njlauren
Posts: 1577
Joined: 10/1/2011
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quote:
ORIGINAL: mussorgsky
Inherent racism regarding gun ownership in the US? Wow, it's like different people enjoy buying different products!
1. Not all people fall nicely into that soft racism of who is what and who likes/does what. (you wouldn't be able to guess my heritage by looking at me, nor most of my friends. People are more than simply "a race" and behave as individuals)
2. If more of Race A buys a product than Race B, does that make someone racist or do they just have different tastes?
The bit about voter ID cards was because I've heard many people against that issue who also call for what you want in terms of restrictions. Again, though, you haven't addressed why a person should be forced by the government to register their vehicle. By the same token, what does any sort of registration do to prevent crime? We already have serial numbers on guns and federal forms that FFLs have to keep, so tracing a gun used in a crime is incredibly easy. But, again, all that does is find out information after the fact. "Accountability" to whom, exactly? A person already effectively registers their gun on purchase with the AFT and all* are accountable for their actions in a court of law, so what does registration do beyond give more power to a government that already consumes much of our wealth and opposes our freedom?
*except the politically well-connected, of course
And requiring people to take a course? I taught DMV-required courses and can count very easily the number of students who even bothered to pay attention. The only reason they were there was because someone (parents, court, insurance company) told them that they had to be there. You know the one thing those regulations did for us: they gave us guaranteed business because people no longer had the freedom they once had. What did they gain out of it? Nothing; they were out anywhere between $125 to almost $2k because of useless regulations.
In other words, you want to make sure that people can't sell their private property. (and gun shows are heavily regulated, by the way, but I know that hurts the narrative) Did you know that cars can be used to kill people, kill many people each year, are often misused, require licensing and registering, but can be bought and sold without a background check? Because the cars are private property and we can sell them as we like.
Okay, so some people are killing others. Let's take a look at who those people are:
-Military killing people, won't be affected by those regulations
-Police killing people and their dogs, again not affected
-Gang members who buy their guns on the black market, also not affected
-Criminals who steal their guns or get them on the black market, still not affected
-Law abiding citizens defending themselves, the one group affected by the restrictions.
We have record numbers of murders in Chicago because of gangs. New York City, District of Columbia, and other metropolitan areas all have similar problems. Instead of passing new regulations that won't affect them but will hurt others, why not focus on punishing the criminals? I read all the time about how many of these kids get slaps on the wrist, meaning that they are not only free to commit the crime again but are effectively taught that their actions hold no serious consequences. (See also: bailing out Wall Street, auto companies, and others)
Our government shows its incompetence on a regular basis, not even including all the various scandals, so what makes you think that they could help with this? Haven't we given them enough power and haven't they abused enough? Just search online and you'll find plenty of stories of government agencies losing guns. And these are NFA items, so instead of simple guns they're select-fire and full-automatic weapons. Oh, and we had the ATF breaking the law and literally telling gun shop owners to sell guns to bad people so that they could be sent down to Mexican drug lords. So, how would government do anything but screw this up and why would you trust them?
Killing is the only purpose of a gun? Man, all of mine must be defective! I've also owned for years and they've never heard anyone except for some recoil-bruising in the shoulder. I guess all that fun target shooting meant nothing, and all those precision competitions I took part in were only about killing people and not about friendly sport. The primary purpose of most of my guns is for fun and competition, but I do have a few devoted to defending my family and myself. Guns are tools just like a car, a hammer, a chainsaw, or a welding torch. Each can be used for a variety of things including hurting people.
Um, one little note, NYC has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation per capita (NYC has 8 million people living there, and has 20 some odd million in it any given day), and some of the most gun friendly states have some of the highest ones. By having strict gun laws when someone violates them, they are taken off the street.
The problem isn't gun ownership, it is responsible gun ownership. We have regulations of cars because we exist in society and having those regulations tries to make sure that someone owning a car is responsible and accountable. If someone can't afford insurance on a car, they don't drive, and if they get caught without it, they pay the price, so why should we make allowances for guns? If someone can't afford liability insurance, then they don't own a gun, or at the very least, can't carry it, pure and simple.
The real problem is despite what you and others are saying, there in many places is no accountability with guns, there is basically no registration and no control over what people do with their guns. Guns shows and private selling are legal in many places with no background check and no requirement to report the transaction, and that is where the problem comes in. In the big cities, in NYC and DC and so forth, 70% of the guns pulled off the streets being used by criminals were purchased legally originally, and in NYC when they trace the origin *surprise surprise* it is from a handful of states on the redneck highway system, states whose regulations are a joke. You can walk into a store, they run the federal background check, and at that point, in most of them you can buy away like being at Walmart on Black Friday. Other than signing a piece of paper about being a good boy, the sale is not reported in, there is no registration. Guy can fill up the trunk of his car (and they do), drive north on 95, sell to the black market, and if it ever gets traced back somehow, guy can say "I dunno, must have gotten stolen or I done lost it".
We require accountability with other things, there are chemicals that if you try and buy them, you have to register the sale. If you own a car, and it is used in commission of a crime, and you tried saying something like "I dunno, must of lost it or it was stolen" and you hadn't reported it as stolen, you likely would be accused of allowing someone to use it in commission of a crime. You buy explosives you have to have permits, and if you can't account for what you bought, in for a heap of trouble. But guns? In many places, you buy them and have zero accountability, and the problem is it allows someone to basically sell their guns as a 'private seller' to the black market and face no repercussions. I am all for people buying and owning guns, I do believe the 2nd amendment does that, but I also believe the 2nd amendment has basic burdens on it, as do other rights and one of the most important thing about any right is personal responsibility to society.
We don't allow people to drive or drink alcohol until they reach a certain age, and with cars they have to demonstrate capability to drive and also are registered, so if they violate the law, they can be held accountable, which in many places in the US is not true of gun ownership. You don't have to demonstrate you took any kind of gun safety course, you don't have to demonstrate anything, run the background check, turn over your money, and you have the gun...and that is the last time that there is any kind of record of that gun in those places, you don't have to register it with the state (meanwhile, if you own something like a boat more than 12 feet long or so, that goes on navigable waters, it has to be registered by federal law).
Joe Billy Bob may want the right to buy and sell guns like you can with furniture or toys or whatever, but it is bullshit, we have more control over cars then we do guns, and it shows with the crime statistics and where those guns come from. And there is a very valid reason to have registration, it means the rednecks who fill up their trunks with guns and then sell them into the black market won't be able to do it, at least not buying from legal gun shops. What gun proponents who want them sold like chewing gum leave out with their arguments against registration and such, is that if we cut off the channel between legal gun sales and the black market, the price of weapons would soar. One of the reasons 70% of the guns pulled off the streets from criminals were once legally purchased is that if guns became entirely guns smuggled in or stolen from warehouses and such, the price would be 2 or 3 times higher than it is now, if people can't take guns they bought legally and sell them into the black market because they know they can be traced back, it would help put a damper guns in the black market and supply and demand would raise the price.
Like I said, I am not against guns or people owning them, even if I personally have no use for them, least at the moment. I respect sportsmen, people who target shoot, or feel they need them to protect themselves, and while I think they are absolute idiots, even those thinking they are going to 'fight the gov'nment' with their AR15 semi or whatever, I think there is a right to own guns, but I think there is a caveat to it, too, that gun ownership like other rights has burdens and responsibilities with it. Guns are a tool, a powerful one, but they are being treated like they are a kids toy or something, and they aren't. In society we put restrictions on things that are potentially harmful to others or pose a threat, you cannot buy dynamite or nitroglycerin to blow tree stumps in your yard, we have laws about how big a house can be on a plot of land, we have building codes that are designed to keep us safe, and so forth. My problem is the idea that guns be allowed to be sold like any other commodity, primarily because the current system has so little accountability in some places, it is creating the very situation that gun owners use to justify loose regulation, that guns should be easily available without registration so people can 'defend themselves'; the problem is those same lax regulations help cause the situations where people do need to defend themselves.
I don't know if it would have helped in Newtown, Connecticut has some pretty strict laws on guns, and unfortunately the law cannot stop everything. I wonder about the mother, she sounds like she had some screws loose, and maybe the law when running background checks should do it on the household as well, and if anyone living there has mental health or criminal issues then it be denied, but given that Connecticut law is pretty strict, may not have helped here.
One note, Adam Lanza would not have been able to get guns had his mother not had him. He had no money of his own, didn't work, and he was so socially fucked up that he interacted with no one, stayed holed up in his room playing video games. To be able to carry out his plan, he would have to come up with money to pay a black market type, and actually figure out how to find someone to do the transaction with, and given how fouled up he was, unlikely. Is he going to go to mom and say "mom, I want 2000 bucks" (or whatever the gun and ammo and such would go for on the black market) and she would say 'sure, sunny, whatever".....It is likely had the mom not been a)a gun owner and b) one of the dumbest sack of shits around, it wouldn't have happened, among other things if what they say is true, that by the time he could figure out how to get guns and pull this off, he prob would have been institutionalized by then.
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RE: Newtown - 
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