Universal Background Checks: Senate supposedly near a deal

[BlueStarLizzard]

Maybe not for you, but you are not everybody. For some people it IS hard to master, they may lack physical strength/ability, they may have a fear of guns that prevents them from behaving reasonably with a firearm but for personal protection they NEED one anyway, they may be very young and inexperienced. I think high powered lasers or working with high voltage circuits aren't hard tasks to master, but for many they are.

It's all in your head. Physical strength is rarely a limitation. Cordination can be a hinderance, but not usually to a degree that causes unsafe practices.

The rest, like I said, it's all in your head.

[CuriousAbootGuns]

How high of power lasers? :)

Time averaged or instantaneous?

Enough to burn holes in things and blind you with a fraction of a stray reflection.

[birdman]

Time averaged or instantaneous?

Enough to burn holes in things and blind you with a fraction of a stray reflection.

Both.  I've worked on kJ to MJ single pulse systems up to 100kW to much greater continuous.

Oddly enough, one system was 20kJ and oddly eye safe (using the OSHA definition)...of course, it wasn't FACE safe.

[Ron]

Who: Generally by poor, uneducated people, often repeat offenders. Where: Generally in poor communities, often densely populated.

These point to much larger issues than those that would be addressed with the actions you listed (mag restrictions and so on) and need to be addressed as a society. I'm not exactly sure how to get at the heart of the issue. I think some major changes are needed and I'm frankly unsure how to do that..whatever we do it would likely take a long time to change. But it will likely involve many incremental changes.

Exactly, burning precious energy and time on all the frivolous attacks on innocent gun owners is nothing more than a diversion from dealing with the real issues.

[CuriousAbootGuns]

Both.  I've worked on kJ to MJ single pulse systems up to 100kW to much greater continuous.

Oddly enough, one system was 20kJ and oddly eye safe (using the OSHA definition)...of course, it wasn't FACE safe.

haha, nice. I just sent you a message. For everyone else, I am orders of magnitude lower than that, still plenty dangerous, but not as dangerous as Birdman here.

[ArfinGreebly]

It's all in your head. Physical strength is rarely a limitation. Cordination can be a hinderance, but not usually to a degree that causes unsafe practices.

The rest, like I said, it's all in your head.

It has been said, and there is a great deal of truth in it, that "guns are the great equalizer."

This is aptly demonstrated in the shooting sports.

It is possible for guys in wheel chairs to compete with 4-minute-mile athletes.  The young and the old can stand side-by-side at the same range -- and the young will typically have better eyes.  The fit and the infirm can both compete.  Men and women require no separate tiers for competition -- except perhaps to prevent bruised male egos -- and the disciplines (excepting the running/jumping/dangling/climbing -and-shooting disciplines) are as easily accessed by the weak as by the strong.

One of my more embarrassing moments, when I was just getting into shooting (at the shockingly young age of 54), was a conversation with a gun store owner, wherein I opined that such-and-such a gun would probably be hard to manage because of the size and recoil.  He grinned and turned to the petite blond lady -- within not many years of my age -- and quoth, "you should ask her; she shoots everything you see here, and it's no problem for her at all."

I have since learned that physical size and strength are no indicator of shooting skill or ability, that age is likewise no measure of these, and that "equality" doesn't always look like you might expect.


Bullies and thugs have good reason to oppose the broad arming of the population:  it creates a hostile work environment for those whose career choices benefit from the abuse and oppression of others.

[Scout26]

Who: Generally by poor, uneducated people, often repeat offenders. Where: Generally in poor communities, often densely populated.

These point to much larger issues than those that would be addressed with the actions you listed (mag restrictions and so on) and need to be addressed as a society. I'm not exactly sure how to get at the heart of the issue. I think some major changes are needed and I'm frankly unsure how to do that..whatever we do it would likely take a long time to change. But it will likely involve many incremental changes.

I take exception to that.  They are not "Poor".   We have the richest poor people in the world.  They have flat screen color TV's with cable or satellite, they own a car (or two or more), they have cell phones, plenty of food (in fact we also have the fattest "poor" people).  Because we don't include .gov assistance (which can be in some/many/most cases be worth tens of thousands of dollars) we overstate poverty.

Some critics assert that the official U.S. poverty definition is inconsistent with how it is defined by its own citizens and the rest of the world, because the U.S. government considers many citizens statistically impoverished despite their ability to sufficiently meet their basic needs. According to a 2011 paper by poverty expert Robert Rector, of the 43.6 million Americans deemed to be below the poverty level by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2009, the majority had adequate shelter, food, clothing and medical care. In addition, the paper stated that those assessed to be below the poverty line in 2011 have a much higher quality of living than those who were identified by the census 40 years ago as being in poverty.[71]

The federal poverty line also excludes income other than cash income, especially welfare benefits. Thus, if food stamps and public housing were successfully raising the standard of living for poverty stricken individuals, then the poverty line figures would not shift since they do not consider the income equivalents of such entitlements.[72]

A 1993 study of low income single mothers titled Making Ends Meet, by Kathryn Edin, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, showed that the mothers spent more than their reported incomes because they could not "make ends meet" without such expenditures. According to Edin, they made up the difference through contributions from family members, absent boyfriends, off-the-book jobs, and church charity.

According to Edin: "No one avoided the unnecessary expenditures, such as the occasional trip to the Dairy Queen, or a pair of stylish new sneakers for the son who might otherwise sell drugs to get them, or the Cable TV subscription for the kids home alone and you are afraid they will be out on the street if they are not watching TV." However many mothers skipped meals or did odd jobs to cover those expenses. According to Edin, for "most welfare-reliant mothers food and shelter alone cost almost as much as these mothers received from the government. For more than one-third, food and housing costs exceeded their cash benefits, leaving no extra money for uncovered medical care, clothing, and other household expenses." [73]

Moreover, Swedish libertarian think tank Timbro points out that lower-income households in the U.S. tend to own more appliances and larger houses than many middle-income Western Europeans.

Back when my parents grew up in the '20's and '30's they were very much considered poor.  (My dad's father was killed in a railroad accident when my dad, now 88, was 3 years old.   He tells stories of walking the railroad tracks after school looking for coal that had fallen off trains so they could heat their home.  No coal?  Well, put on some more clothes and layer on the blankets at night.   Mom grew up on a farm in South Central Illinois.  Dirt Floor Poor.  Literally. Wasn't until after War II when her brothers came home that they put in a floor (and added a second story to the house.)  

Also .gov has only made "poverty" worse.  They are many perverse incentives to stay on the dole instead of getting a job.  The .gov pays for your apartment, gives you a EBT card for food, there's WIC, you also get a check (either welfare or unemployment or a combination of both), they give you and your kids health insurance.  All you have to do is make sure that you don't have a husband or a job.  

It's not poverty (or lack of "Social Justice") that causes crime.  It's bad people doing bad things, mostly because the .gov has created the problems through the unintended consequences of trying to "fix" a perceived problem.  

[roo_ster]

The point isn't that a skill test would eliminate anything. No action, precaution, training, education, or regulation will ever eliminate 100% of any problem. The idea is to reduce problems, and increase and encourage competence and safety.

Would you be OK with, say, a similar reading and writing skills test before one exercises one's right of self-expression(1) and/or the franchise?  I am sure such would reduce problems, increase and encourage competence.

If not, why not?  Why treat these rights any better than we treat RKBA?

(1) Or bought a computer, printing press, or various writing & publishing implements.

[zxcvbob]

Who is committing the overwhelming majority of crimes using guns?
Where are the overwhelming majority of crimes involving guns taking place.

You can't ask that.  It's racist.

[MicroBalrog]

Maybe not for you, but you are not everybody. For some people it IS hard to master, they may lack physical strength/ability, they may have a fear of guns that prevents them from behaving reasonably with a firearm but for personal protection they NEED one anyway, they may be very young and inexperienced. I think high powered lasers or working with high voltage circuits aren't hard tasks to master, but for many they are.

Using a gun safely requires utterly no skill.

Treat the gun as if it was loaded, don't point the gun at anything you're not willing to shoot, keep your fingers off the trigger until you've actually decided to shoot something, be aware of your target and of what's behind it.

Anyone who learns these simple rules can use a gun safely. It has little to do with how good of a shot you are.



Gun safety is simply not an issue of being a good shot.

[dm1333]

Curious,

You have been asking a lot of questions and asking why people here don't believe in things like universal background checks or some sort of a gun skills test.  How much government interference do you want in your life?  What do you think the role of our government should be?  Where does personal responsibility end and government responsibility begin?  I'm curious to hear your answers to these questions.

[Physics]

How high of power lasers? :)

Okay, that made me literally laugh out loud.  Rabble Rabble Rabble Rabb... wait, lasers?

I think a lot of good points have been made about why background checks are not a great idea.  I do believe that they make it harder for criminals to get guns, in certain situations, but there are enough guns in this country that in reality (as you'd know from reading that book I loaned you ) most crime guns are bought in private transfers with no background check.  There is no effective way of enforcing background checks on private sales, and I include the use of a national registry in that.  Do we expect the police to go into the ghettos in LA and ask the gangbangers to register their guns for the national registry?  Detroit, Chicago? 

So you know that any actual effect from background checks will harm the law abiding citizen in much greater proportion than the criminal.  The criminal can still get firearms through illegal means (theft, black market, etc.), while the ordinary citizen has to pay extra for a background check that can erroneously deny people for firearms.  Are they worth it?  I don't know, it's hard to quantify.  Now consider the possibility that the .gov is keeping records.  Are background checks worth it then?    Registration most definitely is a major step towards confiscation and the loss of the 2nd amendment completely.  You probably laugh, but this is serious.  As mentioned previously, that IS the end goal of certain people with power.   

At this point, I say let loose the chains on the concealed weapons permits.  Issues with property rights aside, get rid of the damn gun free zones.  They don't work now, they haven't worked in the past, and they won't work in the future.  Allow those who want to carry and have gone through the difficulty to obtain a permit to do so, to do so!  In my mind, there is nothing more to the point that we can do that to give the impression to a would-be violent criminal that a gun lurks in every waistband; in every purse.  Criminals want easy targets.

I would also highly suggest Larry Correia's blog entry on gun control.  Very long, but quite well written, and in a no-holds-barred manner he really hammers out the main positions we have and why. 

I personally welcome you to our little group here.  I love the idea of a devil's advocate in the core of my ideals.  It gives those of us who believe strongly, on either side, an opportunity to reflect on those beliefs and try and remove oneself from the dangers of confirmation bias.  Secondly, it hopefully gives a fresh perspective on things that maybe we hadn't thought about.  While we generally don't do well with compromise, what I mean is that maybe ideas can come of debate.  Ideas that can limit the scourge of violence while preserving freedom without infringement.  These are the goals I have.  An armed society is after all, a polite society.    As I keep saying over and over with these debates, is that we really have to move beyond inanimate objects and really focus on the issues. 

Oh and he's not a troll, just a jerk. A jerk who's getting a new copy of Armed and Considered Dangerous for the next major holiday. 

[erictank]

Guess that answers who his friend here is.

[makattak]

The point isn't that a skill test would eliminate anything. No action, precaution, training, education, or regulation will ever eliminate 100% of any problem. The idea is to reduce problems, and increase and encourage competence and safety.

As Rooster has already pointed out, there are similar tests to be sure that the people who vote are making an informed decision. The Supreme Court has ruled all such tests unconstitutional.

Now, voting is merely a civic right- a right (duty) that exists solely as part of your responsibilities as a citizen. Self-defense (and the corollary, the right to arm oneself) is a HUMAN right, codified in the Bill of Rights.

If our concern is for safety and competence, firearms safety ought to be taught in schools like we teach reading or even driving. The government has no just power to deny anyone (citizen or alien) the right to defend themselves, save those who have lost their rights through due process from criminal behavior. (And I know some would argue once the debt of their crime has been paid, their rights should be restored, but that is a whole other argument.)

[Boomhauer]

Both.  I've worked on kJ to MJ single pulse systems up to 100kW to much greater continuous.

Oddly enough, one system was 20kJ and oddly eye safe (using the OSHA definition)...of course, it wasn't FACE safe.

Oooh oooh oooh I want a face melting laser!!!! Please please can I have one?

[TechMan]

Oooh oooh oooh I want a face melting laser!!!! Please please can I have one?

NO...you will shot you eye out!!

[AZRedhawk44]

haha, nice. I just sent you a message. For everyone else, I am orders of magnitude lower than that, still plenty dangerous, but not as dangerous as Birdman here.

I don't think there's anyone more dangerous than Birdman, here.   

[birdman]

Oooh oooh oooh I want a face melting laser!!!! Please please can I have one?

Do not look into laser with remaining eye.

Or:

I don't think there's anyone more dangerous than Birdman, here.  

You say you want to autoclave a whole planet with relativistic impactors ONCE and you never live it down....sheesh

[BlueStarLizzard]

You say you want to autoclave a whole planet with relativistic impactors ONCE and you never live it down....sheesh

Even for APS, that is an impressive goal. 

[AmbulanceDriver]

Curious -

I want to present you with a challenge...  :)  Knowing you work in a scientific lab, I would challenge you to approach this as a scientific inquiry.  I realize that it's impossible to "experiment" with the population at large, but I think that it is possible to postulate some hypotheses, and observe how said hypotheses have played out in other populations.   There have been several instances presented here where in the US, firearms registration has ultimately led to confiscation.  If you look at it worldwide, the same trend repeats.   Registration has nearly always (if not always) led to confiscation.

If you look at the UK (one of the examples anti-gun people tend to tout) yes, their murder rate is *lower* than ours...  BUT....   Their overall violent crime rate is significantly higher (I believe it was double ours)...  This is based on the 2011 numbers, the latest we have from the FBI Uniform Crime Report.  

I know that it takes time, but look for what raw data you can find...   I would challenge you to look at the UCR data before and after the 1994 "assault weapons" ban was enacted.   And when it expired in 2004.  

I know that there's this thinking that "universal background checks" will mean that every single time a gun changes hands, there will be a background check.   That is simply not true.   Criminals will not call up the state police, or the NICS hotline, to ask for a background check when they trade a stolen revolver for drugs...   Regardless of whether "universals" background checks are enacted.  

And I really do wonder how many of the "mass shooters" have obtained their firearms from a private face-to-face transaction that did not require a background check.   My recollection (I'd have to research it) is that they were all either not prohibited persons, who were able to pass a background check as it currently stands, or they stole their firearms.  So even if "universal background checks" were enacted, they wouldn't stop shootings like these.

Unfortunately, criminals - for the most part - seem to do a cost/benefit analysis.  Nothing as formal as a true CB analysis, but they do weight the potential benefit of committing a crime to the potential cost - if they get caught.   To put it bluntly, criminals don't really fear jail time that much.  Especially on a state level.  In Oregon, a felon caught in possession of a firearm will only get 12-24 months in jail, depending on what their past criminal history has been.   On a federal level, I believe the same crime ends up netting you a 10 year sentence minimum.  

I know I've rambled a bit here, but hopefully you'll have the time to read these over and really think about them.  

[Monkeyleg]

Their overall violent crime rate is significantly higher (I believe it was double ours)...

Quadruple. 2000+ per 100,000 population to less than 500 per 100,000 population in the US.

[lee n. field]

It's all in your head. Physical strength is rarely a limitation. Cordination can be a hinderance, but not usually to a degree that causes unsafe practices.

The rest, like I said, it's all in your head.

Oleg's got a poster on his blog somewhere, of a guy he knows.  Instructor, wheelchair bound with some evident physical limitations, running a J-frame snub.

I'll see if I can find it.

----------------------------

[Boomhauer]

Oleg's got a poster on his blog somewhere, of a guy he knows.  Instructor, wheelchair bound with some evident physical limitations, running a J-frame snub.

I'll see if I can find it.

I won't post it here w/o his permission but there is a member of Lightfighter/M4Carbine.net that was shot and lost the use of his legs (plus some other stuff) and he runs a 7.62 AR like a boss.

[TechMan]

NRA-ILA Letter to Senators re: Background Checks

[White Horseradish]

Basically, what it boils down to is this: for any problem that gun control is supposed to solve there is another solution that will be more effective.

Look at any shooting that you consider particularly atrocious. Then, tell me how a background check would have prevented it.

In Sandy Hook the shooter killed his mother to get the guns. In Red Lake the shooter killed his grandfather (who was a police officer) to get his guns. In Columbine the guns were a straw purchase. How would background checks prevent any of that?

Unless, of course, the objective is not to prevent mass shootings, but only to create an obstacle to gun ownership at large.