

Let's try another path if that first one doesn't seem applicable. If you are involved in an activity that carries inherent risk of loss to you, whether you are a liquor store, a tobacconist's, a bartender, or yes, a gun store owner, it is prudent to have a means to avoid such loss. In the case of alcohol you, in selling it, risk selling alcohol to a minor or an intoxicated person, which is illegal for you the liquor dealer (or any person) to do and results in the loss of your license and therefore your livelihood. A tobacco store as part of their business risks selling to an under-18 and losing their license. And a gun store owner who sells to a criminal loses THEIR license. One slip-up and you're done, and it's been that way long before the BATF.

Therefore, since it is legal to engage in these activities otherwise, people want means to protect themselves. Even if it were not required, alcohol and tobacco stores would want an official ID and training for salespeople to learn the rules and identify fake IDs, so they know the sale is legal. Similarly, gun stores would want a background check to ensure that their sales are legal even if running the bacground check itself was not required. To say that, because such systems are not 100% effective and as such are a waste of money and not worth having, is to deny people who engage in these legal activities the right to protect themselves from loss and forcing them to gamble with their business for a few percent in profit. It's like saying because a bicycle helmet doesn't protect your head from all types of injury all the time, that it's worthless to have one and the government shouldn't be spending money on helmet education and standards testing. Or because speed limits don't prevent all speed-related accidents, it's pointless to post and enforce them; simply write the at-fault a ticket for "negligently excessive speed" if speed was a factor. The line of reasoning is quite simply absurd; you have to be able to take sufficient precautions or you don't participate in the activity. If bars can't sell to anyone who doesn't have grey hair they lose their primary customer base. If gun stores can't determine who's of age they aren't going to gamble with the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars required to own the store and inventory.

You're ignoring an inconvenient truth: From the beginning of settlement of the U.S. until 1934, almost anyone could walk into any store that sold firearms and buy one for cash with no questions asked. After 1934, it became more difficult to acquire a machine gun or short-barreled shotgun or rifle, but until 1968 you could buy rifles, pistols, and handguns with no questions asked in most places. You could order them by mail.

The crime rate has never since been as low as it was in 1968.

(BTW, abolition of alcohol didn't work, and driver licensing doesn't work, either.)

- Jim

seamusTX wrote:(BTW, abolition of alcohol didn't work, and driver licensing doesn't work, either.)

So are you going to tell me that ID checks for alcohol should be done away with because they don't keep 100% of minors from buying? Bull. Minors can get alcohol without walking into a bar and flashing ID, but the bar didn't sell to the minor. They're legal, the minor isn't. If the bar sells to a minor, they're both in trouble. ID checks are therefore a cover yourself thing; properly check IDs and you'll never have a problem even if a minor does end up with alcohol.

Same thing with background checks; it's illegal for a retailer to sell to criminals, (for anyone to lend, gift, or otherwise allow a criminal access to a firearm, really). A criminal can get guns elsewhere, but the retailer didn't sell the gun to the criminal and is therefore in no danger of losing their business. If the retailer did sell even after receiving a "deny" from NICS, they're in trouble.

This isn't about finding a 100% foolproof way to keep guns out of criminals' hands; I have already agreed that it is impossible. However, the retailer can avail themselves of wrongdoing through the required paper trail. A stolen ID or a lie on question 1 on the 4473 is falsification of a federal document; whoever the guilty parties are, the gun retailer is not one of them, and the paperwork can be used to identify the guilty party. By defending their proceedures as correct when a firearm they sold is used in a crime, they can stay in business and continue to sell guns to lawful citizens. If they were not able to prove they did nothing wrong in selling to someone, they take the rap, lose their FFL and go out of business, and you have one less store from which to buy a firearm legitimately. Background checks protect legitimate retailers, and can be used to enforce existing gun law relating to straw purchases, theft or illegal transfer. You follow the paper trail and it stops at the guilty party.

Minors can buy alcohol by getting fake IDs, and many do. Criminals could buy firearms from FFLs by getting fake IDs, but few bother to do so. They don't need to. They have other ways to get weapons.

Furthermore, using an ID to buy liquor or cigarettes is not a good analogy to NICS. NICS produces false positives that cause a lot of inconvenience, and it costs a huge amount of money.

You didn't answer my question about crime rates. No "gun control" law in U.S. history has reduced crime.

- Jim

seamusTX wrote:Furthermore, using an ID to buy liquor or cigarettes is not a good analogy to NICS. NICS produces false positives that cause a lot of inconvenience

And that's exactly what the NICS Improvement Act will reduce; adding more crazies to the database is just part of what the act does. There will also be easier, faster remedies for false positives, fewer false positives and false negatives as the data on convictions and commitments will be more complete and up to date, and the Comptroller General will be auditing the use of funds by states to provide NICS information.

and it costs a huge amount of money.

You haven't seen the budget for the licensing offices of the DPS, have you?

You didn't answer my question about crime rates. No "gun control" law in U.S. history has reduced crime.

You might also want to look at other social factors: Irrespective of gun law, guns are seen and referenced in higher percentages of mass media today than in 1968. In '68 most gun images were seen in reference to Nam. And '69 was the Summer of Love; the same age bracket that today is responsible for the greatest percentage of crimes was at the time protesting everything the America of the day stood for, including violent conflict in general, and the Vietnam War in particular. In addition, drug crimes, which are inextricably linked to gun crimes, largely didn't exist in the 60's. Many drugs were illegal, but enforcement was lax and the drugs were cheap. Some of the most widely condemned, like crack, PCP and meth, didn't exist on the street yet. Of course the incidence of violent crime is going to be lower. In the 80s and 90s with the rise of gangsta rap, "COPS", "Rescue 911" and mass media in general, drugs, sex and violence became more commonly seen and heard about, even glorified. The rise of organized prison gangs that then leaked out into the streets was also a post-'68 development, and indoctrinated a lot of ex-cons in racist, nihilist philosophy, encouraging repeat offenses. New drugs hit the streets, and their demand is such that they create more crime to feed the habit. It ain't the guns, and it ain't the gun control. Since '68 there are a lot of new laws that toughen punishments for things that cops used to look the other way for or that couldn't be done 30 years ago, coupled with an infamous glorification of those crimes by people that get a lot of money to do so. What on earth did you think was gonna happen?

In fact, the same factors create gun control measures. Use machine guns to terrorize businesses into paying protection money and the government requires registry of those guns. Rob a bank with a machine gun to feed your coke habit, and they ban machine gun sales altogether. Shoot up your school and get famous, others do the same, and background checks are now stricter against those with mental illness. It's not a cause-effect cycle, it's a common cause. The REAL solutions, however, are even more frightening than banning guns. A police state with armed officers on every corner (4th, 5th, 6th, possibly 8th Amendments gone)? A frontier law society where a gun in every person's hand is the first and last word on crime (4, 5, 6, and 8)? Mandatory mental screening of every child between 13 and 21 with involuntary commitment upon discovery of a mental flaw (a good psychiatrist can always find SOMETHING wrong with you)? Media censorship of stories about violence (there's your 1st Amendment squashed)? Random, warrantless, compulsory drug testing (4th and 5th)? Warrantless search of personal financial records to look for patterns of illegal activity (4th)? Public execution of criminals pour encourager les autres (8th)? Laws that solve the problem at its cause with an iron fist trample far more of your constitutional rights than a background check and a machine gun ban.

I'm sorry, but I want it to be as hard as possible for the 3-time armed robber down the street to get a gun as possible, while still allowing me the lawful citizen to plunk down cash and walk out with a firearm that day. 10 minutes to fill out a form and a 5-minute call to the NICS hotline is not an infringement of my rights; I had to do more to buy my first car. Being forced to carry because the guy down the street who just got out of prison for armed robbery went to Academy and bought a handgun IS an infringement of my rights. I have the right NOT to keep and bear arms just like I have the RKBA, and when exercising that right is tantamount to suicide it is not a right at all.

Breezing through that bill, I see alot of good actually. Removed people from the "watch list" who were not convicted, and keeping the mentals from getting guns.
Call me whatever, but it sounds good to me.

Liko81 you talk a mean argument but you fail to understand for some reason that no law ever prevented anyone from doing anything and the only people that obey gun laws are the law abiding. The miniscule nember of individuals that NICS prevented from buying, I would bet is not near the number of individuals who are prevented from buying but deserve to be able to?

One of the glaring issues about the NICS improvement and adding more "crazies" is who determines who is crazy and by what standard?

If you follow the old combat vet suffering from PTSD justification then you had better include every LEO that shoots someone on the street.

Most folks have been to a shrink or counselors several times. Should we include them too?

Every single gun owner can be made a felon or a looney by just changing the law, including you, and all it takes is the stroke of a pen.

Anygun

lawrnk wrote:Breezing through that bill, I see alot of good actually. Removed people from the "watch list" who were not convicted, and keeping the mentals from getting guns.
Call me whatever, but it sounds good to me.

"There now! That arrangement of deck chairs is much better than before. Don't you agree, Commodore Smith?"

Liko81, is it just coincidence that your user name lines up closely with Liko Kenney's year of birth?

I have said everything I have to say about this topic.

- Jim

If someone serves their full sentence, their full rights should be restored.

I categorically deny that prior restraint is a good thing, and should be encouraged. If someone has comitted a crime, and served their debt to society, I think we should give them another chance.

If they seem to have an issue with keeping their nose clean, a 100 year sentence with provisional releases might be appropriate.

Most prison overcrowding is due to people comitting victimless crimes, like drug posession. Perhaps changing our crime policy might also be appropriate, but isn't really in this topic of discussion.