> Mandatory gun registration laws (similar to automobile
> registration laws) could be quite effective in addressing
> this issue ...
Maybe. I think it's more complex than that. Auto registration doesn't stop violent criminals from using cars in their crimes. It often doesn't even solve felony hit-n-run cases.
> because it would target illegal gun owners rather than legal
> ones ...
All the registration schemes I've seen very much so 'target' legal gun owners; and there's the little historical problem that these registries have been abused ... for the record, I'm also against registering radios.
> it would allow criminal prosecution of mere possession of
> unlicensed weapons (regardless of the owner's past criminal record).
It's already the case in the US that _any_ firearm is illegal to possess if you're a convicted felon. How many repeat felons do you think are prosecuted under this law? Very few. Why? Probably because the gun charge is the least of the DA's concerns, but I don't know. So your goal of prosecuting the possession of an unlicensed weapon doesn't appear to be very useful in the long run. And in the cases where a weapon is discovered in the course of an unrelated stop, it's unclear just how much of an impact on violent crime there is.
Here's an interesting read:
http://w3.agsfoundation.com/Washingtonenfpr.html
> It is my understanding that the gun lobby opposes that with
> vengeance, regardless of what Jordan wants us to believe about
> the NRA's position on the issue.
I like the seque; you initially claimed that the NRA was against the current set of laws. I showed how they clearly are for the "instant-check" provisions of the current situation. Now you say that I don't think they are against registries; they are quite clearly against registries. Canada's registry experience should be enough to convince us that it's the wrong road: it's billions of dollars (even in Canadian currency, that's still a lot of money) over budget and unlikely to be complete any time soon ... and the benefits?
As a taxpayer, you should be against registries :-)
> And finally, one question to Jordan - if the gun laws are so
> efficient in the United States ...
(I didn't say that; I only said that the US presently has on the books what you said was the thing you wanted to see: restriction of purchase by some specified attributes)
> ... how come that the United States has THE highest homicide
> rate among the developed countries? If the availability of
> lethal weapons is not the culprit, then what is? Genetic
> predisposition of Homo Americanus Unitedstaticus to violence?
If there's anything I like better on the Internet than comparing someone to a Nazi, it's got to be the absurd strawman! :-)
But, I think there are a number of factors involved in the homicide rate in the US: some social, some economic, some technical. I don't think that the lack of a nationwide comprehensive gun registry is one of them. It's not even in the top 500. There's clearly (to criminals) a set of 'problems' for which 'a readily available gun' is the solution -- and if the 'readily available gun' were not so available, I'm not convinced that we'd see a _dramatic_ downturn in criminal violence. In the distances that most gun homicides occur, you can be (with just a little practice) just as lethal with a knife. Or a pencil.
In some cases, moreso.
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I think it's pretty easy to show that:
- The vast majority of guns are never used in crimes
+ Limiting them probably won't help much - The vast majority of gun owners are never violent criminals
+ Restricting or registering them probably won't help much - Quite a bit of violent crime doesn't involve a handgun
+ If we magically removed all handguns, we'd still have lots of violent crime - Despite the current (flawed, I agree) set of restrictions, it's still not that difficult to illegally obtain a firearm in the US
+ Fixing this might help a bunch, but still won't remove it
+ It might be the most productive avenue, however ... - The vast majority of gun crimes that the public cares about are accomplished with illegally obtained firearms
+ Keep your eye on the real 'problem' ...
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Summary: homicide is just one part of a bigger problem, violent crime. Armed Robbery is accomplished all the time with no gun at all (or a toy one, or an unloaded real one), yet it's still a violent crime: stealing in that case is enabled by just the mere idea that there's a disparity of power.
My viewpoint on this issue is that those who are talking about "homicide rates" and who are self-identified "anti gun" or "pro gun control" are really just not thinking about what problem they think they are trying to solve. But I guess that's not surprising, because that kind of good-intentions-bad-thinking happens in LOTS of other situations as well.
As far as the current set of laws in the US, I think there's probably enough (perhaps even too many). But there are clearly some problems with them; I think requiring all transfers to go through a licensed dealer would go a long way to helping to thin out criminal dealers. And I think enforcement of the existing laws would help. It's sort of a joke right now, and I believe that this lack of enforcement is a significant encouragement to criminals.
I recently sold a car in Washington State. While at the Department of Licensing, I saw a poster that said: if you don't file the "release of liability" when you sell your car, and something (pictured is an accident) happens, you can still be liable even though you sold your car.
That seems simple enough.
/jordan