I think it’s a great idea. I just have no idea how you enforce it. For instance, in Texas, you can privately sell any gun to a person who you reasonably think has a legal right to own it. You aren’t required to perform a background check on a private sale. If you buy a gun from a dealer, they are required to. But how do you ban private sales? There’s literally nothing to stop one neighbor from doing a cash sale to another. You can change the rules at gun shows and ban private sales there. But ultimately, it requires some sort of registry of individual weapons and having them linked to individual people. Maybe requiring liability insurance to own a gun would be a good idea. But again, it would require some sort of registry to know who has what. We do it with vehicles. Gun registries seem to always be a non-starter with a majority of the owners. The only other thing I can think of would be to link the background checks done during an FFL purchase to a periodic or annual proof of ownership type requirement. If you don’t currently own the gun you had a background check for, you need to provide proof of who you sold it to and the background check done during that process. But it starts to get in the weeds real quick. And again, it starts with registries.
Not sure how Texas does it, but in CA, when you buy a gun from a store, the serial number is registered to you. If you ever sell it, you need to go through a FFL. Yes, you could just sell it to your neighbor, but then there is a gun floating around out there that is attached to your name. Maybe create a law that if you're found to have a gun in your possession that is licensed to someone else, you get charged with possessing a stolen firearm?
I think it’s a good idea. It’s a little more reactive than proactive when it comes to the illegal sale. I like the idea of liability insurance that you have to provide proof of. If there was a background check done when you bought the gun, you need to provide proof of insurance. If you don’t have that, you need to provide proof of the sale. Tracking serial numbers is a great way to start.
There is a federal law that requires this. (Gun Control Act of 1968 or something like that) I am not certain, but I think the gun store must keep those records on file as long as they're operating, and if they close, they have to give the records to the ATF.
Thats just the nature of how laws work, though. “If you do x, the punishment is y.” The idea is that the punishment is a sufficient deterrent that doing the action isn’t worth it. And when horrific shit like this happens, a lot of people want a solution that prevents it. But this kid was (and most lone gunmen are) far past the point of caring what the punishment might be. I mean, I was being shitposty, but if people really want to stop it all, it would honestly take a nationwide surveillance the likes of which nobody is comfortable with - but thanks to smart technology, is kind of possible. Anyway, I know your post was about registry/private sales and what not, I just got to rambling on my lunch break
Reminder that we shouldn't be politicizing a shooting, especially before all the facts are in, unless of course we can use that shooting to blame transsexuals or illegal immigrants, despite the shooter being neither.
I do believe that we need to normalize being a narc if your friend cuts up his own face for fun. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/25/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-gunman/
If we use this same rationalization with murder, it stands to reason that because the average person isn't murdering people, we shouldn't have laws against murder. This is obviously a ridiculous notion, so I don't understand why anybody takes this point seriously. Anybody with a lick of sense can see that all the laws against murder won't prevent them all. The entire reason why any law is on the books is to prevent as many of the crimes as possible by making the penalty of breaking the law acting as the deterrent. For example, I'd like to beat the shit out of a few ineffectual members of Congress that let 19 kids die yesterday, but I won't because I want to avoid being raped in a shower by a skinhead. Expecting any law to be a silver bullet (no pun intended) against crime is stupid.
I'd absolutely support a registry if it were inaccessible except for the purposes of entering new purchases, each subsequent sale done by an FFL, and tracing chain of ownership of each specific serial number of a gun in police custody that matches ballistic evidence from a violent crime. No searching names at traffic stops or before warrant execution. No government entity being able to look up what I own. Just find out how the gun got in the hands of a violent person and if someone illegally sold them the gun, charge that person also if they did. There are already laws against using guns to murder people, they're just plain old murder laws. Creating more laws that criminalize current legal gun owners is criminalizing the average gun owner that isn't murdering people.
@Jimmy James you put into words what law you would make to stop these things. What would you ban? What would you limit? Would you confiscate anything? And we'll tell you if it would make a criminal out myself and other average gun owners, people that would never shoot anyone.
Looks like the Republican talking points have been distributed, and those talking points are: "Chicago"
I'll point it out again: The worst school attack took place in 1927, killed 38 students and 6 adults, and injured 58 other people. It did not involve firearms, the internet, or violent video games. If we're going to reduce or eliminate attacks on schools, we need to either make them impenetrable fortresses or reduce the tendency of people to feel the need to carry them out. Enacting another assault weapons ban will not have any effect on the rate of these attacks, just like it had no effect on crime when it was enacted in 1994. Crazy people will still find a way. "Common sense solutions" means changes that actually work, not laws that make people feel better but generally have no effect on crime while limiting the actions of honest people.
It looks like my point may have been poorly worded, so I'll try explaining it again. Trying to say that we shouldn't add laws regulating guns because they don't completely stop people from shooting up schools is like saying we shouldn't add laws regulating how fast a car goes because it won't completely stop people from speeding. The point is that while a speed law won't stop every one from speeding, but it will make most people slow down enough to greatly reduce the chances of a crash. The same logic applies with gun laws. Yes, no amount of gun laws will stop every mass shooting. But it will reduce them. All you need to do is look at Australia for proof. Owning a gun is a huge responsibility. A gun gives someone the power to end another's life. Regulating something that is specifically designed to end lives seems like common sense and I don't understand why there is so much pushback over it.
Funny you mention this. You can't go around buying a fuckton of explosives as a private citizen anymore, can you? Not without ending up on a bunch of watch lists, right? This incident proves that regulating dangerous shit means that it happens less in the future. I'm no history major, but I can't think of a recent school bomb explosion.
In an ongoing effort to lose credibility and throw the upcoming gubernatorial election, Beto O'Rourke caused a scene at Greg Abbott's bullshit press conference and had to be thrown out. With the distraction gone, Abbott was free to spew meaningless platitudes for over an hour.