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Prestor Jon wrote:

blaktoof wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

blaktoof wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

blaktoof wrote:

A very significant amount of deaths are due to firearms in the household which are not properly stored. So significant that it greatly surpasses the amount of US service people that died in a war each year during modern times.

You cannot back that up with facts at all. There is no data linking that many deaths to improperly stored firearms.

Well its not coming from gang violence like you claimed...so where do you think those 77% homicides are coming from in the 15-24 age range, which are not gang related, and the guns were not purchased legally by the person committing the crimes?

I don't have statistics on age ranges of people buying guns from the black market, but the rate of stolen guns used in homicides is less than 5% according to the ATF.

maybe most of the people who buy guns on the black market are 15-18....I have no idea on that one, but my intuition tells me that's not right.

So the largest amount of homicides is 15-18 age range, they can't buy guns legally, they are not mostly gang related, and they are not stolen guns. Where do you personally think these guns came from?

1st off, I didn't claim a fething thing about gangs.

2nd: The age bracket is victims, not perps. In many cases the perps will be outside of the age bracket.

The following show the circumstances behind all homicides in 2013:

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_10_murder_circumstances_by_relationship_2013.xls

By weapon type: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_11_murder_circumstances_by_weapon_2013.xls


You'll have a hard time making any type of case 'unsecured firearms' are the cause.

Juvenile gang murders with firearms 547, gangland killings, 117. Total firearm killings 8,454. 7.8% of killings were gang related. You insinuated most of the killings in the 15-24 age range were gang related.

I agree you can't get a lot of other information out of that in regards to guns being used in crimes by family members other than the guns owner.

The points however are:

Gun deaths are significant to worry about. They greatly outnumber in one year alone the amount of people who died in Military service during a period of 14 years while our country was at war.
From other data people under the legal age to by a handgun are the victims of most murders. If there is a disproportionate amount of these murders from people much older or younger than them? Possible, not likely. Most people in this age range interact mostly with their peers, outside of their family. I would have a hard time believing that most people are murdered by someone outside of their age range. I am having a hard time imagining a lot of 35+ year olds shooting 15-24 year olds for any reason that would be of significantly high % for these 8k gun homicides. I have a much easier time imagining 15-24 year olds having reason to shoot other 15-24 year olds that is of significant % in relation to the 8k gun homicides.

There are no statistics showing where the guns come from in these homicides.

However most of them are not gang related, and most of them are happening from people in an age range that can not legally purchase a gun. I somehow doubt they are coming from illegal gun sales to 15-18 year old, however I have no actual statistical data or proof to say so. Similarily I don't think anyone has statistical proof showing where most guns in crimes against various groups comes from.

So can I without a doubt say "most murders are committed by 15-24 year olds who get their guns from their family who did not properly lock them up"

Nope, But I can't- and apparently you cannot either account for where they get these guns when they cannot legally buy them, the % amount of stolen guns used in crimes by inmates is very low (5% according to ATF), and most of them are not supplied by their "gang" since very few of the homicides are gang related.

These guns are from somewhere.

In this case the homicide by firearm was committed by an 11 year old boy that got it from his home, it was most likely not secured in any fashion.

Chicago. One of highest incidence rates of teenage shooting victims in the country. They have extremely strict gun laws in Chicago making virtually impossible for residents to legally own and carry pistols. Illinois only just recently, this year IIRC, passed their law allowing concealed carry. A large majority of the teens shot in Chicago are shot by pistols. They are not getting those pistols from family members leaving them sitting g around the house because it's still extremely difficult for residents to legally own pistols. All of the gang violence in Chicago is not perpetrated with pistols improperly secured in the home.

Chicago is not the safest of cities that is for sure, but it represents less than 1% of the countries population.

and as shown by the FBI stats someone posted, ~ 6% of gun deaths are gang related across all ages.

While they may now have gun laws which make it hard to own and carry pistols, that actually points to people in certain ages getting guns from family. If they are not buying them from gun stores, where do you think 15-24 year olds are getting guns? the FBI stats show that ~40% of murders are family/acquaintances- of that ~79% are 18 and younger for the victims age.

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_3_murder_offenders_by_age_sex_and_race_2012.xls

shows 1624 murders from people aged 1-19 as the offender during 2012, sadly 357 of those are from people 16 and under... 2370 US service people died in wars across anywhere in the world during 2001-2015

http://www.icasualties.org/oef/

If we add in 20-24year olds as a category for muderers the number jumps to 4,177.

That's out of 10,000 homicides where the offender had a known age, the majority of these homicides were gun related, and handguns were used.

again chicago is a decent sized city which represents less than 1% of the country, with a gang problem. Most gang related homicides are from handguns, and the chance of being involved in a homicide if you are in a gang is much higher than if you are not in a gang, gang homicides resulted in only 6% of the homicides nationally. Even still looking there if you have a hard time purchasing a handgun now, most of the handguns used in murders came from sources other than handgun purchases. If a large amount of the offenders were under the age of 24, or even under the age of 19- where do you think the guns came from? ATF says nationally less than 5% of crimes involve a stolen gun. If they aren't stolen, and aren't purchased from a ffl where are the people getting the guns? Many of the guns used in crimes are purchased illegally, but that number is ~56% according to the ATF, and that is a number taken from offenders across all age ranges. Do you really think 13-19 year olds which make up decent % of the offenders are buying the guns on the black market? Even in the 1-16 range there are 346 murders in one year- thats 1/7th of the people killed in all wars over a 15 year period. Or in other terms 200% more people die to a 13-16 year old than US service people died over the same duration in all wars between 2001-2015. Where do you think those guns came from?




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Relapse wrote:

blaktoof wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

No. It is not. And should not be. States and local governments have it covered.

They obviously don't, since we had two children-shooting-children incidents in two days.

It is not enough to have laws that punish those who are guilty after the crime has been committed, that doesn't bring someone's dead child back to life. The point of laws is to discourage the commission of crimes in the first place.

Why stop with gunz? Make improperly storing household cleaners a crime. Make having swimming pools a crime. Make allowing kids to play in the bath a crime. Make transporting your children via an automobile a crime. All of those things cause more deaths to kids than gun accidents.

And for gaks and giggles, how the heck to you suppose making gun storahuge laws a Federal issue rather than a state/local issue fixes a damned thing? As has already been pointed out, the feds cannot enforce them unless you are also advocating for a massive increase in federal LEOs and a repealing of the 4th amendment. The laws would only ever be able to be enforced after the fact/after the kid is dead. If people are willing to ignore current laws (and they are) how would making it a Federal law be any different?

Because people can die by a means does not mean the means is inherently dangerous.

Yes people fall in swimming pools and drown.

In 2013 approximately 33,000 people died to gun related deaths. Albeit 2/3rds of those were suicides.

683 people died from unintentional swimming pool accidents between the Years of 2005-2009. I couldn't find more current data for that.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6119a4.htm

If you consider 683 people accidentally dying over a 5 year period and 11,700 people dying over a 1 year period there is a two order of magnitude greater difference.

Here's another statistical number.

2,900 people total died during 9/11 or the rescue operation afterwards. Our country signed into act various government things that greatly increased "national security" and took away many rights and privileges we once had. We also went to war in two countries over it for a war/occupation that lasted approximately 10 years.

That is 1/4th the amount of people who die to domestic gun related events, which are not suicides.

So yeah we can say anything can kill so why stop at guns, so therefore guns should not be regulated. However the number of deaths is a large issue. Its a number 400% larger than the death toll in 9/11 which our country went re-tard-ed over.

What about alcohol then, if you are worried about order of magnitude with things that cause death and where we put our efforts? According to the CDC, 83,000 + people die per year due to alcohol related causes. Tack on to that, two out of three domestic abuse cases involve alcohol, or the amount of health problems caused, homes broken, jobs lost, work hours lost, etc. Compared to alcohol, guns is a small potatoes issue.

I think alcohol should be kept away from minors as well. And if you are found to be giving alcohol to minors and they do something that results in death you should be held accountable for it.

Because alcohol kills people doesn't mean its okay to have other things that kill people not be regulated in any way.

Russia in the old year of 2007 regulated beer as alcohol because it was affecting their young population. We have laws and rules in place regarding alcohol.

Are you trying to say that because people die to alcohol no one should have to store their guns safely, because its not really causing that much death?

According to the WHO, in the 90's, three quarters of yearly deaths in Russia were alcohol related

I'm just addressing the point you were hot on about how many people guns kill vs. other things and that's why we should worry about them.

Guns are already regulated.

Relapse wrote:

What about alcohol then, if you are worried about order of magnitude with things that cause death and where we put our efforts? According to the CDC, 83,000 + people die per year due to alcohol related causes. Tack on to that, two out of three domestic abuse cases involve alcohol, or the amount of health problems caused, homes broken, jobs lost, work hours lost, etc. Compared to alcohol, guns is a small potatoes issue.

(looks up from his drink)

That also doesn't include the lunatics that would shove an oily rag in the top and light it before hurling the bottle at someone. Lunatics are going to kill people no matter what. Humanity never changes. Alcohol is accessible and can be very dangerous.

(goes back to drinking)

Edit: Man I fethed that quote up. Hope that's right now.

Relapse wrote:
What about

What about trying an actual valid argument. Whataboutism is just deflection. Deaths don't need to reach some magic threshold to be worth caring about. What's more important is if they can be prevented.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
So if gun ownership has returned to the levels that existed before the ban, and no further Port Arthur style attack has happened (terror incident aside) then it could be said that the ban, forced buy back, etc. actually had no discernible effect other than feel good security theater.

It could be.

It could also be that the population has grown in the last 20 years, and as a result of the ban the people who now have guns aren't the same people who would have had guns pre-ban, due to the registration requirements.


And to be honest, I think the potential value of 'feel good security theatre' shouldn't be dismissed. A very large part of changing public perception of an issue is getting the people to want to change that perception. Regardless of how many people wind up owning guns, Australia's attitude towards guns and gun ownership changed significantly in 1996, and has more or less stayed changed.

 Smacks wrote:

Relapse wrote:
What about

What about trying an actual valid argument. Whataboutism is just deflection. Deaths don't need to reach some magic threshold to be worth caring about. What's more important is if they can be prevented.

As I said, I was just addressing his whataboutism point.

Make gun safes required, but tax deductible. You have to show the paperwork that you bought a safe when you purchase a firearm. No searches though. Lord forbid the inspector thinks he smells weed, and an hour later you have a trigger happy SWAT team kicking in your door and shooting your dog.


(Not that I support changing the laws on the books. The system is sound, we just need to enforce it more)

Prestor Jon wrote:
No you are still managing to ignore the key difference and the only one that counts. The FAA inspections have already been consented to as a condition for obtaining a federal license. Once consent is given agents can conduct the search.

Then you make a federal gun license that requires consent to inspections to verify compliance with federal gun laws. No license, no guns. Obviously this is never going to happen because the anti-gun-control side reflexively rejects any kind of license or registration proposal because it might make it easier for Hillary (it's probably too late for Obama to do it) to confiscate those registered guns.

Gun laws aren't a matter of federal law they are a state and local matter. That's covered by the 10th amendment. Federal gun laws are limited to federal firearm licenses and interstate commerce of firearms.

Gun laws are not local/state-only. The federal government can and does pass laws regulating guns. They just, as a matter of policy, leave a lot of the details of gun laws to individual states.

 Peregrine wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
No you are still managing to ignore the key difference and the only one that counts. The FAA inspections have already been consented to as a condition for obtaining a federal license. Once consent is given agents can conduct the search.

Then you make a federal gun license that requires consent to inspections to verify compliance with federal gun laws. No license, no guns. Obviously this is never going to happen because the anti-gun-control side reflexively rejects any kind of license or registration proposal because it might make it easier for Hillary (it's probably too late for Obama to do it) to confiscate those registered guns.

Gun laws aren't a matter of federal law they are a state and local matter. That's covered by the 10th amendment. Federal gun laws are limited to federal firearm licenses and interstate commerce of firearms.

Gun laws are not local/state-only. The federal government can and does pass laws regulating guns. They just, as a matter of policy, leave a lot of the details of gun laws to individual states.

We already have federal firearms licenses, every gun store owner has one and having it is contingent upon letting the ATF inspect the books and premises. Every collector with an 03 FFL consents to having the ATF inspect their transaction records for guns purchased and sold via their 03 FFL.

The federal govt issues and regulates FFLs because they are licenses that enable people to engage in interstate commerce of firearms and the Constitution grants the federal govt authority to regulate interstate commerce.

The federal govt cannot create a license to own a gun any more than it can create a license to speak freely. It lacks jurisdiction to do so. The federal govt cannot usurp the state constitutions and laws that already rightly address gun ownership. Our system of federalism cannot simply be set aside just for gun laws that's not how the system works.

Prestor Jon wrote:
The federal govt cannot create a license to own a gun any more than it can create a license to speak freely. It lacks jurisdiction to do so.

So let me get this straight: the federal government can outright ban entire classes of guns, make other classes of guns require a federal license to own, ban entire classes of people from owning guns, etc. But it can't require a federal license to own a gun, something that is a much weaker restriction of second amendment rights. How exactly does that make sense?

The federal govt cannot usurp the state constitutions and laws that already rightly address gun ownership.

You have this completely backwards.

Prestor Jon wrote:
Our system of federalism cannot simply be set aside just for gun laws that's not how the system works.

That's funny.

 whembly wrote:
Yes, that's extremely cynical, but he had his chance in the first two years of his Presidency, with having Democratic majority in both houses too...

This line of argument is probably getting more tired than 'blame Bush'. A Democratic majority only means something if the Democrat representatives were connected to the hive mind. I’ve heard some incredible things about Obama, but I’ve never heard anyone claim he’s a synapse creature. Instead, Democrats vote their own way. That's why when they held a supermajority they managed to get a whopping one piece of major reform passed, and that was a close run thing.

Anyhow, to get gun control legislation through you don’t need Democrats both houses of congress and the presidency, you actually need gun control advocates in both houses and in the presidency. At no point in the last 8 years has that been even slightly true.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yes, apologies if I didn't make it clear, I unfortunately don't have time to address your entire post (which made valid points), but wanted to quickly address this. I was acknoledging that automobiles are much more regulated than firearms, and my point really was that even with all the regulation that automobiles & motorcycles have, their accident rates are orders of magnitude larger than with firearms, showing that, at least in terms of accidents (as opposed to homicides & suicides), that extensive safety regulation mandates probably don't have the same public-safety interest.

Well, no, because once again the question isn't what activity has more accidents. By that line of thinking horse riding has even less deaths than firearms, but not because it's got just the right amount of regulation, but because it's hardly ever done.

The useful question is how many accidents there'd be if there was no regulation, compared to how many there are with the existing level of regulation. And with cars we can see the answer to that question with a simple graph;



A massive decline in deaths for every hundred million miles driven.

It isn't only down controls on drivers, in fact I'd expect that speeding fines etc are probably a very small part of the decline. But requirements put on manufacturers to build safer cars, combined with a lot of money spent on safer roads has meant thousands of saved lives.

Can something similar be done with guns? I doubt it, it's a very different beast. Maybe if gun safes were heavily subsidised, or even given away with each gun (with some of the price recovered through a tax on the sale of the firearm) then maybe you'd see an increase in use. But even that's pretty loose thinking, probably.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Sure, my hypothetical kid could walk up to my gun and shoot himself or someone. He could also drink the gallon container of bleach, or get someone else to drink it. In either case, I need to teach him not to drink the bleach or play with the gun. Its not the gun/bleach that is the issue here, the issue is how I've trained my kid.

Have you got kids? Because the idea that you can just train a kid and that's that, danger averted just doesn't work. "Don't put your fingers in the door gap, you remember what happened last time" has been repeated maybe a hundred times in my house. And my kid is more safety conscious than most.

It simply is ridiculous parenting to expect that training your kid is enough to make them safe. You actually have to remove dangers from the surrounding area because they're just kids, and screwing up all the time is part of being a kid. You just want to make sure the screw ups don't end up with too serious a consequence.

Now, this doesn't mean that everyone has to get every gun out of their house, or even that every gun has to be locked up. But the basic reality is that having a gun in a place a child can potentially reach it will increase the danger to that child, no matter how well you've trained them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Prestor Jon wrote:
Our police force is entirely reactionary not pre-emptive.

Actually, that's completely wrong. Pre-emptive policing has been a concept since police forces professionalised, and has only grown over time. The logic behind 'street presence' is all about discouraging crime. Community policing has a similar underlying logic.

And on top of that we've steadily re-worked our laws to include more and more crimes that are designed to preempt really harmful behaviour. You mentioned drink driving, but that's actually a classic example of pre-emptive policing. People can drive drunk, it's only when they hit someone else that they've caused harm. To preempt the deaths from drunk driving we make any driving while drunk illegal and set out to catch people with random breath tests and the like.

I mean, I actually agree with you that stopping by the house of every gun owner to check his gun is in a safe is hopelessly impractical and a bad idea on top of that, but I have to correct your understanding of policing. Preemptive policing is a major element.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CptJake wrote:
Why stop with gunz? Make improperly storing household cleaners a crime. Make having swimming pools a crime. Make allowing kids to play in the bath a crime. Make transporting your children via an automobile a crime. All of those things cause more deaths to kids than gun accidents.

Umm, there are loads of rules and regs about making swimming pools safe. Complete fences, self-closing gates... And the safety rules for kids in cars are far more strict and onerous than expecting a gun to be put in a safe.

I mean, I'm not even in favour of requiring people to lock guns in safes, but god damn you guys are making some screwy arguments.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CptJake wrote:
Note, for kids (up to 24 years old) unintentional firearms deaths is 39 for 2013. Drowning kills well over 1000. Poison (unintentional) kills over 3k.

It would appear laws attempting to preempt those thousands of deaths would be more important than new laws hoping to prevent less than 50 deaths.

Very fething obviously, though, you can do both.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CptJake wrote:
Give me a break, to think you can come up with federal legislation and enforcement there of to reduce less than 50 accidental child deaths a year in a population of over 300 million people is just silly. That is the bad assumption being made in this topic.

Whether there is a possible idea out there that might significantly decrease those 50 deaths is one question, but the argument that there couldn't possibly be a single thing that kills 50 people that could be affected by Federal legislation is absurd.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Breotan wrote:
Okay, I just saw a headline claiming that gun sales have jumped.

There are no industry sales figures that are updated on a daily or weekly frequency. The headline is just blowing smoke.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
How many rapes before and after?
How many home invasions before and after?
How many murders before and after?
How many attempted murders before and after?
How many batteries before and after?
How many robberies before and after?

You might not like what you find.

Less in all categories. Given I don't like home invasion, attempted murder, rape, robbery, or anything else you mention, I actually do quite like what I find.

I'm guessing you've never actually looked at Australian crime figures, and are just relying on some half remember NRA bs?

 sebster wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yes, apologies if I didn't make it clear, I unfortunately don't have time to address your entire post (which made valid points), but wanted to quickly address this. I was acknoledging that automobiles are much more regulated than firearms, and my point really was that even with all the regulation that automobiles & motorcycles have, their accident rates are orders of magnitude larger than with firearms, showing that, at least in terms of accidents (as opposed to homicides & suicides), that extensive safety regulation mandates probably don't have the same public-safety interest.

Well, no, because once again the question isn't what activity has more accidents. By that line of thinking horse riding has even less deaths than firearms, but not because it's got just the right amount of regulation, but because it's hardly ever done.

The difference being that firearms and automobiles are owned in almost identical numbers (unlike horses), with accident rates being orders of magnitude different.

I'm not trying to debate the efficacy of automobile regulation, I'm acknowledging that it's effective. My larger point was that with firearms, accidental deaths are orders of magnitude rarer despite being owned in similar numbers to automobiles, and with deaths from firearms accidents numbering ~500-600 people a year (at least in 2010, again, not counting homicides, collateral damage, or intentional suicides) it's hard to see where safety regulation on anything near the scale of the automobile industry is warranted when any return we're looking at, even if 100% effective, are only going to save 500-600 lives.

The useful question is how many accidents there'd be if there was no regulation, compared to how many there are with the existing level of regulation.

If we're looking strictly at accidents (again, as opposed to homicides and intentional suicides), it's a few hundred a year at most, as opposed to the tens of thousands that firearm safety regulations save.

More to the point, in my own experience, most accidents don't really involve accessing an inappropriately secured weapon, but rather someone failing to properly handle and/or clear a weapon when they really should have known better. and mandated storage requirements aren't going to do anything about that.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The difference being that firearms and automobiles are owned in almost identical numbers (unlike horses), with accident rates being orders of magnitude different.

Similarly numbers of ownership, but the rates of use are wildly different. The average commute to and from work in the US is about 45 minutes. You think gun owners use their guns an average of 45 minutes a day?

I'm not trying to debate the efficacy of automobile regulation, I'm acknowledging that it's effective. My larger point was that with firearms, accidental deaths are orders of magnitude rarer despite being owned in similar numbers to automobiles, and with deaths from firearms accidents numbering ~500-600 people a year (at least in 2010, again, not counting homicides, collateral damage, or intentional suicides) it's hard to see where safety regulation on anything near the scale of the automobile industry is warranted when any return we're looking at, even if 100% effective, are only going to save 500-600 lives.

Yeah, and my point is that point works and is so much stronger and clearer if you just drop mentioning cars altogether. Just say 'there's about 500 accidental gun deaths a year', and everything suggested would cost a hell of a lot of money, without decreasing that death toll by much at all.

[quote=sebster 666121 8176170 72eab7a7ce61b7d7e07cfd696c3e9130.jpgI’ve heard some incredible things about Obama, but I’ve never heard anyone claim he’s a synapse creature.

 insaniak wrote:
It could be.

It could also be that the population has grown in the last 20 years, and as a result of the ban the people who now have guns aren't the same people who would have had guns pre-ban, due to the registration requirements.

Or it could be a rock that keeps away tigers

 insaniak wrote:
And to be honest, I think the potential value of 'feel good security theatre' shouldn't be dismissed. A very large part of changing public perception of an issue is getting the people to want to change that perception. Regardless of how many people wind up owning guns, Australia's attitude towards guns and gun ownership changed significantly in 1996, and has more or less stayed changed.

You are eroding people's rights for no other purpose than cultural realignment, and to force a shift in the population's attitudes towards an inanimate object that has no free will and is safe unless handled by someone with malicious intent or recklessness. That does not show that security theater has a value. In fact quite the opposite.
So far in this thread we have discussed driving a horse and stagecoach through the 4th Amendment as a way to target the 2nd Amendment, and subverting the 10th Amendment to do so. Following the Australian model would sacrifice rights for absolutely no gain

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:
Make gun safes required, but tax deductible. You have to show the paperwork that you bought a safe when you purchase a firearm. No searches though. Lord forbid the inspector thinks he smells weed, and an hour later you have a trigger happy SWAT team kicking in your door and shooting your dog.


(Not that I support changing the laws on the books. The system is sound, we just need to enforce it more)

If you want to increase gun safety then treat firearm training classes as tax deductable

Are we really doing anything new here? Or are a lot of people just toeing the rule 1 line because they know no other way to post in a gun thread.

 Ouze wrote:
[quote=sebster 666121 8176170 72eab7a7ce61b7d7e07cfd696c3e9130.jpgI’ve heard some incredible things about Obama, but I’ve never heard anyone claim he’s a synapse creature.

It only works within 6 inches, though.

 Peregrine wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
The federal govt cannot create a license to own a gun any more than it can create a license to speak freely. It lacks jurisdiction to do so.

So let me get this straight: the federal government can outright ban entire classes of guns, make other classes of guns require a federal license to own, ban entire classes of people from owning guns, etc. But it can't require a federal license to own a gun, something that is a much weaker restriction of second amendment rights. How exactly does that make sense?

The federal govt cannot usurp the state constitutions and laws that already rightly address gun ownership.

You have this completely backwards.

The "ban" on "assault weapons" was simply the federal govt exerting control over interstate commerce by restricting the sales of particular firearms. All the ban did was make it impossible to legally purchase a specific set of rifles, that's it. Everybody who already owned "assault weapons" got to keep them. The AWB didn't affect people who owned assault weapons, it didn't create a special license, it was a restriction on commerce.

The National Firearms Act of 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968, the US v Miller SCOTUS case in 1938, the administration of Federal Firearms Licenses, all of the Federal regulation of guns is limited to interstate commerce. The reason state and local govts have regulated the possession and ownership of firearms for the last 230+ years instead of the Federal govt is because ownership and possession don't fall under federal purview.

As a bit of a tangent, do Gas/Water/Electrical companies organise inspections of whatever the technical business inside a home is?

If so, are these checks intrusive, and what's the difference between these and a police officer walking in to check a specific thing on a specific date, that you would have had to organise after .... say receiving a letter notifying you that your yearly gun storage cabinet inspection is due?

The difference is politics.

A significant number of people do not want their rights to have guns to be compromised.

 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:
As a bit of a tangent, do Gas/Water/Electrical companies organise inspections of whatever the technical business inside a home is?

If so, are these checks intrusive, and what's the difference between these and a police officer walking in to check a specific thing on a specific date, that you would have had to organise after .... say receiving a letter notifying you that your yearly gun storage cabinet inspection is due?

If you own your property? Only if they're invited or have a warrant.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The difference is politics.

A significant number of people do not want their rights to have guns to be compromised.

Or their 4th amendment rights.

Most electric, gas and water companies check a meter external to the structure. I know I've lived in many houses and apartments across several states and never had them have to come into my house. And they all provide a service (gas, electricity or water) and are private companies for the most part (though in some cases are contractors on a county/municipality gov't contract). They have no enforcement authority. They don't make laws/regulations.

In the UK some of the meters are indoors and some are outdoors, usually depending on the age of the property.

These are sometimes checked for accuracy and safety according to regulations. If you fail to make your meter available for checking, you can be prosecuted (civil prosecution).

That said, it took over three years to get my meter checked from receipt of the original letter requesting it to the actual visit of the test employee.

 Ouze wrote:

 sebster wrote:
I’ve heard some incredible things about Obama, but I’ve never heard anyone claim he’s a synapse creature.

It only works within 6 inches, though.

I can't exalt this enough. Sig worthy even...

 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:
As a bit of a tangent, do Gas/Water/Electrical companies organise inspections of whatever the technical business inside a home is?

If so, are these checks intrusive, and what's the difference between these and a police officer walking in to check a specific thing on a specific date, that you would have had to organise after .... say receiving a letter notifying you that your yearly gun storage cabinet inspection is due?

No one has ever come into my house to inspect anything. Thats not how things operate here. They would not make it in the door.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In the UK some of the meters are indoors and some are outdoors, usually depending on the age of the property.

These are sometimes checked for accuracy and safety according to regulations. If you fail to make your meter available for checking, you can be prosecuted (civil prosecution).

That said, it took over three years to get my meter checked from receipt of the original letter requesting it to the actual visit of the test employee.

Wow thats crazy.

Horrible tragedy.

The gun should have locked up, the ammo should have been locked up. Completely avoidable tragedy. Horrible.

Indeed.

My last home was in Pennsylvania, our water and gas meter were inside the basement of our home. So there are parts of the US where older buildings have utilities on the inside. We had bi yearly inspections, not a big deal.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:
As a bit of a tangent, do Gas/Water/Electrical companies organise inspections of whatever the technical business inside a home is?

If so, are these checks intrusive, and what's the difference between these and a police officer walking in to check a specific thing on a specific date, that you would have had to organise after .... say receiving a letter notifying you that your yearly gun storage cabinet inspection is due?

No one has ever come into my house to inspect anything. Thats not how things operate here. They would not make it in the door.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In the UK some of the meters are indoors and some are outdoors, usually depending on the age of the property.

These are sometimes checked for accuracy and safety according to regulations. If you fail to make your meter available for checking, you can be prosecuted (civil prosecution).

That said, it took over three years to get my meter checked from receipt of the original letter requesting it to the actual visit of the test employee.

Wow thats crazy.

What's even crazier is that when the inspector came eventually, he said the gas meter was technically now illegal, due to revised building regs, being positioned within a metre of the electrical gear. But he saw it would cost hundreds of pounds to rework the whole installation, so he decided not to report it.