Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
If the Government wants guns out of the hands of criminals I think there is one VERY easy solution even the most right-leaning NRA member would be open to.

Open up the criminal background check database to EVERYONE. Why is this thing limited to only those with an FFL license in the first place? If you want to do a private transfer and want to do a check on the guy you should be able to simple whip out your smartphone, log onto a website, and run a check, free of charge.

Agreed. The federal govt already has NICS set up and could open it up to the public tomorrow if they wanted to and it would have the effect they claim to want.

Which is exactly my point. If this was really about "safety" than this is what they'd do. Unfortunately the real reason is control. They want to make own in a gun such a bourdon and so expensive that many simply give up. This is unfortunately often the poor and minorities, which are the most in need of guns for protection.

 cuda1179 wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Why didn't the people just shoot the police?

It's a tiny bit intimidating when a dozen officers show up at your place at 1 in the morning with weapons drawn.

So essentially this idea that guns are essential for protecting your FREEEEEEDOOOOOOOM from the evil authorities is a crock of gak.

I'm glad we've got that sorted out.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Why didn't the people just shoot the police?

It's a tiny bit intimidating when a dozen officers show up at your place at 1 in the morning with weapons drawn.

So essentially this idea that guns are essential for protecting your FREEEEEEDOOOOOOOM from the evil authorities is a crock of gak.

I'm glad we've got that sorted out.

No, as mentioned, some people have trouble crossing the line. Some, not all. The old lady who got beat up? She was not the type who had a gun to defend herself from the cops. Ol' Boudreaux out in the bayou may have been a bit different.

I did a little chart comparing murder rates ( this is over-all murder rates, not gun deaths) of all the States in the US, plus Washington D.C. to gun ownership rates. What I found is actually quite interesting.

D.C. and Louisiana are statistical outliers. D.C. has, by far, the lowest gun ownership rates, but drastically the highest murder rate, more than double that of most of the other states.

Louisiana has a fairly high gun ownership rate, and a pretty high murder rate. The other states are basically all over the place.

The trend starts off with Hawaii at a low gun ownership rate (around 7%) and a low murder rate index of around 1.7. As gun ownership rises, so does the murder rate, until you reach Maryland (21% gun ownership, 6.5 murder index) then murders start to fall again until you reach Iowa and Vermont (roughly 43% gun ownership and a 1.5 murder index). After than murder rates start to slightly climb again.

Could it be that both gun control and gun rights activists are right? That murders are somewhat linked to gun ownership, but that the relationship is a Bell Curve, and not a direct proportion relation? Is gun ownership rates of 43% the magic number for repelling criminals without arming them too?

You can't look at the murder rate by state, you need look in urban areas vice rural areas. I suspect your murder rate in Louisiana is very much influenced by the cities.

 CptJake wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
And, if they didn't want the state to come knocking to take away their firearms, then they could have quite simply registered them and forgot all about it.

I genuinely don't understand the resistance to registration. It's not stopping anyone owning anything, it just means that there is a mechanism to track the firearms, and to ensure that it is much harder for criminals to get hold of, or retain weapons.

What is the problem?
I don't get on board with the "slippery slope" claim, before someone pops that one up. Registering firearms in no way restricts ownership, it just regulates sales to ensure only legitimate, responsible, law abiding citizens can access the weapons.

Legal sales are already regulated to only legitimate responsible law abiding citizens.

The gov't has no right nor legitimate reason to track my property.

A nationwide registry would be expensive and raise the cost of legal gun ownership.

A registry would not solve any of the perceived problems. What is the problem you think a registry solves? And does the cost justify a registry as a solution?

If you want to restrict a constitutionally protected right, you had better have a great damned reason.

Don't they already track the ownership of your vehicles?

Are guns so sacrosanct that the idea that an easily concealed, portable firearm shouldn't be sold on without being registered? The initial purchaser may satisfy all the requirements, but what about the 2nd or third owner?
How on earth does a private citizen satisfy themselves that the person they are selling to satisfies the stringent requirements that they had to meet? How easy is it to check that someone contacting you from Craigslist is not banned from owning firearms? Is it not likely that, even if you as a seller did all you could to ensure you are selling to someone legally entitled to own a weapon, that that weapon could eventually end up in the hands of a criminal, purchased from someone who has not done any checks at all?

The anecdote about the police seizing firearms was interesting. It seems that owning firearms didn't prevent the state from forcing themselves on those individuals.
Equally interesting was that it took federal govt representatives to come to the rescue, and defended the rights of the citizens against some state level officials. Perhaps the Govt isn't the big bad wolf after all?

Prestor Jon wrote:
To date those registries have abysmal participation rates and local law enforcement aren't prioritizing their enforcement so the participation rate continues to be low.

Before a registry can be effective it would require implementation at a federal level instead of state level. Already purchased guns would have to be voluntary, you can't force registration or use it to take guns away by searching houses looking for them. It is wasted money and manpower. Essentially have to treat those guns as grandfathered in and deal with them separately as each situation arises. Any new purchases private, retailer and dealer (which is why these have to be implemented at a federal level) are documented, tracked and handled.

However before that happens we need to plug the gaps and wholes with the NICS. There is a large gap between what crimes should and are reported to the NICS. Not everyone reports everything to the database and thus criminals that shouldn't pass a background check, still can, since the state didn't provide those records. A lot of that is the red tape between federal and state information, it isn't exactly a two-way street of mutual sharing. Until that is properly federally mandated and resolved then no registry will work properly. The cost for the registry isn't that much if it wasn't for the inflated costs and structuring of the process. 10 years ago is a different story, compared to today, with the age of technology with cheaper, better, faster and almost everything digital some of the gaps can be plugged. That also does mean as a boost local database, law enforcement police infrastructure gets an upgrade which improves things across the board.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If your guns are on a registry it opens the door for confiscation.

If you honestly believe the government is going to confiscate the guns, they don't need a registry to do that. The amount of time and manpower to do that at a national level is astronomical and not even realistically possible. They already know you have guns, at least for the initial background check done at some point hopefully. The amount or type of guns shouldn't suddenly make them now want to confiscate them or create some devious plan to confiscate them, it isn't possible.

Am I the only one who sees NCIS every time someone talks about the NICS?

 cuda1179 wrote:
Could it be that both gun control and gun rights activists are right? That murders are somewhat linked to gun ownership, but that the relationship is a Bell Curve, and not a direct proportion relation? Is gun ownership rates of 43% the magic number for repelling criminals without arming them too?

It is always a little bit of both as we're talking about a huge category, not a particular type of crime like murder, suicide, accidental, police involved but the whole category of gun violence and death. There isn't one solution or one reason that will reduce them across all categories. It is a bunch of little things adding together to make an impact. Most sides tend to get stuck in a loop first with statistics then when people talk gun control, somehow people translate that to 'take guns away' which both sides do this.

You can't compare flat rates as you have to look at the urban vs rural area and break it out further than simply by state. Then you need to measure in crime rates of those areas as well, not mixed together with the stats but in parallel so you can see correlation with some.

 CptJake wrote:
You can't look at the murder rate by state, you need look in urban areas vice rural areas.

Yes this^

 r_squared wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
And, if they didn't want the state to come knocking to take away their firearms, then they could have quite simply registered them and forgot all about it.

I genuinely don't understand the resistance to registration. It's not stopping anyone owning anything, it just means that there is a mechanism to track the firearms, and to ensure that it is much harder for criminals to get hold of, or retain weapons.

What is the problem?
I don't get on board with the "slippery slope" claim, before someone pops that one up. Registering firearms in no way restricts ownership, it just regulates sales to ensure only legitimate, responsible, law abiding citizens can access the weapons.

Legal sales are already regulated to only legitimate responsible law abiding citizens.

The gov't has no right nor legitimate reason to track my property.

A nationwide registry would be expensive and raise the cost of legal gun ownership.

A registry would not solve any of the perceived problems. What is the problem you think a registry solves? And does the cost justify a registry as a solution?

If you want to restrict a constitutionally protected right, you had better have a great damned reason.

Don't they already track the ownership of your vehicles?

There are state registries for vehicles because states tax vehicles. Vehicle registration is for states to know whom to send the tax bill, where to send the tax bill and how much to invoice. Vehicle registration has nothing to do with operator ability, safety, or crime prevention. States don't tax guns so there are no registries for all guns in all states.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dark Severance wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
To date those registries have abysmal participation rates and local law enforcement aren't prioritizing their enforcement so the participation rate continues to be low.

Before a registry can be effective it would require implementation at a federal level instead of state level. Already purchased guns would have to be voluntary, you can't force registration or use it to take guns away by searching houses looking for them. It is wasted money and manpower. Essentially have to treat those guns as grandfathered in and deal with them separately as each situation arises. Any new purchases private, retailer and dealer (which is why these have to be implemented at a federal level) are documented, tracked and handled.

However before that happens we need to plug the gaps and wholes with the NICS. There is a large gap between what crimes should and are reported to the NICS. Not everyone reports everything to the database and thus criminals that shouldn't pass a background check, still can, since the state didn't provide those records. A lot of that is the red tape between federal and state information, it isn't exactly a two-way street of mutual sharing. Until that is properly federally mandated and resolved then no registry will work properly. The cost for the registry isn't that much if it wasn't for the inflated costs and structuring of the process. 10 years ago is a different story, compared to today, with the age of technology with cheaper, better, faster and almost everything digital some of the gaps can be plugged. That also does mean as a boost local database, law enforcement police infrastructure gets an upgrade which improves things across the board.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If your guns are on a registry it opens the door for confiscation.

If you honestly believe the government is going to confiscate the guns, they don't need a registry to do that. The amount of time and manpower to do that at a national level is astronomical and not even realistically possible. They already know you have guns, at least for the initial background check done at some point hopefully. The amount or type of guns shouldn't suddenly make them now want to confiscate them or create some devious plan to confiscate them, it isn't possible.

If at the beginning of a national registry you grandfather in over 300,000,000 guns as not needing to be registered then the registry is never going to be complete and you're going to have millions of unregistered guns in private hands for decades. Why should the federal govt spend billions on a project that would be doomed from the start?

 r_squared wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
And, if they didn't want the state to come knocking to take away their firearms, then they could have quite simply registered them and forgot all about it.

I genuinely don't understand the resistance to registration. It's not stopping anyone owning anything, it just means that there is a mechanism to track the firearms, and to ensure that it is much harder for criminals to get hold of, or retain weapons.

What is the problem?
I don't get on board with the "slippery slope" claim, before someone pops that one up. Registering firearms in no way restricts ownership, it just regulates sales to ensure only legitimate, responsible, law abiding citizens can access the weapons.

Legal sales are already regulated to only legitimate responsible law abiding citizens.

The gov't has no right nor legitimate reason to track my property.

A nationwide registry would be expensive and raise the cost of legal gun ownership.

A registry would not solve any of the perceived problems. What is the problem you think a registry solves? And does the cost justify a registry as a solution?

If you want to restrict a constitutionally protected right, you had better have a great damned reason.

Don't they already track the ownership of your vehicles?

Are guns so sacrosanct that the idea that an easily concealed, portable firearm shouldn't be sold on without being registered? The initial purchaser may satisfy all the requirements, but what about the 2nd or third owner?
How on earth does a private citizen satisfy themselves that the person they are selling to satisfies the stringent requirements that they had to meet? How easy is it to check that someone contacting you from Craigslist is not banned from owning firearms? Is it not likely that, even if you as a seller did all you could to ensure you are selling to someone legally entitled to own a weapon, that that weapon could eventually end up in the hands of a criminal, purchased from someone who has not done any checks at all?

The anecdote about the police seizing firearms was interesting. It seems that owning firearms didn't prevent the state from forcing themselves on those individuals.
Equally interesting was that it took federal govt representatives to come to the rescue, and defended the rights of the citizens against some state level officials. Perhaps the Govt isn't the big bad wolf after all?

Frankly, until you answer the highlighted questions, who gives a gak if vehicles are registered? You've already been told WHY those are (taxes which in turn are supposed to pay for upkeep on roads...)

Because it stops people who should not have access to firearms, getting access to firearms, and you've got to start somewhere?
The initial cost of any project is usually the largest part, but after the initial cost, it becomes much, much less to maintain that structure.
Arguably, a Federal registry might help reduce other costs once set up. For example, I believe that the man hours saved for law enforcement alone could account for that.
And before anyone asks me to cite figures to support my argument, I can't, and I'm not going to try either. It hasn't been done, so I'm guessing that it could be easier for a police officer to trace registered firearms, than it is for them to trace unregistered firearms. On that supposition, it takes them less time to deal with that aspect of that particular range of possible offences, thus saving man hours, and therefore money.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
A registry of firearms doesn't infringe the 2nd ammendment.

 r_squared wrote:
Because it stops people who should not have access to firearms, getting access to firearms, and you've got to start somewhere?
The initial cost of any project is usually the largest part, but after the initial cost, it becomes much, much less to maintain that structure.
Arguably, a Federal registry might help reduce other costs once set up. For example, I believe that the man hours saved for law enforcement alone could account for that.
And before anyone asks me to cite figures to support my argument, I can't, and I'm not going to try either. It hasn't been done, so I'm guessing that it could be easier for a police officer to trace registered firearms, than it is for them to trace unregistered firearms. On that supposition, it takes them less time to deal with that aspect of that particular range of possible offences, thus saving man hours, and therefore money.

How does it stop someone who should not have access from getting access?

Hint: It doesn't, not even a bit. It may make it easier in some cases to trace a gun used in a crime. Frankly, that is not a big enough issue to justify the cost (both in dollars and crap lawful owners would need to deal with).

Prestor Jon wrote:


There are state registries for vehicles because states tax vehicles. Vehicle registration is for states to know whom to send the tax bill, where to send the tax bill and how much to invoice. Vehicle registration has nothing to do with operator ability, safety, or crime prevention. States don't tax guns so there are no registries for all guns in all states.

Actually, it depends on the state. Here in NY you also have to have your vehicle inspected every year(?) to make sure it's still roadworthy.

I will agree that it is not truley analogous, however.

Because, if all guns have to be registered to an owner, when a second hand gun is sold, that gun has to be registered to the new owner.
Depending on how the system is setup, it would either force the person selling the gun to do a background check of the individual they are selling to, which is not likely as no private citizen would have access to the neccessary resources, or once the gun is processed, and the person who bought the gun is discovered to be ineligible to own the weapon, the police could turn up and confiscate the weapon from the person who bought it illegally.
It automatically stops, or deters, sales to felons, or others who are ineligible to own a firearm.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:


There are state registries for vehicles because states tax vehicles. Vehicle registration is for states to know whom to send the tax bill, where to send the tax bill and how much to invoice. Vehicle registration has nothing to do with operator ability, safety, or crime prevention. States don't tax guns so there are no registries for all guns in all states.

Actually, it depends on the state. Here in NY you also have to have your vehicle inspected every year(?) to make sure it's still roadworthy.

I will agree that it is not truley analogous, however.

Here in NC registration and inspections used to be done separately because there were on separate expiration schedules but now they're combined for convenience. Registration can be attached to inspections but states could track inspections independent of registration tags if they chose. So I agree with your point and it's valid but it's not somethin that couldn't be done without registration.

 r_squared wrote:
Because, if all guns have to be registered to an owner, when a second hand gun is sold, that gun has to be registered to the new owner.
Depending on how the system is setup, it would either force the person selling the gun to do a background check of the individual they are selling to, which is not likely as no private citizen would have access to the neccessary resources, or once the gun is processed, and the person who bought the gun is discovered to be ineligible to own the weapon, the police could turn up and confiscate the weapon from the person who bought it illegally.
It automatically stops, or deters, sales to felons, or others who are ineligible to own a firearm.

That is so very wrong. The reason is pretty obvious too.

A 'felon' buyer has zero fething incentive to register his illegal gun.

Putting the burden on the seller starts to be a big burden to ownership, which for a constitutionally protected right, is a no no. And going back to the (poor) car analogy, I can sell (and have sold) cars I own and have no obligation to check the buyers driving record nor make sure they register the vehicle. I sign over the title, provide a bill of sale, and remove my tag.

 Dark Severance wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If your guns are on a registry it opens the door for confiscation.

If you honestly believe the government is going to confiscate the guns, they don't need a registry to do that. The amount of time and manpower to do that at a national level is astronomical and not even realistically possible. They already know you have guns, at least for the initial background check done at some point hopefully. The amount or type of guns shouldn't suddenly make them now want to confiscate them or create some devious plan to confiscate them, it isn't possible.

IIRC Canada used their registry to confiscate certain guns, so yes it is possible.

Besides, I think the fact the government would find it practically impossible to confiscate weapons using a registry list isn't a good argument that such a registry is an ok thing to have. Its something that should be opposed on principle and not just on weather or not its a practical thing that will be used for confiscation.

The only reason I brought up the registration of vehicles was to provide an example of a material possession that must be registered with the government as CptJack stated that the government has no legal right to track his personal property.
The use of the registration in this context is irrelevant.

 r_squared wrote:
Because, if all guns have to be registered to an owner, when a second hand gun is sold, that gun has to be registered to the new owner.
Depending on how the system is setup, it would either force the person selling the gun to do a background check of the individual they are selling to, which is not likely as no private citizen would have access to the neccessary resources, or once the gun is processed, and the person who bought the gun is discovered to be ineligible to own the weapon, the police could turn up and confiscate the weapon from the person who bought it illegally.
It automatically stops, or deters, sales to felons, or others who are ineligible to own a firearm.

No it doesn't. Even with that kind of registry a person can legally buy a gun and have it registered then sell it to someone else in a face to face sale for money without performing a background check or even worse knowingly sell it to a prohibited person. Then that person files a lost/stolen gun report with the police. If the gun turns up at a crime scene there'd be no evidence that the gun was sold illegally, certainly not enough to prosecute the former owner.

 r_squared wrote:
The only reason I brought up the registration of vehicles was to provide an example of a material possession that must be registered with the government as CptJack stated that the government has no legal right to track his personal property.
The use of the registration in this context is irrelevant.

Jake, not Jack. And I've owned vehicles I never registered (trucks used on the property). Gov't had nothing to do with me owning them, or me selling them when I did.

 CptJake wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
Because, if all guns have to be registered to an owner, when a second hand gun is sold, that gun has to be registered to the new owner.
Depending on how the system is setup, it would either force the person selling the gun to do a background check of the individual they are selling to, which is not likely as no private citizen would have access to the neccessary resources, or once the gun is processed, and the person who bought the gun is discovered to be ineligible to own the weapon, the police could turn up and confiscate the weapon from the person who bought it illegally.
It automatically stops, or deters, sales to felons, or others who are ineligible to own a firearm.

That is so very wrong. The reason is pretty obvious too.

A 'felon' buyer has zero fething incentive to register his illegal gun.

Putting the burden on the seller starts to be a big burden to ownership, which for a constitutionally protected right, is a no no. And going back to the (poor) car analogy, I can sell (and have sold) cars I own and have no obligation to check the buyers driving record nor make sure they register the vehicle. I sign over the title, provide a bill of sale, and remove my tag.

Yes a felon has no interest in registering the gun, but anyone who sells the gun would have a legal obligation to notify the change of ownership. If someone would be to held liable for selling a weapon to a felon, then that would mean that the casual sales environment currently enjoyed would be dramatically curtailed.
I for one would want to see some official ID and documentation if I was to sell a gun to someone I didn't know.

At the moment, your current system does absolutely nothing to stop the purchase of 2nd hand weapons by criminals. A registry would seriously dent the free availability of weapons to the criminal fraternity as they would have to rely on the black market, rather than Craigslist, or a large 2nd hand gun sales environment.

 r_squared wrote:
The only reason I brought up the registration of vehicles was to provide an example of a material possession that must be registered with the government as CptJack stated that the government has no legal right to track his personal property.
The use of the registration in this context is irrelevant.

Actually they still don't have a right to track a car, even a registered one.

Registration only applies to a vehicle you wish to operate on a public road, the same with drivers licenses, and then only because that vehicle needs to be taxed to pay for those public roads. If a vehicle is operated on private lands then no registration is required, nor is a drivers license required either.

If a cop sees you have expired tags on a vehicle sitting on your private property(or even being driven on your private property) he can't give you a ticket.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
Because, if all guns have to be registered to an owner, when a second hand gun is sold, that gun has to be registered to the new owner.
Depending on how the system is setup, it would either force the person selling the gun to do a background check of the individual they are selling to, which is not likely as no private citizen would have access to the neccessary resources, or once the gun is processed, and the person who bought the gun is discovered to be ineligible to own the weapon, the police could turn up and confiscate the weapon from the person who bought it illegally.
It automatically stops, or deters, sales to felons, or others who are ineligible to own a firearm.

No it doesn't. Even with that kind of registry a person can legally buy a gun and have it registered then sell it to someone else in a face to face sale for money without performing a background check or even worse knowingly sell it to a prohibited person. Then that person files a lost/stolen gun report with the police. If the gun turns up at a crime scene there'd be no evidence that the gun was sold illegally, certainly not enough to prosecute the former owner.

So in order to defeat the system, that person has to commit fraud and become a criminal?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm not going to argue about the registration of vehicles, as I mentioned it was only to give an example of property that is registered with the government.
The registry of guns would involve a completely different system to be created, one where it would be mandatory I all instances, and within the law. If a gun dealership must do mandatory check on you before you can buy a gun, then it stands that that is the expected standard of transferred ownership,

 r_squared wrote:

At the moment, your current system does absolutely nothing to stop the purchase of 2nd hand weapons by criminals. A registry would seriously dent the free availability of weapons to the criminal fraternity as they would have to rely on the black market, rather than Craigslist, or a large 2nd hand gun sales environment.

What mythical 'large 2nd hand gun sales environment' are you thinking exists?

And Craigslist is not the gun market you pretend it is.

Again, you want to impose an expensive burden on legal ownership, and the VERY few cases it would do what you want it to do are just not worth the infringement of a constitutionally protected right.

Prestor Jon wrote:
Vehicle registration has nothing to do with operator ability, safety, or crime prevention.

Except when investing a vehicle used in or with conjunction with a crime. Then it is used to look up YMME (year, make, model, engine) that been identified, cross reference owners, licenses, VINs, addresses to create a list of suspects to start investigating.

Starting out a gun registry couldn't be used like that because initially there would be a selection that would have to be grandfathered in. Over time those guns will weed themselves out of the system or become the only ones used in crimes. However video of someone utilizing X-rifle with Y scope or even simply a certain model of pistol identified in a crime, but the criminals were masked, could be used to cross reference possible suspects within the area.

Prestor Jon wrote:
If at the beginning of a national registry you grandfather in over 300,000,000 guns as not needing to be registered then the registry is never going to be complete and you're going to have millions of unregistered guns in private hands for decades. Why should the federal govt spend billions on a project that would be doomed from the start?

I did mention the first step of patching the wholes in the NICS database first. 300,000,000 doesn't equate to 300 million different owners. There will be many people that will register without an issue, there will be a lot that won't as well. Registry does include gun clubs and ranges that have a large collection of guns already. As people commit crimes guns are confiscated. The only real difference is when those guns get back in circulation they can better track how that happened, if it happened from someone with law enforcement who was bad as well. When someone sells through private sales or to pawn shops, those guns are entered at that time. You could also do something similar to what Australia did in a type of buyback, not actually buyback the gun but provide a tax break/kicker or whatever to those that do register.

For one people shouldn't let the government pretend it will cost billions to create this type of project. That is a different issues. There are too many things that the government says will cost X dollars and the immediate response is, "Wow that is a lot, let's not do that.". When it should be, "This is an age when we can break down most of these costs and not accept a 1000% markup on something".

 Dark Severance wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
Vehicle registration has nothing to do with operator ability, safety, or crime prevention.

Except when investing a vehicle used in or with conjunction with a crime. Then it is used to look up YMME (year, make, model, engine) that been identified, cross reference owners, licenses, VINs, addresses to create a list of suspects to start investigating.

Starting out a gun registry couldn't be used like that because initially there would be a selection that would have to be grandfathered in. Over time those guns will weed themselves out of the system or become the only ones used in crimes. However video of someone utilizing X-rifle with Y scope or even simply a certain model of pistol identified in a crime, but the criminals were masked, could be used to cross reference possible suspects within the area.

Right, and what happens when the guns turn out to be stolen? Like the vast majority of guns used in crimes in the US. Such a registry is useless if the gun used in a crime is stolen.

And no, the rightful owner reporting the gun to be stolen doesn't do a thing to prevent a further crime from occurring. It doesn't activate some magical homing device so the cops know where the gun is. All reporting a gun stolen does is help you get your gun back if the police find it in the process of some other investigation, or it will just get locked up forever in some evidence locker.

 CptJake wrote:

 r_squared wrote:

At the moment, your current system does absolutely nothing to stop the purchase of 2nd hand weapons by criminals. A registry would seriously dent the free availability of weapons to the criminal fraternity as they would have to rely on the black market, rather than Craigslist, or a large 2nd hand gun sales environment.

What mythical 'large 2nd hand gun sales environment' are you thinking exists?

And Craigslist is not the gun market you pretend it is.

Again, you want to impose an expensive burden on legal ownership, and the VERY few cases it would do what you want it to do are just not worth the infringement of a constitutionally protected right.

I was under the impression that there were second hand gun sales committed by private citizens throughout the United States on a daily basis? Given the large population, I would have thought that would equate to a large sales environment.
Your constitutionally protected rights are not infringed by a registry, you can still own a firearm, as long as you are not a felon. The registry helps stop those individuals without that constitutionally protected right from owning a firearm.

 CptJake wrote:
If you want to restrict a constitutionally protected right, you had better have a great damned reason.

The US Constitution was adopted and signed in September 1787. It was ratified on June 21, 1788. The original Constitution did not have the Second Amendment. An Amendment by its very nature is a "an addition or alteration made to the constitution, statute, or legislative bill or resolution. Amendments can be made to existing constitutions and statutes and are also commonly made to bills in the course of their passage through a legislature.

The Second Amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791, 3 years after the actual the actual Constitution was created. It was part of the first ten amendments, but definitely not the last ones added to the Constitution and will be able to be modified, amended as allowed until which time we cease to be a country or the end of time, whichever happens first. Now will everyone agree or like what those amendments are, probably not. However there is a process that lets the government do just that providing it gets voted in.

 Dark Severance wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
If you want to restrict a constitutionally protected right, you had better have a great damned reason.

The US Constitution was adopted and signed in September 1787. It was ratified on June 21, 1788. The original Constitution did not have the Second Amendment. An Amendment by its very nature is a "an addition or alteration made to the constitution, statute, or legislative bill or resolution. Amendments can be made to existing constitutions and statutes and are also commonly made to bills in the course of their passage through a legislature.

The Second Amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791, 3 years after the actual the actual Constitution was created. It was part of the first ten amendments, but definitely not the last ones added to the Constitution and will be able to be modified, amended as allowed until which time we cease to be a country or the end of time, whichever happens first. Now will everyone agree or like what those amendments are, probably not. However there is a process that lets the government do just that providing it gets voted in.

You will also remember that a large number of the signers of the Constitution only signed the damn thing with the guarantee that a Bill of Rights would be added.

We would not have the Constitution without the Bill of Rights.