“Republicans don’t care how many Americans are killed by guns”

So your “point” is based upon anecdotal narratives you’ve seen on Twitter and Facebook?

 

Two things. Private sales infer intra not inter state transactions, and require, by federal law that the seller must "For private sales, any person may sell a firearm to an unlicensed resident of the same state as long as they do not know or do not have reasonable cause to believe the purchaser is prohibited from receiving or possessing firearms under federal law"
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/921
https://web.archive.org/web/2013011...keep-weapons-flowing-around-background-checks
https://www.atf.gov/file/61721/download

And second, I cannot receive a weapon directly from a website it must be received by a licensed federal purveyor, and a background check must be completed.

"If you’re buying a gun online, you’re going to have the firearm shipped to a gun store/Federal Firearm Licensee (FFL) for them to satisfy the background check requirements and transfer the gun to you in person. Therefore, we’re not going to cover private-party sales here."

https://gununiversity.com/how-to-buy-a-gun-online/

These are the facts.

 

Hmm... what are you specifically bringing to rebut or refute it?

 

More guns = less violent crime.

The violent crime rate is about HALF what it was 40 years ago. HALF!
https://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-violent-crime-rate-in-the-usa-since-1990/

During the same period of time, firearm sales have accelerated each year, doubling or tripling the number of guns in the US.

So, "more guns" can have only one of three possible effects on violent crime:

1) It can work to INCREASE violent crime, or
2) ...it can work to DECREASE violent crime, or
3) ...it can have no effect on violent crime at all.

There are no other possibilities. So of those, option 1 is clearly not the case, as is illustrated by the data linked above. That leaves only options 2 and 3 as reflecting fact.

If your concern is reducing "violence" and public safety, then you have to concur. If you do not, you have ulterior motive.

 

Just one example of how something could be investigated in that case: Person A commits a crime with a gun. Police check the universal registration DB for A's known associates and investigate the few who have guns registered. One of them, person B, is missing their gun and didn't report it stolen. Further investigation reveals they sold it to A. Without registration, there would be no indication of which of person A's associates, if any, might have sold/given them the gun.

 

They care ... just not as much as they care about their contituents' approval re: the 2nd Amendment, and the money they get from the gun lobby (not just the NRA, but the weapons and ammo manufacturers).

 

Twitter references are not worth the bandwidth.

 

The weak links? Who might those be, in your opinion?

 

Oh, there's plenty of laws regarding firearms at both the federal and state levels, as to their enforcement (or lack thereof) that's another story.... like Virginia's much touted at the time '"5 year mandatory for use of a firearm in the commission of a felony", routinely charged and routinely dropped (plea deals, ya know). As to the mental health aspect I agree 10,000%, the vast majority of these mass shooters, serial killers and pathologically violent individuals at an early age give off warning signals like strobe lights. More needs to be done identifying them and getting them treatment when they're young and standing the best chance of it being effective.

 

Not at all, first, total gun violence is down from decades ago because decades ago America was experiencing the crack epidemic which led to escalating numbers. On top of that, gun violence has ticked up in recent years, but more importantly, mass shootings have greatly increased in those same years, shootings as Vegas and Sandy Hook would have horrified Americans decades ago, today, forgotten a month afterwards

And common sense invalidates your conclusion. Currently America has more guns in circulation than any other developed nation in the world, consequently, we should be one of the safest nations from gun violence in the world, but sadly, that is not true, we are one of the leaders in gun violence among all developed nations. More guns equates to more gun violence

In addition, those States with stricter gun regulations generally enjoy less gun violence, while the opposite is true, in general, States with lax gun restrictions have more gun violence. Do you think there may be a correlation?

 

Funny, how the voters of the supposed "law and order" party all of a sudden become anti-law when it comes to guns. As if anything in society actually works if there is a free for all. However, that's what they want for guns, a free for all for everyone. No questions asked.

In my opinion, we have to start publicizing where the guns came from for EVERY SINGLE mass shooting. If someone else is committing a mass shooting with YOUR gun, YOU should be in trouble too. if there is a break in the record of the gun's previous ownership, it needs to be made public, so people realize that a lack of tracing of gun purchases is a problem.

 

The problem with that is subjectiveness, and who gets to make decisions based on another person's mental health.

For example, millions of Americans suffer from clinical depression, which is biological and not enotional, and for decades now, we've treated that with anti-depressant drugs. If "they" decide that depression of any sort is a mental illness, and sufferers (those known to be taking anti-depressants) should not have guns, millions of otherwise healthy, well-balanced, law-abiding Americans could lose their gun rights.

 

Obvious you don’t know how Craigslist works. “Armslist” is the same, and that is only one of several on the regular Web, dark Web has multiple sites

 

Please provide supporting links, since they do not know for sure what is legitimate loss to theft or not.

'Illegal' person to person gun sales... a limited number of states limit sales between people based on being licensed to do so. So calling them illegal sales, must only be in those States that require a licensed dealer be a party to that sale.

So, are you suggesting that more law abiding citizens be subject to rules that do not prevent someone who has murder on their mind from obtaining a gun?

 

Absolutely, this should come along with registration. Of course, if a gun owner takes adequate precautions (e.g. they keep it in a proper safe, if it's stolen anyway they report it quickly), then they shouldn't be liable. But these irresponsible owners who keep loaded guns unsecured, or who loan guns to friends, need to be held responsible when those guns are used to commit a crime. There was an incident here in Colorado where a police officer loaned his personal weapon to a friend, and that friend killed someone with it. The cop should be liable for that murder as well.

 

The difference is, you used the phrase "gun violence" 6 times in three paragraphs of reply. Whereas I did not use that phrase once. That's why I said, if reducing "violence" is your aim, you had to concur. Only those who are focusing on "gun violence", and not the big picture, would not. That indicates to me that your motive is more "anti-gun" and less "anti-violence". You are only using the violence to further your anti-gun agenda; your ulterior motive.

 

It might at least restrict them to smaller guns with smaller magazines or clips, and maybe that would slow them down. The nut job in Las Vegas may then have only killed 12-15 people instead of 57. Every life saved has to be worth something.

And maybe a universal, accessible common database that allows all sellers, private and public, to easily run a background check would be worth the trouble. Most of us want that, so why don't our elected Republican leaders? Why do they consistently, time after time, horror show after horror show, block any legislation? Not even gunned down five year olds could move that needle.

 

We need to enforce use of those background checks. Right now, they're more of a suggestion. There should be a stiff criminal penalty for selling someone a gun with a background check. A big fat fine at the very least.

 

So a database of known criminals and their criminal associates. And you honestly think that a criminal will register their gun....

I am a realist. The probability of a gun registration of new purchases will have gaping holes the size of this country, and likely to include Mexico also. Hell, our own government has supplied arms to criminals and foreign nations. Oh, wait, they would have to register those too, yes?

And registration of existing guns is a pipe dream.

 

What proposed solution is worse than 20+ dead toddlers?

 

For many, it's a "stop any hint of regulation at all costs" mentality. There was a story a couple years ago about a proposed state law that would only regulate the appearance of toy guns, but Republicans and gun lobbyists fought it tooth and nail. That, despite the fact that the law was being proposed by a Republican legislator. The This American Life story on it can be found here: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/637/words-you-cant-say/act-two-5 Basically, the attitude of Republicans and gun lobbyists was that anything that even appeared to affect gun rights had to be fought against, sort of like the "fight them there so we don't fight them here" war on terror attitude. You fight these early little battles so we never get to the big main battle.

 

Options: (1) Move to another English-speaking country like Canada or the United Kingdom (England).
(2) Build giant walls around all the big city Democrat areas, with airport-style screening at all the entry points. No cars allowed in or out.
You say how wonderful public transportation and taking cars off the road is, well here's your chance.
Anyone who wants to can rent a garage space right outside the city walls, if they want to drive somewhere else.

Right now about 40% of the entire country's population is concentrated around only a handful of big city areas.


Let it also be pointed out that any actual solution you are going to propose is either: (1) Not actually going to solve the problem, or (2) Be unacceptable.

 

While loss of life is nothing to disregard, there are many more lives lost to drugs, but the chant is on to decriminalize as many as possible, yet because guns are the hot ticket at the moment, people don't stop to realize that requiring law abiding citizens to jump through more hoops, will still not stop a nut job from committing murder, regardless of magazine size, caliber or form of weapon.

 

Good point on the parenting. I don't have kids in my home, not even visitors, but even I keep my gun in a small gun safe that only opens to my fingerprint (you guess which finger, heh heh). And it wasn't even expensive.

 

Right now, if I want a gun here in Colorado, I just go get a background check and I can get one, and it's against state law to require that a gun be registered. So if I have a buddy who drove here from a less permissive state, and he wants a gun, I can buy the gun for him and hand it over. It's illegal for me to do that, but the odds of me being caught are almost zero because my background check isn't tied to anything. However, if I can't even leave the store without registering the weapon, then, yes, I will register the gun. And if I don't want to register, then I won't buy the gun. Hey, a crime was just prevented!

Seriously, the flailing around by some folks fighting against this stuff reminds of the jackasses I used to work with who would find any excuse to not work. "Oh, there's an tiny issue with this one tool. Got to stop working until someone brings me a new one."

So we should just do nothing because none of the solutions are perfect? At the very least, shouldn't we research whether any of these ideas would be effective, and if so, how much?