A Modest Proposal to Reduce Gun Violence

[_Analytics]

subgenius -- master of the red herring. He doesn't give a s*** about the thousands and thousands of guns that end up in the hands of criminals in the U.S., but if he thinks he can derail a grown up discussion of gun control by mischaracterizing an operation intended to take down gun racketeers, then suddenly the guns are a big deal.

so in defense of the nazi-style proposal offered by Analytics a viable defense would be for me to claim that i sold my gun to a criminal in an effort to "take him down" by tracking the crimes subsequently occurring with that gun....got it!

Point being, the act is the same...either Obama's actions are equally culpable by Analytics' proposed measure or they suffer from the same hypocrisy offered by the Obama mopologists time and time again.
Only difference being, Obama's policy intended for the guns to be used in crimes....but the operation was poorly conceived and managed...Analytics would propose that this same debacle be applied at a larger scale and administered by the same morons involved with gunwalker....surely that has success written all over it......yummmmy, that is some good irony.

The basic facts of the ATF’s “Gun Walking” program are this:

1. Gun Walking was a strategy conceived and originally implemented by the ATF in George W. Bush’s second term.
2. Gun Walking means that when a gun store owner reports to the ATF that they are selling guns to suspicious people (which in and of itself isn’t a crime), they don’t try to make arrests as soon as they find out that the original buyer sells the gun illegally, but rather let the gun “walk” with the hope that they can trace it to bigger criminals.
3. At no point did President Obama or anybody in his administration sell guns to criminals or to anybody else.

Was this somewhat incompetent law enforcement? Perhaps. Was it a bad crime-fighting strategy? Probably. Would a GORE law add some teeth to the law enforcement efforts and help prosecutors prove who is supplying guns to criminals? Definitely.

Was anybody in the Obama administration guilty of breaking GORE laws by selling guns to people without first conducting a background check and then transferring the ownership registration? Of course not— nobody in the Obama administration sold any guns, idiot.

As I said, the ATF gun walking strategy is off-topic.

[_Res Ipsa]

What amazes me is how the "personal responsibility" crowd completely misses the fact that our current system discourages responsibility. They don't advocate for the right to keep and bear arms -- they advocate for gun owners abdicating all responsibility when it comes to their guns. The benefits of gun ownership are shared among those who choose to own guns, but the costs are imposed entirely on those killed or wounded by guns. Let's start by putting the cost of gun ownership on the owners of the guns. First, impose strict legal liability for gun injuries and deaths on gun owners: if a gun you own hurts or kills someone, you are legally liable (in the absence of a defense like self defense, etc.) Second, require gun owners to be insured for limits of $1,000,000. This way, the cost of owning a dangerous instrumentality gets shifted to the owner of the instrumentality and there are financial resources available to compensate the victims.

[_Analytics]

What amazes me is how the "personal responsibility" crowd completely misses the fact that our current system discourages responsibility. They don't advocate for the right to keep and bear arms -- they advocate for gun owners abdicating all responsibility when it comes to their guns. The benefits of gun ownership are shared among those who choose to own guns, but the costs are imposed entirely on those killed or wounded by guns. Let's start by putting the cost of gun ownership on the owners of the guns. First, impose strict legal liability for gun injuries and deaths on gun owners: if a gun you own hurts or kills someone, you are legally liable (in the absence of a defense like self defense, etc.) Second, require gun owners to be insured for limits of $1,000,000. This way, the cost of owning a dangerous instrumentality gets shifted to the owner of the instrumentality and there are financial resources available to compensate the victims.

Excellent idea!

Along that same riff, here is how “Fast and Furious” is related to this thread.

Currently, criminals who can’t pass background checks recruit people with clean records to make “straw purchases” for them. The guy with a clean record goes to a gun store, buys the gun, and then turns around and sells it to the criminal. In general it isn’t illegal—as ldsfaqs et. al. insist, you should be free to buy as many guns as you want, and then sell them in parking lots for cash to whomever you want.

According to the Fast and Furious documents, hundreds of people have been murdered with weapons obtained this way, just from the weapons that were sold by a handful of Phoenix guns shops over several months, related just to Fast and Furious.

If the GORE act was passed, if a straw buyer purchases a gun, he’d be required to perform a background check on the person he sells it to, and then transfer the gun registration to him. If the straw buyer didn’t do the background check, he would be held accountable for the murders committed with the guns he purchased. Extradite a few straw buyers to Mexico for first-degree murder charges for the deaths caused by the weapons they funneled to the Mexican drug cartels, and suddenly it would become a lot harder for organized crime to find the straw buyers they need to acquire their weapons.

Republicans want to hold President Obama personally responsible for the bundling of an ATF operation, but why are they against laws that would hold the actual straw buyers accountable for the guns they funnel to criminals?

[_subgenius]

The basic facts of the ATF’s “Gun Walking” program are this:

yummy...the "basics"

[*]Gun Walking was a strategy conceived and originally implemented by the ATF in George W. Bush’s second term.

irrelevant unless you are also assigning liability or exoneration.

[*]Gun Walking means that when a gun store owner reports to the ATF that they are selling guns to suspicious people (which in and of itself isn’t a crime), they don’t try to make arrests as soon as they find out that the original buyer sells the gun illegally, but rather let the gun “walk” with the hope that they can trace it to bigger criminals.

actually it was ATF purposely allowing licensed sellers to sell guns to straw buyers so that the guns would be "tracked". See also Operation Fast and Furious.
So, licensed suppliers....registered weapons...accountability...just like your fantasy. The intention was to prevent the guns from making it across the border...because they were traceable...even more traceable than your scenario, because the guns were intentionally going to criminals.
But alas of the +2,000 "registered" guns only 710 were ever recovered.
The operation deemed a colossal failure saw it christened as such when Obama evoked the ever faithful "executive privilege".

[*]At no point did President Obama or anybody in his administration sell guns to criminals or to anybody else.

But they did encourage it and likely insist upon it....they "facilitated" the purchases to known illegal purchasers.
So, like i stated before your silly fantasy allows for one's "intent" to be a defense.

Was this somewhat incompetent law enforcement? Perhaps. Was it a bad crime-fighting strategy? Probably. Would a GORE law add some teeth to the law enforcement efforts and help prosecutors prove who is supplying guns to criminals? Definitely.

Because these same incompetent bureaucracies will be successful with more power...i suppose your strategy for the housing crisis would have involved the need for more bad mortgages as the solution? (especially since operation wide receiver was such a colossal failure in 2006-2008)
Your tactic of throwing gas on the fire is deserving of the short bus.

Was anybody in the Obama administration guilty of breaking GORE laws by selling guns to people without first conducting a background check and then transferring the ownership registration? Of course not— [i]nobody in the Obama administration sold any guns, dip****.

So, we agree...your statement that a gun seller is just as guilty as the criminal using the gun is, in fact, stupid, illogical, and lacking of any mature competent thought.
The intentional and covert flow of guns to mexican criminals by our government is a crime....and that is the topic...you are so concerned about some hillbilly in Alabama getting an extra "unregistered" shotgun for this year's turkey shoot that you can't even comprehend the issue.
Just like the other boobs who thin assault weapons are some scourge because AR-15 kills white kids...but the countless handguns that kill countless african-americans is just fine.
You liberals are basically the same...stoned and regressive....selfish and lazy....arrogant and ignorant.

As I said, the ATF gun walking strategy is off-topic.

[_subgenius]

would it make you feel better if he was pushed out a window?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzFWRPiNXOI

[_Res Ipsa]

What amazes me is how the "personal responsibility" crowd completely misses the fact that our current system discourages responsibility. They don't advocate for the right to keep and bear arms -- they advocate for gun owners abdicating all responsibility when it comes to their guns. The benefits of gun ownership are shared among those who choose to own guns, but the costs are imposed entirely on those killed or wounded by guns. Let's start by putting the cost of gun ownership on the owners of the guns. First, impose strict legal liability for gun injuries and deaths on gun owners: if a gun you own hurts or kills someone, you are legally liable (in the absence of a defense like self defense, etc.) Second, require gun owners to be insured for limits of $1,000,000. This way, the cost of owning a dangerous instrumentality gets shifted to the owner of the instrumentality and there are financial resources available to compensate the victims.

Excellent idea!

Along that same riff, here is how “Fast and Furious” is related to this thread.

Currently, criminals who can’t pass background checks recruit people with clean records to make “straw purchases” for them. The guy with a clean record goes to a gun store, buys the gun, and then turns around and sells it to the criminal. In general it isn’t illegal—as ldsfaqs et. al. insist, you should be free to buy as many guns as you want, and then sell them in parking lots for cash to whomever you want.

According to the Fast and Furious documents, hundreds of people have been murdered with weapons obtained this way, just from the weapons that were sold by a handful of Phoenix guns shops over several months, related just to Fast and Furious.

If the GORE act was passed, if a straw buyer purchases a gun, he’d be required to perform a background check on the person he sells it to, and then transfer the gun registration to him. If the straw buyer didn’t do the background check, he would be held accountable for the murders committed with the guns he purchased. Extradite a few straw buyers to Mexico for first-degree murder charges for the deaths caused by the weapons they funneled to the Mexican drug cartels, and suddenly it would become a lot harder for organized crime to find the straw buyers they need to acquire their weapons.

Republicans want to hold President Obama personally responsible for the bundling of an ATF operation, but why are they against laws that would hold the actual straw buyers accountable for the guns they funnel to criminals?

The hubbub over Fast and Furious is really intended to distract us from thinking about the fact that thousands of weapons are going from U.S. gun dealers to drug cartels in Mexico and our current laws are inadequate to address the problem. Fast and Furious arose in the context of significant friction between the Arizona ATF and the local U.S. attorneys over what evidence was need to bring someone to trial for firearms crimes. The biggest problem: how do you prove that the straw purchaser intended to sell the gun illegally? The prosecution has to prove intent beyond reasonable doubt. So how do you do it? At one point, prosecutors took the position that you had to have the gun that was illegally shipped to Mexico to prosecute -- in other words, if the gun didn't "walk," there was no case.

It's a serious problem, worthy of serious consideration by adults. Instead, we get Issa and his clown show.

[_Analytics]

would it make you feel better if he was pushed out a window?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzFWRPiNXOI

Wow, that's convoluted logic.

[_ldsfaqs]

I'm still waiting for an answer from Analytics that if Law Enforcement "already know" usually where a gun came from, and they DO in fact prosecute those who give a gun illegally to a criminal, HOW his "registration" plan would make any difference whatsoever to making people "responsible" when the net result is the same, and all his "law" does is make government able to take guns away from the law abiding?

I'm also still waiting for an answer from Analytics to explain how banning "private" purchases without a background check given that very "few" criminals get their guns from LAW Abiding citizens that got their guns lawfully, is going to do ANYTHING for gun crime? Or are you really going to argue with the thousands of Law Enforcement professionals and experts who deal with gun crime every day and instead believe some liberal warping of the facts article?

We are not talking criminals engaging in criminal sales. (those people can and are prosecuted)
We are not talking about the rogue gun dealer who sales to criminals. (can and are prosecuted)
We are specifically talking about the LAW ABIDING somehow have a "big problem" of selling guns to criminals. (which rarely happens)

It just almost never happens. So, again, how would such a law against the law abiding solve criminals from getting guns and committing violence with them?

Analytics, you also haven't answered that fact of the AMOUNT of Repeat Offenders who are the primary commiters of gun violence, why you aren't solving THAT instead?

Analytics, the liberal doesn't think. You attack the tool the proliferation thereof, and the law abiding, infringing on our rights, instead of focusing on where the problems actually are, which is with CRIMINALS and criminal/immoral/mentally challenged behavior.

[_Analytics]

I'm still waiting for an answer from Analytics that if Law Enforcement "already know" usually where a gun came from, and they DO in fact prosecute those who give a gun illegally to a criminal, HOW his "registration" plan would make any difference whatsoever to making people "responsible" when the net result is the same, and all his "law" does is make government able to take guns away from the law abiding?

You assumptions are seriously flawed.

Look at the previous posts by Brad Hudson and me, where people with basic reading comprehension skills can see that the questions you are waiting to be answered already are answered. Or conversely, consider this March 7 editorial (emphasis mine):

America's gun problem isn't just deranged shooters who murder schoolchildren or other helpless victims. It's the day-in, day-out scourge of gun violence that takes lives in ones and twos and threes. Since a shooter killed 26 children and adults in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, guns have been used to kill more than 2,500 people in the United States.

So it's fitting that Congress' first gun vote since the Newtown massacre focused on the gun trafficking that allows so many firearms to fall into the wrong hands. The measure, approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday and sent on to the full Senate, would toughen federal penalties on illegal gun purchases.

For an example of why this is important, look no further than the deaths of two volunteer firefighters in upstate New York, killed 10 days after the Newtown tragedy by a man who set his house on fire to lure first responders. The accused shooter was a convicted felon who couldn't legally buy a gun himself, so he went with a young neighbor to a gun store and picked out an AR-15 rifle and a shotgun. Prosecutors say the neighbor filled out the background check paperwork and lied by saying the guns were for her.

This is called a "straw purchase," and according to a federal study, it's one of the most common ways illegal guns get into the hands of people who shouldn't have them. Some straw purchases are small: A friend or neighbor buys one or two guns for a convicted criminal, or someone with a history of mental illness or domestic abuse, who would never get through a background check. Other purchases are larger: Gun traffickers recruit buyers with clean records to assemble arsenals to sell on the black market or transfer to Mexican drug cartels.

Critics argue that there's already a law against straw purchasing, so why pass another. They should talk to prosecutors, who have long complained that current law merely makes it a crime to lie on the form for the background check, which defense attorneys can dismiss as a minor "paperwork violation" and defendants can pass off as a simple mistake.

Interestingly, Judiciary Committee member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said that as a former prosecutor, he sympathized with the need for a stronger law. But the senator voted against the bill, which explicitly makes straw purchases a federal crime and provides penalties of up to 25 years in prison.

The 11-7 vote, on what should be a relatively non-controversial part of the effort to curb gun violence, signaled tougher sledding ahead for two important measures opposed by the powerful gun lobby.

One would reinstate a ban on assault-style weapons and large-capacity magazines, both of which have figured in numerous mass shootings. But the ban is considered a long shot.
The other measure — universal background checks on gun sales — faces brighter prospects. The idea has overwhelming public support, and even the National Rifle Association was for it before it was against it.

None of these measures would end the scourge of gun violence. But each can save many lives, and enacting them would be the best way to honor the needless deaths that occurred last year in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown — and that continue every day in places that will never become synonymous with tragedy.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/e ... e/1972181/

[_ldsfaqs]

My "assumptions" are not seriously flawed Analytics..... Yours are.

I spent my whole life up until I was 25 preparing for a career in Law Enforcement, which means it was my passion and expertise, and which means I was very much involved with those in law enforcement in the many places I lived, and also means I studied, observed etc.

Your "cherry-picked" liberals articles and examples are just that, cherry picks, not the actual trends and stats, nor are they including the experts, the law enforcement officer who daily deals and investigates criminals with guns.

Again, you choose liberal slight of hand, I choose reality and facts by actually knowing them first hand. You're just willingly gullible.