Would you support a ban of the sale and possession of all firearms in the USA?

[TownieDeac]

Really good editorial in the NYT - Gun Owners, Does the NRA Speak for You?

 

[ImTheCaptain]

sad lol:

When the organization’s chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, calls the N.R.A. “one of the largest law enforcement organizations in the country,” nothing could be further from the truth.

Consider, for example, the federal law requiring licensed gun dealers to notify the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives when a single purchaser buys two or more handguns within five days. The A.T.F. knows that multiple purchases are an indicator of trafficking, and that traffickers can evade the law by making a single purchase from five, 10 or 20 different gun stores. So why doesn’t the A.T.F. crosscheck those purchases? Because Congress, under pressure from the N.R.A., prevents the federal government from keeping a centralized database that could instantly identify multiple sales. Gun sale records are instead inconveniently “archived” by the nation’s gun dealers at 60,000 separate locations — the stores or residences of the nation’s federally licensed gun dealers, with no requirement for digital records.

Rather than preventing crimes by identifying a trafficker before he sells guns to potentially lethal criminals, the A.T.F. has to wait until the police recover those guns from multiple crime scenes. Then law enforcement officials can begin the laborious process of tracing each gun from the manufacturer or importer to various middlemen, the retail seller, the original retail purchaser and one or more subsequent buyers.

Meanwhile, dealers who work with traffickers are protected by another N.R.A.-backed measure that ensures that firearms dealers do not have to maintain inventories.

Think about that: A car dealer keeps an inventory to know when cars go missing so the police can track them down as quickly as possible. Why the lack of curiosity among gun dealers? Well, gun dealers must report lost and stolen guns to the A.T.F. because large numbers of missing weapons are a red flag for trafficking. Without an inventory requirement, it’s easier to sell guns off the books.

Do most gun owners want the N.R.A. to protect criminal dealers? I doubt it.

 

[Junebug]

From April 2015

What Does Gun Violence Really Cost?

There are so many problems with that article I don't know where to begin. It starts off by including in the purported costs of gun violence the costs of incarcerating gun offenders. What? The article acts as if (1) gun violence would stop if guns were outlawed and (2) violence by any other means is not punishable by incarceration. Then it goes on by attributing all the costs of suicide/violence/police use of guns to guns alone as if those costs would be zero if guns were illegal. Again, the rate of violence will not go to zero if guns are outlawed. The only cost it makes sense to do that for is accidental gun injuries/deaths.

I grant that the cost of individual injuries from non-gun violence would likely be less with a gun ban, but Great Britian actually had a spike in overall murder rates after it enacted its strict gun laws in the 1996, so it's not clear the number of violent crimes would actually go down. In any event, the number actually attributable to guns is much, much lower than $229B.

 

[Junebug]

The dollar amount of damages caused by guns, especially by legally possessed guns, has to be pretty small in comparison to the number of guns out there right now.

Exactly. Wait, so why are we in favor requiring gun insurance again?

 

[Deacon923]

There are so many problems with that article I don't know where to begin. It starts off by including in the purported costs of gun violence the costs of incarcerating gun offenders. What? The article acts as if (1) gun violence would stop if guns were outlawed and (2) violence by any other means is not punishable by incarceration. Then it goes on by attributing all the costs of suicide/violence/police use of guns to guns alone as if those costs would be zero if guns were illegal. Again, the rate of violence will not go to zero if guns are outlawed. The only cost it makes sense to do that for is accidental gun injuries/deaths.

I grant that the cost of injuries from non-gun violence will likely be less, but Great Britian actually had a spike in non-gun violence after it enacted its strict gun laws in the 1996. In any event, the number actually attributable to guns is much, much lower than $229B.

This post is not smart.

 

[MysteryMen]

Exactly. Wait, so why are we in favor requiring gun insurance again?

Here's a hint: It's not because the damage is small as a value, it's because there is an ungodly number of guns out there. So if we spread the significant cost of gun violence across all of them, the amount per gun is not that high

 

[dot com]

Here's a hint: It's not because the damage is small as a value, it's because there is an ungodly number of guns out there. So if we spread the significant cost of gun violence across all of them, the amount per gun is not that high

Wait, so Joe Bob has to pay for all 50 of his guns? Surely there's a multi-gun discount. I'll ask Flo.