Ag and answerguy
Ag
dons asbestos suit and sprays flame-retarding foam across the L+P board
Why? It's a legitimate question that he wants addressed. If he is in search of answers, he has come to the right place.
answerguy
The addy of those who posted that misinformation. Americans for Gun Safety is a two-man gun-control group who try to come off as pro-firearm. They are not.
Is there something in place right now that stops law enforcement from tracing guns that were used in crime?
No. They can trace a firearm now but the anti-firearms groups, like AGS, want to register all firearms and firearm owners and place them in a criminal database. Massachusetts has done this and you are placed on the database with robbers, rapists, and murderers.
Why would I be against it?
Freedom, plain and simple. The costs of such a program would also be horrendous.
Canada instituted firearms registration in 1934 and they have publically admitted that firearms registration has yet to solve a single crime.
They also instituted C-68, which is the firearms owner registration which was supposed to have a cost in the tens-of-millions of dollars. They have now admitted that the cost of the program will exceed
one billion dollars in early 2004. There are estimated to be
seven million firearms in Canada. When you take this to its logical conclusion -- realizing that there are
250 million firearms in the United States, and that the Canadian dollar is only worth
seventy-six cents (US) -- the costs we are talking about in the United States stagger the imagination.
Couple this with the knowledge of how many freedoms have been coupled to their cost, like bicycle helmets, motorcycle helmets, seatbelts, airbags, etc; and how long do you think it will be before the government declares firearms registration to be too expensive to maintain and then use those same records to collect them all in the name of cost savings?
It seems to make sense to trace any gun found that has been used in crime, traced back to the original owner to see if any pattern developes. If two guns go back to the same person he might well be a gun runner.
Or he might just be the guy whose firearm collection was stolen.
The anti-firearms groups want you to believe that their suggestions are "common sense" (you'll hear that a lot, as if you lack any common sense of your own) and "the right thing to do". The true goal of these groups is total disarmament of the citizenry. It is a purely political move that has nothing to do with safety.
They will tell you things like "The police and military should be the only ones to have firearms." Are you familiar with the Knapp, Mollen, or Christopher commissions?
Under the plan the anti-firearms agendists have laid out, the same police that played a starring role in the Knapp, Mollen, and Christopher commissions will be the same police that will have the only legal firearms.
At this point, the military may also be used as police in our country and on our streets.
If you think this couldn’t happen, look at the efforts that have been made to weaken the Posse Comitatus law. Senator Charles Schumer, when he was a Congressional Representative, lead that charge. A quick trip to the library to thumb through the book by Bill Clinton and Al Gore
“Putting People First: How We Can All Change America†reveals that in that book, they state numerous times that there should be a national police force in America. There can be no more dangerous thing. Other countries call them the SS, Stazi, KGB, et al.
In "The Development of the American Police: An Historical Overview", Craig Uchida notes that "If there is a common theme that can be used to characterize the police in the 19th Century, it is the large-scale corruption that occurred in most police departments across the United States" (Uchida, 1993). In "Forces of Deviance: Understanding the Dark Side of Policing", Kappeler, Sluder, and Alpert point out that corruption among police is not new or peculiar to the late 20th century. "To study the history of police is to study police deviance, corruption and misconduct." (Kappeler et al., 1994.)
The one thing that you must never forget is that
those who hold the monopoly on firearms will also hold the monopoly on the violence committed with those firearms.
"Smart gun" technology is still one more ploy on the part of the anti-firearms agendists. They demand that these features be place in firearms and they will use the failure of those devices to sue firearms manufacturers into bankruptcy. If you don't believe this, or you think I am merely passing on Patriot Mythology or I am just one more "gun wacko", read this thread"
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54958
In that case, the litigants stated in their original pleading that the firearm lacked a "loaded chamber indicator" (one of their "sensible" measures they tout as needed on every firearm). The defense showed them that the firearm in question did, indeed, have a "loaded chamber indicator" and the case was found in the favor of the defense with an award of court costs to Beretta.
Now, they have appealed the case on specious grounds and the hallmark of their current litigation is "the gun's chamber-loaded indicator, a red dot on the barrel that is raised one millimeter when a round is in the chamber, was too subtle for unintended users".
So they had what they had demanded be incorporated into the firearm and they still found fault in its design but they have no suggestions for what would have been better. They are
still suing even though the firearm in question meets their demands for a "common sense loaded chamber indicator".
I hope this answers some of your questions.
Don't listen to Ag. We are not all seething gun nuts in search of prey to flame.
:banghead: