Every week on Monday morning , the Council and invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day. This week's question:Do You Favor Changes To Current Laws On Gun Ownership?
The Independent Sentinel: I think it is a slippery slope. I want to keep the power in the hands of the state.
A reporting process for large sales of ammo and large capacity magazine clips should be considered by all states.
The Colorado killer could have placed bombs with timing devices throughout the theatre. He was determined and he would have used explosives.
I'm in NY and we don't have much left of the second amendment here. Even so, the legislators want even tougher laws. Some want gun rights as restrictive on Long Island as they are in NYC. The slippery slope!
NYC, DC, Chicago, with some of the toughest gun laws in the country, have serious gun violence-their strict gun laws have done nothing except further the illegal gun trade.
Australia, which never had a second amendment, went through a massive gun confiscation. Now government officials want to eliminate all private gun ownership. They even want to ban some knives, something we've done in NYC.
There will be no end if we go down that slope.
The Colossus of Rhodey: I have to plead ignorance on exactly what all our current gun laws are -- mainly because they're quite labyrinthine. They're an amalgam of state, local and federal law that can be difficult to follow at times.
For instance, take an AK-47: The Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 banned the domestic production of fully automatic weapons for civilian use. However, such weapons produced prior to that year are permitted to be possessed and transferred by civilians "in accordance with federal, state and local law."
That aside, my views may differ from that of many right-leaning folk: Like all rights noted in our venerable Constitution, the Second Amendment is subject to reasonable restrictions. I do not find it "reasonable" to permit everyday civilians to own automatic weapons. I believe that the right to own handguns and/or rifles of a hunting or sports nature is "reasonable," and that any attempts to outright ban these are a violation of our Second Amendment rights. The recent McDonald and Heller Supreme Court cases establish precedent that any efforts to ban handguns, in particular, are unconstitutional.
Old School:Perhaps I can provide a bit of perspective residing in the UK as I do.Firearms are tightly controlled, and there is a category known as 'prohibited weapons',which includes most handguns,pepper spray,semi-automatic and pump-action centrefire rifles.
In order to own the remaining legal weapons, which basically consists of shotguns, some hunting rifles, manually loaded rifles (including most .22 rifles) a few very specific types manually loaded hand guns and historic black powder weapons, one must obtain and hold a document known as a Shotgun Certificate or a Firearm Certificate.
These must be obtained via the local police, and as I can tell you from experience, they are quite difficult to obtain.You must not only exhibit competence in gun safety, but convince the police you have satisfactory security for your gun and demonstrate to them that you have what's known as "good reason to possess" each individual firearm applied for. You also need to provide two separate references the police find acceptable in order to obtain your certificate. And you must renew them every five years.Certificates for handguns of any type are quite difficult to obtain, and rifle and shotgun certificates are likewise difficult in the city.
In essence, it means that since 1997 and Labour's Firearm's Amendment Act Number Two, the British public has, to all intents and purposes, been disarmed. The net result has been that crimes involving guns have increased a great deal.
The inference of course is that someone who does not care to abide by the laws in general is certainly not going to draw the line at disobeying our gun laws should they be so inclined.
Joshuapundit:Want to make a gun control zealot scream with frustration? Here's a riddle that will show you how:
I know of two countries that have a number of things in common. Both have compulsory military service, followed by compulsory militia duty for a number of years afterwards.
Because of that, both countries require that a fair amount of their citizenry keep fully automatic military assault rifles and a decent amount of ammo in their homes in easy reach and in ready to lock and load condition. In fact, you frequently see citizens of both countries on their way to reserve duty carrying their weapons on public transport or on the streets.
Yet both countries have two of the lowest homicide rates in the western world, and in one of them, armed citizens have been credited with saving a number of lives using their weaponry.
The two countries? Switzerland and Israel.
Oh, and both countries make a fetish of independence..one of the world's oldest free democracies anbd one of its newest.
Obviously the solution of problems like Virginia Tech and Aurora lies in the culture rather than in letting people protect themselves. And armed citizens could have prevented loss of life in both cases.
The Razor:Beyond making it illegal for the administration to arm drug cartels in Mexico, no. The ideas floating around about reporting ammo sales are silly. With one shot one kill you can shoot a lot of people with only a single box of ammo. So what’s the purpose of such a law, other than to make people feel like they are DOING SOMETHING to prevent such incidents from occurring? They won’t.
I would sue out of existence any business that restricts law-abiding citizens from carrying guns on their premises and then fails to protect them from being shot. If you are going to disarm the law abiding while doing nothing to prevent criminals from getting guns, then you should take your business to the UK where they prefer that sort of thing or risk losing everything.
The Noisy Room:Actually, yes I do... Get rid of all gun laws - period. Unless of course you want to institute one - you know, the one the Swiss did where everyone is required to have a gun. That one, I could get behind. I'm tired of the left harping that you should only have guns for sporting purposes and then only certain guns. That when some mass murdering asshat kills lots of innocent people, it's the gun's fault. Surely it has nothing to do with the whack job wielding the weapon. Notice they never point out that said whack job could have been stopped if just ONE person had a concealed weapon at hand (not to mention the savings of court costs, time and the requisite cleaning of the gene pool). It's all a Progressive means of manipulating the Constitution and abridging our Second Amendment rights. The Second Amendment is our last defense against government tyranny. Which is increasing by the minute here in the US. More guns and less regulation is the answer here - not more restrictions.
The brutal truth is that if someone wants to kill someone, they'll find a way to do it with or without a gun. Restricting guns and ammo only hurts law abiding citizens. Criminals don't give a crap. While you are at it, get rid of all anti-knife laws as well. Progressive Marxists have hood-winked Americans into believing that gun laws protect them. No, they don't - they suppress Americans and their freedoms. That is why one of the first full-frontal moves of a despot is to disarm the citizenry. Check your history. Me, the more guns and ammo the better and if I want to have a damn armory in my basement, that's my business on my property. The government can go 'know themselves' in the biblical sense. 'Nough said.
The Right Planet:"No free man shall ever be disbarred the use of arms" --Thomas Jefferson
"The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun…. Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own self defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defence be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" --Patrick Henry
Pretty much sums it up for me (more here).
Well, there you have it.
Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum.And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it.
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