The right way to stop gun violence

[UnrepentantLiberal]

By Stephen Henderson
The Detroit Free Press
Jan 20, 2013

-snip-

"A study of ATF gun trafficking cases found that the largest conduits of gun trafficking involved illegal straw purchases (someone buying the gun for someone who can't) and corrupt licensed gun dealers evading gun sales laws," Webster told me last week.

"A separate ATF study found that over half of guns recovered from criminals and crime scenes were traced to 1% of licensed dealers. I've conducted several studies demonstrating that when there is greater regulation and oversight of gun dealers, and when they are vulnerable to civil and criminal penalties if they do not obey gun sales laws, far fewer guns flow into the illicit gun market where criminals obtain their guns."

The constitution permits legislation that revokes an individual's freedom for life after the commission of a third serious crime. Logically, it should also permit the stiffest possible penalties for gun shops caught evading safeguards intended to keep guns from criminals.

And gun owners could be held more responsible, too. If I give a car to someone who's not licensed to drive and they kill someone with it, I could be held liable. If a legal gun owner sells a firearm to someone who shouldn't have it, liability (certainly civil, maybe even criminal) ought to attach in that context, as well.

More: http://www.freep.com/article/20130120/COL33/301200174/Stephen-Henderson-The-right-way-to-stop-gun-violence

[uponit7771]

1. Nah, arm large black men..Muslims with long beards, Sieks, Openly Gay men with AR-15s to "educate"

...people in shopping malls and on the street after informing the police and the 2a will never be spoke of by the right.

The 2a is a straight white male only "perceived" amendment...

RayGun Saw the LEGAL actions of the Black Panthers and was quick to act to ban open carry and other assault weapons the Black Panthers would arm themselves with

[HereSince1628]

2. Does framing gun deaths as racist and sexist as symptomatic of white male privilege

really help?

This from Children's Defense Fund, page 2 of PROTECT CHILDREN NOT GUNS report

http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/protect-children-not-guns-2012.pdf

Black children and teens accounted for 45 percent of all child and teen gun deaths in 2008
and 2009 but were only 15 percent of the total child population.

Black males 15-19 were eight times as likely as White males of the same age and
two-and-a-half times as likely as their Hispanic peers to be killed in a gun homicide in 2009.

The leading cause of death among Black teens ages 15 to 19 in 2008 and 2009 was gun
homicide. For White teens 15 to 19 it was motor vehicle accidents followed by gun homicide
in 2008 and gun suicide in 2009.

The most recent analysis of data from 23 industrialized nations shows that 87 percent of the
children under age 15 killed by guns in these nations lived in the United States. The gun
homicide rate in the United States for teens and young adults ages 15 to 24 was 42.7 times
higher than the combined rate for the other nations.

Of the 116,385 children and teens killed by a gun since 1979, when gun data by age were first
collected, 44,038 were Black—nearly 13 times more than the number of recorded lynchings
of Black people of all ages in the 86 years from 1882 to 1968. Even so, more White than
Black children and teens have died from gun violence.

- - - - - - -

In 2008 and 2009, about half of all gun homicides in the US were deaths of children, disproportionately, minority children.
These events happen in the neighborhoods where these kids live and are mostly committed by other residents of the neighborhoods who are too often still children and teens themselves.

[datasuspect]

23. arm the homeless

[Fumesucker]

3. I've never heard of a duty to check license and insurance before you sell a car privately

I've sold a bunch of cars over the years and it never has even occurred to me to check anything other than whether the payment was correct.

Trying to conflate cars and guns really doesn't work well.

[farminator3000]

5. you need a title to get the car registered. and you have to pay taxes. so...

i think if you sold someone an unregistered stolen car with no brakes and they rammed a schoolbus, you might have an issue there.

[Fumesucker]

9. The buyer pays the taxes on the transfer in my state

All the seller is expected to do is have clean paperwork on their part, beyond 25 years old you don't even need a title to transfer a car in this state.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. In my state, you have to have a highway patrol check to make sure your used car wasn't stolen.

Not exactly the same, but it is part of the sales process.

[Fumesucker]

8. Who initiates the check, the seller or the buyer?

And does it involve checking the identity of the buyer by the seller?

Conflating guns and cars is not a smart thing to do, IMO.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. The buyer. You need to do this before they'll issue or transfer tags.

[farminator3000]

15. here the buyer has to get the VIN checked by cops before you register a car

it takes 5 minures and is free.

i think it is fine to compare them- they're both consumer products that are dangerous, there are over 300 million of both in the US, and both should require license and registration, basically.

[Fumesucker]

17. I still don't see any duty on the part of the car seller other than to provide clean title

That was my point, it's not the duty of the seller of a car to check the background of the buyer in any way.

[pipoman]

4. Then..

"If a legal gun owner sells a firearm to someone who shouldn't have it, liability (certainly civil, maybe even criminal) ought to attach in that context, as well."

Then you must give gun owners the ability to check if a buyer is prohibited. Right now there is no such ability in place...one of the stupidest and easiest to fix, yet nobody politically is even suggesting a solution..

[farminator3000]

7. make all private sales go thru a dealer or store- as a witness or whatever

or require a notary public to sign a receipt that goes into a database.

selling a deadly weapon illegally isn't a freedom, it is a crime.

private transactions are the biggest problem, perhaps they should be outlawed altogether.

[pipoman]

10. NICS is already in place..

it would be a simple regulatory rule change for FFL licensees to be required to do private sale transfers in a timely manner for a low statutory fee, say $20..

Here is my suggestion. While it may not have the impact of immediate fix, it would enable a system states could adopt without having to pay for an expensive system of their own..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022063309

[farminator3000]

13. very good! i believe that is on the menu...

So just what are the 23 executive orders President Obama signed today as part of his plan to curb gun violence? Dave Weigel at Slate runs them down, and here's a sampling from him and AP:

"Require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system."
Order "tougher penalties for people who lie on background checks."

its a good way to generate $$ for 'gun control'

and could be worked in with buybacks for 'banned' or 'illegal' guns-

Rep. Rosa DeLauro put forward a bill this week that would provide gun owners with an $1,000 tax credit for two straight years in exchange for turning in assault rifles to state police.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/01/assault-weapon-buy-back-bill-introduced/

***

In an era of rampant technology, federal agents find themselves hamstrung by limitations on gun registration information. Their investigative techniques harken to a past era, when they sometimes have to sift through thousands of paper records in search of information about a particular firearm.

“Currently, all we can do is trace the gun back to the original purchaser of record,” Heagney said.
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20130120/NEWS01/301200015/1002/RSS01

[pipoman]

18. As for the latter..

I believe any kind of federal registration is DOA..right now anyway. However, I believe FFLs could be required to report make, model, and serial number of all guns sold, new and used...just not attached to the buyers name. This would give the feds a database of the last place a gun was and shorten the process of tracing. Now the feds go to the manufacturer who tells them the dealer the gun was shipped to, they then go to the dealer to find the purchaser, the purchaser tells who the buyer was, and so on..this would take many steps out of the tracing process, especially if/when background checks on private sales is enabled or required..

[baldguy]

12. Sounds like a new lucrative revenue steam for gun dealers.

They don't have to shell out cash to get the stock, they don't have to warehouse it, all they do is check to make sure the paperwork is filled out correctly & submit it. "That'll be $50.00. Thank you." Any gun dealer opposed to this is at best a poor businessman.

[pipoman]

14. I don't disagree..

I think one of the only things which would doom failure is allowing FFL dealers too much leeway..not doing these in a timely manner and charging too much could hurt compliance..assuming that compliance will start out voluntary until states begin requiring the checks..

[farminator3000]

16. the Free Press is great

Last edited Sun Jan 20, 2013, 03:55 PM - Edit history (1)

i like Detroit news, its old-school.

here's a good read-
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101651889

[UnrepentantLiberal]

20. I read about Michigan's roll in the War if 1812 when you first posted it.

I love reading history that you'd heard of but didn't know much about. An interesting read.

I just posted an article about Grand Central Terminal. Another interesting read: http://www.democraticunderground.com/101653582

[farminator3000]

22. Grand Central is the balls (of NY)

i feel like the great gatsby every time i go through there.

here's a LOT of good stuff:
http://longform.org/

the way to get the longest lists of articles there is click 'topics' @ top right corner

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

19. Approximately 130,000 federally licensed firearms dealers in the U.S.

Of that amount only about 60,000 are licensed at bricks-and-mortar sporting goods stores and gun shops.

Let's eliminate about 70,000 FFL and require all gun transactions go through a reputable dealer who operates from a fixed location. It's much easier to regulate and then kick out the bad actors.

And for those of you about to piss and moan about the inconvenience, boo fucking hoo.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

21. Yeah, we're talking buying and selling something

that can end someone's life. A little inconvenience isn't going to TAKE AWAY OUR GOD GIVEN RIGHTS.