Thought experiment RE: private sales of firearms

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To many laws now. Unless I am mistaken this law you are proposing would have done absolutly no good on any of the mass shootings of late.If your so concerned about selling to a prohibited person require a CCP or go through a ffl.
 
To further your analogy - I support your decision to buy a car alarm. That does not give you the right to force me to buy one even if it makes no sense for my situation.

Your idea causes time and money to be expended for no gain. That is an impediment. How large of an impediment depends on the implementation. When some bureaucrat marks you as "not allowed " by mistake or fiat and you have to fight it in court, that would be an impediment that some would not be able to overcome.

I mentioned this would be easy to get around if you were a criminal. Have you never heard of fake ID's? Criminals use them. How is this an improvement if you sell to a criminal with a fake ID?

All valid points.

As I mentioned earlier, the cost of such a program is an issue for which I have not seen any good solution. And, false positives could certainly prove to be a serious problem. Fake ID's? Yes, that could reduce the program's effectiveness. But, again... I know that a real car thief will steal my truck if he wants it. Isn't it my duty as a responsible car owner to remove the keys and lock the doors anyway? Or is it better to just leave everything open because I know that criminals don't respect locks?
 
We've been looking at this backwards for decades.

At the zoo, they keep the potentially dangerous animals in cages; visitors can view them, but there's no direct interaction. If the animals were allowed to interact with the public, many injuries and deaths to innocent people could and probably would occur, so the animals remain caged. We don't declaw and defang them then let them go on their merry way.

Yet we allow people who are known to be dangerous out of their cages to walk freely among us. We think we can instead cage all the firearms, in effect declawing and defanging the bad actors, and then expect that they will not harm anyone. We don't want to seem uncaring about these people, so we let them out but prohibit them from growing new claws and fangs. The trouble is, the ones who really miss their claws and fangs always find a way to grow new ones.

The way to keep dangerous animals from their using claws and fangs on the public is to prevent their interaction with the public, and we do that. The only way to keep violent criminals and the insane from using firearms on the public is to prevent their interaction with the public, but we don't do that.
 
To many laws now. Unless I am mistaken this law you are proposing would have done absolutly no good on any of the mass shootings of late.If your so concerned about selling to a prohibited person require a CCP or go through a ffl.
I haven't proposed any law. Nor am I advocating for any new laws to be put in place. And I never claimed that any mass shootings would have been prevented. Please do not try to make this into more than what it is. And, what it is, is a discussion about a possible method to easily identify prohibited persons relative to a private transfer of a firearm.

Good point about currently having the ability to make a private transfer through an FFL. But, that would definitely be inconvenient, and would certainly add to the cost of the sale. Say a coworker wants to buy a pistol from me. Instead of a quick look at an ID card in the parking lot, we have to find an FFL that will do private transfers and meet there after work, but during his business hours, wait for him to finish helping other customers, and then pay him to call it in. Sure, it could be done that way. But, why does it need to be so inconvenient?

And, the suggestion to see a buyers CCP wouldn't work here, as there is no law requiring one. So, that would reduce possible buyers to virtually zero.
 
The only way to keep violent criminals and the insane from using firearms on the public is to prevent their interaction with the public, but we don't do that.
I don't disagree. But, this discussion is not about spending money we don't have to build and operate new prisons. Nor is it about fundamentally changing the way the country views and implements the death penalty.

So, accepting the fact that such people walk among us, wouldn't you rather know who they are so you don't unknowingly sell them a firearm?
 
Simply have a toll-free number for NICS. Seller asks for ID, whips out cell phone and calls it in, getting a yes or no in minutes. Purely voluntary of course, but a wise seller will do it.

The fact that a criminal might just conk a seller on the head while he's on the phone and steal his gun (and his phone, shoes, etc.) is merely a bump in the road, or on the noggin, as the case may be.

Inconviencing the law abiding citizen while NOT doing anything to deter an actual criminal from obtaining a gun is an idea that is just so...liberal, that it's bound to garner support.
 
Inconviencing the law abiding citizen while NOT doing anything to deter an actual criminal from obtaining a gun is an idea that is just so...liberal, that it's bound to garner support.

What is so inconvenient about showing an ID? People do it every day for a multitude of reasons.

And, wow... Do you actually think that the threat of violence (getting conked on the head) is really a valid justification to not check if a buyer might be prohibited from purchasing a firearm? Really?
 
You are concentrating on the tool as the reason for violence, not the criminal who is the real cause. If someone wants to commit violence, they have a lot of options to fulfill their mission.

Obama stated in effect that if we can save but one child’s life, the government has an obligation to try. Not so; safety and freedom are not good bed fellows. It is impossible for the government to accomplish this goal.

We as gun owners have no obligation as well. You have a right to choose to whom you will sell a gun. Set your own rules but don’t make it a national duty.

I am receptive to mandatory sentences and increased jail time to keep violent criminals out of society. Punishment should be harsh for the criminals, not law abiding gun owners.
 
You are concentrating on the tool as the reason for violence, not the criminal who is the real cause.
Actually, I am simply looking at the feasibility of a common tool with which private sellers could identify prohibited buyers, in an effort to help keep such buyers from illegally obtaining firearms from unwary sellers. And, I haven't ever mentioned trying to make participation in such a program mandatory, national or otherwise. On the contrary, I specifically made a clarification that this discussion is about individual programs administered by each State individually. Please don't try to twist this into something that it's not.

Yet, although there has been a lot of irrelevant rhetoric about not needing laws because criminals don't follow them, and not infringing on rights, there has been very little input on why or how such a program wouldn't work, or any specifics regarding why it would be a bad idea.
 
1911 GUY
Now that's just cheating. Everyone knows that more rules, laws and regulations are sure to solve this.
 
Let's assume your plan is implemented and I have an I.D. that prevents me from owning a firearm.

So I'll just steal one.
Well, I suppose you could. So, I guess we should just give you a gun then, so that society won't be accused of forcing you to commit yet another crime when you do steal one. "Boo Hoo! Nobody would illegally sell me a gun, so I had to go and steal one... It's all your fault that I'm a criminal."

Seriously. Can anybody provide any legitimate input on the concept? Or can you only make lame excuses for not wanting to try to keep prohibited persons from buying firearms, and complain that any discussion about it is an infringement of your rights. C'mon guys. You're better than this.
 
You do realize that your argument is ignoring reality, then complaining about lack of "legitimate input"?

I consider any hypothesis that ignores reality to be seriously flawed and illigitimate. In other words, your idea sucks because it places a burden on the law abiding while ignoring the reality that criminals, by definition, do not obey laws that do not suit them.

So pretty much, my input is more legitimate than your concept. It includes reality.
 
ngnrd said:
Seriously. Can anybody provide any legitimate input on the concept? Or can you only make lame excuses for not wanting to try to keep prohibited persons from buying firearms, and complain that any discussion about it is an infringement of your rights. C'mon guys. You're better than this.

I already gave you the answer, but you aren't listening. The only way to keep guns out of the hands of the "no gun for you" people is to keep them under 24-7 control in a place where they really cannot get a gun. No rule you can make will deter a determined rule breaker.

Now, I'll add that it is certainly conceivable that an insider could allow a prohibited person to acquire a gun--could even abet. So what you do is establish a chain of accountability to go with every prohibited person. For example, if Adam Lanza is a prohibited person due to a mental condition, make his primary guardian accountable to ensure he does not have access to any guns. Next, after her, perhaps another relative. If Lanza ever has a gun, that accountability chain is held liable. Do this, guarantee that the accountable chain of people will be in deep doo-doo if the person they're watching ever gets a gun, and that person won't get one.

If you can't get anyone to take that responsibility and accountability then the prohibited person gets removed from society, as in my first paragraph.

Also, extend personal accountability to the person who signs the release order for a person who's incarcerated for a violent crime or who is committed for insanity. That released person is either safe for release or not. If he or she then commits a crime, the person who signed the release is liable.

The point here is that we need to reestablish personal accountability. We need to blame these crimes on the people who commit them and/or the people who abet them by knowingly unleashing at-risk persons on society where they will eventually work their evil. People commit crimes; implements do not.
 
1911 and Beatledog, since we seem to be at an impasse, can you please answer the following two questions with a simple yes or no.


First: Do you understand that a court has the power to strip certain rights of criminals, as a condition of either incarceration, or parole? Note that I didn't ask if you agreed with it, just that you understand it.

And second: Would you willingly sell a firearm to a person if you knew that individual was barred by the courts from possessing firearms?
 
ngnrd, you need to know the individual you are dealing with. You know there are kids who obtain alcohol though are prohibited from owning, buying or ingesting. So what you advocate is worthless. Yes, I spent the last 4 months in Barrow, Ak. 2 years ago I spent 3 months in Kotzebue and then 9 months in Anchorage. There is still plenty of alcohol abuse in your state regardless of what is on the ID.
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I've got a much better idea.

It's cheap to impliment and has relatively little maintenance.

Put a backstop behind the witness stand for violent criminal trials. Upon conviction for a violent crime, such as those committed using firearms and such, the criminal gets a choice:

Life imprisonment without parole, ooooorrr...

:evil:
 
After going back and reading all of the replies again, I think I should clarify something.

I'm not describing a national background check, run by the Federal government. That program already exists, and is limited to commercial/retail sales of firearms. What I'm describing is a State run program wherein each State uses its own existing database of felons, or violent offenders, or whatever other criteria is allowed by their individual Constitutions, to provide a means to identify prohibited individuals during a private sale.

I don't know if that makes it better or worse. But, I still think it's worth discussing.

and is limited to commercial/retail sales of firearms.
No it is not. You are free to go to an FFL and ask him to facilitate the transfer for you. Many will gladly do this and collect $50 for their troubles.

So let's duplicate the already ineffective system to a State run equally ineffective system. Brilliant!
 
Are you saying that there would be no benefit to such a program?

And again, I understand that criminals are very adept at finding ways of circumventing the law. But is it your position that because of this we should have no law at all?
None whatsoever, unless you count as a benefit infringing on EVERYONE'S rights to accomplish absolutely nothing tangible while increasing taxes on everyone to pay for such a program.
 
I think that your personal policy is commendable. But alas, I neither have a CCW permit, nor am a member of any gun club. So, even though I am in no way prohibited from owning firearms, you have chosen to exclude me as a buyer. I agree with your reasons. But it certainly limits your market, doesn't it?
Well to be fair...if he's in the business of regularly selling firearms, he should probably be a licensed dealer. I got no problem with people defining their own criteria for private transactions...it's his gun, he has every right to set the conditions of sale.
 
All valid points.

As I mentioned earlier, the cost of such a program is an issue for which I have not seen any good solution. And, false positives could certainly prove to be a serious problem. Fake ID's? Yes, that could reduce the program's effectiveness. But, again... I know that a real car thief will steal my truck if he wants it. Isn't it my duty as a responsible car owner to remove the keys and lock the doors anyway? Or is it better to just leave everything open because I know that criminals don't respect locks?
So you think it is incumbent on the general population to prevent criminals from being criminals?
 
I do not agree with background checks at all. They serve only the government for the purposes of confiscation and/or persecution at some level (healthcare provisoins are the next threat).

Prior to 1968, you could purchase a gun through the mail and they would send it to your home. They advertised in comic books and just about everywhere else.

We know for a fact that criminals acquire their guns through theft and other means. Background checks will stop a few purchases, but those people will go to friends, spouses, random people, or turn to crime, to get the guns they want.

It's a complete farce, just like the TSA garbage that goes on in the airports. Do not fall for the lies and propaganda. You are not supporting anything that does one bit of good.
This goes to the point that I keep trying to make to people on both sides of this debate - have things gotten better or worse, from a gun crime standpoint, since we started creating all these new laws and background check requirements since 68? If things have gotten worse, how can one logically assume that more of the same will garner a different result?
 
So you think it is incumbent on the general population to prevent criminals from being criminals?
I believe that citizens have a responsibility to do their due diligence when selling or giving away items that have a reasonable risk of being used for illegal activities or harm to others. I'm not going to sell you a gun if I have a suspicion that you are a criminal or a moron any more than I would sell you a puppy or let you date my daughter.

That doesn't mean that I am willing to submit all potential buyers to some government background check that can easily be rigged to deny people based on some arbitrary metrics that may or may not have any relevance to their character or law abiding nature (no-fly and kill lists anyone?) and I darned sure am not going to pay for the "privilege" of doing so.
 
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