…nobody will do it, right?
One of my crazy, leftist facebook friends posted a link to a “lie in”. They’re protesting how easy it is for “dangerous people” to get guns. Obviously making it harder for everyone to get guns will solve the problem, right? So people who obey the law will have even more hurdles to jump over to protect themselves and people with no regard for the law will just have one more to break to do what they’re going to do anyway.
I still don’t understand how anyone with two brain cells to rub together doesn’t understand this.
March 6th, 2008 at 10:41 am
I’ll admit to being ignorant on this issue, and hopefully you and maybe some others can chime in and help me out. What are the hurdles people have to go over in order to purchase a firearm? I’ve never bought one personally, so I have no clue really. It sounds like people want to ensure that everyone that buys a gun goes through a background check, even if it’s at a gun show. That sounds reasonable and responsible enough. What else do people have to endure?
March 6th, 2008 at 11:31 am
The problem isn’t the background checks. The problem is what these types of people really want, and that’s for nobody to have guns ever.
Take, for example, this line from their website:
Cho didn’t buy his guns at a gun show, so this group’s proposed remedy wouldn’t have done anything to prevent the shootings.
In fact, according to this article Cho shouldn’t have been able to buy the guns he did at all, so I fail to see how advocating more gun laws is going to fix the problem.
I’d be curious to know who the last person was who bought a gun-show gun with the intent to do something bad with it. In fact, if you check the group’s “Gun Facts 101″ link, they claim to “debunk” the “myth” that only 1% of criminals buy guns at gun shows. The “debunking” consists of a bunch of questions about the methodology and “yeah, but…” arguments.
It’s also disgusting that they’re co-opting the VA Tech shootings to push this agenda of theirs that would have had no impact on the event anyway.
March 6th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Well it sounds like the problem is the enforcement of the law rather than the law itself. If properly executed, Cho would have been denied a weapon. That sounds pretty good to me. I think it sounds pretty good to you too, obviously.
As a side note, if only 1 percent of criminals buy their guns at gun shows, then I would guess that the last time that someone with criminal intentions bought one at a gun show was at the most recently held gunshow, wherever that might be (assuming that 100 or so guns were sold). Granted, not all criminals who use firearms know that they’re going to commit a criminal act when they buy the gun, but I bet a hell of a lot of them do. No way to prove that without doing some research, which I’m not in the mood for right now.
What’s the solution to this problem, though? I’m not sure. If criminals want guns, they’re probably going to get them. I guess it doesn’t hurt to make it a little harder on them, though.
March 7th, 2008 at 12:37 am
Okay, methods critique for each of you:
Petey Papa: 1% of criminals buying their guns at gun shows is not the same as 1% of gun show guns are sold to criminals.
Pete: There’s a valid critique hidden in the debunking link, namely that the survey the 1% stat came from can only detect direct gun show to criminal transactions. 80% of the responses don’t identify the direct source (all but those involving a store, sale or robbery). These guns were all obtained somehow, and the other ATF findings presented later suggest that gun shows may be a major part of that (and they have references, which puts them ahead of many other extremist groups). All the survey says is that about 1% of guns used in (solved) crimes are obtained in gun show purchases involving the eventual criminal.
Carry on, guys.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:56 am
Yes, but the laws they propose wouldn’t stop straw purchases… they’d only stop the 1% that are currently going on.
While it may be true that a large percentage of guns used in crime were once sold at a gun show, that alone doesn’t really mean anything, especially guns legally purchased and owned that are stolen.
What I find so interesting is that most of the anti-gun zealots are the same people who scream bloody murder when people talk about closing off the border with mexico, ignoring the fact that you can’t really keep people from having guns when the Mexican border is a sieve.
March 7th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I assume we could all agree that if there was a 100% effective method for getting rid of all guns in the world, that criminals would not be able to shoot people. Obviously that’s not possible, so why consider it.
Let’s think about this at a different angle. Say we have a guy about to go to shoot up a classroom or two at a large university. Which of the following situations might deter him:
A) There has been a school-wide ban on all firearms, concealed or not.
B) The school has granted faculty and students the ability to carry concealed firearms. A public record shows that one in every 50 people on campus have registered to carry a concealed handgun, and more have registered to carry a concealed taser.
The first response I always hear is, “But he’s going to commit suicide anyway.” True, but he can’t trust another person to shoot-to-kill. He would probably just be severely injured (by bullet or taser) and facing life imprisonment in the end, which is much larger deterrent than suicide.
March 7th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Personally, I don’t think psychos who shoot up schools are a case we ca really do anything about prospectively. They’re not really going to be deterred by anything.
But psychos who shoot up schools is not really the case we should be planning around, anyway, because it’s a ridiculously small percentage of violent crimes.
I’m more concerned about the common street thug who will think twice about trying to rob someone if he knows that person could be legally carrying a concealed weapon.
I’m fine with compulsory gun safety classes, registration of all guns, background checks, and so on… but, as they say, an armed society is a polite society.
March 9th, 2008 at 1:04 am
I think I read a study somewhere that 100% of the guns used by criminals come from gun manufacturers.
And that 100% of the criminals that commit crimes are willing to break the law.
And that 100% of sieves have holes in them.
And that 49.24% of statistics are made up on the spot.
/much like many of my arguments
//not these, though…they’s solid