Gun Sales Halted By FBI Computer Glitch

Anonymous Coward writes: "The Associated Press reports that all gun sales in the U.S. have been stopped [temporarily]. This because of a glitch in the FBI's computers. Hey -- why didn't we think of this before? What a way to reduce crime and stop the bloodshed!" Perhaps one day the entire world will be as safe as Washington, D.C. and other officially disarmed zones.

Comments

Re:YAAABC - yet another argument against backgroun

[Detritus]

This has already been done at the state level. In Maryland, background checks for handgun purchases are done by the State Police. The check is supposed to be done within two weeks. The State Police are infamous for sitting on the paperwork for four to six weeks. The state law says that you can pick up the handgun from the dealer if the State Police have not processed the paperwork within two weeks. In reality, the State Police have threatened gun dealers with reprisals if they let the purchaser pick up the handgun before the State Police process the paperwork. The people who run the State Police are political cronies of the Governor, who is usually a Democrat who would like to ban all guns.

The other tricks that have been used in anti-gun states and localities are:

1. Require the purchaser to have taken a gun safety course that is only offered by the state government. Then make sure that the gun safety courses are rarely scheduled and are made as inconvenient as possible.

2. Accept the paperwork from the purchaser and drop it in the nearest trash can. If the purchaser objects, tell her to fuck off and hire a lawyer if she doesn't like it. A variation on this theme is to always be "out of stock" on the necessary forms.

I support the right to arm bears!

[Russ Nelson]

I support the right to keep and arm bears! Give them a sporting chance!
-russ

Re:A good time for introspection

[Skald]

Remember in 1932 when FDR declared a national bank holiday and closed down all the banks for a few day to still the Great Depression panic and help restore confidence in America's banking system? I think that's what we could use here -- a chance to examine the gun control laws in the United States while gun sales are temporarily down.

I had to laugh when I read this. Funny you should pick out an example which has cause to make many Libertarians much more angry than gun control. It was under FDR's threat of court-packing that the Supreme Court essentially decided to make the Commerce Clause so expansive that the 10th Amendment didn't overturn a single Federal law (including the Brady Act) for the next 60 years. Closing the banks (like just about every part of the New Deal) was unconstitutional, and a vicious blow against freedom. Besides, IMHO, that it didn't work.

FDR's administration can be summed up by quoting him: "I hope your committee will not permit doubts as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation."

Suffice it to say, I'm not persuaded. :-) I would sooner we suspend all gun laws, while we give ourselves a chance to discuss the matter. But I appreciate the note of openness; tolerance for people with different views is hugely important. I'm all for calm dialogue.

It's called direct democracy, and there's no better form of government.

Again, I could scarcely disagree more. That the majority of people hold a view does not make it right. If a democracy chooses not to respect the rights of the minority, I don't think there are many worse forms of government. A constitutionally limited goverment for me, thank you.

Boy, this is gonna put a hamper . . .

[xant]

On our long-overdue bloody geek overthrow of the corporatist, closed-source system! My chess club is still only half armed :-(

Actually, NRA is usually dead on with its numbers

[Ungrounded Lightning]

... and the politicians know it. The relatively honest ones will even tell you so.

That's because it is essentially a training and research organization for all issues related to guns - starting with safety. It's the government-recognized regulatory organization for the shooting sports in the US. It trains the people who train the army and the police. Nearly every expert in technical issues related to guns is associated with it.

It got its start as a safety and training organization after the US got into a war and discovered that the draftees no longer knew enough about shooting to make decent (or safe) soldiers. It's focus was training - first safety, then accuracy. And it grew from there.

They are THE experts, and are jealous of that status. So they make a point of giving out information that is as correct as they can manage - to the point of NOT saying things that are very likely correct but not proven beyond controversy (much to the disgust of many of their members and EX members, who have founded other organizations to bring these points to light.)

Lobbying (through their separate ILA organization) is a relatively new thing for them. It started primarily in reaction to the anti-gun movement - which was getting to the point that they realized they were at risk of having nothing left to be experts about. And for a long time the lobbying arm was essentially lobbying for the country-club set, selling out many other sorts of gun-sport enthusiasts (such as the machinegun fans, the gun design hackers, and to some extent those who were mostly concerned with self-defense.) NRA-ILA is agruably STILL the most milksop of the pro-gun lobbying groups.

The anti-gun organizations, on the other hand, have quite a track record of publishing bogus numbers. Sometimes they have SOME basis in fact. Other times they seem made up from whole cloth.

Example: "X number of childeren killed by guns per day/year". Sometimes when the number is worked out against crime stats you find they're counting people up to age 25 as "children". This includes the members of teenage drug gangs, and most other murderers. (Murder is a young man's crime, and most murderers kill members of their own race, class, and age group.) Other times you wonder where the numbers come from, because they exceed the total number of gun deaths. For more reasonable definitions of "children" (like under-12) you'll have a hard time finding a year where the numbers get out of the low single-digits in states like California (with a high crime rate and pushing a fifth of the entire US population.)

They could never keep track of them anyway

[orpheus]

Up to 50% of the legally registered guns in the US are not properly entered in the Federal database, due to incompetence, illegal procedures, and the outright destruction of thousands of legally submitted, but unprocessed records by BATF employees to 'reduce backlog'.

Under the current system, the NFRTR return "No record found" if a registration inquiry is made for one of these guns, which is considered proof of illegal possession, and grounds for prosecution. Dealers and private owners who submitted legal paperwork have gone to jail because the BATF denied knowledge of them.

In other words, any legal gun owner has a 50-50 chance of facing a costly legal case, and possible jail time, because the NFRTR records have been in shambles all along. This is confirmed by the 1995 Congressional of Thomas A. Busey, then Chief of the National Firearms Act Branch of the BATF (see below) "...when I first came in a year ago, our error rate was between 49 and 50 percent"

The BATF has stonewalled and denied for years, but have been forced to admit detail after painful detail (only to deny them all again the following year) A Google search for "Gary Schaible" (no quotes) will turn up dozens of documents and links to further information. (Special Agent Schaible was a BATF spokesman whose testimony to courts and Congress has been full of inaccuracies and outright purjury.)

Anyone who owns legal guns, or believes that registration can ever work should read "Institutional Perjury", an article by Col (ret.) James H. Jeffries, III USMC, Reserve (a retired DOJ lawyer, practicing firearms law in Greensboro, N.C) outlining some of the BATF abuses. (This includes the Busey quote above, but does not cover the famous "Gestapo tactics" incidents)

Reform from within hasn't worked either. Here's as affadavit by Eric Martin Larson of the GAO (Government Accounting Office) regarding systematic errors in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record (NFRTR) and his efforts to have them corrected. This is just one of his many reports and letters to Congress, but after his initial failure, his later reports are painstaking line by line and word by word responses to BATF tetimony and documents, and are very diffficult to read without the originals in front of you

---------------------------------------------
"...quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est."

[roughly: "...swords don't kill people; people kill people."]

-- (Lucius Annaeus) Seneca "the Younger" (ca. 4 BC-65 AD),
_____________

Gun Registration?

[psin psycle]

Being from Canada I'm not up on US gun registration rules. My understanding is that guns don't have to be registered at all. (In Canada I'm pretty sure they don't)

A good reason for not registering guns, is to protect the people who have them in times of civil war. During times of civil war or civil unrest gun owners have the ability to protect themselves from totalitarian governments. They have the resources needed to fight for our freedom. Now, if the governments know who has all the guns, then they can just go out to all the gun owners and collect them.

Doing a background check before selling a gun seems like a good idea to me. Wouldn't want to be handing guns to known criminals. (although I'm sure criminals could get guns anyway) With the FBI doing a background check on every gun purchase, then guns don't need to be registered to know where they are. The FBI will have massive lists of everyone who has ever bought a gun. If the government ever wants to, they can march around and take those guns away with little or no resistance.

The right to bare arms is all about protecting yourself from the government. I don't see how you can do this if the government knows how well you are armed.

Re:Gun Registration?

[Detritus]

And when was the last time we had a totalitarian government we had to defend ourselves from in either Canada or the US?

In the not-so-ancient history department, Black Americans have had to use firearms to protect their families and communities from racist thugs such as the Ku Klux Klan. In many of these cases, the local government and police department either looked the other way or were active supporters of the Klan. This can happen to any racial, religious or ethnic group that is unpopular with the general populace. There are still people in this country that burn churches and synagogues, and would be happy to see all Blacks, Jews and other "undesirables" deported or exterminated. My local synagogue was painted with NAZI graffiti and another synagogue burned down under suspicious circumstances. That is one of the reasons that I am a gun owner and I encourage all Jews to purchase a firearm and learn how to use it safely and effectively.

Re:Gun Registration?

[znu]

The right to bare arms is all about protecting yourself from the government. I don't see how you can do this if the government knows how well you are armed.

Do you really think a few people with guns would make much of a difference? I agree it was a good idea when the Constitution was written, but it doesn't really apply in a democratic superpower.

If you actually look at the state of freedom in the US, you'll see that it's disappearing slowly, but (mostly) with the full consent (or simple apathy) of the majority. Oppression in countries like the US takes forms more subtle than those that can be fought with guns.

--

Re:Gun Registration?

[|deity|]

The right to bare arms is all about protecting yourself from the government. I don't see how you can do this if the government knows how well you are armed.

That's the way it should be but in America we have all these people that grew up in large urban war zones and they think if they could just get guns away from people it would solve all of their problems. Rather then face the social issues which cause crime governments try to cure the problem by treating the symptoms and don't even do a very good job of that.

I grew up in a rural area and knew how to shoot a gun or a bow, better then many people before I was twelve. No one ever had to worry about me accidentally shooting someone or myself because I was taught firearm safety from the moment I was old enough to recognize what a gun was. I was never allowed to use a gun unless supervised until I was mature enough to be trusted with a gun.

Everyone that knows history knows that the reason that we have the right to bear arms in the US is because the British tried to deny the colonists that right and this made the American revolution that much harder. That right was given to the people of the united states, as a last resort, in case our government ever became tyranical.

Fear the government that fears your guns. It's a true enough statement, what would a just government have to fear from content citizens. Fear the government that fears your computer. Information and weaponry are two of the things that the government doesn't want you to have.

Sorry if I offended anyone but I feel strongly that if people don't want guns then they should refrain from buying them. Don't ask the government to take away my rights because you don't like guns.

Bingo. The reason DC etc. aren't safe is that...

[VT_hawkeye]

...only the outlaws have guns.

Sure, the phrase is trite, but it's damned true. No municipal ban on handguns has ever stopped Joe Crackhead down the street from packing heat, and no law ever will. Laws banning firearms in a pre-armed society like the United States simply mean that only the segments of the society that we can least trust with them will have them. Law-abiding citizens then are unable to protect themselves, and law and order proceeds to break down.

Criminals need to be disarmed, not law-abiding private citizens. Existing laws, if enforced, would take care of the first part; most gun-control measures under consideration would affect part 2 with very little effect on part 1.

It's all in the culture.

[Tamriel]

I have read the posts, it just echoes how deeply entrenched the gun culture in America is. If you really ARE law-abiding, why do you need a gun? To protect myself, I hear you say? Why? Because everyone *ELSE* is carrying one! Studies (don't ask me where, and I read it in a print newspaper, anyway), have shown that quite a few killings are caused by people getting very agitated, and finally snapping. And whaddya know? The gun they had for protection purposes is being used for the exact opposite purpose. The hunted becomes the hunter. This raises the crime statistics, people say OMFG, I need a gun to protect myself, end up using it in a situation which definitely isn't self-defence, and then you go to the first part of this paragraph. Isn't recursion a wonderful thing? And, personally, if I did need a gun for a legitimate reason (shooting game, etc is the only one I can think of, and that's really less-than-astonishing), I could wait for a few days. If you're going to go out shooting on the weekend, reschedule. It's not that hard. Just my $AU0.02 (which is likely to be about $US0.00000000003 at the moment). d


-

Re:Bingo. The reason DC etc. aren't safe is that..

[David A. Madore]

(For the background, I'm European, so I don't much care about whether US citizens are allowed to bear guns. I'm glad we have strict gun control on our side of the Atlantic though, and it is an undeniable fact that we also have lower criminality rate (though the causal link can be questioned, I agree). This being said,)

Sorry, your arguments don't hold water. The division of society into "outlaws" and "law-abiding citizens", although intellectually seducing, is worthless. What about the disoriented twelve-year old how suddenly feels an urge to commit suicide, but first destroying every(thing|one) around him: in which category does he fall? What about the elderly man who, after having led a quiet and peaceful life, suddenly decides to suppress his wife?

Granted, gun control will do nothing to protect you against the "international terrorist" kind. However I don't think guns will be of much help there either. Against the "ordinary criminal" criminal kind I described above, it is quite efficient. Naturally, the dichotomy I am trying to assume here ("international terrorist" vs. "ordinary criminal") is just as dubious as the one you suggest ("outlaw" vs. "law-abiding citizen"), but the point is that the matter is not simple and clear-cut.

But you make a very valuable point: the United States is pre-armed. Which means that trying to introduce gun control is going to be mightily difficult.

jesus h. christ

[robbo]

I'm 26 and I've never, ever, seen a handgun in real life. In fact, that vast majority of Canadians can say the same.. you people have the sickest preoccupation with . I live in inner-city montreal, and I have never, ever felt unsafe walking home at 3:00am (which, in fact, is the time that our bars close and everyone stumbles home). you've got to give up this idea that guns==a higher standard of living.

Re:Book on guns: "More Guns, Less Crime"

[gad_zuki!]

Societies with guns don't lower or raise crime compared to non-armed societies. The only real difference I've seen is that criminal violence is much more lethal in armed societies.

I'd rather be hit in the head with a skillet than a bullet.

BTW - This shut down *was* deliberately engineered

[orpheus]

This type of shut down was deliberately engineered into the system.

The FBI explicitly noted that their proposals would shut down gun sales nationally if any one of the 8-15 "key" record systems did not return a response. This was a "feature", not a bug.

Ordinarily, any "hit" any of these computerized databases will refer your inquiry to a criminal records analyst (currently being hired and trained) and either slow your approval or trigger a formal delay (or denial). Only one condition will 'clear' a sale: All databases queried, all systems responding, no records found. The regulations are explicit: if any one system fails to respond, no retail sales will be 'cleared'.

The FBI determines which computer systems will be linked, and is encouraging various agencies to get the interface specs and consider participating. The official list includes at least:

• National Crime Information Center (NCIC, a compilation of networks and systems whose exact makeup is not readily available; includes wanted persons, missing persons, stolen property, stolen cars, stolen boats, fugitives, more. It reportedly can handle a million automated inquiries per day.)
• Interstate Identification Index (III, a linkage of individual states' records; one state police department reports it goes down almost daily)
• National Instant Check System Index (NICS)
• Department of Defense
• Immigration and Naturalization Service
• Veteran's Administration
• FBI State Records files
• State Department

Other computer-system operators that have been mentioned as part of the database network include: Internal Revenue Service; Drug Enforcement Agency; U.S. Border Patrol; U.S. Customs Dept.; a Protective Orders database (there have been vague references to such a thing, related to domestic violence laws, federal availability is unclear) and of course, not to forget, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms.
_____________

Ah. So the New World Order is upon us.

[MaximumBob]

So they've made their move. First, they "accidentally" halt gun sales. Then, soon, the U.N. Helicopters move in, and the Russian Army soldiers take over our places of business and worship. Registered gun owners are rounded up, and the American government is subsumed in the new world order. So much more efficient than creating crop failures with the U.N.'s weather machine.

Re:please excuse my lack of knowledge

[gad_zuki!]

Most of DC is a ghetto, no laws can fix that. Hot-button gun/anti-gun people will harp endlessly about how its about guns and not about the real social and political issues that help maintain and create a ghetto.

MMDDoS?

[MAXOMENOS]

Hmm, I wonder if the Million Mom March might have launched a distributed denial of service attack on the FBI computers? Seems simple enough...just get a million mothers to download the client....

(nb, tounge firmly in cheek here)

The Second Amendment Sisters

We said this would happen.

[Lord Kano]

Back in 1993 when the Brady Bill was being debated and voted on. We said that after the sunset clause took effect and the national background check was in place the federal government could stop ALL gun sales by taking the national database offline.

We were called kooks and gun nuts and that they didn't want to prohibit firearms ownership or sales, they just wanted background checks. The useful idiots just got in line to support the false promise of lower crime rates.

Now am I the only one that thinks that it's not an accident that this happens the same week-end as the "million mom march". One last point, there is a clause that allows FFL dealers to sell firearms when the system is offline, however most of them are small businessmen who are afraid of the BATF kicking in their doors for a surprise inspection if they do. That's another reason why no guns are being sold.

LK

Technology Triumphs Over Outdated Constitution!!

[Yet Another Smith]

Hey -- why didn't we think of this before? What a way to reduce crime and stop the bloodshed!

Well, that is an excellent idea. The Feds can also introduce a virus to shut down DNS servers. That way, no one will be able to download any speech condemning DMCA or showing the source of DeCSS. We can shut down the 1st Amendment without actually passing any laws! We could also 'accidently' have the IRS start doing 'innocent' tax audits of all defense attourneys. That way, they would be too busy to actually write motions to dismiss evidence obtained from illegal searches. We can shut down the 4th too! And we can...

You get my point.

I recognize that a number of people believe that the right to keep and bear arms is not simply unwise, but even morally reprehensible. But if we begin disregarding the Constitution for the public good, simply because 'Those Nasty Gun Companies Have Too Much Power!' They would use the NRA to prevent you from actually amending the constitution to correct this problem legally. But if we use that as an argument to subvert the Bill of Rights, then we open a whole can of worms.

People argue that a majority of people want gun control. They argue that to deny that majority what they want is undemocratic. I will use a counter example to show that the rule of the majority is not necessarily a good thing, when it comes to preserving life and liberty. In the 1950's, Joe McCarthy could conceivably gotten a majority of Americans to believe that it was necessary to jail anyone who espoused support for the Communist Party. Who now would argue that that would be blatantly unconsititutional?

Let's not use technology to take away a constitutionally protected right, no matter what we think about the right itself. If you dissagree, we have a method for amending the constitution. If you can't convince 2 thirds of the people that you are right enough to change it, then you probably aren't right enough to change it.

Now lets all go and arm bears!!

You should be able to get background check FIRST!

[root]

Here's how I think background checks should work:

Go to [local city/county agency] and apply for a background check. They do the check and give you a certificate with your name, SSN, maybe even your photo (so other ID by you is not needed when you use the certificate later), or whatever on it that says you're a clean, upstanding citizen.

It's good for 48 hours or so. Show it to buy 1 or many guns. The seller verfies the cert and your ID (visually only, no logging of info). Or don't use the cert at all and let it expire.

This way, background checks get performed. But no one has to collect information from you to write down or relay to local agencies about how many and what type of guns you bought, if any.

This achieves the purpose of backgrounds checks, thus "stopping criminals" as much as the current system does, right? I'll say it again because this is what the left keeps harping. My plan as described above WILL DO THE BACKGROUND CHECKS AND STOP CRIMINALS FROM BUYING GUNS JUST AS MUCH AS THE CURRENT SYSTEM (which democrats support) DOES!

Will politicians on the left accept this? No. Background checks aren't what they really want. That's just a ruse to dupe the public into supporting the mandates. What they really want to know is exactly who owns what, right down to the serial number so that when the bans come later (like they have so many times before), they can show up at your door and demand [banned make/model of the day].

Did you really think only criminals were being targeted?

Re:Quite frankly...

[rjh]

IANAL, but I do follow the Bill of Rights pretty closely and have performed a fair bit of scholarship on the issue. In the spirit of disclosure, let me say that I possess three firearms and I enjoy participating in the shooting sports.

The overall intent of the Second Amendment is clear: that the citizenry is meant to possess the right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and of the community. This view is fairly universally shared by everyone in the gun control debate, save for those few who claim it only protects sporting purposes. (I cannot grant any credibility to these claims; in all my scholarship on the Bill of Rights, I have never found any hint from any of the Founding Fathers which suggests that any portion of the Bill of Rights is meant to ensure continued sporting activity.)

The real interesting portion comes in how you interpret that original intent. The more militant members of the pro-Second Amendment community (such as the poster I'm originally responding to) claim that all gun control is illegal; the more militant members of the anti-Second Amendment community (such as Sarah Brady) maintain that guns are inherently regulable.

Neither opinion is, in the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, worth a bucket of steaming excrement.

The pro-2A crowd fails to notice US v Miller (I think that's the proper cite), where a man convicted of possessing a sawed-off shotgun appealed to the Supreme Court on grounds that it unlawfully violated his rights. The Supreme Court said that it was unable to see how the possession of a sawed-off weapon contributed to the "well-regulated militia" and therefore received no Second Amendment protection.

Sarah Brady and HCI take US v Miller as proof that all weapons are subject to regulation. This is incorrect; a reading of US v Miller indicates that only those weapons which serve no useful purpose to a well-regulated militia can be arbitrarily regulated. In a strict interpretation of the Court's decision, Miller is actually a vindication of the Second Amendment in that the Court comes very close to outright stating that weapons with military applications (such as fully automatic assault rifles, etc.) possess Second Amendment protection.

So. According to Miller, weapons are regulable if they possess no utility to a militia. It's not as clear a victory for the anti-2A crowd as they make it out to be, and it's not a defeat for the pro-2A crowd, either.

That's the most recent Supreme Court cite which addresses the original poster's "all gun control laws are unconstitutional" argument. Now to take the flip side:

The anti-2A crowd likes to forward the idea that the Second Amendment is a collective right; that is to say, that the use of "the people" refers to the State or Nation as a collective whole and not the people individually. This fails both legal and historical tests.

Legally, to interpret the Second Amendment's use of "the people" in a collective sense would force the Supreme Court to interpret every other instance of "the people" in the Constitution similarly. The Court has refused to do this on multiple occasions, and as recently as a few years ago has referred in passing to the Second Amendment as a right which belongs to individuals.

On the historical side, George Mason (I believe) famously stated "Who, then, is the militia? Now it is the whole of the people." That by itself is a fairly clear statement from the Founding Fathers; considering that no-one at the convention spoke after Mason to condemn that assertion, we may assume it enjoyed widespread popularity.

Moreover, national and state militias composed of citizen-soldiers were known to the Founding Fathers. They were referred to as either "elite corps" or "select corps", depending on which authority they were chartered under (ref: Tennessee Law Review. If the intent was to guarantee the national and state rights to assemble armies and National Guard units, the Amendment would have read "Well-regulated select and elite corps being necessary to the security of a free state..."

So the anti-2A argument that the Second Amendment only protects the Army and National Guard units is obviously, blatantly incorrect.

There is still a great deal of litigation going on in an attempt to clarify exactly what the Second Amendment means. For recent Court decisions, I'd suggest you look at Lopez v US, in which the Court found that Congress had overstepped its Constitutional authority by restricting the possession of firearms near schools. This wasn't a Second Amendment case, per se, but it was a clear indication from the Court that it thought Congress had significantly overstepped its mandate.

Also, check out Emerson v US, coming out of Texas, where the Lautenberg Amendment (which strips people of their Second Amendment rights if they have any misdemeanor domestic-abuse conviction or restraining order filed against them) was overturned. In Emerson, a Federal judge found that misdemeanor convictions and restraining orders were insufficient process of law to strip someone of rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

Re:please excuse my lack of knowledge

[no-s]

Hmmm. The Revolution threw the existing Gov't out. The existing Gov't had tried to take the guns away to prevent violence. That was what Paul Revere and his group were riding for, to alert people the troops were coming to take them horrid, horrid guns away. Sure, it was the British Gov't, but it was the lawful gov't.

And who was the militia? All the people who had guns and were ready to use them to prevent the lawful gov't from exceeding in it's domain.

BTW, well-regulated then meant well-trained and well equipped. And without a standing army or police force, it was up to the militia to protect the community.

Now let's also remember the Bill of Rights is more properly understood as a list of limitations on government power. Check the preamble and the 9th and 10th amendments. So "shall not be infringed" is a pretty potent clause.

So I understand the 2nd to mean I should be able to keep and use all the good quality weapons I think are necessary to secure freedom, it's important for me to know how to use them well and be able to get them when I decide I need them, and most importantly:
No agent of the federal gov't should interfere with me with respect to the above.

A later amendment (the 13th I think) goes on to extend my privileges and immunities (rights and the freedom from having rights interfered with) to protection from the individual states. Some Southern states had to adopt the Bill of Rights in order to be re-instated into the Union after the War Between the States.

Oh, yeah, one more thing:

The consitution doesn't say you should be allowed to buy SR-71 at Walmart

This is a straw dog. When the 2nd amendment was adopted, individuals most certainly possessed the heavy weaponry of the day - cannon, grenades, rocket launchers, and of course, warships. Especially warships. Just who do you think Letters of Marque were issued to, anyway?

Re:You're baseing your reasoning on the exception

[Mike Schiraldi]

When was the last time you saw someone going door to door, turning each knob to see if it was unlocked? Doesn't happen to much; you might say that for 99% of your life, it is not useful to lock your door, and is actually detrimental: Maybe you'll lose your keys and be locked out. Maybe your friend will have left something at your place and will have to wait for you to get back instead of just opening the door.

Do you (or your parents if you're young) have life insurance? When was the last time you died? While life insurance may be useful at some point in one's life, it is in fact detrimental the rest of the time, as you must pay for it.
--

Book on guns: "More Guns, Less Crime"

[seebs]

Despite the fairly shocking title, it's a fascinating book. In fact, the real conclusion is that guns seem to reduce *violent* crime - but that non-violent crime may even increase in areas where more people are armed, presumably because people who are desparate for cash have to think of *something*.

I recommend the book, even if you plan to debunk the politically-incorrect conclusion; it's well researched, and has one of the broader ranges of statistics ever collected.

The author is John Lott, and he's written also about the ways in which pro-gun-control people have tried to discredit him. A fascinating study in propaganda.

There are none so blind as those who refuse to see

[addison]

Don't rewrite history - at least in Vietnam vs US, the Vietnamese were armed by the russian. They didn't bought their guns and grenades at their local grocery store.

The NVA, yes. Which, speaking of re-writing history, you might want to check out a tad, before running your mouth. The Viet Cong, the "real" guerillas in the south were much more spottily armed, many times with less than AK-47's. They did a fair amount of damage - and massive amounts to morale - with Punji sticks (sharpened bamboo with the tips smeared with feces), and other technologial wonders. Mines were especially effective - and those are very easy to make.

'm sorry but I live in Europe, and all those crazy Americans so in love with their guns are gun-nuts to me. A gun sole purpose is to kill - plain and simple. You can't use it to repair your car or to cook. Professing the widespread availability of killing-devices is completely insane.

Europe.. Europe. Oh, right, that's the place where my Grandfather went to save your non-gun-owning asses from those gun-toting Germans, right? Are you from the half who's ass we kicked or the half who's ass we saved?

You're missing the entire point of the Second Amendment. Its to keep the government in line. (not invoking Godwin, as I'm not calling anyone a Nazi) - That's why Hitler's first acts were to disarm (especially Jews) the citizenry.

Unlike Europe, we don't put our leaders on a god platform. Most of us anyway. We got our freedom not via royal decree, but by fighting for it, against an opressive, tyrannical government. (Actually, we're taxed more now than then, and the government has far more restrictions).

Well now they do - so the situation CHANGED. And the 2nd amendment is obsolete.

Typical Eurotrash thinking. "I don't understand it, it must me worthless". It wasn't so worthless in 1914-15 and then AGAIN in the 40's, when England was running ads in papers over here, BEGGING for those guns for their defence.

So, its OK to ask/demand that we supply guns when its convient to you - but call us barbarians when you don't.

The right to bear arms was to achieve a goal - it is not a basic human right like free speech.

Again, you misunderstand. Go read some. The "Bill of Rights" is essentially what any _legitimate_ government cannot do. That was the point behind it. It can't censor, remove the ability to resist, imprison without trial... And if you remove those - then according to the thinkers of those who wrote and signed the Consititution - you no longer have a legitimate government.

Well I think hunting is nut too, I mean which mentally sane human could enjoy killing - even animals ?

Somebody damn well better - its impossible for EVERYBODY to be a vegetarian (especially with the animals unchecked)

Are you a vegetarian? If not. SOMEBODY had to kill your fish/chicken/beef/goat/lamb/whatever.

Oh, so if its a low paying job, that's OK? (Never let it be said that most Europeans are enlightened, class-free people)

Disclaimer: I hunt. If you weren't so insulting about something you know nothing about (and so incorrect as to the math behind it) - I'd be willing to explain why.

Again I live in Europe. I'm anti-gun like 99,9% if my fellow citizens. I've never been afraid of getting shot in the streets - the chances of me dying from a gunshot is so close to 0 it is negligeable. I bet you can't says as much...

Which twice now, we've had to wade our troops over there and fight for - and spend a shitload tax money - mine included - keeping armed troops over there so the USSR wouldn't decide that gee, those pesky European countries are making too good an escape haven.. or have things that we want.

Armed Troops. Gee, Golly. Us Crazy Americans.

They think we're barbarians, and we're STILL helping them.

As for the defense of our free stats, we have armies and nukes, and that's enough, thank you.

Oh, well, in that case, mind paying us for your defenses for the last 50 years? Or is that idea obsolete as well?

Addison

For those of you wondering

[DonkPunch]

A few posts from people outside the U.S. are wondering how gun sales work here.

The Brady Bill five day waiting period has apparently been replaced with a computer-based background check. Coincidentally, I bought my second firearm in 6 years last month and was a little surprised by the new procedure. I provided the store with quite a bit of personal info, including driver's license data and, IIRC, my social security number. They made a phone call, passed the information along, and had the result within a few minutes.

Please understand too that the United States is just that -- a collection of states. Each of these states has its own laws pertaining to firearms. Different states have different attitudes towards guns and there is no guarantee that what is legal in one state is legal in another.

I'm afraid the popular worldview of the United States leans towards a free-for-all Wild West where you can buy handguns out of vending machines. It's not like that. We all want to make sure that guns don't get into the wrong hands, there's just disagreement about whose hands are "wrong" and how we accomplish this. The aforementioned instant background check was actually championed by the NRA as an alternative to the five day waiting period (which had no background check at all).

Also, the same restrictions do not apply when guns are transferred from one person to another without dealer involvement. The Clinton administration considers this a loophole because it allows private individuals to buy and sell guns without much in the way of federal regulation. FWIW, my state has some strong laws against making firearms accessible to minors and known felons. I imagine most other states are similar.

The timing for this could not be worse. Given the weekend's planned demonstrations and the Clinton administration's professed desire to pass additional gun legislation, this will get a lot of media attention. I imagine a lot of people will have a hard time believing this is just a computer glitch. I tend to believe it, but I also remember that this same administration was caught "accidently" accessing secret FBI files on political opponents. Ask me in a week if I still believe it.

I'm not a lawyer and not nearly as up on firearms laws as I used to be, so corrections/clarifications would be most appreciated.

interesting posts.

[small_dick]

guns are simply tools.

in the proper hands, they do good -- what they are designed to do -- coerce a person to your point of view ("No, I won't let you kill my family. In fact, I kill you before I let that happen.")

in the wrong hands, they are trouble. "I said, "Give me yo wallet, Muthuh Fuckuh". Or, as can be seen in Los Angeles, they make great evidence when the police plant them in and around a parollee's home.

Guns sometimes kill people. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way. The question is not whether or not they should be legal -- only a person with a very poor understanding of the world around us would advocate outlawing handguns -- the real question is : "What steps can be taken to increase the percentage of "Good" outcomes vs. "Bad" outcomes?

Because when you start thinking in absolutes, you are using simple solutions to solve a complex problem. And we know where that path leads. Utter failure and grotesque unanticipated consequences.

Unfortunately, the only solution I can see is stiff sentences and long probation periods for handgun offenders. That's all the technology we have right now.

Maybe in the future we can make smart weapons. For example, everyone could have a subcutaneous chip in their neck that could be queried by the weapon. "Does this person have a propensity to crime? A history of violence? Is the target armed? Do they have a propensity to violence? What is the probability that I am being used to commit a crime? What is the probability that I am protecting a good person?" If the proper equations are triggered, the weapon fires.

But human rights and the global situation, not to mention the technology, would have to progress significantly before I'd let anyone put a chip in my neck.

Re:Quite frankly...

[rjh]

I'll try as best as I can to answer your questions. Again, remember: IANAL.

Registration of firearms in no way infringes anyone's ownership of a firearm as long as anyone could register a firearm.

The problem is that no other right enumerated in the Constitution requires registration in order for its exercise. The courts have ruled that it is forbidden to require registration to run a newspaper; it's forbidden to require registration to run a church; it's forbidden to require registration to keep the Army from quartering soldiers in your home.

To phrase things in Net terms, registration is an "opt-out" system. It's the Government saying "we're going to deny you this right, unless you specifically inform us that you intend to exercise it".

The Federal courts have historically been extremely harsh when the government has tried these things. If the courts let the government require registration for the exercise of the Second Amendment, then there is no lawful reason to prevent the government from requiring registration for the exercise of the First Amendment.

There are laws on the books requiring permits for large assemblies of crowds. These laws have been upheld only so long as they impose no significant inconvenience and they exercise no prior restraint. That is to say, the permits have to be issued extremely quickly, and the government is not permitted to deny permits to any organization. This is not the case with firearms registration. When I purchased my .45, I had to present the county sheriff with a copy of my lease agreement (to prove I was a resident of the State and county from which the permit would be issued), my driver's license and passport, I had to be fingerprinted, I had to wait a month, and I was interrogated for half an hour by the Sheriff (he said he just wanted to make sure I could handle difficult social situations without losing my cool). After going through all that, my permit was issued to me--but at any time the Sheriff likes, he can revoke my permit to purchase.

That counts in my book as a significant inconvenience and an unlawful Government control over a Constitutionally-protected activity. It isn't at all in the same ballpark as permits for large assemblies.

There was a case recently in which the Court decided that the right to assembly didn't include the right to anonymously assemble (thus requiring large Klan gatherings to be hoodless), and I'm still trying to decide how I feel about that.

So what is meant by a well-regulated militia? It may refer to groups organized by states or communities and drilled for the common defense of the people.

If you'd read my previous post, you'd have noticed the references to "select and elite corps". :) I already answered your question in part. To summarize, it is extremely clear that the Second Amendment is not meant to preserve the right of the nation to create an FBI or Army, the States to create State Troopers and National Guard, or communities to create police forces.

Exactly what the "well-regulated militia" means is still being hammered out in court. Check out Emerson v US, coming out of Texas.

Also, the Supreme Court has frequently curtailed "rights" given by the Constitution to "the people". Free speech, rights to a jury trial, rights of a defendant to confront their accusers, unfair seizures, etc.

Not in recent years. Lopez v US put significant restraints on Congress' power to pass law, for instance. Free speech has consistently been upheld by the Supreme Court; the right to a jury trial has never been abrogated, to the best of my knowledge; the right to cross-examine has been sacrosanct. The seizure provisions of the IRS and drug code may be morally repugnant, but I am unable to provide Supreme Court citations which affirm their Constitutionality. I strongly suspect that if they ever go to the Supreme Court, that the Supreme Court will strongly and viciously cut them down on Constitutional grounds. If I were the United States Solicitor General, I'd live in quaking fear of the grilling I'd get from Scalia or Thomas on those issues. :)

If you're going to rake the Court over the coals for being asleep at the switch, then you're going to have to provide me citations. On the whole they do extremely good work; the problem is that Congress churns out laws by the thousands and the Court can only give in-depth review to a few dozen cases per year.

A couple of things...

[Greyfox]

Having just revolted from under a tyranical government, I personally believe the second ammendment was put in place for the sole purpose of giving the people a fighting chance should the government ever become tyranical enough to inspire another revolt. It seems to me the thinking is pretty obvious.

Personally I'm of a mind that everyone should be armed and that we should bring back the dueling code. However, guns make dueling both too deadly (Often both parties die) and too easy. Therefore in addition to a gun for insuring that anyone getting out of hand is rapidly dealt with, we should also all carry whatever swords suit us, in case we get challenged to a duel. I think society would be a much more polite place.