Unwise Information?

[herrwalther]

I wouldn't say I am scared to mention things. Merely cautious. I don't post on Facebook what firearms I have but I don't hide the fact I am pro-2A. I also no longer have any pictures or videos of me shooting anything, including military videos. I see a big difference between discussion of ideas and trade of information (here) vs being totally paranoid (tinfoil hat)

 

[Walkalong]

I have guns I bought through an FFL, and I have bought guns face to face with no paperwork. They are all the same to me.

I have no interest in fighting the government with my "secret" gun that they did not find when they came to get the others, as if they would not find them all in the first place.

I want to stand up loudly, draw a line in the sand, and beat the antis at the ballot box.

If society collapses (Which we do not discuss here because it is so unlikely and total fantasy as to what will happen even if it does.), it won't matter anyway.

 

[Salmoneye]

Actually, I think it is completely naive to believe that the government agencies either A) KNOW or B) CARE what guns any of us have. Or have any reason to want to know. Or have the ability to know as a general sort of thing.

Mr. Sam has it correct...

 

[Sam1911]

I suppose my thinking here is based on the idea that I don't believe there is any government agency that TRULY has general confiscation of firearms as its goal. (There! I said it! )

Without a prime directive that says, "we seek to identify, find, and confiscate all firearms" there is no reason at all to actively pursue such a thing. Doing so would suck up massive resources and get tons of notice.

Further, if they did, it wouldn't be a secret. Not with the sort of nation-wide effort it would take to even begin to locate the vast number of firearms that haven't been tracked -- ever -- or have wandered far from whatever was written on the old yellowed 4473 in some dealer's back room filing cabinet, etc. If there was such an effort to collate that information, we'd have heard about it 100 time by now. It would take thousands, at least, of agents to even get a meaningful start on a project like that. Agents who'd be operating in contact with hundreds of thousands of people in a directly unlawful way. It would be more than a few knowing winks and conspiratorial whispers here and there.

Having said that, I can't rule out some form of modern day electronic recording of 4473s, for example, that -- as institutions go electronic -- happen sometimes without even being intended. (For example, finding out that data has been dumped into hard drives instead of being wiped as required. It happens. Not always because of some nefarious purpose. I've seen similar things happen at my own firm and suddenly you've got many gigabytes of totally useless crap you never intended to record.) Or that at some point various electronic search technology will (or even does now) exist that could scour the bazillions of records and transmissions of all types and would be able to somehow make useful gun tracking data out of it all. And, we all have heard how our spy agencies "listen" to every word (actually more that they have computers scanning transmissions trying to grab key words or phrases related to terrorism and such) -- so it could be some day possible to turn that against American gun owners.

But even so, the fight is NOW, in the legislatures and the courts -- and we've been on the winning side for the last 20 years. Keep that up and we don't have to worry that someday a tyrannical leader will co-opt the NSA to track down your Mosin-Nagant pictures from 2013 and come raid your house.

 

[CB900F]

Fella's;

Regarding Sam1911's post above: "I suppose my thinking here is based on the idea that I don't believe there is any government agency that TRULY has general confiscation of firearms as its goal. (There! I said it! )"

And I believe he's correct, at this time. Please remember though, I have never advocated hiding all your firearms, creating secret sinkholes of stashed sniperguns in the south forty, or mentioned even one black helicopter. All I ever said was if there isn't a paper trail on it now, why let one get started? I did, however, present a rationale for the proposition based on experience.

900F

 

[Warp]

It's much easier to identify or track people than specific firearms.

 

[Jim Watson]

I know of no government AGENCY with gun confiscation as a goal, but unfortunately there are government AGENTS, officials, bureaucrats, politicians, etc., who do.

Anecdote: I was plotting a route from gunsmith's shop to the new range location on my iPhone. In satellite view, it showed a black pickup truck parked out front. By the parking place I have no doubt it was mine.

 

[Ky Larry]

There is no doubt the g-men can find out just about anything they want to about me. I just don't thing they're very worried about a fat, bald, 60 y.o. one legged hill billy. I'm just not much of a threat.

 

[Trent]

My take on it, is owning guns does not make me a criminal (yet), and since I'm not a criminal, there is no reason to hide the fact I own guns.

To be honest, I'm more worried about a fellow CITIZEN stealing my firearms, than I am the government.

I take home defense... very seriously.

 

[12131]

If you're scared to mention certain things because you fear the government, you're a slave already.

Thank you.

 

[Warp]

If you're scared to mention certain things because you fear the government, you're a slave already.

A bit off topic, but I'd say the fact that the government owns our labour and our productive output (witnessed by taxation on our labour) says we are slaves already.

 

[Jcinnb]

Boys, if the day comes to where the Feds are going door to door to confiscate guns, talking about what you have on the internet will be the least of your problems. And, if you are so stupid as to have weapons available for confiscation in that environment, well...

Remember, these are the same IDIOTS that have brought you Obamacare! How's that workin out?

 

[Warp]

Boys, if the day comes to where the Feds are going door to door to confiscate guns, talking about what you have on the internet will be the least of your problems. And, if you are so stupid as to have weapons available for confiscation in that environment, well...

Remember, these are the same IDIOTS that have brought you Obamacare! How's that workin out?

It wouldn't be door to door.

You start by singling people out and 'othering' them so that the rest of the population is okay with it (or only complain but don't act)

Heck, just start making types of firearms illegal, requiring turn-in, and after a certain period of time they are flat out illegal. Good luck buying, selling, giving, receiving, shooting, or using one.

 

[OilyPablo]

The feds can find out you own guns really fast. And yes I worry about our .gov way overstepping it's allotted power. BUT one reason I try to keep it a bit low key at times are thieves. I KNOW for a fact criminals join and loiter on gun boards. Especially local ones.

 

[Jcinnb]

Thieves are a different story altogether. They are a real threat!

 

[mr.trooper]

yea, I try not to post pictures at all - and I tend to only answer gun specific threads such as "does anyone have experience with 'X' gun?" with any personal information.

Not fool proof, but you would actually have to take time and go back and read my posts, not just browse for pictures.

 

[Officers'Wife]

Wait, you guys actually own guns????

gun? What's a gun?

Seriously, I only mention five weapons we have and only them because it's pretty well common knowledge we have them. Others... well if you tell everything where do you go when you want to go home. Quite frankly I have access to many firearms but I'm a semester short of having a degree in Chemical Engineering and have PMS. Which would you be better served to worry about?

 

[Tirod]

your credit card receipts are full of gun, parts, ammo, gunpowder, and other related purchases, and you're an NRA member, and you subscribe to three gun magazines, and belong to a gun club,

The problem with acquiring all that data - billions of records - is that there simply isn't enough time in the day to research the ones at the top of the list. Real crimes go first, then terrorists, etc. If you aren't on the radar, they can't waste the resources to narrow it down and deal with it.

Those billions of records are the problem, not the cure. It's too much information. Take the ATF agent tracking a single gun thru a maze of transactions - especially a pre 68 with no serial number. It has to go thru an FFL to be recorded, and it has to be known from one end of the paper trail or other who did that. The agent has to actually go and look at the record - a musty old journal on the bookshelf in a storeroom, and very likely, not in that state. It only gives him the next step in the chain of custody.

He contacts that purchaser, and gets "I lost it fishing." Ooookay. How did it turn up in a crime two states away? Nope, sold it to some guy, who sold it to some other guy.

There is no record of exactly where every gun is in the United States, and who owns what. In reality, it's easier to just mark the location of gun owners and expect some are there.

When the out of state LEO's went door to door in New Orleans confiscating weapons, ask yourself, are you going to show them all your guns? Do you have them in one container for them to access in one fell swoop? If you really are concerned about the .Gov knowing you have guns, then you don't buy any thru an FFL, and you don't buy any ammo with a credit card, either. You don't buy anything where your face could be recorded. Take it far enough, you start to pop up as someone who's trying to not be seen - which is exactly what the BATF IS looking for, the surreptitious buyer who is avoiding any trace. They watch for that precisely because that is the behavior pattern of those who are handling illegal weapons. It's all hush hush secret squirrel stuff.

Be the grey man. Relish being just another tree in the forest, there's millions of us. It's the ones who manage to pop up in the spotlight who the Feds play whack a mole on. They have their hands full enough with that, Darwin's Law shields us from further scrutiny.

When California passed their assault rifle registration scheme, the results were dismal. They know where those guns are, according to the premise. Did they sweep the state confiscating them? Nope.

 

[Sam1911]

The problem with acquiring all that data - billions of records - is that there simply isn't enough time in the day to research the ones at the top of the list. Real crimes go first, then terrorists, etc. If you aren't on the radar, they can't waste the resources to narrow it down and deal with it.

That's a big part of why I feel the way I do. EVEN if the NSA's computers can somehow collate all the data on all the firearms in the country and locate them all, without putting physical "boots on the ground" to go find and confiscate the guns in those MILLIONS of records ... so what? There's just no manpower for it.

EVEN if it was legal on the face of it. And it isn't, which is another big hurdle (don't worry about how they'll get away with it, ask how they'll pay agents to go do it without a budget for this illegal thing?), and nothing like it is really close to being considered by the government(s).

Those billions of records are the problem, not the cure.

Actually, they ARE part of the cure, if you're looking at it from our sdie of the argument!

 

[CB900F]

Fella's;

If you acknowledge the accelerating march of "progress", particularly in the field of computer electronics, it's extremely difficult to discount the looming ability to sift through large amounts of information. Anybody got a count on all the bytes & bits the NSA sifts through in a day's take on intercepted communications? And that's with the state of the art at our present government's agency specifically tasked to do so. It's my bet that at this time, the technology is being tested in the private sector, to raise the current state of the art by at least, minimum, one order of magnitude.

I repeat: Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

900F

 

[Sam1911]

Surely! That's why I posted what I did in Post 69. While collating information may get easier and easier -- so "they" could compile multiple records on each of hundreds of millions of guns in this country -- no one has yet written a computer program that can come and take them from you.

Without an army to take them, and the political will and ability to do something so grossly illegal, what "they" know isn't of much account.

We have to fight now to keep them from having the power and authority to confiscate guns, not hide and pretend ours don't exist.

 

[Old Dog]

Sam, I think it'd be pretty hard for anyone to argue further with what you've stated. Your posts have pretty much nailed it as far as I'm concerned. Time to throw out the tinfoil hats ...

 

[AethelstanAegen]

Anybody got a counts on all the bytes & bits the NSA sifts through in a day's take on intercepted communications?

You're actually making the huge assumption that the stories you hear about NSA collect data is also processed data. It's not. They have a whole lot of data but processing that data to find gun owners isn't even on the agenda...they have enough trouble shifting through it in time to stop terrorist attacks. "Big data" analysis is definitely getting a lot better, but Sam has nailed it. There's no way they have the manpower, funding, or time to set up a database and then organize a collection. Thievery is the only real concern here and I'm mostly concerned with local thieves who might see me with firearms at the range, to and from my car, etc.

 

[Sam1911]

A graphical representation:

Data to sort:

Data about GUNS:

Capacity to sort and collate and make actionable:


Manpower to act on any of this:

 

[CB900F]

Aethelstan;

You said: "You're actually making the huge assumption that the stories you hear about NSA collect data is also processed data. It's not. They have a whole lot of data but processing that data to find gun owners isn't even on the agenda.

I'm not making an assumption at all. I knew, long before your post, that the large majority of captured data is not processed. Most of the captured data doesn't contain a trigger to cause the deeper look at it. However, you are correct that at this time they have no plans at all to process data to locate firearms owners. I'm glad you are satisfied with your ability to accurately predict the future, I don't happen to agree with your assessment of it.

For instance; the sitting government of the United States has now signed the U.N. small arms treaty. However, it has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate. If you believe that you absolutely know all the ramifications to this country's firearms owners if the ratification passes, I'll choose not to believe that you're correct.

900F