The right to bear arms

Yoder777 said:

I would support having a national gun owner registry if and only if the government could guarantee that it would not be used for nefarious reasons.

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Instead, I support optimising wisdom when implementing national borders policies. Currently, there are approximately 1.4 million gang members in the U.S. The U.S. is similar to third world nations when it comes to allowing gangs to organize human trafficking operations.

Armoured said:

I don't see your point? What, people should only have to register BIG things?

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No, my comment that you commented on was in response to this comment: "Well, a registry of every weapon's rifling pattern could be helpful…" made by you. The point about over 300 million guns and, specifically shotguns (although I suppose I could have included other non-rifled firearms) was to say that attempting to develop a registry of rifling after already producing 300 million plus weapons, is ludicrous.

wintermile said:

Instead, I support optimising wisdom when implementing national borders policies. Currently, there are approximately 1.4 million gang members in the U.S. The U.S. is similar to third world nations when it comes to allowing gangs to organize human trafficking operations.

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What does this have to do with gun rights?

Nickybobby said:

No, my comment that you commented on was in response to this comment: "Well, a registry of every weapon's rifling pattern could be helpful…" made by you. The point about over 300 million guns and, specifically shotguns (although I suppose I could have included other non-rifled firearms) was to say that attempting to develop a registry of rifling after already producing 300 million plus weapons, is ludicrous.

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Why's it any more ludicrous than a registry of cars?

Armoured said:

Why's it any more ludicrous than a registry of cars?

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Governments began requiring registration of cars when there were very few of them, not after several hundred million existed.

Unregistered cars can be easily spotted for compliance enforcement, guns not so much.

Nickybobby said:

Governments began requiring registration of cars when there were very few of them, not after several hundred million existed.

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So?

Unregistered cars can be easily spotted for compliance enforcement, guns not so much.

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Again, so? Much like seatbelts. It's hard to tell from outside a moving vehicle if the occupants are wearing seatbelts, but that doesn't mean seatbelt laws aren't worthwhile.

Armoured said:

So?

Again, so?

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So…it's much easier to register and compel registration of vehicles because they have almost always been required to be registered. This is as opposed to the hundreds of millions of firearms which have not been. Creating a registry will not get those guns registered. I get the feeling you are arguing for the sake of arguing at this point.

Armoured said:

Much like seatbelts. It's hard to tell from outside a moving vehicle if the occupants are wearing seatbelts, but that doesn't mean seatbelt laws aren't worthwhile.

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Having done seatbelt enforcement, I can assure you it is actually quite easy to tell from the outside whether or not a seatbelt is being worn in most cases. Perhaps we should take this nonsensical example further and pass a law requiring people to register their seat belts to make sure that criminals and mentally ill people use them appropriately. I know, that's absurd, but no more absurd than thinking that requiring firearms to be registered will keep them out of the hands of those same people.

Nickybobby said:

What does this have to do with gun rights?

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I commented on what I support verses supporting a gun registry. Organized crime syndicates (and gangs) smuggle arms and humans for profit. Securing national borders effects organized crime syndicates. This nation's borders are not secure. Currently, law enforcement states they are outnumbered by gang members and arms in urban cities. Urban residents have begun employing private security firms to patrol their neighborhoods due to urban violence.

Without arms and humans trafficked, organized crime syndicates answer to law enforcement. The number of gang members decrease instead of increasing. Crime management is monitored more effectively. Therefore, instead of debating issues concerning gun rights, solutions for crime management are discussed.

Yoder777 said:

It was under Bush that Fast and Furious started as Operation Wide Receiver.

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Yeah, you realize that's not true, right?

Fast and Furious began in October 2009, nine months into the Obama presidency.

Sorry, but Emperor Obama lied to you.

Excuse me while I try to reconcile:

Yoder777 said:

I would support having a national gun owner registry...

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with:

Don't blame me. I voted for Gary Johnson.

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Armoured said:

right. Can you imagine? Like if they required registration for every single car! Ridiculous!

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I'm convinced vehicle registration is about a easy way to get revenue for state level government.

Thus the reason why most states make you register your vehicle even if you don't plan to operate it (IE: a classic car that you keep in storage and never take off your property)...and more evidence of that is them making you renew your registration every year for $55. If the car isn't changing owners and you haven't changed addresses, why the heck are they charging you $55 for another piece of paper that's identical to the one you already have (only difference being, the expiration date is one year later)???

Vehicle registration is nothing more than a tax, plain and simple...so registering a vehicle would serve a different purpose than registering a firearm.

However, in terms of other parallels between cars & firearms, there are some other similarities.

For example, if you want to, you can own a car, and keep it in a garage even if you don't have a drivers license, much like you can own a gun and keep it in your house without a license, however, if you want to take your car onto public roads or carry your gun in public, you need to go through the state requirements and get licensed. (with exceptions of places like Alaska where you can carry without a permit for reasons of protecting yourself from dangerous wildlife)

So guns are already regulated in very similar fashion to cars in terms of usage regulations.

As I said, registration of vehicles is simply a revenue machine, so unless their gun registration is going to be used for the same thing, what practical purpose would it serve? Criminals very rarely leave the gun at the scene of the crime, and in terms of it being used to narrow down the field after doing bullet ballistics, it'd be almost useless...

If a person was shot, and the forensics came back and said "Yep, it was from a Glock 27 .40 pistol"...okay, great... millions of people own those, so it doesn't narrow it down.

Armoured said:

Why's it any more ludicrous than a registry of cars?

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You realize cars are registered at the state level, not the federal level, right?

I'm sure you also realize that the Constitution doesn't guarantee the ownership of cars, right?

Although, you may be getting your wish soon. Under the guise of "Homeland Security", the government may soon propose a national tracking program so that they can follow us wherever we go.

If we calculate the probable cost in dollars and freedom lost needed to prevent a few nutcases from possessing guns we would realize the futility of it. Some losses are unavoidable.

Nickybobby said:

A registry might keep criminals and the mentally ill from "legally" owning guns, or at least point out those who've broken the law. Unfortunately, it wouldn't keep them from getting a gun through illegal means (theft, black market, ID fraud).

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A registry wouldn't prevent mentally ill from getting guns...that's the job of background checks.

...and background checks won't do a complete job of identifying that unless HIPAA is revised.

Currently, if a person is bipolar, but has never been institutionalized and never committed a crime, they can pass the background check with no issues.

When, in fact, if HIPAA privacy regulations were loosened up a bit, it might at least allow for the raising of red flags. Not saying that bipolar people don't have a right to defend themselves, and some bipolar is mild enough that the person wouldn't be a risk...however, in some of the more severe cases, those people shouldn't own firearms. However, that won't get prevented until the privacy laws are re-written.

As it currently stands under HIPAA, a person could be severely manic depressive, and as long as they've never been institutionalized, HIPAA says that information is strictly private between them and their doctor and nobody else's business...

Keeping in mind that it was folks on the left that pushed for such strict privacy laws pertaining to HIPAA, I feel they have no right to complain or point fingers at the other side of the fence when a mentally ill person gets a firearm and goes on a rampage.

Now, from a personal perspective, I agree with OldWiseGuy
"If we calculate the probable cost in dollars and freedom lost needed to prevent a few nutcases from possessing guns we would realize the futility of it. Some losses are unavoidable."

However, if the position we, as a nation, are going to take is "We can prevent gun deaths with background checks", then I just ask for a little consistency from the left on this one.

"We need to stop mentally ill from getting their hands on guns"

...doesn't jive with...

"It's none of your business if a person (or someone in their household) has a mental illness"

It comes down to a choice, either stopping mentally ill from getting firearms is the top priority...or privacy is the top priority.

Pick one...

If you want to guarantee that background checks screen out people that have a potentially dangerous illness (or screen out a person with someone in their household that has one), you're going to have to sacrifice a little privacy.

If you want to guarantee privacy, you're doing to have to accept that we run the risk of a potentially unstable person passing the background check.


Now, I'm not saying I agree or disagree with either of these approaches here...for the sake of debate, I'm just asking that people make a choice.

miniverchivi said:

A registry wouldn't prevent mentally ill from getting guns...that's the job of background checks.

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What about a registry for the mentally ill?

When, in fact, if HIPAA privacy regulations were loosened up a bit, it might at least allow for the raising of red flags.

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Let's keep privacy rights in place for bad diseases like cancer but drop them for mental illness. It's special.

Keeping in mind that it was folks on the left that pushed for such strict privacy laws pertaining to HIPAA, I feel they have no right to complain or point fingers at the other side of the fence when a mentally ill person gets a firearm and goes on a rampage.

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I guess if we want to keep our strong access to guns SOMETHING has to give, right?

And considering how good people are with the mentally ill, I'm sure there's no PROBLEM with labeling the mentally ill in an open and public way. That's really the ONLY way to keep the important things like the Second Amendment safe.

If you want to guarantee privacy, you're doing to have to accept that we run the risk of a potentially unstable person passing the background check.

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Well, there's another route vocalized by the anti-gun goofballs out there that really want guns limited across the board.

I guess since the Constitution explicitly gives us a right to guns but we only have an inferred right to privacy the best route is to back guns.

Now, I'm not saying I agree or disagree with either of these approaches here...for the sake of debate, I'm just asking that people make a choice.

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It's actually a pretty good point. We have a choice of what we want to legislate. Do we want to limit our rights to guns or do we want to legislate and control the mentally ill.

Here's an idea:

Let's massively reform HEALTHCARE so it covers mental illness with a portion of every gun sale. We can increase the cost of guns and ammunition to allow us to re-establish residential care for the mentally ill who are unable to afford it.

If some Americans want to have lots of guns (which is their right), then perhaps their hobby can fund help to make sure the mentally ill are not left to the whims of fate!

That might solve the need to publically identify the mentally ill (a registry) and put some of the "true" costs on the guns and ammo!

Armoured said:

So, because some people might circumvent a law is reason not to have it?

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That is the logic you guys use to oppose capital punishment.

I support the second amendment as well but I don't think our having guns is any sort of powerful defense against the government using weapons against us. There are other reasons that doesn't happen and if it did our little semi-atuomatic rifles and handguns would be a joke compared to Abrams tanks, F-22's, Apache's, C130 gunships, cruise missiles, predator drones , etc... Not to mention nuclear weapons.

Certainly it may have been a good deterrent back at the time the founders established the US due to the state of weapons technologies at the time but it just doesn't cut it anymore.

dogs4thewin said:

Here is the deal with registering the mentally ill though. One not everyone knows they are. For example, one guy I know mentor committed suicide (older guy) He hanged himself was bipolar, BUT they did not know he was bipolar until it was too late when they started looking into why Mr. H.H would have done something like that. The other issue is, for example, I have depression and OCD ( mentally ill) Now I own no guns for various reasons I do not want them and have no business with them. HOWEVER, my father ( whom I live with) and most of the adult males I know and spend much time with DO own at LEAST one. You mean to propose to them that THEY cannot own and maintain a gun because I either live with them or go to their homes on a regular basis or even have ACCESS to their home on a regular basis? That would knock out MANY people.

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But wouldn't it be great if your family members who DO have lots of guns pay a little extra so that groups like McLean's OCDI can expand or the Anxiety and OCD Center of Philadelphia can expand? But more importantly so that long term mental health care can be provided for people who have psychoses?

Not that YOU are a threat, but that the entire society, if we truly wish to offset the danger that a mentally ill person who happens to stumble across one of the many, many, many guns around the US and that mentally ill person is prone to violence (by no means ALL mentally ill people, obviously!) would have perhaps been in treatment.

As a simple parallel: your family members who have LOTS of guns and spend a lot of time taking care of those guns likely have a "gun safe" to protect any little kids in the house from getting the guns, etc. This is like a nationwide gun safe.

If there's one thing we've learned from the mass shootings of the past couple of years (Sandy Hook and Aurora etc.) it is that guns don't kill people...some of the mentally ill kill people.

It is obviously VERY important in our society to maintain control over our mentally ill. We need our guns (it is our right) and we need lots of them (we live in a very dangerous place) so the best thing to make sure future Sandy Hooks' and Aurora's DON'T happen is to make sure we have EXTREMELY effective and good mental healthcare.

Those who want to ensure we have continual access to our guns should be more than happy to ensure those guns don't get into the wrong hands. Just like a gun safe!

Ishraqiyun said:

I support the second amendment as well but I don't think our having guns is any sort of powerful defense against the government using weapons against us. There are other reasons that doesn't happen and if it did our little semi-atuomatic rifles and handguns would be a joke compared to Abrams tanks, F-22's, Apache's, C130 gunships, cruise missiles, predator drones , etc... Not to mention nuclear weapons.

Certainly it may have been a good deterrent back at the time the founders established the US due to the state of weapons technologies at the time but it just doesn't cut it anymore.

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I still think it'd be more of a deterrent than people give it credit for...

If you want to see how well the US government does against a determined militia force, look no further than the results of Vietnam.

On paper, Vietnam should have been a cake walk, the US military should have squashed that situation in a matter of a few weeks...as we all know, it was quite the opposite.

Some of the factors that were overlooked back then are being overlooked now when we discuss this...

-Regular armies play by rules, militias don't...

-Anytime you have a militia force challenging a government, oppositions of that government often jump in to assist the militia (much like the case of the French helping us here and there in the revolutionary war and the Russians assisting the Vietnamese in Nam)...


There are some very specific factors that would present problems for the US military in a situation like this...

-One can't assume that a US soldier wouldn't decide to defect and join the people's militia. Regardless of their battle training and respect for authority, I don't know one soldier personally (and I've known several military vets) that would pull the trigger on their own family and friends.

-One has to keep in mind that while our military numbers are huge in terms of man power, our number of actual combat trained troops are only around 1.5 million, the rest serve in non-combat capacities (meaning that they wouldn't be that much better than your average gun owner)

-Does the US government have weapons of mass destruction that could take out the US population if they really wanted to? Sure...however, that would end up being a weapon of self destruction because if the US government did employ tactics that severe (killing all the tax payers)...then who pays to keep them in business afterwards? They essentially become kings with no kingdoms (and no money)