Obama plans curbs on guns

[Sy_Noe]

Actually, I’m not convinced of anything of the sort. I believe that if he thought it was possible with his pen and his phone to confiscate all civilian owned firearms, he would do so with any amount of force necessary.

Jon

Comments like these do nothing more than show one’s political colors and are nothing more than sheer hyperbole. President Obama taught Constitutional law. As he said today, he believes in the 2nd amendment. He believes in the 1st amendment and free speech too. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t restrictions such as you can’t yell “fire” in a movie theatre. And there is a right to privacy but we still go thru a checkpoint at an airport. We can’t prevent all traffic accidents but we take actions to prevent some. People go through background checks when purchasing guns at a store and it has not led to a slippery slope where the American govt goes door to door to confiscate the guns of every gun owner.

 

[Sy_Noe]

A couple of thoughts come to mind:

First of all, licensing and registration for automobiles speaks to usage (and associated infrastructure costs), not possession. A driver’s license is an assurance that a person has learned the rules of the road and is being licensed by the state as a safe driver. Similarly, vehicle registration reflects concerns of usage and is used in addressing infrastructure costs: the fees assessed contribute to the states’ costs of maintaining roads and highways, and the registrations allow the states to know how much they’re going to have to spend, based on the number of vehicles on the road.

Firearms registration data, on the other hand, has nothing to do with usage – it’s kept solely in order to keep track of the identities of firearms owners, ostensibly in order to aid in law enforcement. (Let’s be careful not to conflate ‘background checks’ with ‘firearms registration’ and its associated data retention.) However, the overwhelming majority of firearms owners never use their firearms in a way that’s illegal; the ones who do are the ones who don’t care if they’re caught (cf San Bernardino). On the other hand, those who do use their firearms illegally tend to obtain them illegally. So, we have a double whammy: registration only affects those whom the keepers of the data shouldn’t care to track, and fail to track those whom they really do have an interesting in caring about keeping tabs on.

Second, since its aim is registration of owners, not registration of usage, firearms registration is perceived as being the opening act to firearms confiscation. Think we’re in conspiracy theory territory? No – look no further than New York, where gun registration led to later confiscation.

So IOW you register your car before using it but you want to use your gun before registering it.

 

[Theo520]

Well, several sites are reporting the elimination of the CLEO sign off, this first seems skeptical of government intentions: ace.mu.nu/ (Title: Barack Obama’s Executive Order on Guns Is Partly Defensible, Partly Alarming, and Partly… Helpful?)

“The reform part comes in that the new order strikes the requirement of getting a community local law-enforcement officer to sign off on any purchase of such a weapon. Anti-gun local cops had routinely refused to sign off on such purchases, even if the purchases were sought by otherwise qualified and law-abiding people. The new EO gets rid of that requirement, for reasons I can only imagine are pure incompetence on Obama’s part (that is, he couldn’t possibly intend to harass gun-owners less).”
thetruthaboutguns.com/2016/01/foghorn/president-obamas-executive-orders-what-they-mean-and-their-impact-on-you/

“One positive change that came out of this: the removal of the CLEO sign-off requirement. People living in Democrat controlled areas whose elected chief of police has been refusing to sign off on NFA paperwork can now legally purchase and register whatever they want. All that is required now is notification — not approval.”

I found multiple sources than confirmed a key benefit of an NFA Trust was eliminating the need for CLEO sign-off. See bottom of pg 3.

Perhaps Obama carried that benefit forward but not the fingerprinting? My guess is the writer got the fact wrong since his comments would apply to any licensed dealer not using an NFA Trust.

Interestingly, while it is possible to buy a machine gun if one goes through the hoops and pays the fees and consents to a home search with no notice at any time, it is not possible to register a machine gun that wasn’t traced all the way to the manufacturer through legal sales.

I understand that during and after WWII (possibly Korea as well) a lot of servicemen sent or brought home a lot of fully automatic enemy rifles and pistols. None of those can ever be registered and will remain illegal forever. Since one assumes they are historic weapons or at least that some of them are; collector’s items really, one would think there would be a way to legalize them. But it’s my understanding that it can’t be done because they can’t be traced back, owner to dealer to owner to dealer to manufacturer. Nobody knows how many are out there, but it would surely be in the thousands, given the WWII soldiers’ penchant for sending back souvenirs.

One wonders, then, when the government will declare all unregistered and unrecorded firearms without a clear chain of dealer origins, illegal just like those WWII weapons. Vast numbers of guns in the hands of citizens would then be illegal overnight. And people owning them would then do what?

I’m reminded of something Solzhenitsyn once said, referencing the Soviet Union: “The government should not be so excessively fierce that it drives its citizens to deceptiveness.”

Yes, full registration is the obvious aim of anyone who’s for gun control. It’s a very natural step and wouldn’t be a problem so long as the Govt remains benign (LOL). Many many Americans would opt for “deceptiveness”, there is not the trust.

 

[ucfengr]

Comments like these do nothing more than show one’s political colors and are nothing more than sheer hyperbole. President Obama taught Constitutional law. As he said today, he believes in the 2nd amendment. He believes in the 1st amendment and free speech too. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t restrictions such as you can’t yell “fire” in a movie theatre. And there is a right to privacy but we still go thru a checkpoint at an airport. We can’t prevent all traffic accidents but we take actions to prevent some. People go through background checks when purchasing guns at a store and it has not led to a slippery slope where the American govt goes door to door to confiscate the guns of every gun owner.

Then why does he praise Australia and Great Britain as examples of gun control? In both Australia and Great Britain, guns were banned and confiscated. When you say you want “common sense gun control” and use Australia and Great Britain as your models, you can’t in any meaningful way say you “believe in the 2nd amendment”.

 

[Gorgias]

So IOW you register your car before using it but you want to use your gun before registering it.

Nice loaded question. Tell me, when did you stop beating your wife?

No – I was merely pointing out the flaw in the logic of comparing registration & licensing (that serves a practical purpose) to proposed registration (whose only purpose is to track citizens who exercise their constitutional rights).

 

[Sy_Noe]

What troubles me about registering people who buy and sell guns at gun shows is not the gun show sale as such. What I fear this government is really trying to do is criminalize my buying a gun from a friend, giving one to my son or even inheriting one.

So I take it you do not fear if people sell their prescription drugs to their friends, family, and neighbors.

 

[Cathoholic]

Lily Bernans. You said on post 178

I use a middle “family” name as my screen name so people can’t look me up on the Internet. It’s fruitless . . .

I have no interest whatsoever in your personal information. YOU were the one who brought up your own personal shooting achievements (here).

You may not have NRA sharp shooter medals like I do,. . . . ’

And I am merely congratulating you on your awards and accolades (here).

---

What I DO have interest in, is just what I asked you about.

• I asked you WHY you mis-represented “automatic” weapons . . . . as an argument for more gun control?
• I asked you WHY you mis-represented dedicated experimental grenade launchers . . . . as “rifles” as an argument for more gun control?
• I asked you WHY you think military and law enforcement personnel should have fire arms . . . . but not citizens—on what PRINCIPLE.
• And I asked you do “Rights” come **from **Government . . . or do rights come from “the Creator”?

---

I am especially interested in the last two questions . . . .

QUOTE from here:
But the PRINCIPLE here that I’d really like you to address is WHY you think the military and law enforcement community “need” ANY assault rifles or ANY fire arms at all?

And I asked you WHERE you think our rights come from?

Do our rights come from “the Creator” or are our “rights” invented by Government?

And you haven’t answered any of these things.

 

[Leo2014]

This is going to be a big campaign issue - we already heard the subject brought up in the Democratic debates. I have to agree that something needs to be done regarding the amount of violence involving guns.

 

[JonNC]

=Lily Bernans;13556683]I’m sure if you’d been the parent of a Sandy Hook student, or the husband of a woman in San Bernardino, you’d want him to do just that. And Lanza’s mom bough her guns legally. Granted, he was mentally ill and she should have secured her weapons, knowing her son was mentally ill, but even with the loopholes closed, it won’t keep mentally ill people from obtaining guns.

No. I’d want him to enforce laws already on the books. I’d want him to do the things he’s supposed to do. We have systems that are supposed to identify people such as the Islamic extremists who attacked in San B.
If I lived in Sandy Hook, if I *taught *at Sandy Hook, I’d want to be allowed to have the means to protect myself and my children, other than with a meter stick, something denied teachers currently. I’d want them to take down the dangerous invitation to the disturbed that says, “gun free zone”.

The current school environment is set up where the good people are denied firearms, but the bad guys are not. That needs to be fixed.

I hate guns, and even I don’t agree with expanding access to mental health. The people who really need it won’t get it. I think Lanza would have passed a background check, if I recall correctly.

The fact the you hate guns doesn’t matter, quite frankly. I am thrilled that our soldiers in our wars had guns. I am thrilled the farmers and minutemen at Lexington and Concord did.
Tashfeen Malik should not have been in the country, much less had access to a firearm. That failure is Obama’s, plane and simple. It’s the fault of an unwillingness to profile those who are the greatest risk to us. It’s a failure caused by a lunatic political correctness, which places citizens in a position where they won’t report oddities of behavior if it involves certain groups, because of fear of being labeled a racist, bigot, Islamophobe. It’s a tactic that progressives have used to silence opposition. I don’t care for Trump, but that’s one good thing he’s done: exposed this for what it is: political intimidation.

Jon

 

[Sy_Noe]

Then why does he praise Australia and Great Britain as examples of gun control? In both Australia and Great Britain, guns were banned and confiscated. When you say you want “common sense gun control” and use Australia and Great Britain as your models, you can’t in any meaningful way say you “believe in the 2nd amendment”.

What he does is rightfully explain that no other civilized nation on the planet has the degree of gun violence that this country does. I had even forgotten about some of the many cases of gun violence which he spoke of today that have occurred just during his Presidency. If I appear thoroughly disgusted and angry, I am. And I will certainly vote accordingly. But I am also sad. I know I wept with our President today. He merely wants to do something to try to stop some of this while keeping in mind that Americans do have 2nd amendment rights. And as the President himself said, we can’t ever prevent all mass shootings unfortunately. But that doesn’t mean we can not try to do more.

 

[ucfengr]

So I take it you do not fear if people sell their prescription drugs to their friends, family, and neighbors.

I don’t object to that. Nor do I object to people giving family, friends, or neighbors alcoholic beverages without verifying their age.

 

[Sy_Noe]

This is going to be a big campaign issue - we already heard the subject brought up in the Democratic debates. I have to agree that something needs to be done regarding the amount of violence involving guns.

Yep

 

[Lily_Bernans]

Exactly. This is a man who supports butchering babies in the womb. Why would anyone with any moral fiber believe a word out of his mouth?

I don’t necessarily agree with that. Obama wasn’t one of the Supreme Court justices that upheld Roe v. Wade.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

This is going to be a big campaign issue - we already heard the subject brought up in the Democratic debates. I have to agree that something needs to be done regarding the amount of violence involving guns.

Yep from me, too.

 

[ucfengr]

What he does is rightfully explain that no other civilized nation on the planet has the degree of gun violence that this country does. I had even forgotten about some of the many cases of gun violence which he spoke of today that have occurred just during his Presidency. If I appear thoroughly disgusted and angry, I am. And I will certainly vote accordingly. But I am also sad. I know I wept with our President today. He merely wants to do something to try to stop some of this while keeping in mind that Americans do have 2nd amendment rights. And as the President himself said, we can’t ever prevent all mass shootings unfortunately. But that doesn’t mean we can not try to do more.

Are you saying Brazil, Columbia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Venezuela, and Mexico aren’t civilized? They all have gun violence rates that far exceed the US. Just as an aside, have you considered the racist implications of your notion that people from South and Central America aren’t civilized?

 

[mary_bobo]

What he does is rightfully explain that no other civilized nation on the planet has the degree of gun violence that this country does. I had even forgotten about some of the many cases of gun violence which he spoke of today that have occurred just during his Presidency. If I appear thoroughly disgusted and angry, I am. And I will certainly vote accordingly. But I am also sad. I know I wept with our President today. He merely wants to do something to try to stop some of this while keeping in mind that Americans do have 2nd amendment rights. And as the President himself said, we can’t ever prevent all mass shootings unfortunately. But that doesn’t mean we can not try to do more.

IMO what Obama has proposed will not do anything to stop gun violence. He might start with enforcing the laws already on the books.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

Lily Bernans. You said on post 178

I have no interest whatsoever in your personal information. YOU were the one who brought up your own personal shooting achievements (here).

And I am merely congratulating you on your awards and accolades (here).

---

What I DO have interest in, is just what I asked you about.

• I asked you WHY you mis-represented “automatic” weapons . . . . as an argument for more gun control?
• I asked you WHY you mis-represented dedicated experimental grenade launchers . . . . as “rifles” as an argument for more gun control?
• I asked you WHY you think military and law enforcement personnel should have fire arms . . . . but not citizens—on what PRINCIPLE.
• And I asked you do “Rights” come from Government . . . or do rights come from “the Creator”?

---

I am especially interested in the last two questions . . . .

QUOTE from here:
But the PRINCIPLE here that I’d really like you to address is WHY you think the military and law enforcement community “need” ANY assault rifles or ANY fire arms at all?

And I asked you WHERE you think our rights come from?

Do our rights come from “the Creator” or are our “rights” invented by Government?

And you haven’t answered any of these things.

Thank you for clearing that up.

I think I already answered the first two. I am 32 now and I was only in my early 20s when I had contact with the NRA. I’m not really familiar with various weapons I never used. I was mistaken. I also tend, wrongly, I admit, to refer to semi-automatic weapons as automatic, which I know I should not do. I did not know the first weapon was a grenade launcher, though. Giorgas had to enlighten me.

I think law enforcement and the military need weapons because they are entrusted with keeping the peace and their lives are in danger sometimes 24/7. People are firing guns at them routinely. Not so with the ordinary citizen. I have no objection to hunting rifles for personal use. I hate hunting myself, and yes, I’m a vegetarian, but I see the need for population control in the animal world.

As for rights, you’d have to explain what kinds of rights you mean: natural rights, inalienable rights, self-evident rights, etc. before I could answer.

 

[Peebo]

Then why does he praise Australia and Great Britain as examples of gun control? In both Australia and Great Britain, guns were banned and confiscated. When you say you want “common sense gun control” and use Australia and Great Britain as your models, you can’t in any meaningful way say you “believe in the 2nd amendment”.

Just so you don’t blindly follow the propaganda spewed from the NRA… guns were not banned in Australia…semi automatic rifles…pump action shot guns are…you can still buy bolt action rifles…lever action rifles…and shot guns…pistols and revolvers have always been hard to get even before the buy back…doesn’t mean there are still not plenty there…Australia don’t need guns for self protection or from a tyrannical government…in fact they don’t even worry about it

 

[Lily_Bernans]

I don’t object to that. Nor do I object to people giving family, friends, or neighbors alcoholic beverages without verifying their age.

Those things could land you in prison, especially selling prescription drugs. You should object.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

What he does is rightfully explain that no other civilized nation on the planet has the degree of gun violence that this country does. I had even forgotten about some of the many cases of gun violence which he spoke of today that have occurred just during his Presidency. If I appear thoroughly disgusted and angry, I am. And I will certainly vote accordingly. But I am also sad. I know I wept with our President today. He merely wants to do something to try to stop some of this while keeping in mind that Americans do have 2nd amendment rights. And as the President himself said, we can’t ever prevent all mass shootings unfortunately. But that doesn’t mean we can not try to do more.