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For what it's worth, I'm an apostate from the government religion. Therefore, looking at it from my own point of view only:

"We favor root cause mitigation for violence prevention, stronger mental health care, addressing poverty, homelessness and unemployment rather than focusing on prohibiting or restricting one tool."

I favor that stuff too - just not government doing it. Restricting access to firearms is in the interest of the ruling class, but not in my interest.

"We favor enforcement of existing regulations over the creation of new regulatory schemes."

Not surprisingly, I favor elimination of all coercive regulations.

"We favor increased, accurate reporting by states for NICS reliability."

NICS will eventually be used to attempt to confiscate all firearms, so we should get rid of it.

"We are in favor of mandatory safety testing as a condition of licensing for CCW."

The great utility of firearms is that to harvest the benefit of owning one, you need invest very little time and effort. This is unlike every fighting tool before firearms. Mandatory testing just makes more difficult the access to firearms, of the very people who need them most (e.g., poor people living in crime-ridden environments).

"We favor minimum standards based national CCW reciprocity"

People should not need permission from bureaucrats to defend their lives. "Constitutional carry" is what we should be shooting for.

Now again, those are my own position(s). Being a Panarchist I have no problem with other polities having all the regulation that makes sense to them, up to and including complete firearms bans. I just don't want to be part of that.

I'm not going to go off in a huff because these positions don't match mine. :)

Re: What does the club "think"...

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My thoughts:

1. Yes - fix the culture, don't just knee-jerk ban items that you are afraid of.

2. If we have to have regulations, let's enforce the existing ones. Then work on repealing those that make no real sense. Incrementally dismantle the NFA and work on dismantling the GCA as well.

3. NICS is a covert registration scheme. If we must have a background check scheme - let's use the BIDS idea. http://www.gunlaws.com/BIDSvNICS.htm

4. On a personal level I can't emphasize enough the necessity of training with your firearms. I simply don't trust the government to be the enforcers of that standard. I don't have a well-hashed answer on how to mandate training though.

5. Sounds nice, but I'd hate the minimum to be at the level of California.

Re: What does the club "think"...

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pod wrote:My thoughts:

3. NICS is a covert registration scheme. If we must have a background check scheme - let's use the BIDS idea. http://www.gunlaws.com/BIDSvNICS.htm


5. Sounds nice, but I'd hate the minimum to be at the level of California.
Now, Pod, I'm not so sure you want to pursue these claims.

First, to call NICS a "covert registration scheme" places you clearly outside of the middle of the road. I made a blog post that deals obliquely with this situation:

http://www.theliberalgunclub.com/2014/1 ... ostamping/

When we read the ideas about BIDS on that blog, it is clear we are dealing with a blogger outside the main stream--what with the "quotation" marks around "handgun" computerized background checks and so on, we have a Glenn Beck style writer. While the ideas are interesting, the presentation lacks considerable critical thought.

Secondly, we have quite a few California members here, me included. I've lived here my whole life and have owned guns for most of that. In California. While we cannot own every gun ever made here, we are not disarmed. Before you make claims about California gun laws, you'd best be ready to discuss them at a level above the blog you quoted. A word to the wise.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

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Noted. I'm OK with a healthy debate as long as it doesn't devolve into screaming. :ninja:

Knowing what I know about computing, there's little hope that the NICS records are tossed after 24 hours of a final decision as the spec reads out. It's plausible and very likely that somewhere in the process, the transaction is recorded in full. While the NICS center might not know precisely which gun you bought, they do know you purchased a gun, and there's a fair chance there's a record of it in permanence. They most likely has a list of gun owners, but not precisely what they own.

Realistically though, NICS could record/not record all it wants - just by virtue of our presence on the internet talking about guns, any interested parties can gather significant data points and infer a reasonably accurate list of gun owners.

With regards to BIDS, the author might be a bit off the deep end, but I do like the idea. The government has the data on prohibited persons already, NICS or no NICS. BIDS would be a list of prohibited persons being queried, and not necessarily inferring the purchase of a firearm. Why be redundant?

With regards to Cali, I love the fact that there's a healthy firearms culture there. The ingenuity of the bullet button shows the folly of the restrictions, for example. I get a real kick out of that and it gives me hope for our scene as a whole.

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As far as what I own the government knows or can figure it out. It's too late on that one. Every transaction that has had a check is mostlikely known regardless of the criteria to destroy the check info. I'm not going to worry about it.
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"Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!" Loquacious of many. Texas Chapter Chief Cat Herder.

Re: What does the club "think"...

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sikacz wrote:As far as what I own the government knows or can figure it out. It's too late on that one. Every transaction that has had a check is mostlikely known regardless of the criteria to destroy the check info. I'm not going to worry about it.
Out and out registration is a bad thing and must be discouraged. The NICS pseudo-registration probably exists and I'll concede that ship has already sailed. Now, since we're talking about the Feds, a NICS pseudo-registry probably isn't much to worry about considering the government can barely keep the records straight on it's legally-collected databases.

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Registration solves no problem that a DROS does not already solve, that is, who owns that serial number? It's just a drain on tax payer dollars that would be much better spent teaching grade school kids how properly to handle firearms.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: What does the club "think"...

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pod wrote:
sikacz wrote:As far as what I own the government knows or can figure it out. It's too late on that one. Every transaction that has had a check is mostlikely known regardless of the criteria to destroy the check info. I'm not going to worry about it.
Out and out registration is a bad thing and must be discouraged. The NICS pseudo-registration probably exists and I'll concede that ship has already sailed. Now, since we're talking about the Feds, a NICS pseudo-registry probably isn't much to worry about considering the government can barely keep the records straight on it's legally-collected databases.
Never said I approved of registration just that there is information out there and I doubt it disappears. Yes and I have faith the information can't be kept straight. I'll bet they have me down for double what I own!
Image
Image

"Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!" Loquacious of many. Texas Chapter Chief Cat Herder.

Re: What does the club "think"...

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CDFingers wrote:Registration solves no problem that a DROS does not already solve, that is, who owns that serial number? It's just a drain on tax payer dollars that would be much better spent teaching grade school kids how properly to handle firearms.

CDFingers
Yes - that's part of "fixing the culture" in my book.

Re: What does the club "think"...

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It's too bad that you aren't sharing these points on your web page anymore. I think they would help dispel the preconceived notions people might have about the group.

I personally would not have a problem with requiring gun owners to have passed a one time written and practical test as long as it is really basic and almost everyone passes. It doesn't have to be a government issued license. Passing any kind of firearms training course (I like the high school class idea) would get you a personalized license card. You just show it when you want to buy a gun. This may not have a huge impact on reducing gun crime or accidents, but it wouldn't have to be burdensome and it would make everyone safer. If you can pay for a drivers license, you can afford to pay about the same for a two hour group gun training course. There wouldn't have to be a centralized registry - you'd get a card issued by the trainer/tester and the cops could follow up with them if they need to check you out after an incident.

Letting people carry guns around on them without any training is dangerous not only to the public but also to gun owners. I know someone who drew a legally owned and carried weapon after being knocked to the ground by an assailant, without pointing it at anyone, and he ended up in prison charged with aggravated assault with a firearm. In Arizona!

Most people could probably drive a car safely without getting trained or licensed, but it is kind of nice that some people don't pass (and hopefully they don't insist on driving anyway).

I agree with the person who said that background checks should not be aimed at limiting the gun ownership of broad categories of people, but only aimed at weeding out people who are actually unstable or dangerous.

I think mandatory training/testing and universal background checks would be an olive branch to the gun haters and would help us reach an agreement as a society that most people could accept.

The government violates our 1st amendment rights all the time and we have to beat them back all the time. Remember the Free Speech Zones? The Smith Act? If they try to limit gun ownership or round up gun owners or guns, that's just part of the never ending struggle to defend our constitutional rights. Ever heard of Edward Snowden?

I also think there needs to be a national policy, not a bunch of local policies. We don't let the cops arrest us for criticizing the government in some states but not in others.

I think it would be also be nice to point out that the 2nd amendment doesn't say anything about limiting the kinds of "arms" people can "bear". The intention of the 2nd amendment is clearly to allow citizens to own military grade firearms in case they have to defend their free state.
"When and if fascism comes to America... it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism'." - Halford Luccock
"Liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice. Socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality."
— Mikhail Bakunin

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Silas, I like that post.

There might be push back to require tests and training. I agree that those are good things. I think the push back would come from the "requirement." It might be good to offer an financial incentive: reduced DROS costs if a testing and a training certificate can be produced.

We have to think outside the box.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: What does the club "think"...

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September GunFail column from Daily Kos lists gun accident incidents in the news:

"Once again, about half of our GunFAIL list is made up of accidents in which people with guns either shot themselves or members of their family. About 10 percent of the list involves military, civilian security and/or law enforcement officer GunFAIL. And with the season for hunting bigger game approaching, we note four hunting accidents, two gun cleaning/repair accidents, three target/range shooting accidents, and three "home invasion" shootings, meaning three incidents in which gun owners accidentally fire into their neighbors' homes or properties."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/2 ... howAll=yes
"When and if fascism comes to America... it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism'." - Halford Luccock
"Liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice. Socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality."
— Mikhail Bakunin

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In the wake of the latest mass shooting, the case is being made again that stricter gun laws will reduce gun violence. Being an inquisitive person, I wanted to see the numbers. Proponents of this argument, such as the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, point out a relationship between fewer gun deaths and stricter gun laws in various states. They gave each state a grade based on how strict their gun laws are and then compared that with each state's Gun Death Rate (out of 50 states). Please note, however, that their Gun Death Rate includes suicides, which is not what we are really trying to measure: http://gunlawscorecard.org/

What we should really be looking at when we talk about gun violence is the Gun Homcide Rate, or how many people were killed with firearms (not including suicides). The Guardian tallied gun murders in 2013 by state: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=2

Let's do the math for the states with the strictest and least strict gun laws and figure their gun homicide rates. Strictest states first:

State / 2013 gun murders / Approx. 2014 pop. / Gun homicides per 100,000 people* / Gun Death Ranking**

California / 1,304 / 38,800,000 / 3.36 / 42
Connecticut / 112 / 3,600,000 / 3.11 / 45
New Jersey / 273 / 8,940,000 / 3.05 / 46
Maryland / 277 / 5,980,000 / 4.63 / 33
New York / 407 / 19,750,000 / 2.06 / 47
Massachusetts / 70 / 6,750,000 / 1.04 / 50

Now let's do the states with the most lax gun laws:

Missouri / 283 / 6,060,000 / 4.67 / 14
Wyoming / 5 / 580,000 / 0.86 / 1
Kentucky / 122 / 4,410,000 / 2.77 / 13
Arizona / 211 / 6,730,000 / 3.14 / 15
Mississippi / 132 / 2,990,000 / 4.41 / 3
Louisiana / 370 / 4,650,000 / 7.96 / 2

* total gun homicides / total population = x / 100,000 **includes suicides

population figures rounded from: http://www.infoplease.com/us/states/pop ... -rank.html

Note: I am not a professional statistician, so my method of calculation should be verified.

So what does this tell us? It tells us that stricter gun laws do seem to prevent gun suicides (due to a waiting period to take delivery of a gun?), but have little effect on reducing gun homicides. Wyoming, for example, has the highest gun death ranking and some of the least restrictive gun laws, but it also has the lowest gun homicide rate, lower than any of the states with the strictest gun laws. The gun homicide rates of states with strict and lax guns laws are in the same general range except for Louisiana. Stricter gun laws do not seem to be an effective way to reduce gun homicides.

Another point to note is that most of the news stories and gun control group web pages I looked at while trying to track down these numbers not only lumped gun suicides in with gun homicides and called them gun deaths, but many did not even bother to point out that they were doing this, leading readers to believe they are citing gun homicide totals. For example: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013 ... udy-finds/

Another interesting statistic. One of the main targets of gun control groups are “assault rifles”, which are military style semi-automatic rifles (the kind the 2nd amendment would seem to expressly protect). According to the FBI's statistics, in 2011 only 2.6% of homicides were committed with rifles of any kind, including “assault rifles”. http://blogs.marketwatch.com/capitolrep ... -the-data/

Here's another amazing statistic - the FBI says that in 2011, hammers and clubs were used as murder weapons more often than rifles or shotguns:
hammers, clubs = 496
rifles = 323
shotguns = 356
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/01/ ... -shotguns/
Last edited by SilasSoule on Sun Oct 04, 2015 8:45 am, edited 6 times in total.
"When and if fascism comes to America... it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism'." - Halford Luccock
"Liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice. Socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality."
— Mikhail Bakunin

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