Alphecca Declares War on Common Sense
Alphecca takes a Philadelphia op/ed to task for favoring two relatively minor commonsense initiatives:
They want the Legislature to pass a law that requires gun owners to report a lost or stolen handgun, and pass the one-gun-per- month plan.
Jeff Soyer’s comments are fairly mundane and juvenile. But his commenters are just…well…clueless. There are the usual exhortations to toss criminals in prison and throw away the key. But what takes the cake are those commenters opposed to making it crime not to report stolen firearms.
Why on earth would anyone not report a stolen firearm? Especially when we know a common straw purchaser tactic is to claim a weapon was stolen sometime in the distant past–after a crime or crimes have been committed.
When you hear about gunloons claiming to be “law-abiding”—it’s a sham.
Opposed? No, most gun owners are opposed to the way that the laws are wriiten–such as a 72 hour response time with no set asides for, say, being away from your home for 92 hours then contacting police. You would be in violation of the law with penalties being applied. Just glad that most of these so called proposals come up in the “red” or “nanny” states. After reading a lot of your postings, it is becoming obvious that you have a chip on your shoulder about gun owners. Maybe as a child you were always picked to be the “teller” during the cops and robbers game.
Comment by scott — October 19, 2007 @ 6:48 am
Not to mention that not everyone does a thorough inventory check on their gun collection every other day. Why pass a law that no one is going to be able to enforce? How to prove when a gun was stolen, or when I knew it was stolen?
One gun a month laws haven’t worked anywhere else…no reason to think that’ll change this time. They only work on people who buy guns through legitimate channels…which criminals by definition don’t use. The BATF knows that about two thirds of crime guns are sold out the back door by a small percentage of FFL dealers who flout the law–one gun a month won’t stop them.
When you hear an anti gun bigot prattling on about “common sense” initiatives…that’s usually your clue that he’s talking about something that sounds nice in theory but in practice is more useless baloney.
Comment by Sebastian-PGP — October 19, 2007 @ 7:27 am
Scott: Yes, opposed. The facts as to why gunloons are opposed is a bit more sinister; the fact is a number of FFLs count on straw purchasers to move product. NRA member Tim McVeigh made a living as such a straw purchaser.
Comment by Administrator — October 19, 2007 @ 7:50 am
Sebastian the Lying Censor™: Essentially, you’re telling us that gunloons who you often cite as always being responsible–have no accounting for their firearms? Good to know.
And, yes, one gun a month laws have worked. Even in your home state.
Comment by Administrator — October 19, 2007 @ 7:54 am
Links! Both of you!
Comment by Michael Hawkins — October 19, 2007 @ 11:00 am
Jadegold the Guy Who Lies About Me Being A Liar: Do you account for every tire iron, knife, club, baseball bat, blowtorch, and fertilizer bag in your inventory every day?
I know where my guns are. They’re locked in my house. The fact that I don’t touch each one of them every three hours doesn’t mean I’m not being responsible for them.
Cars kill more people than guns. Do you know where your car is every second of every day?
The person who should penalized for burglarizing my house shouldn’t be ME. Besides, the BATF knows it to be true–most crime guns come from about the 1% of FFL dealers who flout the law and sell out the back door. Penalizing me for not checking on my guns every second won’t fix that.
Besides, this whole line of reasoning is bullshit strawmanism anyway–I wasn’t saying that we responsible gun owners don’t lawfully and carefully guard our arsenals.
I’m saying that for the law that Jadedouche calls “commonsense” to be effective, you’d have to prove what I knew when, which is impossible.
Comment by Sebastian-PGP — October 19, 2007 @ 1:21 pm
Sebastian the Lying Censor™: Unfortunately, the intended purpose of ” tire iron, knife, club, baseball bat, blowtorch, and fertilizer bag ” are quite different than firearms.
Comment by Administrator — October 19, 2007 @ 5:45 pm
How is that relevant? If your car rolls off a ramp because you left it in neutral and hits a child who passes behind it, you can -and probably should- get charged with negligent manslaughter.
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Same goes for unattended power tools, improperly stacked heavy objects, dangerous chemicals …
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Guns are far better in this respect, because they don’t pose a threat by and in themselves, they require a human to function. Barring improperly designed firearms, guns do not operate on their own, and while leaving a gun in a place accessible by a child is negligence, somebody who burglars your house (most common way guns are stolen according to the us department of justice statistics*) has made the conscious choice to do so. When he/she pockets a gun, that person has chosen to do so, he is the one to blame!
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If this law was of good intent, it would be applicable specifically and only to actual straw buyers. Now it’s a nanny law that’s prone to abuse and misinterpretation.
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http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/hvfsdaft.txt
See what I did there? I back my statements up with what passes for facts.
Comment by Michael Hawkins — October 19, 2007 @ 7:11 pm
That’s what I was gonna say…exactly how is that relevant? A firearm is simply a tool that’s designed to propel an object. There are all kinds of objects that can be used to be deadly; what the objects in question are designed for isn’t particularly relevant. The point remains: stolen gun reporting laws are useless because they’re impossible to enforce, and like most gun control laws, will only affect the already law abiding.
Michael, you’ll find that Jadedweeb will hurl insults and petty nonsense at you, but he’ll never bother to notice that way more people defend themselves with firearms that are murdered by them. Such is the way with agenda driven morons.
Comment by Sebastian-PGP — October 19, 2007 @ 11:05 pm
Again: link.
I refuse to admit anything as an argument unless it is backed up by reliable data.
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And insults don’t really bother me, I prefer somebody speaks his/her opinion about me.
Comment by Michael Hawkins — October 20, 2007 @ 1:21 pm
I posted a bunch of links but Jadefucker the Lying Censor apparently zapped my post. But do a google for “defensive gun use” and you’ll come up with tons of info.
Comment by Sebastian-PGP — October 21, 2007 @ 7:23 am
Sebastian the Lying Censor™: Unlike you–I do not censor posts. If your comments fail to show up, it’s a Blogsome glitch–not of my doing.
Comment by Administrator — October 21, 2007 @ 5:10 pm
MH: I’m at a loss to understand what your link is supposed to point out.
Comment by Administrator — October 22, 2007 @ 5:40 pm
I said that most crime guns come from burglaries (statement), and I backed it up with statistical data (evidence).
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I was bickering about the both of you going on about things without providing backing, so I illustrated how you’re supposed to do it.
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It doesn’t surprise me that you fail to see what that’s supposed to point out
Comment by Michael Hawkins — October 23, 2007 @ 6:42 am
MH: In reality, your cite doesn’t say most guns used in crime come from firearm thefts. It does say for the reporting period 1987-92, about 341,000 guns were stolen annually.
Remember–some of these stolen guns could actually be straw purchases. As my most recent post points out, ATF believes straw purchases are a more prevalent way for crooks to get guns. And logic dictates this is true: Let’s say you’re a bad guy. You need a gun for your next crime spree. Are you really going to try to risk stealing one (and who knows if you’ll be successful) or are you going to have a buddy buy exactly what you want?
Regardless, we all know straw purchases do occur–why not try and curtail it?
Comment by Administrator — October 23, 2007 @ 11:00 am
Read my post again, I said that most STOLEN guns come from burglaries, I made no statement concerning straw purchases.
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If you’re going after straw purchasers, limit the scope of the law to people who have had guns stolen on several occasions without there being serious evidence of an intruder.
Comment by Michael Hawkins — October 24, 2007 @ 3:50 am
I said that most STOLEN guns come from burglaries
No, MH, your comment was that “most crime guns come from burglaries .” IOW, you were asserting most guns used in crimes come from guns that are stolen. In reality, ATF believes most guns used in crimes are those obtained via straw purchase.
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Regardless, if we know straw purchases are an avenue to crooks getting guns–why don’t we shut that way down? Your proposal isn’t well-thought out. The vast majority of folks know when they’ve been robbed and they report it about a minute after this realization. Yet, your plan allows a person several opportunities to claim multiple guns were stolen (and used in crimes)?
Comment by Administrator — October 24, 2007 @ 1:00 pm
My plan would single out suspicious “burglaries”, rather than posing a legal threat to people who are in no way involved in criminal activity.
Complain all you want, but you CAN design mathematical standards for such events as a function of the amount of guns stolen and burglaries per (time frame).
This (current) law would only have straw buyers claim private sale rather than theft, a law against that … see, this is what we’re always going on about: the legislation will never stop, it is spun out incrementally and criminals will -as per definition- continue to break them, breaking a myriad of new ones as they’re made up.
Comment by Michael Hawkins — October 24, 2007 @ 3:42 pm
MH: All burglaries are “suspicious.”
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From the thrust of your comments, I’m not certain you understand the issue. Let me explain: police are finding that guns used in crimes can frequently be traced back to a certain gun purchaser. So, when the police question the purchaser about who may have used the gun–the purchaser can say, “Oh, that gun was stolen 6 months ago.” The kicker is that the gun was never reported stolen. Clearly, this is a pipeline for crooks to get guns as well as a way for straw purchasers to cover their participation in a crime.
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Your excuse is that there’s a ring of very neat burglars who steal only guns from gunowners who never check their weapons. And when they find their weapons missing–they don’t bother reporting the theft.
Comment by Administrator — October 24, 2007 @ 3:59 pm
Okay, let’s rephrase that:
A burglar, bent on cleaning out your house enters. He spots a well locked, metal closet and suspects that valuables are inside.
After picking the lock, he discovers that it’s a gun safe. He grabs a couple of expensive handguns before realizing that if the owner of the house is a gun enthousiast, he’d better make himself scarse.
Now, if it would take the owner of the house more than 72 hours to decide he’d like to go plinking, he’d be punishable under this new law.
In light of several frivolous lawsuits against gun owners, dealers and manufacturers, that abuse potential is unacceptable.
Comment by Michael Hawkins — October 25, 2007 @ 6:03 am