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UK Police To Allow Gun Users To Renew Licenses With iPhone App
Sussex police are creating a number of iPhone apps for the public, including one to renew your gun license. Unsurprisingly, the plan has some anti-gun groups upset. Lyn Costello, of Mothers Against Murder and Aggression (MAMAA), said, "This isn't suitable, especially in light of what happened in Cumbria. We've got to be extra careful giving gun licenses. We have this attitude that gun murders don't happen very often so it's OK to be lax, but it is not OK and we've got to do everything in our power to stop it happening again. We can't put money before life and if you start to do that we are losing our humanity. It is a really stupid idea.''
I think MAMAA need to read the rest of that article:
A spokeswoman for Sussex Police said: "There are no firm plans to put this method into place at this stage.
If this model was to be adopted it would not replace officers visiting the applicant, it would just allow the applicant
to submit their initial application online
Surely this means all they're doing is replacing paper forms with electronic forms theres no other change in the process
You know, in the USA, one of the reasons it's so easy for criminals to get guns is that even if your locality passes a law restricting gun purchases very severely, somebody can always drive to the next state over with the lax gun laws, buy a gazillion guns, then come back and sell them to criminals for inflated prices in a black market.
There are some pretty simple measures that, if implemented at the federal level, would make it significantly harder or more expensive for criminals to get guns:
None of these would prevent law-abiding citizens from owning guns. But guess what? The NRA is rabidly opposed to all of them.
Most guns used in crimes aren't bought from a dealer, they're stolen. In fact, it's often cheaper to buy a gun "on the street" than it is to do so through a dealer...so much for markup or "inflated prices in a black market." Additionally, it's illegal to buy a handgun in any state other than your state of residence, so crossing state lines to buy handguns isn't a factor--dealers won't sell them without an in-state ID. Criminals--being the law-breaking sort, pretty much by definition--obtain them through (wait for it) illegal means. Long guns just don't turn up often in crimes (source: FBI Uniform Crime Reports).
Facts never were popular with your crowd, though.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
Limits on how many guns a non-dealer may purchase in a given time period. E.g., one gun per month per adult household member.
Why?
Waiting periods on gun purchases. If you buy a gun today, you can't pick it up until a week from now.
That won't accomplish anything. The vast majority of guns used for crime are stolen. Criminals don't walk into a gun store and buy a gun to commit a crime. The only thing it might prevent are crimes of passion, but one could argue that it ceases to be a crime of passion when one has to leave the situation, purchase a weapon and then later return to the situation.
Close the fucking gun show loophole already; make all gun sales require a background check of the buyer.
There is no "gun show loophole". There's a private party sale loophole. Of course that doesn't sound as scary so the anti-RKBA crowd doesn't use it....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Actually, there was one murder done with a registered NFA full auto a while back... it was a police officer who did it (shot his wife). Of course, police are exempt from NFA requirements, so he could've gotten one thru his department instead of as a private purchase.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
at less than 21 feet the knife wielder is probably more dangerous
The rule is that the average person can cover 21 feet faster than the average person can draw and fire a handgun. It's not so much that the knife is more dangerous as it is that the knife can be brought into action faster. If the gun is already drawn then the guy with the knife loses (all things being equal of course...)
He has no need to reload and aiming a knife is very easy.
The reload doesn't really enter into it for the overwhelming majority of civilian self-defense encounters. Most are resolved without any rounds being fired. When rounds are fired the average number is between 3 and 5 according to most studies I've seen. By this metric you'd be just fine with a 5 shot .38 special. I would still say that you should carry a spare magazine or two for your semi-auto -- if for no other reason than to keep your gun functioning if the primary magazine breaks for whatever reason. The magazine is the cheapest part of most pistols and the most likely to break. It's also helpful to have a spare magazine or two on the opposite side of your body from the gun to balance out the weight distribution.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
There is no "gun show loophole". There's a private party sale loophole. Of course that doesn't sound as scary so the anti-RKBA crowd doesn't use it....
Thank goodness someone actually pointed that out. There is NOTHING. NADA. ZILCH. special about a freaking gun show. If a dealer shows up at a gun show to sell, he has to abide by the same laws as always (which means background checks and all). I've bought several guns from dealers at gun shows and every single time I've been through a background check.
The "issue" (quotes because in reality it's a non-issue) is that a private citizen can choose to sell one of his or her guns to another citizen without involving a dealer. Just like any normal piece of property. I've bought guns from friends before, I've bought guns from other guys at the range before. Ironically I've never bought from a private party as a gun show before.
That's the only thing though. If someone chooses to bring a private firearm to sell at a gunshow then they can sell it under the same laws as anywhere else.
Gun shows are NOT popular because a bunch of hooligans are looking to make off-the-books purchases, but rather because there's simply a lot more inventory available at gun shows as a lot of dealers congregate in one area.
And ironically enough, the few people I know that prefer to do private sales to stay off the books aren't doing it for some nefarious purpose planning on committing some crime. They are simply afraid that with documentation of who owns what the government will try to eventually take their guns away. That's it. No plans to murder, or cause mayhem, they just want to keep their property and have the government butt the hell out of their lives.
You simply can't throw laws at this problem and hope to fix it. The people who are a problem here already have decided that the law is of no concern to them. Tacking on more and more of them isn't somehow going to wear down their will. It's not like someone who's going to commit murder or armed robbery is suddenly going to have a change of heart at the thought of breaking a gun law.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
That can be (and possibly already is) handled quite easily. We live in an age where computers are as common as maggots.
For instance, my state DMV will let you renew your car tags online UNLESS it's flagged for some reason (unpaid traffic violations, property taxes due, etc).
It wouldn't exactly be hard to just build the app to say "Oops. Your license is currently not eligible to be renewed online. Please stop into your local law enforcement office for review." in the event that a disqualifiying factor comes up on their record.
The only reason to not allow something like this (hell, the only reason to even IMPLEMENT such an assinine licensing requirement in the first place) is just to try and hassle people to the point that they give up on owning a gun. That's the true motive behind what most anti's call "common sense gun laws". Translated version: "we can't ban them outright so we're just going to aggravate the hell out of you in the hopes that you just give up".
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Where the anti-gun activists fail is refusing to acknowledge that sometimes it's necessary to use a gun, and that not all uses are bad, and in such circumstances a tool which makes it easier is a benefit, not a drawback. These people refuse to admit that there is ever a reason where using a gun is acceptable, so anything which enables someone to use one is inherently evil. To them, someone who kills a rapist in self-defence is just as guilty and evil as a serial murderer who eats children. That's what allows them to paint gun owners with such a broad brush. That being the case, the concept of "safe" handling of a gun, or "responsible" use of one are totally impossible in their vision of the world. When you say "it's ok for responsible people to carry guns in public" they hear the equivalent of "it's ok for responsible people to rape and murder women". That emotional hard-wiring is why they're impossible to reason with. They lack the rational capacity of their fellow human beings. It's just that they're so numerous we can't classify them as mentally ill.
Orwell was an optimist.