The Status Quo Lives!....with EDIT

Did anyone but me watch the Townhall Meeting last night where Prez O'Bama politely sparred with pro-gun advocates?  As expected, when the dust settled, the status quo was still intact.  I can't for the life of me understand why the pro-gun side still believes the Federales are intent on coming for their guns (it's a physical impossibility), and why the anti-gun advocates believe that the pro-gun side will someday just say, "Oh, OK, we'll do it your way."  Square peg, round hole.

Full disclosure:  I have guns.  I enjoy shooting them.  I have a Concealed Handgun License.  I will not carry openly.  I am not a member of the NRA.  I'm a political skeptic.  I don't trust either side.  I (arguably) have a fair amount of gray matter between my ears.

On O'Bama's proposal to require background checks on all gun purchases, I don't see a problem with it.  If I were a federally licensed gun dealer, I'd be all for it in order to level the playing field.  Am I worried about having my name on a federal database identifying me as a gun owner?  Ha! I suspect my name is on a whole lot of private and government databases already.  What's one more?
 
If the feds someday come to my house to confiscate my guns, I'll just say "no".  I'll have a legion of Pro Bono lawyers line up to represent me (and enhance their reputation), and I'll win.  And when I do, I'll never have to buy another restaurant meal or beer ever again.  I'll be a folk hero.  Gun makers will fawn all over me, and will happily give me their products just to see me photographed holding one.   And the feds know it.  It's a DOA idea if there ever was one.

Will more background checks keep guns out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them?  Highly doubtful.  Will the NRA-types ever be willing to give it a try?  Lololololol!

So can we do anything to curb gun violence, something that both sides might buy into?  I think so.  It's common knowledge that convicted felons have, by existing law, forfeited many of their civil rights, including the right to own a gun.  It's also common knowledge that many convicted felons continue to own guns, and continue to use them.  So lets round 'em up and lock 'em away!

Oops....one little problem.  It costs LOTS of money to incarcerate a person.  I suspect we could get hundreds of thousands of felons in possession of guns off our streets if we would just put a concerted effort into going after them.  BUT WE WOULD ALSO HAVE TO AGREE TO PAY THE PRICE TO BUILD MORE PRISON CELLS, AND HIRE MORE PRISON GUARDS, and probably pay more welfare to the families left behind by their now-jailed breadwinners.

So, can we afford it?  No...and yes.  The original numbers to do all this would be staggering, and the Tea Party would no doubt piss and moan about it because all they know how to say is "cut taxes".  But then once some non-partisan think tanks examined it, I think they would find that since the perps would likely wind up back in jail at some time in the future anyway, and the cost of legal proceedings and public defenders being what they are, yeah, we probably could afford it.  It fact, it would likely be a good investment of taxpayer money. 

I'd love to see the NRA try and oppose such a strategy, try to oppose putting bad guys back behind bars.  The most hemophilic of the bleeding heart left might bemoan yet more people being locked up vs rehabbed, but I think they could be drowned out by the public applauding the lower gun violence numbers.

So why don't we think more outside the box to find things that could be agreed to by all sides?  Have we become that unimaginative?  *shaking head*

S

EDIT:  The news is reporting a Philadelphia police officer was ambushed in his car by an assailant claiming to be an ISIS sympathizer.  But beyond that, he also had a lengthy criminal record.  This is EXACTLY the type of gun violence that could be prevented if felons in possession of guns could be locked up.

More gun debate

We had a thriving conversation going yesterday on how to stop gun violence in America.  The prevalent opinion was to just pass another law, and good things would soon happen.  I say don't waste your time and energy or get your hopes up that this will have any meaningful affect on gun violence.  So what will?

I remember hearing of a program a few years ago somewhere on the east coast (in Virginia, I believe) that was aimed squarely at this problem.  The police were authorized at the time of a traffic stop, if the driver was a prior felon, to search his/her vehicle to look for firearms they were prohibited to have.  It was wildly successful.  As the weeks and months wore on, lots of bad guys were ACTUALLY SENT BACK TO PRISON and their guns confiscated and destroyed.  Local crime plummeted, and soon other bad guys got the word and disposed of their guns in order to avoid the same fate.

Yea!  Keep up the good work, right?  No.  Word came down that the prison was too full of these returning felons and they couldn't take any more.  It cost a fortune to incarcerate a prisoner, and the taxpayers couldn't afford the bill.  So the program was terminated, and I would imagine things eventually returned to the way they were.  (On a side note, didn't President Obama just order the release of thousands of non-violent inmates from federal prisons?  See the problem?)

For any law to work it must be complied with, either voluntarily or by threat of enforcement.  Most people pay their taxes, and for the few who don't, the Feds will step in and enforce it with threat of jail time if necessary.  The same with gun laws.  Most people buys guns legally, following the law. But for the few who don't....it's apparently more than "a few"....there is really no widespread enforcement.  The bad guys aren't afraid of getting caught, and the profit incentive to sell guns illegally is enormous.

So to those who place their faith in passing new gun laws, this is why I say you're chasing a windmill.  If you want to see a meaningful decrease in gun violence, find those ineligible to own guns yet are in possession, and LOCK THEM UP!  It's gonna be expensive, but it will work.  Then we can have the debate over incarceration vs rehabilitation.

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I don't think many people who are not gun owners fully understand the requirements for purchasing a firearm through a federally licensed firearms dealer (the normal route).  

A one page "Yes" or "No" questionnaire must be filled out, and the dealer then sends the data on to the FBI for validation.  Their National Instant Criminal Background Check System quickly (?) checks the name of the prospective buyer against federal and state criminal records to see if he/she is disqualified from buying a gun.

So what is a disqualifier?  You can not buy a gun if you have been convicted of a felony, or if you have a warrant out for your arrest, or have used drugs within the past year (honors system?), or were ever committed involuntarily to a mental institution or were ruled to be mentally incompetent by a judge, are living in the US illegally, have been convicted of domestic violence or have a domestic-violence-related restraining order against you, have been dishonorably discharged from the military, or have renounced your US citizenship.  Run afoul of any of those, and it's "no gun for you!"

But what if one or more of these disqualifiers applies to you, but you still want a gun?  You can try buying from an individual without a check so long as the seller reasonably believes the buyer is law abiding and will not use the gun in the commission of a crime.  This sounds rather loosie-goosie (Southern term) to me.  

So lets just tighten this up, you might say.   Yes, that's an option, but you'll be working against a very powerful sellers profit motive, and you'll just drive more buyers right into the hands of the scum bags who live and work in the shadows. "Pssst....Hey buddy.  Wanna buy a gun?"  THIS is the secret  back door to gun ownership that we can't seem to get a handle on.

Most of these cash only, no questions asked, firearms are stolen.  Have you ever had one of those door-to-door salesmen try to sell you their new miracle cleaner?  They will want to come into your home and clean your sink or counters or floor to show you how great their stuff is, but in reality what they're doing is discretely looking around your house to see if you have any telltale signs that guns might be present, like hunters trophies on the wall.  Our local police have told me this is an organized crime activity that moves from town to town for several weeks at a time.  If your home looks like a promising target, someone will come back a week or so later and break in and get your guns.

Home burglars today are looking first and foremost for firearms, followed by electronics such as laptops and tablets.  (TV's are out...it's hard to walk out with a 65" flat screen.)  Firearms are easy to carry, bring top dollar on the underground market, and have lots of willing buyers.  Organized crime has long been involved in this illegal gun trade, and just as with their drug trafficking, they are very hard to catch in the act.  

Unless we can somehow get a handle on these back door transactions, we'll continue to experience gun violence.  We already have numerous laws on the books that in theory should shut down this trade, but they obviously haven't worked.  That's why I say to those who want to enact yet more (unenforceable) laws, have at it, but don't kid yourself into thinking they will make any appreciable difference.  I hope I'm wrong, but people who should know (law enforcement) have told me that we'll just be spinning our wheels.

S

 

Guns and girls (this ought to get LOTS of readers!)

There are some really screwball ideas being floated these days on how to prevent gun violence.  For example, to protect our schools it's proposed we put a uniformed police officer on every campus.  Many schools have done that for years, and while I don't see how it can hurt, more than anything I think it just gives people a warm fuzzy.

Think about it:  Retailers have "loss prevention" specialists who look for shoplifters.  They wear street clothes and appear to be just average customers meandering around the stores.  They don't wear neon orange vests that say "I'm watching you!"

If you were a disturbed person intent on shooting up a school, wouldn't the first person you take out be the one with the gun?  Your opening shot would be to the back of the head of this guy, then you could roam around and shoot at will.  These people might be "disturbed", but they're meticulous planers.

Make it public knowledge there are __ armed security in the school daily, but never let it be known who they are.  Is it the janitor?  The PE teacher?  The cafeteria lady with the five-o'clock shadow?  One of the maintenance crew always on campus doing something?  Never tip your hand.  

Just my take on it.

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Are you keeping up with the verbal oogling incident Brent Musburger put on Alabama QB AJ McCarron's GF during Monday night's national championship game?  He went on and on about how beautiful she was, which is true.  (Brent might be old, but he's not cold.)  But here's something no one else seems to have brought up:  Is she smart?  

In one video clip they've shown over and over she's sitting in the stands when Alabama scored and everyone around her raised their arms and yelled..."WooHoo!!"  Then about 3 seconds later she raised her arms and yelled..."WooHoo!!"  I've never seen a fan with a built-in time delay like that.

I dunno, maybe she doesn't really understand football and didn't realize what just happened.  Or maybe she was thinking about how she'd really rather be home with a book and her cat.  

And didn't she go to Auburn?  Ummm....I thought in the state of Alabama Auburn folks and Alabama folks didn't fraternize?  And they certainly don't breed, 'cause they're afraid of how the kids might turn out. I guess exceptions can be made when you're the back-to-back national champion team's QB and she's the reigning Miss Alabama.

Yeah...that must be it.

S

Let the debate rage on

I see there is an effort underway to mandate the use of laser-engraved firing pins on all new guns.  The idea is that when fired, the firing pin would leave an individual microscopic mark on the shell casings, usually found all over the ground at a crime scene.  The police could then examine the marks on the casings and know which gun fired the shots and who owns it even if the gun itself was never found.  Cops 1; Bad Guys 0.  Sounds like a good idea...on paper.


But nothing in the real world is ever that easy.  First flaw in the plan:  Revolvers don't eject their shell casings.  Only semi-automatics do that.  Second, just as people buy and sell things like TVs and iPhones and computers (think Craig's List and eBay), they buy and sell guns, too.  Even if there was an ironclad way to document every free-market gun sale the problem of gun violence would still exist.  That's because bad guys steal guns or buy them from other bad guys (who probably stole them themselves). They're not too concerned with "paper trails". 


Knowing who owned a gun 5 years ago and who used it in a crime yesterday are two very different things.  I myself have sold several guns over the years.  I was very careful who I sold them to, of course.  Most recently when I moved into an apartment I sold several to a Plano police detective.  The thought of having to defend myself in court against a crime one of those guns was somehow later involved in sounds very unappealing.  And expensive and time consuming, too.


All such a law would do is drive up the price of pre-engraved-era guns on the black market.  Naturally the gun-control groups are all for this proposal, and the NRA-types are all against it.  While something needs to be done to get guns out of the hands of bad guys, I don't think this is the right plan.  Nice try.

Any suggestions on what would work?


S