Miami_JBT
Member
I can speak from 15 years of professional experience as a law enforcement officer. Gun control is completely ineffective.
Multiple mass shootings in jurisdictions with the very gun control you want prove gun control doesn't work.
Why Aren’t gun owners reliable voters?
- Thread starter Buzznrose
- Start date
- Status
Multiple mass shootings in jurisdictions with the very gun control you want prove gun control doesn't work.
Miami_JBT
Member
My family fought communists in their country of birth.
Sometimes, freedom is worth risking things.
Eutycus
Member
We've gone through 7 pages so far and the question "Why aren't gun owners reliable voters?"has yet to be answered.But don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying this thread.
Last edited:
In my state, the issue isn't voters, it's who counts the votes! Twenty years ago I was so disgusted with the way my county and state were moving -- towards the left -- that I decided to become involved as much as possible. For the first time in my life, I offically joined a political party and signed up with the county board of elections to be an election poll worker. That's where my education stated. I was an election worker from November 2001 to September 2013. With primaries and local ballot issues, in some years we had as many as five elections. In all of those cases, there was NEVER A FAIR AND FREE ELECTION! The only thing that changed was the manner in which one particular political party cheated and the number of votes stollen. I called, wrote and visited local, state and national offices. I provided documents and photographs of the cheating. No one did anything. Now it is much worse. Preiously there was a county wide effort to corrupt the elections; now it takes just a few minutes and few key strokes. Just this past April, several office holders in that one political party proudly began bragging to their friends and relatives that they had already "paid for the victory." They went on to explain that they had collected enough in donations to pay the elections software providers a large enough "donation" to insure that their presidential candidate will win in my county by a margin of 1.75 to 2.5% "regardless of who's running." So... in the final analysis, voting just doesn't matter anymore. That's why "gun owners aren't reliable" -- a lot of us are old enough to remember when voting mattered, but mamy of us realize that it just doesn't matter any longer.
Last edited:
Just like "slippery slope" logic, "Non Sequitur" logic doesn't work for me either. They are both logical fallacies. These types of arguments can be used to eliminate EVERY law!
.
In 2020 there were almost 25 million background checks in Oregon (a couple of those were me). 398,000 of those were denied. This definitely made it harder for some felons to get their hands on a gun!
Last edited:
So there are 398,000 people in your state so dangerous that if they get a gun, they're going to kill somebody. They're all still roaming the street. And you think that makes you safe?
The reality is that a smaller percentage of those transactions involved people who were dangerous. And those that did- those people are still dangerous.
So you are for letting ALL felons own guns if they want to, regardless of their crime? Murderers, rapists, wife beaters, child molesters, etc.?
Folks like that shouldn't be able to own anything. That'd solve that part of the problem.
So we should get rid of the whole criminal justice, penal/reform system... and send everyone straight to the gas chambers?... so you don't have to do a background check before buying a gun?
Last edited:
Whatever anyone feels about that, the fact is that any felon who isn't in prison and wants a gun can get one, in spite of background checks. Because they don't mind breaking the law to achieve their goals, and it's only the law that stands between them and getting their hands on a gun.
I'm not going to say that background checks never stop bad people from getting guns--I think they probably do, once in awhile. But if you look at prosecutions from denied background checks (remember, anyone who gets a valid denial is probably committing a felony by trying to buy a gun) you can see that even the government doesn't believe that the denials are worth following up on. In 2017, for example, there were 12 people prosecuted for attempting to buy a gun when they were prohibited by law from trying to do so.
I tend to agree with the idea that a person who's so dangerous that they aren't allowed to own a firearm should not be loose in the population. I understand that we have to deal with reality though, and society isn't going to allow us to lock up all the people who really need to be locked up. But when we accept reality, we have to accept all of it, not just the part we like. The evidence suggests that background checks do very little to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
That said, I'm ok with background checks as long as they are done so they don't compromise privacy, so that they don't delay/deny people who are allowed to buy guns, and as long as the information gathered doesn't turn into a registry.
By the way, this disagreement is a perfect example of how even the gun community doesn't agree on everything that might relate to voting.
Could you site the evidence you are referring to please?
I 100% agree with you on this! AND think this goes a long way to answering the question "Why Aren’t gun owners reliable voters?".
Last edited:
There is not a single prison or mental institution in this country where violent felons are allowed to own guns. That's where the dangerous people belong.
Saying they're only allowed to have knives and baseball bats isn't going to make them safe.
Do you know how many restrictions there are on weapons in prison? How intrusively their rights are controlled? How often they're all searched? And these dangerous people can kill people inside of a prison. You really think you can turn then loose on the public and a background check at a gun shop is all that's needed to make them safe?
It makes you feel good, because it's a well meaning feel-good law.
Durango_Dave
Member
True story: My FFL told me of a time he was running a background check on a customer. It was taking longer than usual (this was before COVID). Then in walked the police and arrested the guy waiting for his background check.
Are you really going to argue that criminals who want guns can't get them? Incredible...
in 2018, over 88% of people convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) were convicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm/ammunition.
The best estimates are that there are a quarter of a million to over a third of a million guns stolen in the U.S. each year. Where do you think those guns are going?
Watch badgecam video for awhile and see how often felons are found in possession of firearms.
Oregon has had UBC for nearly 10 years. Are you telling me that you believe felons in Oregon can't get guns any longer? What do the crime statistics say?
So who are all these people being denied by background checks? Given the ridiculously low percentage of prosecutions that result (12 prosecutions out of tens of thousands of denials in 2017), the most obvious conclusion is that the vast majority of them are not felons, they are people who are not prohibited from owning firearms and yet are denied their constitutional rights. That's pretty messed up if you think about it. Our justice system is supposed to be based on the general principle that it's better to allow guilty people to go unpunished than to punish the innocent.
silicosys4
Member
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2012
- Messages
- 4,002
There are a lot of gun owners that think being a "good person" in this day and age means allowing and adapting to whatever gun restrictions come down the pipe.
There are plenty of gun owners who see gun ownership as simply another hobby and would be happy to move on to another hobby rather than fight for gun rights.
There are plenty of gun owners who see gun ownership as simply another hobby and would be happy to move on to another hobby rather than fight for gun rights.
Otto
Member
- Joined
- May 14, 2007
- Messages
- 2,397
All felons? If they have served their debt to society it should certainly be considered on a case-by-case basis, just like parole boards do with early releases. John Hinckley put a bullet in President Reagan’s lung. He was released a couple of years ago and is NOT prohibited from purchasing another firearm.
Durango_Dave
Member
John Hinckley Jr. is not a good example for the point you are trying to make. Here's his view on the topic of guns:
https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/john-hinckley-jr-speaks-gun-ownership-mental-illness-86263394
I think non-violent felons should be allowed to have guns but not the violent ones. I say that because prison rarely reforms anyone. They usually go right back to their old ways.
Not sure how we got here, but we have drifted far off the original topic.
- Status
