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ECSNorway Wrote:A proposal I've heard, and kind of like. This one will give all the "we want universal background check" folks all that they supposedly want, and the "no gun registry allowed" folks all that they supposedly want, too.
It's simple.
Joe Schmoe wants to buy a gun.
Joe takes a licensed firearms-safety course. It could be from the NRA, his local PD, the Boy Scouts, whatever.
This course includes a free and automatic background check on Joe. No record is kept of the check aside from "pass/fail".
At completion of the course, Joe is issued a card that says "Joe Schmoe has completed a federally licensed firearms safety course and passed the appropriate background check. This card good for five years from date xx/xx/20xx."
Joe goes to a firearms dealer. Joe shows the card. The dealer verifies it isn't a forgery and checks the tickbox on the sales book that says "customer passed background check". The sale is completed. That's pretty close to what I understand the current Canadian system is, actually.
Why the automatic expiration date, though? If I was designing the system, I'd use the same expiration system as drivers' licenses do - you get to keep it until a doctor says you're no longer fit to operate the device (or a judge sentences you to a jail term and adds a firearm ban while you're on parole).
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Are people who have been released from prison not automatically barred from ever legally owning firearms again in Canada?
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Not necessarily - it depends on why they went to prison in the first place.
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Here in the US someone convicted of a felony can't legally own firearms. That seemed reasonable 100 years ago, when a felony was something really serious like murder, rape, kidnapping, or armed robbery. Today, felonies include pretty much everything (filling in a mud puddle in your back yard or spilling gasoline while filling your lawn mower, for example) and that law hasn't changed. This, in conjunction with the push to declare everybody mentally ill, has led to increasing resistance to the idea of "prohibited persons."
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Sounds like you're in dire need of a comprehensive legal reform... Of course, you won't get one - neither side will trust the other to get it "right," and putting something that important up for a referendum runs the risk of creating a tyranny of the majority.
(One of the good things about a three-or-more-party system is the "minority government," where no one party has a majority. Parties must cooperate with each other in order to do anything. Many of our best laws were enacted by minority governments, where the parties didn't have to trust each other - they were in there writing the legislation together.)
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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The senate bill while getting a majority vote of 54-46 did not have the 60 required to pass and the count tells us that a minimum of 3 republicans voted for it. Toomey definately, but the rest likely split along party lines. State side a convicted felon can after 8 yr petition to have their gun rights returned but it is a fight and takes money
Quote:Rajvik wrote:
State side a convicted felon can after 8 yr petition to have their gun rights returned but it is a fight and takes money
Not any more--Congress shut down the section of the BATFE that reviewed those petitions a few years ago.
(State felonies are different, but they're also much more likely to be things that a sane person would consider a serious crime, and it's possible to defend yourself against a felony charge in a state court.)
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Khagler, i was speaking of state felonies, not federal. I should have made that clear, my appologies. That said, even though you are able to fight them in all honesty and speaking from experience, you are actually more likely to accept a plea bargain and serve your time and probation so you can get on with you life. Yes i'm a convicted felon, not proud of it, and i owned up to what i did and am now serving my probation time. I still have to go to the executive clemency board afterwards and beg them to let me have my civil rights back. cant even bloody vote until then.
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Quote:robkelk wrote:
Quote:ECSNorway wrote:
A proposal I've heard, and kind of like. This one will give all the "we want universal background check" folks all that they supposedly want, and the "no gun registry allowed" folks all that they supposedly want, too.
It's simple.
Joe Schmoe wants to buy a gun.
Joe takes a licensed firearms-safety course. It could be from the NRA, his local PD, the Boy Scouts, whatever.
This course includes a free and automatic background check on Joe. No record is kept of the check aside from "pass/fail".
At completion of the course, Joe is issued a card that says "Joe Schmoe has completed a federally licensed firearms safety course and passed the appropriate background check. This card good for five years from date xx/xx/20xx."
Joe goes to a firearms dealer. Joe shows the card. The dealer verifies it isn't a forgery and checks the tickbox on the sales book that says "customer passed background check". The sale is completed.
That's pretty close to what I understand the current Canadian system is, actually.
Why the automatic expiration date, though? If I was designing the system, I'd use the same expiration system as drivers' licenses do - you get to keep it until a doctor says you're no longer fit to operate the device (or a judge sentences you to a jail term and adds a firearm ban while you're on parole).
In the US, driver's licenses expire and need to be renewed every four years. (The number could be different in different states though.)
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Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber." --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.
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Jorlem Wrote:Why the automatic expiration date, though? If I was designing the system, I'd use the same expiration system as drivers' licenses do - you get to keep it until a doctor says you're no longer fit to operate the device (or a judge sentences you to a jail term and adds a firearm ban while you're on parole). In the US, driver's licenses expire and need to be renewed every four years. (The number could be different in different states though.)[/quote]
It is. The one I've got right now is 5 years, and I've hard some states do longer ones yet.
-Morgan.
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Not quite what I meant, I think. Here, a driver's license needs to be renewed every five years, but it's a rubber-stamp (no re-test required) until you're past age 70. They don't take it away from you for an arbitrary reason.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Quote:robkelk wrote:
Not quite what I meant, I think. Here, a driver's license needs to be renewed every five years, but it's a rubber-stamp (no re-test required) until you're past age 70. They don't take it away from you for an arbitrary reason.
That's roughly how my Utah concealed weapon permit works, except that I have to send them a new photo with the renewal form every five years and when first issued the initial renewal was after three years. I used to have a Florida permit too, and they had a highly obnoxious requirement to send in a new fingerprint card with every renewal--that was pretty transparently a harassment measure intended to discourage people from getting them.
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In some places you do still have to take the practical driver's test in order to renew your license. Just to show that you can still competently operate a motor vehicle. Personally, I see the wisdom in it. Things like Early-Onset Alzheimers does exist and it does have an impact on driving ability.
And I can see us doing the same with guns... except there's a problem with lacking any sort of database to keep track of it.
Forgery.
People are already capable of falsifying a driver's license. The same would be true of this sort of gun license. And, unlike a driver's license, there would be no database to verify it's validity. Also, there would be no way to prosecute a false identification because there is no evidence of it ever being issued, so any laws about carrying a fake gun license would have no teeth.
Besides, if you're carrying a state-issued ID of any kind, you're already in some kind of government database.
Automobiles are dangerous. The substances we put into them are toxic and flammable as all hell. They produce toxic gasses that can kill people if they're not properly maintained. And they can just plain kill people if they're not properly operated. And this is to say nothing about intentional misuse. Tell me why gun ownership shouldn't be treated any differently than automobile ownership?
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Because no one's that worried about people confiscating their cars, while there are demonstrable concerns about gun confiscation. Of course, unlike a registry of the guns themselves, a database of people with gun licenses would not have a 1:1 correlation with guns owned. (And I'm sure there would be people encouraging anyone who doesn't intend to buy a gun to get the license anyway, which would "foul" the database for that use without inhibiting any of it's legitimate purposes.)
In a perfect world, you could probably make licenses verifiable via digital signatures without requiring a database for comparison, but even if the math is there, I'm not sure I'd want to rely on a large-scale licensing authority to keep the private keys secure. (Although I'm under the impression that there's various ways to reduce exposure risk in that sort of thing, but it gets way over my head.)
-Morgan.
Quote:blackaeronaut wrote:
Tell me why gun ownership shouldn't be treated any differently than automobile ownership?
The victim disarmers would never go for it. Just the idea of carry permits being available to anyone who can pass a cheap and simple test that people learn to do in high school, and valid in all fifty states would be enough to make them stroke out. And that's without even getting into things like mufflers (suppressors, in firearms terminology).
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The victim disarmers... well, to be polite about it, they upset me. While I find their motivations to be worthy ones, they usually represent a very, very vocal minority. And the NRA usually has no trouble drumming up the emails when it comes down to crunch time.
We need better controls, yes. We need better enforcement, yes. Most of all, though, we need better mental health care. If we had that much, at least maybe Christina-Taylor Green would be alive today, as well was the rest of the victims at Tucson, and Mrs. Giffords would still have her seat in the Senate.
Really, how often does it happen that one of these shootings occurs where at least one of the following does not apply?
1) Perpetrator was mentally disturbed
2) Weapons were acquired illegally
But really, is there any source out there where I can compare this sort of data? I honestly would like to look into this.
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As much as it is a biased source, the NRA keeps that kind of info to hand usually
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khagler Wrote:victim disarmers Well, it's pretty obvious which side of the debate you're on...
Please stop insulting the people who disagree with you.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
I'm not a big believer in euphemisms.
Personally, I find it rather insulting when someone advocates sending armed men to force me to live my life according to his whims, and murder me if I resist.
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khagler Wrote:I'm not a big believer in euphemisms. How about your opponents replace "victim disarmer" with "perpetrator armer"? That isn't a euphemism, either.
khagler Wrote:Personally, I find it rather insulting when someone advocates sending armed men to force me to live my life according to his whims, and murder me if I resist. There's a simple solution to that: take the weapons away from the armed men.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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I just have a simple question:
What part of "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" is so damn difficult to understand?
Quote:robkelk wrote:
Quote:khagler wrote:
I'm not a big believer in euphemisms.
How about your opponents replace "victim disarmer" with "perpetrator armer"? That isn't a euphemism, either.
Quote:khagler wrote:
Personally, I find it rather insulting when someone advocates sending armed men to force me to live my life according to his whims, and murder me if I resist.
There's a simple solution to that: take the weapons away from the armed men.
Go ahead. The US legal system, back when it was founded as a justice system, was based on principles such as "innocent until proven guilty" and "it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."
Personally, I'm all in favor of abolishing the standing army (as the founders of the US intended) and the police (which today act as a whole bunch of small standing armies). It'll never happen, though--pretty much everyone, especially those who want to disarm the general public, wants the government to have lots and lots of guns so they can impose their will on others.
Quote:blackaeronaut wrote:
Really, how often does it happen that one of these shootings occurs where at least one of the following does not apply?
1) Perpetrator was mentally disturbed
2) Weapons were acquired illegally
But really, is there any source out there where I can compare this sort of data? I honestly would like to look into this.
Not that I know of, but these events are so rare that you could probably compile it yourself from old news reports in a day or so.
You'd need to define your standard for "mentally disturbed," though--it's tough, because there are no objective standards. If you define it as "involuntarily committed as a danger to themselves or others at some time before the killing," I don't think any of those killers would meet it. On the other hand, I think everyone would agree that anyone who kills a large number of total strangers is mentally disturbed (although in the US if the killer is wearing a government issued costume most people would instead call them heroes).
I know that some of them have been on psychotropic drugs (because some people blame the drugs), but given that being a normal kid is defined as a mental illness and treated with psychotropic drugs (there's lots of money in selling those drugs), I'm skeptical of drawing any conclusions from it.
I figure it's pointless to worry about something that's less dangerous than being struck by lightning. If someone wants to advocate some policy change in the US that would save lives, getting rid of the "war on drugs" or ending US military intervention overseas would both do more good by many orders of magnitude.
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Logan Darklighter Wrote:I just have a simple question:
What part of "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" is so damn difficult to understand? Rights come with responsibilities.
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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khagler Wrote:Quote:robkelk wrote:Quote:khagler wrote:I'm not a big believer in euphemisms.
How about your opponents replace "victim disarmer" with "perpetrator armer"? That isn't a euphemism, either.
Quote:khagler wrote ersonally, I find it rather insulting when someone advocates sending armed men to force me to live my life according to his whims, and murder me if I resist.
There's a simple solution to that: take the weapons away from the armed men. Go ahead. The US legal system, back when it was founded as a justice system, was based on principles such as "innocent until proven guilty" and "it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."
Yet you claim "someone advocates sending armed men to force me to live my life according to his whims, and murder me if I resist" with no evidence that this is happening. If you can ignore "innocent until proven guilty" when it works against you, then it's worth nothing.
khagler Wrote:Personally, I'm all in favor of abolishing the standing army (as the founders of the US intended) and the police (which today act as a whole bunch of small standing armies). It'll never happen, though--pretty much everyone, especially those who want to disarm the general public, wants the government to have lots and lots of guns so they can impose their will on others. Okay, I'm done. I can't debate with a paranoid.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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