I don't care what happened in 2015. It's 2018 and republicans control the entire federal government. If they can't come up with some kind of legislation that 9 democratic senators could vote yes on then they're just not trying hard enough.
You're assuming that 1) the proposals will work, 2) it will pass constitutional muster, and 3) it won't get them booted out of office. I like the idea of opening up NICS so that responsible gun owners can make sure they're not selling to a prohibited person. Making it mandatory wouldn't accomplish anything, though--law-abiding citizens would use it anyway, and criminals would continue to ignore it.
It is the responsibility of those currently in control of the government to ensure that concerns 1 and 2 are addressed and I don't care a lick about 3. Do the right thing, personal consequences be damned.
Fair enough on #3, and I suppose so on #2, although those on the pro-gun-control side don't seem to care too much about it. But #1 is the kicker. Those on the left have lots of ideas that won't work, so the guys on the right reject them. And those on the right have ideas that might work, but those ideas are rejected by those on the left because 1) the guys on the right came up with them, and 2) they're emotionally unpalatable (like arming teachers).
I've trimmed some of the quotes below for the sake of brevity. I hope you don't mind.
Once guns are in classrooms, do you gueniely believe they won’t accidentally end up in the hands of students? Student (5 to 18 year olds) who are not trained in proper handling of deadly weapons, who are in some cases struggle to deal with their emotions, who can still confuse fantasy (tv) with reality, who have no concept of the consequences of their actions.
It's possible, but highly unlikely. There are already millions of people who carry concealed in public, and you very rarely, if ever hear about a gun accidentally ending up in someone else's hands. There are already school districts that allow teachers to carry concealed, and there have been no incidents that I've heard of where a kid has got ahold of it. The point is to create uncertainty and risk for potential attackers. Students (or attackers) won't know who (if anyone) is carrying.
This would certainly deter gun ownership among law-abiding citizens, but would not affect criminals. Remember, the Sandy Hook shooter stole his firearms after murdering their owner.
Yes it will effect criminals. It enables the instant confiscation of weapons by police that are not legitimate.
It will ensure legitimate weapons are appropriately secured so harder to steal.
Can you give me a specific situation where this would make a difference? Police already confiscate weapons from people who are "prohibited persons" (felons, mentally ill, etc). As for security from theft, if a criminal has physical access to your house and knows where your gun safe is, chances are
they'll get into it. Sure, it increases the barrier to theft, but it's really still nibbling around the edges.
That's been tried many times. It has never proven effective.
How do you know, your government isn’t allowed to gather the statistics? PS it worked in Australia. Not only did it reduce criminal gun use, it was very effective if continuing the decline of suicides.
I have a couple issues with this one:
1) Australia's crime rate, like the US's, was already on the decline. "Effective [at] continuing the decline..." is speculation. All we know is that it was declining before the buyback, and it continued to decline afterward.
2) Australia's buyback was not voluntary. Even law-abiding citizens (and likely,
only law-abiding citizens) had to turn in their guns, even if they posed no threat to anyone.
Voluntary buybacks in the US have historically been political stunts. "We took 2157 guns off the streets" sounds great, but when nearly all of the guns are bolt-action rifles, rusted pieces of junk, and pellet guns (seriously,
I'm not kidding!), it becomes comical. See also "tragic boating accident" :D
Can you expand on what sorts of statistics would be gathered, and what requirements would be affected?
That’s open for discussion, but I would expect stats to be gathered on all of the following incidents.
All reports to emergency services that involve guns. E.g.
1. Death by gun shot.
2. Injury by gun shot.
3. Shot fired in public.
4. Gun drawn in public
5. Gun drawn in self defence
6. Irresponsible use of a gun (I.e. waving around a gun at peoples faces in a shooting range)
I’d expect the following information to be gathered.
1. The intent of the incident (self defence, intimidation, murder)
2. The gun make/model
3. The legal status of the gun
4. The license level of the gun holder
5. Incident outcome
#1 is already tracked. #4-6 are going to be
really hard to track, from a practical perspective, for a couple reasons: 1) there's a lot of those types of events, 2) a lot of them happen with people who wouldn't be allowed to own guns, and 3) law-abiding folk will be afraid to report it because they (right, IMO) fear that they'll lose their ability to own a gun.
1) Not quite. It actually increases the fear, because it gives more power to the government (at whatever level) to confiscate your guns.
2) I think you're conflating "moving toward greater responsibility" with "complying with laws because they're law-abiding people." I don't think I know any gun owners who rate others' responsibility (or lack thereof) as a significant concern. And gun owners aren't shy about telling someone they're being dangerous.
3) I don't see anything here that would affect criminals beyond what is already possible through existing gun laws.
1. Only those who flaunt the rules should fear greater responsibility.
2. We’ve already got an example in this thread of someone’s boss selling a gun to anyone. Responsibility of transfer of ownership is beneficial to responsible gun owners.
3. As mentioned above, instant confiscation of unregistered firearms by police. Reduced chance of the aft of guns. It all helps.
PS I'm glad we agree on the education front.
1) This sounds an awful lot like "nothing to hide, nothing to fear." There's already a long and storied history of governments on various levels instituting gun-control measures and then abusing them to confiscate guns from innocent people without due process. Like I stated earlier, New York's Safe Act has already racked up some impressively scary stories.
2) I may have misunderstood you on this one. I thought you were referring safe storage of guns, but it now sounds like you meant background checks/tracing for private sales. Is that correct?
3) Whose guns are getting confiscated here? If it's a person who's allowed to own guns in general, why should it matter whether the gun is registered to them? If it isn't, and they're allowed to own guns, just update the record--no need to confiscate the gun, nor is there any reason to. (note: this is by no means an endorsement of any sort of registry) If it's a criminal ("prohibited person") the police already confiscate guns. So I fail to see how it would make a difference.