What are reasonable gun laws in your opinion?

[Constantine-p89]

The ''Make my day law''(Muskogee only, probably). If their in your house their paid for.

 

[PTK]

I used to believe that the only reasonable law would be 18+ to own/carry/shoot anything.

I now believe that there simply aren't any reasonable laws to control people.

 

[captlid]

hmmm......

1. The second says "people". It does not specify immigrant, tourist, resident alien or citizen.

2. The only law I would like is that the 2nd be incorporated to apply to the states too. And that local cities cant just circumvent state and federal protections. Such as nyc does in regards to its state's constitutional amendment that is almost verbatim to the federal one.

3. The ATFE should be privatized and turned into a convenience store.

4. Anyone (minors included) not currently in a mental health facility or in prison should be able to own whatever weapon they wish and can pay for. Yes that includes heavy military equipment such as tanks, rpg's, warships, etc....

5. In terms of bearing, they can be worn or carried anywhere but in a prison or a mental health facility. On the flip side a private property owner can ask you to not bring the blaster in. Its their property.

 

[IA_farmboy]

If you've been any where close to a college you've probably heard something like the following:
Underage Student: "Say buddy, we were thinking about having a little get together this weekend at my place, interested?"
Drinking Age Buddy: "Sure, want me to bring anything?"
US: "Yeah, a couple cases of whatever is cheap and a bottle of whiskey. Here's some money to cover the cost. If it's not enough I'll make up for it when you get there."
DAB: "Great, see you then!"


Let's put a twist on that same conversation.

GG: "Hey pal, want to shoot some skeet with us next weekend?"
BG: "You know I can't, the cops took my shotgun."
GG: "Don't worry about it, I'll hook you up. What do you want? Just pay me back when you can."
BG: "You'd do that? Great, get me one of these right here." <points to shotgun in ad from a local sporting goods store>
GG: "Good choice. If they don't have it in stock I'll call your cell phone and we'll see if they got something else you like, OK?"

The above is what some would call a "straw purchase" and others would call a "private sale". As long as private sales are legal the burden a BG would bear compared to a GG is close to zero. Make private sales illegal, or nearly so by having strict requirements on the sale, and you now have an enforcement nightmare. The only way to enforce background checks on private sales of firearms is with tyranny. How can the government be sure that you are not selling or giving your firearm to someone that should not have it unless they check up on you... um, I mean the gun, on occasion. To do that they will need to keep your current address on file as well as all the firearms you have purchased and those that you have sold. They would have to keep very close tabs on you... um, I mean the guns, from cradle to grave.

With gun control the medicine is worse than the disease. First they try "reasonable restrictions" on guns in an attempt to battle crime and save innocent lives. Those restrictions will inevitably fail to do what they are supposed to do, so lawmakers tend to apply stricter controls. This tends to continue until the people rise up, or get shot down.

Please, step away from the "MP-5s on a plane" bogeyman and tell me how you would keep shotguns out of the hands of bad guys without placing restrictions on my freedoms.

 

[Erik]

"What are reasonable gun laws in your opinion?"

The don't commit crimes with guns, ones.

 

[mrmeval]

None. There are already laws that address criminal activity with various inanimate object.

 

[illspirit]

To hnk45acp, or anyone else who has proposed training requirements before purchasing in this topic:

What problem would such testing solve? And how would this qualify as a legitimate government interest under a rational basis, immediate scrutiny, or strict scrutiny test?

If the object is crime prevention, wouldn't a person with bad intentions be more dangerous if they were actually trained?

Or if the object is accident prevention, accidents are already extraordinarily rare. The most recent CDC numbers show only 649 unintentional firearm deaths for 2004. That places the accident rate of around 0.0002% of the ~270 million privately owned firearms, or around 0.0008% of the ~80 million gun owners. Both numbers are almost infinitesimally small as far as statistics go. Yes, they're all tragic, to be sure, but from a fiscal, cost-benefit standpoint, the end hardly justifies the means.

Especially if you could factor out the number of licensed hunters, law enforcement, and others involved in a negligent firearm deaths despite having already passed some sort of training.

 

[yesit'sloaded]

I think 18 and under with parental consent is reasonable and fair as children are under their parents control. If we said the 2nd applies to children then the other rights do as well and a parent couldn't search their kids room without calling the police and having them get a warrant.

 

[frankie_the_yankee]

The above is what some would call a "straw purchase" and others would call a "private sale". As long as private sales are legal the burden a BG would bear compared to a GG is close to zero.

I disagree. In your scenario, both the buyer and the seller put themselves in legal jeopardy. If the buyer gets caught and talks, the seller is in hot water. Many potential sellers would be deterred by this. (You and me for instance.)

But in any case, if a BG can't walk into a store and buy the gun of his choice, his burden is greater than mine. That's the general idea.

If he can't carry legally his burden is greater than mine. Every time he leaves the house with it he is risking a stretch in prison. When I leave my house armed, I am risking nothing.

Make private sales illegal, or nearly so by having strict requirements on the sale, and you now have an enforcement nightmare.

It's just my opinion, but I do not favor making private sales illegal.

Please, step away from the "MP-5s on a plane" bogeyman.....

Why? None of the "no restrictions" people have been able to address it except for lame nonsense like, "The terrorists won't be the only ones with MP-5's.", or, "The airline could ban them if they wanted to, just so the government doesn't do it." (Does anyone in their right mind think for a second that any airline on the planet would allow them?)

If you advocate no restrictions, you have to address the consequences. Otherwise, you are simply advocating nonsense.

.... and tell me how you would keep shotguns out of the hands of bad guys without placing restrictions on my freedoms.

"Without placing restrictions on your freedoms?" Don't know if that's possible. But maybe society simply chooses to regard keeping shotguns away from bad guys as more important than every last tiny little piece of your freedom. Maybe that's what society (i.e. most of us) thinks is "reasonable".

You know, burdening the BG as much as possible while burdening the GG very little.

10,000 years ago, most people lived in a state of arnachy. They had almost total freedom to do what they wanted and/or whatever they could. From what I'm told, life then was, "... nasty, brutish, and short."

That kind of makes it a tough sell.

 

[IA_farmboy]

.... and tell me how you would keep shotguns out of the hands of bad guys without placing restrictions on my freedoms.

"Without placing restrictions on your freedoms?" Don't know if that's possible. But maybe society simply chooses to regard keeping shotguns away from bad guys as more important than every last tiny little piece of your freedom. Maybe that's what society (i.e. most of us) thinks is "reasonable".

You know, burdening the BG as much as possible while burdening the GG very little.

You need to read more of Benjamin Franklin's writings:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

The right of the people to defend themselves is an essential liberty. I think that even those that have shown violence in the past should have that right reinstated after being removed from the protections of our prison system. Even "bad guys" on good behavior should be able to defend themselves from "good guys" that chose to take advantage of them.

All "bad guys" (people with a criminal record or deemed mentally unfit by a court) were at one time a "good guy". Trying to keep "bad guys" from getting a firearm does not work, they tend to arm themselves before doing whatever got them the "bad guy" status.

Bad guys tend to remove themselves from the protections of the law and by doing so they have removed themselves from the burdens of law. A person that does not have a license to carry a concealed weapon but carries one any way may get arrested and charged for that offense. A person that does not carry a concealed weapon because of the expense (monetary and/or time) is now at a serious disadvantage from the one that carries a weapon.

The criminal is now free to roam with a concealed weapon knowing that few of the people around are likely to be armed. They can pick the time and place to reveal that they are armed and once they do reveal that they are armed they can "leave no witnesses" and move on.

I have considered the consequences of "reasonable restrictions" and I don't like them. By requiring a background check before a purchase of a firearm has now made my identity valuable to a criminal. That criminal is now more motivated to steal and murder so that an identity can be stolen until the victim is suspected of being missing. Long enough to purchase a couple rifles or shotguns. If the "missing person" just happened to have a FOID, CWP, or similar they could buy a couple handguns instead.

Once you place any artificial restriction on the purchase or ownership of any item it creates a black market for that item. Criminals will continue to obtain firearms even with "reasonable restrictions" with little restrictions while the common person is now burdened with the task of proving their "worthiness" at every purchase of a firearm.

Most firearms are quite durable and will function for decades with even the most minimal of care. Once a gun has left the store it can be traded, bought, sold, stolen, lost, found and otherwise moved among many peoples hands. The chances that a gun will be found in the hands of a criminal, and removed from those hands, before that criminal can commit a crime is next to zero.

A criminal that illegally carries a weapon has little fear of the offense of carrying the weapon because the crimes that prevent that criminal from purchasing a weapon legally will likely be enough to put that criminal in jail for a very long time. What should be the punishment for carrying a concealed weapon without a license? A $1000 fine and a month behind bars? What might be the punishment for murder? Twenty years? Life behind bars? I don't think the murderer is terribly concerned about the concealed weapon. They are concerned about being caught by police. That weapon puts them in a better bargaining position should a police officer get a bit too close.

Now a person that wishes to carry a concealed weapon legally would have to, because of "reasonable restrictions", have to take a firearm safety course, submit fingerprints to the FBI, and file the paperwork for the license. The criminal only has to go to a friend that just happens to have a dead police officer's sidearm for sale.

No "reasonable restrictions" will keep bad guys from arming themselves because they are already armed. Just look at all those places in this world with strict controls on firearm ownership. In those places there are still people that get shot. In those places criminals are able to roam about largely unopposed since they have removed themselves from the burdens of "reasonable restrictions".

That is why the Second Amendment was written with such language, "... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." because the founders of our nation realized there is no such thing as "reasonable restrictions". Any restrictions on ownership of arms serves only to put the innocent at a disadvantage of the criminal.

 

[everallm]

Reasonable restrictions other than the age and mental state ones thrashed out already.

Any line of sight weapon is OK, indirect fire such as artillery, mortar etc is not.

Unguided weapons OK, guided not, so anything upto and including an RPG-7 would, but a SAM such as a Stinger would not.

This covers my belief that non crewed served weapons are the intent and we cut out the "nuclear weapon" BS.

It also means that when the 40 watt phase plasma weapon or explosively pumped laser comes out you can inherently have it wiothout further legal interpetation....

 

[Art Eatman]

"The ATFE should be privatized and turned into a convenience store."

Well, heck, I turn into a convenience store, when I'm low on beer...

Sorry. Couldn't help myself. Just another character defect.

 

[glummer]

Now if you want to make laws like- "using a gun in a felony adds 20 years to your sentence" THEN I would say these are reasonable gun laws.

Then I would suggest you have been suckered by the antis.
Why should gun possession be any different than knife possession, or bomb possession? If a weapon is used to cause a certain degree of harm, or endanger someone to a certain degree, why should the TYPE of weapon matter, if the harm or danger is the same?
You are saying that gun possession ALONE is deserving of punishment.
That is culturally suicidal. :banghead:

 

[glummer]

"All legislative powers". That means they can pass any law they like.

Not quite. It is "All legislative powers granted ...". That means they can pass only those laws they have been granted authority to pass. The BOR limits that authority.

 

[glummer]

But if in some twisted bizzaro world fantasy, toting MP-5's around was commonplace, and if MP-5's could be bought anywhere with no need to produce ID, and carried anywhere with no questions asked, even an utter moron might see that the death squad could just blend in with the crowd.

Even an utter moron can see that that last comment is not High Road.
And one should not need a genius IQ to figure that shotguns, hacksaws, and trench coats would allow terrorists to blend in with the crowd for long enough to slaughter crowds of people in malls, airport security lines, schools, and many other victim disarmament zones, if they are determined to do that.

 

[glummer]

From Article 1, Section 6: They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

And no matter what they say in debate, no matter what they advocate for, you can't touch them.

Read it again. That's debate IN SESSION; no arrest IN SESSION. And felony arrest allowed even then. That is hardly untouchable.

 

[frankie_the_yankee]

frankie says:

But if in some twisted bizzaro world fantasy, toting MP-5's around was commonplace, and if MP-5's could be bought anywhere with no need to produce ID, and carried anywhere with no questions asked, even an utter moron might see that the death squad could just blend in with the crowd.

glummer responds:

Even an utter moron can see that that last comment is not High Road.

Which has nothing whatever to do with whether or not it is true.

glummer goes on:

And one should not need a genius IQ to figure that shotguns, hacksaws, and trench coats would allow terrorists to blend in with the crowd for long enough to slaughter crowds of people in malls, airport security lines, schools, and many other victim disarmament zones, if they are determined to do that.

But they won't get on board the plane with any of that junk, right?

Under your regime, they could tapdance aboard with MP-5's while singing the praises of holy jihad with no impediment whatsoever.

 

[glummer]

The reason those options are not open to them now is because MP-5's may not be openly toted around in public in America by non-LEO, so people doing so are immediately noticed. If anyone could do it, and tote them anywhere, the terrorists could blend in.

What has "openly" got to do with it?
MP-5s can be concealed easily enough, and determined terrorists certainly can get them, so why aren't they using them now?
And why aren't they using sawed-off shotguns being used instead? Hacksaws are totally legal.

 

[frankie_the_yankee]

From Article 1, Section 6: They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

frankie says:

And no matter what they say in debate, no matter what they advocate for, you can't touch them.

glummer responds:

Read it again. That's debate IN SESSION; no arrest IN SESSION. And felony arrest allowed even then. That is hardly untouchable.

I think you need to read what I wrote again. I didn't say that they were immune to arrest in all circumstances. I said that no matter what they say in debate, no matter what they advocate for, you can't touch them.

That's right out of Article 1 Section 6.

 

[frankie_the_yankee]

glummer writes (referring to Congress' powers under Article 1:

It is "All legislative powers granted ...". That means they can pass only those laws they have been granted authority to pass. The BOR limits that authority.

Remember, the original reference to this called for members of Congress and their agents to be tried, convicted, and imprisoned for passing "unconstitutional" laws.

The BOR doesn't limit Congress' authority to pass laws. No where in the Constitution is there any statement saying that Congress commits a crime by passing this or that law. There is no provision for punishment for Congress or for individual congressmen for passing any given piece of legislation. And no court has ever found such principles to exist in law.

Let's keep it in the real world, OK?

All the BOR does is list certain rights held by the people. In any given instance, it is up to the courts to determine whether a law that has been passed violates those rights or not.

 

[frankie_the_yankee]

frankie writes:

The reason those options are not open to them now is because MP-5's may not be openly toted around in public in America by non-LEO, so people doing so are immediately noticed. If anyone could do it, and tote them anywhere, the terrorists could blend in.

glummer responds:

What has "openly" got to do with it?
MP-5s can be concealed easily enough, and determined terrorists certainly can get them, so why aren't they using them now?
And why aren't they using sawed-off shotguns being used instead? Hacksaws are totally legal.

More nonsense.

Pretty tough to get any of that stuff through the metal detectors, don't you think?

 

[glummer]

It's simple economic theory.

And not so simple reality.

If you make something more difficult or more expensive, people will do or buy less of it. How much less is determined by the elasticity of the demand for the product or activity.

If you make guns harder to get for the BG's, by closing off normal commercial channels, fewer BG's will be able to get guns (or will want to bother getting them). How many fewer? Who knows. But you can be sure that some number fewer will have them.

You can be sure of no such thing.
Because you’re creating a black market, which INCREASES the number of actual (and paper) criminals, and breeds contempt for the law, and fosters corruption among law enforcement, and may actually INCREASE crime – think Prohibition.

If at the same time, you impose only a small or negligible burden on the GG's, the numbers of them seeking to acquire guns should not change by any significant amount.

Which is not what happens in reality – think England and Australia.

So the balance of power shifts towards the GG's.

In your dreams.

Now the elasticity of the demand for guns is much "stiffer" among BG's than among most GG's. So you need to place a large burden on the BG's to make any significant difference.

In reality, gun-control laws have nothing to do with burdening BG’s – their PURPOSE is to burden the GG’s.
And as long as that is the reality, there ARE no reasonable gun laws.

 

[glummer]

... and the guns that they get will not be as good.

So what?
Are you claiming that the danger from criminals depends on the QUALITY of their weapons?

How many fewer? I don't know.

But it is a well documented principle of economics that change takes place at the margins - meaning the criminals most likely to be affected are those who are least motivated in the first place; i.e., the least dangerous.

But it is a well documented principle of economics that if you make something more costly or more difficult, fewer people will do it.

ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL.
But all else is NOT necessarily equal.
It is a well documented principle of economics that actions can have unintended consequences.
And, in reality, gun laws do not seem to work the way you want to believe they do.

 

[glummer]

But they won't get on board the plane with any of that junk, right?

They won't need to, either, right?

 

[glummer]

Pretty tough to get any of that stuff through the metal detectors, don't you think?

What metal detectors? There were none at VT. There are none at airport security lines until it is too late. Most schools don't have them. Do you know of a shopping mall that would dare use them?