Democrat Platform destroys the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

[Slade3200]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

My post #296 gives you the exact reasons universal background checks are an infringement on the Right to own and carry guns, and simply a backdoor way to get to gun registration, as well as ways to make it harder for Americans to exercise their Right...

You can't give any reason to support universal background checks.

I think it’s a much cleaner and more efficient system to have universal BG checks. That’s a pretty simple and basic reason. I imagine if pressed you also wouldn’t technically have a problem with registration except for the fact that you think it is the step that leads to confiscation. Am I right?

 

[2aguy]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

It will give anti-gunners the ability to demand gun registration.....that is the only real reason the anti-gun extremists want them. If they get universal background checks...which criminals will avoid the same way they avoid current, federally mandated background checks by using straw buyers or simply stealing the guns......

Then criminals will still get guns and the gun crime rate won't go down in democrat party controlled cities....

Mass public shooters who can pass any and all background checks will still commt mass public shootings...

Then, a few years after getting them.....anti-gunners will come back with the same tactics and demand gun registration.....which they need before they confiscate guns ........

There are also other attacks that universal background checks will allow...

The following links explain exactly why universal background checks need to be stopped....

Textual analysis of HR8, bill to "To require a background check for every firearm sale"

Summary

HR8 requires that loans, gifts, and sales of firearms be processed by a gun store. The same fees, paperwork, and permanent record-keeping apply as to buying a new gun from the store.
If you loan a gun to a friend without going to the gun store, the penalty is the same as for knowingly selling a gun to a convicted violent felon.

Likewise, when the friend returns the gun, another trip to the gun store is necessary, upon pain of felony.

A clever trick in HR8 effectively bans handguns for persons 18-to20.

The bill has some narrow exemptions. The minuscule exemption for self-defense does not cover stalking victims. None of the exemptions cover farming and ranching, sharing guns on almost all public and private lands, or storing guns with friends while on vacation. The limited exemption for family excludes first cousins and in-laws.
And this......they love this...

The bill authorizes unlimited fees to be imposed by
regulation.
-----
The narrowness of the self-defense exemption endangers domestic violence victims. For example, a former domestic partner threatens a woman and her children. An attack might come in the next hour, or the next month, or never. The victim and her children cannot know. Because the attack is uncertain—and is certainly not "immediate"—the woman cannot borrow a handgun from a neighbor for her defense. Many domestic violence victims do not have several hundred spare dollars so that they can buy their own gun. Sometimes, threats are manifested at night, when gun stores are not open.
-------

HR8 requires almost all firearms sales and loans to be conducted by a federally-licensed dealer. Because federal law prohibits licensed dealers from transferring handguns to persons under 21 years, HR8 prevents young adults from acquiring handguns. This is a clever way to enact a handgun ban indirectly.

HR8 would prohibit a 20-year-old woman who lives on her own from acquiring a handgun for self-defense in her home, such as by buying it from a relative or borrowing it from a friend.
-----

Exorbitant fees may be imposed by regulation

"(3)(A) Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Attorney General may implement this sub-section with regulations."

"(D) Regulations promulgated under this paragraph may not include any provision placing a cap on the fee licensees may charge to facilitate transfers in accordance with paragraph (1)."

Regulators may set a minimum fee, but not "a cap on a fee." The Attorney General is allowed to require that every gun store charge a fee of $30, $50, $150, or more. Even a $20 fee can be a hard burden to a poor person.

------
Family members

You can make a "a loan or bona fide gift" to some family members. In-laws and cousins are excluded.

The family exemption vanishes if one family member pays the other in any way. If a brother trades an extra shotgun to his sister in exchange for her extra television, both of them have to go to a gun store. Their exchange will have all the fees and paperwork as if she were buying a gun from the store.
=====

Gun Control Won't Stop Crime

“Universal” Background Checks
Part of the genius of the Bloomberg gun control system is how it creates prohibitions indirectly. Bloomberg’s so-called “universal” background check scheme is a prime example. These bills are never just about having background checks on the private sales of firearms. That aspect is the part that the public is told about. Yet when you read the Bloomberg laws, you find that checks on private sales are the tip of a very large iceberg of gun prohibition.

First, the bills criminalize a vast amount of innocent activity. Suppose you are an nra Certified Instructor teaching an introductory safety class. Under your supervision, students will handle a variety of unloaded firearms. They will learn how different guns have different safeties, and they will learn the safe way to hand a firearm to another person. But thanks to Bloomberg, these classroom firearm lessons are now illegal in Washington state, unless the class takes place at a shooting range.

It’s now also illegal to lend a gun to your friend, so that you can shoot together at a range on your own property. Or to lend a firearm for a week to your neighbor who is being stalked.

Under the Bloomberg system, gun loans are generally forbidden, unless the gun owner and the borrower both go to a gun store first. The store must process the loan as if the store were selling the gun out of its inventory.

Then, when your friend wants to return your gun to you, both of you must go to the gun store again. This time, the store will process that transaction as if you were buying the gun from the store’s inventory. For both the loan and the return of the gun, you will have to pay whatever fees the store charges, and whatever fees the government might charge. The gun store will have to keep a permanent record of you, your friend and the gun, including the gun’s serial number. Depending on the state or city, the government might also keep a permanent record.

In other words, the “background check” law is really a law to expand gun registration—and registration lists are used for confiscation. Consider New York City. In 1967, violent crime in the city was out of control. So the City Council and Mayor John Lindsay required registration of all long guns. The criminals, obviously, did not comply. Thanks to the 1911 Sullivan Act, New York City already had established registration lists for handgun owners.

Then, in 1991, the City Council decided that many lawfully registered firearms were now illegal “assault weapons.” The New York Police Department used the registration lists to ensure that the guns were either surrendered to the government or moved out of the city. When he was mayor of New York City, Bloomberg did the same, after the “assault weapon” law was expanded to cover any rifle or shotgun with an ammunition capacity greater than five rounds.

In Australia and Great Britain—which are often cited as models for the U.S. to follow—registration lists were used for gun confiscation. In Great Britain, this included all handguns; in Australia, handguns over .38 caliber. Both countries banned all semi-automatic or pump-action long guns.

Most American jurisdictions don’t have a comprehensive gun registration system. But even if your state legislature has outlawed gun registration, firearm stores must keep records. Those records could be harvested for future confiscations. Under the Bloomberg system, the store’s list would include not just the guns that the store actually sold, but all the guns (and their owners) that the store processed, for friends or relatives borrowing guns.

So it sounds like your saying there is nothing technically wrong with universal BG checks except for what you think might come afterwards which is registration. Am I understanding you correctly?

No........I posted just a few things wrong with the universal background checks.......and they are all deal killers. Gun registration alone is the reason to stop them, then when you get into the details and you find out how they attack normal gun owners it just shows even more reasons to block them at all cost.

And on top of that....they don't even work to stop criminals or mass shooters....

So complete, hard, no to universal background checks.

 

[2aguy]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

My post #296 gives you the exact reasons universal background checks are an infringement on the Right to own and carry guns, and simply a backdoor way to get to gun registration, as well as ways to make it harder for Americans to exercise their Right...

You can't give any reason to support universal background checks.

I think it’s a much cleaner and more efficient system to have universal BG checks. That’s a pretty simple and basic reason. I imagine if pressed you also wouldn’t technically have a problem with registration except for the fact that you think it is the step that leads to confiscation. Am I right?

Wrong on all of it.........I am against universal background checks and gun registration...completely against them.....

There is no reason for either one, and you can't show a good reason for either one.

We have all the laws we need to arrest and jail criminals who use guns...we have them right now, we do not need any more.....

 

[Slade3200]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

It will give anti-gunners the ability to demand gun registration.....that is the only real reason the anti-gun extremists want them. If they get universal background checks...which criminals will avoid the same way they avoid current, federally mandated background checks by using straw buyers or simply stealing the guns......

Then criminals will still get guns and the gun crime rate won't go down in democrat party controlled cities....

Mass public shooters who can pass any and all background checks will still commt mass public shootings...

Then, a few years after getting them.....anti-gunners will come back with the same tactics and demand gun registration.....which they need before they confiscate guns ........

There are also other attacks that universal background checks will allow...

The following links explain exactly why universal background checks need to be stopped....

Textual analysis of HR8, bill to "To require a background check for every firearm sale"

Summary

HR8 requires that loans, gifts, and sales of firearms be processed by a gun store. The same fees, paperwork, and permanent record-keeping apply as to buying a new gun from the store.
If you loan a gun to a friend without going to the gun store, the penalty is the same as for knowingly selling a gun to a convicted violent felon.

Likewise, when the friend returns the gun, another trip to the gun store is necessary, upon pain of felony.

A clever trick in HR8 effectively bans handguns for persons 18-to20.

The bill has some narrow exemptions. The minuscule exemption for self-defense does not cover stalking victims. None of the exemptions cover farming and ranching, sharing guns on almost all public and private lands, or storing guns with friends while on vacation. The limited exemption for family excludes first cousins and in-laws.
And this......they love this...

The bill authorizes unlimited fees to be imposed by
regulation.
-----
The narrowness of the self-defense exemption endangers domestic violence victims. For example, a former domestic partner threatens a woman and her children. An attack might come in the next hour, or the next month, or never. The victim and her children cannot know. Because the attack is uncertain—and is certainly not "immediate"—the woman cannot borrow a handgun from a neighbor for her defense. Many domestic violence victims do not have several hundred spare dollars so that they can buy their own gun. Sometimes, threats are manifested at night, when gun stores are not open.
-------

HR8 requires almost all firearms sales and loans to be conducted by a federally-licensed dealer. Because federal law prohibits licensed dealers from transferring handguns to persons under 21 years, HR8 prevents young adults from acquiring handguns. This is a clever way to enact a handgun ban indirectly.

HR8 would prohibit a 20-year-old woman who lives on her own from acquiring a handgun for self-defense in her home, such as by buying it from a relative or borrowing it from a friend.
-----

Exorbitant fees may be imposed by regulation

"(3)(A) Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Attorney General may implement this sub-section with regulations."

"(D) Regulations promulgated under this paragraph may not include any provision placing a cap on the fee licensees may charge to facilitate transfers in accordance with paragraph (1)."

Regulators may set a minimum fee, but not "a cap on a fee." The Attorney General is allowed to require that every gun store charge a fee of $30, $50, $150, or more. Even a $20 fee can be a hard burden to a poor person.

------
Family members

You can make a "a loan or bona fide gift" to some family members. In-laws and cousins are excluded.

The family exemption vanishes if one family member pays the other in any way. If a brother trades an extra shotgun to his sister in exchange for her extra television, both of them have to go to a gun store. Their exchange will have all the fees and paperwork as if she were buying a gun from the store.
=====

Gun Control Won't Stop Crime

“Universal” Background Checks
Part of the genius of the Bloomberg gun control system is how it creates prohibitions indirectly. Bloomberg’s so-called “universal” background check scheme is a prime example. These bills are never just about having background checks on the private sales of firearms. That aspect is the part that the public is told about. Yet when you read the Bloomberg laws, you find that checks on private sales are the tip of a very large iceberg of gun prohibition.

First, the bills criminalize a vast amount of innocent activity. Suppose you are an nra Certified Instructor teaching an introductory safety class. Under your supervision, students will handle a variety of unloaded firearms. They will learn how different guns have different safeties, and they will learn the safe way to hand a firearm to another person. But thanks to Bloomberg, these classroom firearm lessons are now illegal in Washington state, unless the class takes place at a shooting range.

It’s now also illegal to lend a gun to your friend, so that you can shoot together at a range on your own property. Or to lend a firearm for a week to your neighbor who is being stalked.

Under the Bloomberg system, gun loans are generally forbidden, unless the gun owner and the borrower both go to a gun store first. The store must process the loan as if the store were selling the gun out of its inventory.

Then, when your friend wants to return your gun to you, both of you must go to the gun store again. This time, the store will process that transaction as if you were buying the gun from the store’s inventory. For both the loan and the return of the gun, you will have to pay whatever fees the store charges, and whatever fees the government might charge. The gun store will have to keep a permanent record of you, your friend and the gun, including the gun’s serial number. Depending on the state or city, the government might also keep a permanent record.

In other words, the “background check” law is really a law to expand gun registration—and registration lists are used for confiscation. Consider New York City. In 1967, violent crime in the city was out of control. So the City Council and Mayor John Lindsay required registration of all long guns. The criminals, obviously, did not comply. Thanks to the 1911 Sullivan Act, New York City already had established registration lists for handgun owners.

Then, in 1991, the City Council decided that many lawfully registered firearms were now illegal “assault weapons.” The New York Police Department used the registration lists to ensure that the guns were either surrendered to the government or moved out of the city. When he was mayor of New York City, Bloomberg did the same, after the “assault weapon” law was expanded to cover any rifle or shotgun with an ammunition capacity greater than five rounds.

In Australia and Great Britain—which are often cited as models for the U.S. to follow—registration lists were used for gun confiscation. In Great Britain, this included all handguns; in Australia, handguns over .38 caliber. Both countries banned all semi-automatic or pump-action long guns.

Most American jurisdictions don’t have a comprehensive gun registration system. But even if your state legislature has outlawed gun registration, firearm stores must keep records. Those records could be harvested for future confiscations. Under the Bloomberg system, the store’s list would include not just the guns that the store actually sold, but all the guns (and their owners) that the store processed, for friends or relatives borrowing guns.

So it sounds like your saying there is nothing technically wrong with universal BG checks except for what you think might come afterwards which is registration. Am I understanding you correctly?

No........I posted just a few things wrong with the universal background checks.......and they are all deal killers. Gun registration alone is the reason to stop them, then when you get into the details and you find out how they attack normal gun owners it just shows even more reasons to block them at all cost.

And on top of that....they don't even work to stop criminals or mass shooters....

So complete, hard, no to universal background checks.

Do you truly believe that no laws have ever prevented somebody from getting and using a gun to commit a crime?

 

[Slade3200]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

My post #296 gives you the exact reasons universal background checks are an infringement on the Right to own and carry guns, and simply a backdoor way to get to gun registration, as well as ways to make it harder for Americans to exercise their Right...

You can't give any reason to support universal background checks.

I think it’s a much cleaner and more efficient system to have universal BG checks. That’s a pretty simple and basic reason. I imagine if pressed you also wouldn’t technically have a problem with registration except for the fact that you think it is the step that leads to confiscation. Am I right?

Wrong on all of it.........I am against universal background checks and gun registration...completely against them.....

There is no reason for either one, and you can't show a good reason for either one.

We have all the laws we need to arrest and jail criminals who use guns...we have them right now, we do not need any more.....

I can show good reasons for both. UBC is a better process than we currently have to prevent the legal sale of firearms to dangerous people who shouldn’t be owning guns. And Registration is a system that helps law enforcement trace guns that are used in crimes and promotes responsible gun ownership. Same concept that’s used with cars.

 

[2aguy]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

It will give anti-gunners the ability to demand gun registration.....that is the only real reason the anti-gun extremists want them. If they get universal background checks...which criminals will avoid the same way they avoid current, federally mandated background checks by using straw buyers or simply stealing the guns......

Then criminals will still get guns and the gun crime rate won't go down in democrat party controlled cities....

Mass public shooters who can pass any and all background checks will still commt mass public shootings...

Then, a few years after getting them.....anti-gunners will come back with the same tactics and demand gun registration.....which they need before they confiscate guns ........

There are also other attacks that universal background checks will allow...

The following links explain exactly why universal background checks need to be stopped....

Textual analysis of HR8, bill to "To require a background check for every firearm sale"

Summary

HR8 requires that loans, gifts, and sales of firearms be processed by a gun store. The same fees, paperwork, and permanent record-keeping apply as to buying a new gun from the store.
If you loan a gun to a friend without going to the gun store, the penalty is the same as for knowingly selling a gun to a convicted violent felon.

Likewise, when the friend returns the gun, another trip to the gun store is necessary, upon pain of felony.

A clever trick in HR8 effectively bans handguns for persons 18-to20.

The bill has some narrow exemptions. The minuscule exemption for self-defense does not cover stalking victims. None of the exemptions cover farming and ranching, sharing guns on almost all public and private lands, or storing guns with friends while on vacation. The limited exemption for family excludes first cousins and in-laws.
And this......they love this...

The bill authorizes unlimited fees to be imposed by
regulation.
-----
The narrowness of the self-defense exemption endangers domestic violence victims. For example, a former domestic partner threatens a woman and her children. An attack might come in the next hour, or the next month, or never. The victim and her children cannot know. Because the attack is uncertain—and is certainly not "immediate"—the woman cannot borrow a handgun from a neighbor for her defense. Many domestic violence victims do not have several hundred spare dollars so that they can buy their own gun. Sometimes, threats are manifested at night, when gun stores are not open.
-------

HR8 requires almost all firearms sales and loans to be conducted by a federally-licensed dealer. Because federal law prohibits licensed dealers from transferring handguns to persons under 21 years, HR8 prevents young adults from acquiring handguns. This is a clever way to enact a handgun ban indirectly.

HR8 would prohibit a 20-year-old woman who lives on her own from acquiring a handgun for self-defense in her home, such as by buying it from a relative or borrowing it from a friend.
-----

Exorbitant fees may be imposed by regulation

"(3)(A) Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Attorney General may implement this sub-section with regulations."

"(D) Regulations promulgated under this paragraph may not include any provision placing a cap on the fee licensees may charge to facilitate transfers in accordance with paragraph (1)."

Regulators may set a minimum fee, but not "a cap on a fee." The Attorney General is allowed to require that every gun store charge a fee of $30, $50, $150, or more. Even a $20 fee can be a hard burden to a poor person.

------
Family members

You can make a "a loan or bona fide gift" to some family members. In-laws and cousins are excluded.

The family exemption vanishes if one family member pays the other in any way. If a brother trades an extra shotgun to his sister in exchange for her extra television, both of them have to go to a gun store. Their exchange will have all the fees and paperwork as if she were buying a gun from the store.
=====

Gun Control Won't Stop Crime

“Universal” Background Checks
Part of the genius of the Bloomberg gun control system is how it creates prohibitions indirectly. Bloomberg’s so-called “universal” background check scheme is a prime example. These bills are never just about having background checks on the private sales of firearms. That aspect is the part that the public is told about. Yet when you read the Bloomberg laws, you find that checks on private sales are the tip of a very large iceberg of gun prohibition.

First, the bills criminalize a vast amount of innocent activity. Suppose you are an nra Certified Instructor teaching an introductory safety class. Under your supervision, students will handle a variety of unloaded firearms. They will learn how different guns have different safeties, and they will learn the safe way to hand a firearm to another person. But thanks to Bloomberg, these classroom firearm lessons are now illegal in Washington state, unless the class takes place at a shooting range.

It’s now also illegal to lend a gun to your friend, so that you can shoot together at a range on your own property. Or to lend a firearm for a week to your neighbor who is being stalked.

Under the Bloomberg system, gun loans are generally forbidden, unless the gun owner and the borrower both go to a gun store first. The store must process the loan as if the store were selling the gun out of its inventory.

Then, when your friend wants to return your gun to you, both of you must go to the gun store again. This time, the store will process that transaction as if you were buying the gun from the store’s inventory. For both the loan and the return of the gun, you will have to pay whatever fees the store charges, and whatever fees the government might charge. The gun store will have to keep a permanent record of you, your friend and the gun, including the gun’s serial number. Depending on the state or city, the government might also keep a permanent record.

In other words, the “background check” law is really a law to expand gun registration—and registration lists are used for confiscation. Consider New York City. In 1967, violent crime in the city was out of control. So the City Council and Mayor John Lindsay required registration of all long guns. The criminals, obviously, did not comply. Thanks to the 1911 Sullivan Act, New York City already had established registration lists for handgun owners.

Then, in 1991, the City Council decided that many lawfully registered firearms were now illegal “assault weapons.” The New York Police Department used the registration lists to ensure that the guns were either surrendered to the government or moved out of the city. When he was mayor of New York City, Bloomberg did the same, after the “assault weapon” law was expanded to cover any rifle or shotgun with an ammunition capacity greater than five rounds.

In Australia and Great Britain—which are often cited as models for the U.S. to follow—registration lists were used for gun confiscation. In Great Britain, this included all handguns; in Australia, handguns over .38 caliber. Both countries banned all semi-automatic or pump-action long guns.

Most American jurisdictions don’t have a comprehensive gun registration system. But even if your state legislature has outlawed gun registration, firearm stores must keep records. Those records could be harvested for future confiscations. Under the Bloomberg system, the store’s list would include not just the guns that the store actually sold, but all the guns (and their owners) that the store processed, for friends or relatives borrowing guns.

So it sounds like your saying there is nothing technically wrong with universal BG checks except for what you think might come afterwards which is registration. Am I understanding you correctly?

No........I posted just a few things wrong with the universal background checks.......and they are all deal killers. Gun registration alone is the reason to stop them, then when you get into the details and you find out how they attack normal gun owners it just shows even more reasons to block them at all cost.

And on top of that....they don't even work to stop criminals or mass shooters....

So complete, hard, no to universal background checks.

Do you truly believe that no laws have ever prevented somebody from getting and using a gun to commit a crime?

No.....I think we have all the laws we need, right now, to arrest and jail people who use guns for crimes. I also believe that the call for more laws are not based in trying to stop criminals from getting and using guns, but are simply small steps to removing guns from the hands of normal, law abiding Americans.

I have shown you that universal background checks do not stop criminals from getting illegal guns. I have shown you they have no effect on mass public shooters.

I then showed you the ultimate goal....gun registration that will be used for gun confiscation.

You can't show any reason that we need universal background checks when the laws we already have deal with all of the gun crime issues.

 

[2aguy]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

My post #296 gives you the exact reasons universal background checks are an infringement on the Right to own and carry guns, and simply a backdoor way to get to gun registration, as well as ways to make it harder for Americans to exercise their Right...

You can't give any reason to support universal background checks.

I think it’s a much cleaner and more efficient system to have universal BG checks. That’s a pretty simple and basic reason. I imagine if pressed you also wouldn’t technically have a problem with registration except for the fact that you think it is the step that leads to confiscation. Am I right?

Wrong on all of it.........I am against universal background checks and gun registration...completely against them.....

There is no reason for either one, and you can't show a good reason for either one.

We have all the laws we need to arrest and jail criminals who use guns...we have them right now, we do not need any more.....

I can show good reasons for both. UBC is a better process than we currently have to prevent the legal sale of firearms to dangerous people who shouldn’t be owning guns. And Registration is a system that helps law enforcement trace guns that are used in crimes and promotes responsible gun ownership. Same concept that’s used with cars.

You can't show that since criminals use straw buyers who can pass any background check.......or they steal their guns.

Mass public shooters can pass any background check...or they steal their guns.

So right there....you have no argument for background checks.

No....gun registration does not help police trace guns for crimes...since the average street life of a gun is 11 years before the police find it.

Do you understand that criminals are not legally required to register their illegal guns? That if they are caught with an illegal gun, they can't be prosecuted for not registering their illegal gun? But normal, law abiding citizens can be prosecuted for it? Haynes v United States Supreme Court decision stated felons can't be forced to register their illegal guns, since they can't have illegal guns and therefore it would be a violation of their 5th Amendment rights.....

So you have nothing....I have shown every violation that the universal background check create to the Right to bear arms, with no benefit......and the end game of gun confiscation with gun registration, and again, no benefit from it...

You have nothing...

You just want to ban guns incrementally.

 

[Slade3200]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

It will give anti-gunners the ability to demand gun registration.....that is the only real reason the anti-gun extremists want them. If they get universal background checks...which criminals will avoid the same way they avoid current, federally mandated background checks by using straw buyers or simply stealing the guns......

Then criminals will still get guns and the gun crime rate won't go down in democrat party controlled cities....

Mass public shooters who can pass any and all background checks will still commt mass public shootings...

Then, a few years after getting them.....anti-gunners will come back with the same tactics and demand gun registration.....which they need before they confiscate guns ........

There are also other attacks that universal background checks will allow...

The following links explain exactly why universal background checks need to be stopped....

Textual analysis of HR8, bill to "To require a background check for every firearm sale"

Summary

HR8 requires that loans, gifts, and sales of firearms be processed by a gun store. The same fees, paperwork, and permanent record-keeping apply as to buying a new gun from the store.
If you loan a gun to a friend without going to the gun store, the penalty is the same as for knowingly selling a gun to a convicted violent felon.

Likewise, when the friend returns the gun, another trip to the gun store is necessary, upon pain of felony.

A clever trick in HR8 effectively bans handguns for persons 18-to20.

The bill has some narrow exemptions. The minuscule exemption for self-defense does not cover stalking victims. None of the exemptions cover farming and ranching, sharing guns on almost all public and private lands, or storing guns with friends while on vacation. The limited exemption for family excludes first cousins and in-laws.
And this......they love this...

The bill authorizes unlimited fees to be imposed by
regulation.
-----
The narrowness of the self-defense exemption endangers domestic violence victims. For example, a former domestic partner threatens a woman and her children. An attack might come in the next hour, or the next month, or never. The victim and her children cannot know. Because the attack is uncertain—and is certainly not "immediate"—the woman cannot borrow a handgun from a neighbor for her defense. Many domestic violence victims do not have several hundred spare dollars so that they can buy their own gun. Sometimes, threats are manifested at night, when gun stores are not open.
-------

HR8 requires almost all firearms sales and loans to be conducted by a federally-licensed dealer. Because federal law prohibits licensed dealers from transferring handguns to persons under 21 years, HR8 prevents young adults from acquiring handguns. This is a clever way to enact a handgun ban indirectly.

HR8 would prohibit a 20-year-old woman who lives on her own from acquiring a handgun for self-defense in her home, such as by buying it from a relative or borrowing it from a friend.
-----

Exorbitant fees may be imposed by regulation

"(3)(A) Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Attorney General may implement this sub-section with regulations."

"(D) Regulations promulgated under this paragraph may not include any provision placing a cap on the fee licensees may charge to facilitate transfers in accordance with paragraph (1)."

Regulators may set a minimum fee, but not "a cap on a fee." The Attorney General is allowed to require that every gun store charge a fee of $30, $50, $150, or more. Even a $20 fee can be a hard burden to a poor person.

------
Family members

You can make a "a loan or bona fide gift" to some family members. In-laws and cousins are excluded.

The family exemption vanishes if one family member pays the other in any way. If a brother trades an extra shotgun to his sister in exchange for her extra television, both of them have to go to a gun store. Their exchange will have all the fees and paperwork as if she were buying a gun from the store.
=====

Gun Control Won't Stop Crime

“Universal” Background Checks
Part of the genius of the Bloomberg gun control system is how it creates prohibitions indirectly. Bloomberg’s so-called “universal” background check scheme is a prime example. These bills are never just about having background checks on the private sales of firearms. That aspect is the part that the public is told about. Yet when you read the Bloomberg laws, you find that checks on private sales are the tip of a very large iceberg of gun prohibition.

First, the bills criminalize a vast amount of innocent activity. Suppose you are an nra Certified Instructor teaching an introductory safety class. Under your supervision, students will handle a variety of unloaded firearms. They will learn how different guns have different safeties, and they will learn the safe way to hand a firearm to another person. But thanks to Bloomberg, these classroom firearm lessons are now illegal in Washington state, unless the class takes place at a shooting range.

It’s now also illegal to lend a gun to your friend, so that you can shoot together at a range on your own property. Or to lend a firearm for a week to your neighbor who is being stalked.

Under the Bloomberg system, gun loans are generally forbidden, unless the gun owner and the borrower both go to a gun store first. The store must process the loan as if the store were selling the gun out of its inventory.

Then, when your friend wants to return your gun to you, both of you must go to the gun store again. This time, the store will process that transaction as if you were buying the gun from the store’s inventory. For both the loan and the return of the gun, you will have to pay whatever fees the store charges, and whatever fees the government might charge. The gun store will have to keep a permanent record of you, your friend and the gun, including the gun’s serial number. Depending on the state or city, the government might also keep a permanent record.

In other words, the “background check” law is really a law to expand gun registration—and registration lists are used for confiscation. Consider New York City. In 1967, violent crime in the city was out of control. So the City Council and Mayor John Lindsay required registration of all long guns. The criminals, obviously, did not comply. Thanks to the 1911 Sullivan Act, New York City already had established registration lists for handgun owners.

Then, in 1991, the City Council decided that many lawfully registered firearms were now illegal “assault weapons.” The New York Police Department used the registration lists to ensure that the guns were either surrendered to the government or moved out of the city. When he was mayor of New York City, Bloomberg did the same, after the “assault weapon” law was expanded to cover any rifle or shotgun with an ammunition capacity greater than five rounds.

In Australia and Great Britain—which are often cited as models for the U.S. to follow—registration lists were used for gun confiscation. In Great Britain, this included all handguns; in Australia, handguns over .38 caliber. Both countries banned all semi-automatic or pump-action long guns.

Most American jurisdictions don’t have a comprehensive gun registration system. But even if your state legislature has outlawed gun registration, firearm stores must keep records. Those records could be harvested for future confiscations. Under the Bloomberg system, the store’s list would include not just the guns that the store actually sold, but all the guns (and their owners) that the store processed, for friends or relatives borrowing guns.

So it sounds like your saying there is nothing technically wrong with universal BG checks except for what you think might come afterwards which is registration. Am I understanding you correctly?

No........I posted just a few things wrong with the universal background checks.......and they are all deal killers. Gun registration alone is the reason to stop them, then when you get into the details and you find out how they attack normal gun owners it just shows even more reasons to block them at all cost.

And on top of that....they don't even work to stop criminals or mass shooters....

So complete, hard, no to universal background checks.

Do you truly believe that no laws have ever prevented somebody from getting and using a gun to commit a crime?

No.....I think we have all the laws we need, right now, to arrest and jail people who use guns for crimes. I also believe that the call for more laws are not based in trying to stop criminals from getting and using guns, but are simply small steps to removing guns from the hands of normal, law abiding Americans.

I have shown you that universal background checks do not stop criminals from getting illegal guns. I have shown you they have no effect on mass public shooters.

I then showed you the ultimate goal....gun registration that will be used for gun confiscation.

You can't show any reason that we need universal background checks when the laws we already have deal with all of the gun crime issues.

I understand that you think we have all the laws we need but you didn’t answer my question. Do you think that gun regulation has ever stopped a person from getting a gun and committing a crime with it?

 

[Slade3200]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

My post #296 gives you the exact reasons universal background checks are an infringement on the Right to own and carry guns, and simply a backdoor way to get to gun registration, as well as ways to make it harder for Americans to exercise their Right...

You can't give any reason to support universal background checks.

I think it’s a much cleaner and more efficient system to have universal BG checks. That’s a pretty simple and basic reason. I imagine if pressed you also wouldn’t technically have a problem with registration except for the fact that you think it is the step that leads to confiscation. Am I right?

Wrong on all of it.........I am against universal background checks and gun registration...completely against them.....

There is no reason for either one, and you can't show a good reason for either one.

We have all the laws we need to arrest and jail criminals who use guns...we have them right now, we do not need any more.....

I can show good reasons for both. UBC is a better process than we currently have to prevent the legal sale of firearms to dangerous people who shouldn’t be owning guns. And Registration is a system that helps law enforcement trace guns that are used in crimes and promotes responsible gun ownership. Same concept that’s used with cars.

You can't show that since criminals use straw buyers who can pass any background check.......or they steal their guns.

Mass public shooters can pass any background check...or they steal their guns.

So right there....you have no argument for background checks.

No....gun registration does not help police trace guns for crimes...since the average street life of a gun is 11 years before the police find it.

Do you understand that criminals are not legally required to register their illegal guns? That if they are caught with an illegal gun, they can't be prosecuted for not registering their illegal gun? But normal, law abiding citizens can be prosecuted for it? Haynes v United States Supreme Court decision stated felons can't be forced to register their illegal guns, since they can't have illegal guns and therefore it would be a violation of their 5th Amendment rights.....

So you have nothing....I have shown every violation that the universal background check create to the Right to bear arms, with no benefit......and the end game of gun confiscation with gun registration, and again, no benefit from it...

You have nothing...

You just want to ban guns incrementally.

You point to all the exceptions and pretend like they apply to every case. I’m sorry but that’s not reality.

 

[2aguy]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

It will give anti-gunners the ability to demand gun registration.....that is the only real reason the anti-gun extremists want them. If they get universal background checks...which criminals will avoid the same way they avoid current, federally mandated background checks by using straw buyers or simply stealing the guns......

Then criminals will still get guns and the gun crime rate won't go down in democrat party controlled cities....

Mass public shooters who can pass any and all background checks will still commt mass public shootings...

Then, a few years after getting them.....anti-gunners will come back with the same tactics and demand gun registration.....which they need before they confiscate guns ........

There are also other attacks that universal background checks will allow...

The following links explain exactly why universal background checks need to be stopped....

Textual analysis of HR8, bill to "To require a background check for every firearm sale"

Summary

HR8 requires that loans, gifts, and sales of firearms be processed by a gun store. The same fees, paperwork, and permanent record-keeping apply as to buying a new gun from the store.
If you loan a gun to a friend without going to the gun store, the penalty is the same as for knowingly selling a gun to a convicted violent felon.

Likewise, when the friend returns the gun, another trip to the gun store is necessary, upon pain of felony.

A clever trick in HR8 effectively bans handguns for persons 18-to20.

The bill has some narrow exemptions. The minuscule exemption for self-defense does not cover stalking victims. None of the exemptions cover farming and ranching, sharing guns on almost all public and private lands, or storing guns with friends while on vacation. The limited exemption for family excludes first cousins and in-laws.
And this......they love this...

The bill authorizes unlimited fees to be imposed by
regulation.
-----
The narrowness of the self-defense exemption endangers domestic violence victims. For example, a former domestic partner threatens a woman and her children. An attack might come in the next hour, or the next month, or never. The victim and her children cannot know. Because the attack is uncertain—and is certainly not "immediate"—the woman cannot borrow a handgun from a neighbor for her defense. Many domestic violence victims do not have several hundred spare dollars so that they can buy their own gun. Sometimes, threats are manifested at night, when gun stores are not open.
-------

HR8 requires almost all firearms sales and loans to be conducted by a federally-licensed dealer. Because federal law prohibits licensed dealers from transferring handguns to persons under 21 years, HR8 prevents young adults from acquiring handguns. This is a clever way to enact a handgun ban indirectly.

HR8 would prohibit a 20-year-old woman who lives on her own from acquiring a handgun for self-defense in her home, such as by buying it from a relative or borrowing it from a friend.
-----

Exorbitant fees may be imposed by regulation

"(3)(A) Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Attorney General may implement this sub-section with regulations."

"(D) Regulations promulgated under this paragraph may not include any provision placing a cap on the fee licensees may charge to facilitate transfers in accordance with paragraph (1)."

Regulators may set a minimum fee, but not "a cap on a fee." The Attorney General is allowed to require that every gun store charge a fee of $30, $50, $150, or more. Even a $20 fee can be a hard burden to a poor person.

------
Family members

You can make a "a loan or bona fide gift" to some family members. In-laws and cousins are excluded.

The family exemption vanishes if one family member pays the other in any way. If a brother trades an extra shotgun to his sister in exchange for her extra television, both of them have to go to a gun store. Their exchange will have all the fees and paperwork as if she were buying a gun from the store.
=====

Gun Control Won't Stop Crime

“Universal” Background Checks
Part of the genius of the Bloomberg gun control system is how it creates prohibitions indirectly. Bloomberg’s so-called “universal” background check scheme is a prime example. These bills are never just about having background checks on the private sales of firearms. That aspect is the part that the public is told about. Yet when you read the Bloomberg laws, you find that checks on private sales are the tip of a very large iceberg of gun prohibition.

First, the bills criminalize a vast amount of innocent activity. Suppose you are an nra Certified Instructor teaching an introductory safety class. Under your supervision, students will handle a variety of unloaded firearms. They will learn how different guns have different safeties, and they will learn the safe way to hand a firearm to another person. But thanks to Bloomberg, these classroom firearm lessons are now illegal in Washington state, unless the class takes place at a shooting range.

It’s now also illegal to lend a gun to your friend, so that you can shoot together at a range on your own property. Or to lend a firearm for a week to your neighbor who is being stalked.

Under the Bloomberg system, gun loans are generally forbidden, unless the gun owner and the borrower both go to a gun store first. The store must process the loan as if the store were selling the gun out of its inventory.

Then, when your friend wants to return your gun to you, both of you must go to the gun store again. This time, the store will process that transaction as if you were buying the gun from the store’s inventory. For both the loan and the return of the gun, you will have to pay whatever fees the store charges, and whatever fees the government might charge. The gun store will have to keep a permanent record of you, your friend and the gun, including the gun’s serial number. Depending on the state or city, the government might also keep a permanent record.

In other words, the “background check” law is really a law to expand gun registration—and registration lists are used for confiscation. Consider New York City. In 1967, violent crime in the city was out of control. So the City Council and Mayor John Lindsay required registration of all long guns. The criminals, obviously, did not comply. Thanks to the 1911 Sullivan Act, New York City already had established registration lists for handgun owners.

Then, in 1991, the City Council decided that many lawfully registered firearms were now illegal “assault weapons.” The New York Police Department used the registration lists to ensure that the guns were either surrendered to the government or moved out of the city. When he was mayor of New York City, Bloomberg did the same, after the “assault weapon” law was expanded to cover any rifle or shotgun with an ammunition capacity greater than five rounds.

In Australia and Great Britain—which are often cited as models for the U.S. to follow—registration lists were used for gun confiscation. In Great Britain, this included all handguns; in Australia, handguns over .38 caliber. Both countries banned all semi-automatic or pump-action long guns.

Most American jurisdictions don’t have a comprehensive gun registration system. But even if your state legislature has outlawed gun registration, firearm stores must keep records. Those records could be harvested for future confiscations. Under the Bloomberg system, the store’s list would include not just the guns that the store actually sold, but all the guns (and their owners) that the store processed, for friends or relatives borrowing guns.

So it sounds like your saying there is nothing technically wrong with universal BG checks except for what you think might come afterwards which is registration. Am I understanding you correctly?

No........I posted just a few things wrong with the universal background checks.......and they are all deal killers. Gun registration alone is the reason to stop them, then when you get into the details and you find out how they attack normal gun owners it just shows even more reasons to block them at all cost.

And on top of that....they don't even work to stop criminals or mass shooters....

So complete, hard, no to universal background checks.

Do you truly believe that no laws have ever prevented somebody from getting and using a gun to commit a crime?

No.....I think we have all the laws we need, right now, to arrest and jail people who use guns for crimes. I also believe that the call for more laws are not based in trying to stop criminals from getting and using guns, but are simply small steps to removing guns from the hands of normal, law abiding Americans.

I have shown you that universal background checks do not stop criminals from getting illegal guns. I have shown you they have no effect on mass public shooters.

I then showed you the ultimate goal....gun registration that will be used for gun confiscation.

You can't show any reason that we need universal background checks when the laws we already have deal with all of the gun crime issues.

I understand that you think we have all the laws we need but you didn’t answer my question. Do you think that gun regulation has ever stopped a person from getting a gun and committing a crime with it?

Yes......and then they either used a straw buyer or stole their gun. So no.

 

[Slade3200]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

It will give anti-gunners the ability to demand gun registration.....that is the only real reason the anti-gun extremists want them. If they get universal background checks...which criminals will avoid the same way they avoid current, federally mandated background checks by using straw buyers or simply stealing the guns......

Then criminals will still get guns and the gun crime rate won't go down in democrat party controlled cities....

Mass public shooters who can pass any and all background checks will still commt mass public shootings...

Then, a few years after getting them.....anti-gunners will come back with the same tactics and demand gun registration.....which they need before they confiscate guns ........

There are also other attacks that universal background checks will allow...

The following links explain exactly why universal background checks need to be stopped....

Textual analysis of HR8, bill to "To require a background check for every firearm sale"

Summary

HR8 requires that loans, gifts, and sales of firearms be processed by a gun store. The same fees, paperwork, and permanent record-keeping apply as to buying a new gun from the store.
If you loan a gun to a friend without going to the gun store, the penalty is the same as for knowingly selling a gun to a convicted violent felon.

Likewise, when the friend returns the gun, another trip to the gun store is necessary, upon pain of felony.

A clever trick in HR8 effectively bans handguns for persons 18-to20.

The bill has some narrow exemptions. The minuscule exemption for self-defense does not cover stalking victims. None of the exemptions cover farming and ranching, sharing guns on almost all public and private lands, or storing guns with friends while on vacation. The limited exemption for family excludes first cousins and in-laws.
And this......they love this...

The bill authorizes unlimited fees to be imposed by
regulation.
-----
The narrowness of the self-defense exemption endangers domestic violence victims. For example, a former domestic partner threatens a woman and her children. An attack might come in the next hour, or the next month, or never. The victim and her children cannot know. Because the attack is uncertain—and is certainly not "immediate"—the woman cannot borrow a handgun from a neighbor for her defense. Many domestic violence victims do not have several hundred spare dollars so that they can buy their own gun. Sometimes, threats are manifested at night, when gun stores are not open.
-------

HR8 requires almost all firearms sales and loans to be conducted by a federally-licensed dealer. Because federal law prohibits licensed dealers from transferring handguns to persons under 21 years, HR8 prevents young adults from acquiring handguns. This is a clever way to enact a handgun ban indirectly.

HR8 would prohibit a 20-year-old woman who lives on her own from acquiring a handgun for self-defense in her home, such as by buying it from a relative or borrowing it from a friend.
-----

Exorbitant fees may be imposed by regulation

"(3)(A) Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Attorney General may implement this sub-section with regulations."

"(D) Regulations promulgated under this paragraph may not include any provision placing a cap on the fee licensees may charge to facilitate transfers in accordance with paragraph (1)."

Regulators may set a minimum fee, but not "a cap on a fee." The Attorney General is allowed to require that every gun store charge a fee of $30, $50, $150, or more. Even a $20 fee can be a hard burden to a poor person.

------
Family members

You can make a "a loan or bona fide gift" to some family members. In-laws and cousins are excluded.

The family exemption vanishes if one family member pays the other in any way. If a brother trades an extra shotgun to his sister in exchange for her extra television, both of them have to go to a gun store. Their exchange will have all the fees and paperwork as if she were buying a gun from the store.
=====

Gun Control Won't Stop Crime

“Universal” Background Checks
Part of the genius of the Bloomberg gun control system is how it creates prohibitions indirectly. Bloomberg’s so-called “universal” background check scheme is a prime example. These bills are never just about having background checks on the private sales of firearms. That aspect is the part that the public is told about. Yet when you read the Bloomberg laws, you find that checks on private sales are the tip of a very large iceberg of gun prohibition.

First, the bills criminalize a vast amount of innocent activity. Suppose you are an nra Certified Instructor teaching an introductory safety class. Under your supervision, students will handle a variety of unloaded firearms. They will learn how different guns have different safeties, and they will learn the safe way to hand a firearm to another person. But thanks to Bloomberg, these classroom firearm lessons are now illegal in Washington state, unless the class takes place at a shooting range.

It’s now also illegal to lend a gun to your friend, so that you can shoot together at a range on your own property. Or to lend a firearm for a week to your neighbor who is being stalked.

Under the Bloomberg system, gun loans are generally forbidden, unless the gun owner and the borrower both go to a gun store first. The store must process the loan as if the store were selling the gun out of its inventory.

Then, when your friend wants to return your gun to you, both of you must go to the gun store again. This time, the store will process that transaction as if you were buying the gun from the store’s inventory. For both the loan and the return of the gun, you will have to pay whatever fees the store charges, and whatever fees the government might charge. The gun store will have to keep a permanent record of you, your friend and the gun, including the gun’s serial number. Depending on the state or city, the government might also keep a permanent record.

In other words, the “background check” law is really a law to expand gun registration—and registration lists are used for confiscation. Consider New York City. In 1967, violent crime in the city was out of control. So the City Council and Mayor John Lindsay required registration of all long guns. The criminals, obviously, did not comply. Thanks to the 1911 Sullivan Act, New York City already had established registration lists for handgun owners.

Then, in 1991, the City Council decided that many lawfully registered firearms were now illegal “assault weapons.” The New York Police Department used the registration lists to ensure that the guns were either surrendered to the government or moved out of the city. When he was mayor of New York City, Bloomberg did the same, after the “assault weapon” law was expanded to cover any rifle or shotgun with an ammunition capacity greater than five rounds.

In Australia and Great Britain—which are often cited as models for the U.S. to follow—registration lists were used for gun confiscation. In Great Britain, this included all handguns; in Australia, handguns over .38 caliber. Both countries banned all semi-automatic or pump-action long guns.

Most American jurisdictions don’t have a comprehensive gun registration system. But even if your state legislature has outlawed gun registration, firearm stores must keep records. Those records could be harvested for future confiscations. Under the Bloomberg system, the store’s list would include not just the guns that the store actually sold, but all the guns (and their owners) that the store processed, for friends or relatives borrowing guns.

So it sounds like your saying there is nothing technically wrong with universal BG checks except for what you think might come afterwards which is registration. Am I understanding you correctly?

No........I posted just a few things wrong with the universal background checks.......and they are all deal killers. Gun registration alone is the reason to stop them, then when you get into the details and you find out how they attack normal gun owners it just shows even more reasons to block them at all cost.

And on top of that....they don't even work to stop criminals or mass shooters....

So complete, hard, no to universal background checks.

Do you truly believe that no laws have ever prevented somebody from getting and using a gun to commit a crime?

No.....I think we have all the laws we need, right now, to arrest and jail people who use guns for crimes. I also believe that the call for more laws are not based in trying to stop criminals from getting and using guns, but are simply small steps to removing guns from the hands of normal, law abiding Americans.

I have shown you that universal background checks do not stop criminals from getting illegal guns. I have shown you they have no effect on mass public shooters.

I then showed you the ultimate goal....gun registration that will be used for gun confiscation.

You can't show any reason that we need universal background checks when the laws we already have deal with all of the gun crime issues.

I understand that you think we have all the laws we need but you didn’t answer my question. Do you think that gun regulation has ever stopped a person from getting a gun and committing a crime with it?

Yes......and then they either used a straw buyer or stole their gun. So no.

They all use straw buyers or steal a gun? You really believe that?

 

[2aguy]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

My post #296 gives you the exact reasons universal background checks are an infringement on the Right to own and carry guns, and simply a backdoor way to get to gun registration, as well as ways to make it harder for Americans to exercise their Right...

You can't give any reason to support universal background checks.

I think it’s a much cleaner and more efficient system to have universal BG checks. That’s a pretty simple and basic reason. I imagine if pressed you also wouldn’t technically have a problem with registration except for the fact that you think it is the step that leads to confiscation. Am I right?

Wrong on all of it.........I am against universal background checks and gun registration...completely against them.....

There is no reason for either one, and you can't show a good reason for either one.

We have all the laws we need to arrest and jail criminals who use guns...we have them right now, we do not need any more.....

I can show good reasons for both. UBC is a better process than we currently have to prevent the legal sale of firearms to dangerous people who shouldn’t be owning guns. And Registration is a system that helps law enforcement trace guns that are used in crimes and promotes responsible gun ownership. Same concept that’s used with cars.

You can't show that since criminals use straw buyers who can pass any background check.......or they steal their guns.

Mass public shooters can pass any background check...or they steal their guns.

So right there....you have no argument for background checks.

No....gun registration does not help police trace guns for crimes...since the average street life of a gun is 11 years before the police find it.

Do you understand that criminals are not legally required to register their illegal guns? That if they are caught with an illegal gun, they can't be prosecuted for not registering their illegal gun? But normal, law abiding citizens can be prosecuted for it? Haynes v United States Supreme Court decision stated felons can't be forced to register their illegal guns, since they can't have illegal guns and therefore it would be a violation of their 5th Amendment rights.....

So you have nothing....I have shown every violation that the universal background check create to the Right to bear arms, with no benefit......and the end game of gun confiscation with gun registration, and again, no benefit from it...

You have nothing...

You just want to ban guns incrementally.

You point to all the exceptions and pretend like they apply to every case. I’m sorry but that’s not reality.

Sorry.....you have no case for restricting the Right to own and carry a gun....... everything you want makes the Right less accessible for normal, law abiding people for no good reason....so the things you want are a hard no. They are also unConstitutional.....the same way Poll Taxes and Literacy tests are unConstitutional for voting.

 

[2aguy]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

It will give anti-gunners the ability to demand gun registration.....that is the only real reason the anti-gun extremists want them. If they get universal background checks...which criminals will avoid the same way they avoid current, federally mandated background checks by using straw buyers or simply stealing the guns......

Then criminals will still get guns and the gun crime rate won't go down in democrat party controlled cities....

Mass public shooters who can pass any and all background checks will still commt mass public shootings...

Then, a few years after getting them.....anti-gunners will come back with the same tactics and demand gun registration.....which they need before they confiscate guns ........

There are also other attacks that universal background checks will allow...

The following links explain exactly why universal background checks need to be stopped....

Textual analysis of HR8, bill to "To require a background check for every firearm sale"

Summary

HR8 requires that loans, gifts, and sales of firearms be processed by a gun store. The same fees, paperwork, and permanent record-keeping apply as to buying a new gun from the store.
If you loan a gun to a friend without going to the gun store, the penalty is the same as for knowingly selling a gun to a convicted violent felon.

Likewise, when the friend returns the gun, another trip to the gun store is necessary, upon pain of felony.

A clever trick in HR8 effectively bans handguns for persons 18-to20.

The bill has some narrow exemptions. The minuscule exemption for self-defense does not cover stalking victims. None of the exemptions cover farming and ranching, sharing guns on almost all public and private lands, or storing guns with friends while on vacation. The limited exemption for family excludes first cousins and in-laws.
And this......they love this...

The bill authorizes unlimited fees to be imposed by
regulation.
-----
The narrowness of the self-defense exemption endangers domestic violence victims. For example, a former domestic partner threatens a woman and her children. An attack might come in the next hour, or the next month, or never. The victim and her children cannot know. Because the attack is uncertain—and is certainly not "immediate"—the woman cannot borrow a handgun from a neighbor for her defense. Many domestic violence victims do not have several hundred spare dollars so that they can buy their own gun. Sometimes, threats are manifested at night, when gun stores are not open.
-------

HR8 requires almost all firearms sales and loans to be conducted by a federally-licensed dealer. Because federal law prohibits licensed dealers from transferring handguns to persons under 21 years, HR8 prevents young adults from acquiring handguns. This is a clever way to enact a handgun ban indirectly.

HR8 would prohibit a 20-year-old woman who lives on her own from acquiring a handgun for self-defense in her home, such as by buying it from a relative or borrowing it from a friend.
-----

Exorbitant fees may be imposed by regulation

"(3)(A) Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Attorney General may implement this sub-section with regulations."

"(D) Regulations promulgated under this paragraph may not include any provision placing a cap on the fee licensees may charge to facilitate transfers in accordance with paragraph (1)."

Regulators may set a minimum fee, but not "a cap on a fee." The Attorney General is allowed to require that every gun store charge a fee of $30, $50, $150, or more. Even a $20 fee can be a hard burden to a poor person.

------
Family members

You can make a "a loan or bona fide gift" to some family members. In-laws and cousins are excluded.

The family exemption vanishes if one family member pays the other in any way. If a brother trades an extra shotgun to his sister in exchange for her extra television, both of them have to go to a gun store. Their exchange will have all the fees and paperwork as if she were buying a gun from the store.
=====

Gun Control Won't Stop Crime

“Universal” Background Checks
Part of the genius of the Bloomberg gun control system is how it creates prohibitions indirectly. Bloomberg’s so-called “universal” background check scheme is a prime example. These bills are never just about having background checks on the private sales of firearms. That aspect is the part that the public is told about. Yet when you read the Bloomberg laws, you find that checks on private sales are the tip of a very large iceberg of gun prohibition.

First, the bills criminalize a vast amount of innocent activity. Suppose you are an nra Certified Instructor teaching an introductory safety class. Under your supervision, students will handle a variety of unloaded firearms. They will learn how different guns have different safeties, and they will learn the safe way to hand a firearm to another person. But thanks to Bloomberg, these classroom firearm lessons are now illegal in Washington state, unless the class takes place at a shooting range.

It’s now also illegal to lend a gun to your friend, so that you can shoot together at a range on your own property. Or to lend a firearm for a week to your neighbor who is being stalked.

Under the Bloomberg system, gun loans are generally forbidden, unless the gun owner and the borrower both go to a gun store first. The store must process the loan as if the store were selling the gun out of its inventory.

Then, when your friend wants to return your gun to you, both of you must go to the gun store again. This time, the store will process that transaction as if you were buying the gun from the store’s inventory. For both the loan and the return of the gun, you will have to pay whatever fees the store charges, and whatever fees the government might charge. The gun store will have to keep a permanent record of you, your friend and the gun, including the gun’s serial number. Depending on the state or city, the government might also keep a permanent record.

In other words, the “background check” law is really a law to expand gun registration—and registration lists are used for confiscation. Consider New York City. In 1967, violent crime in the city was out of control. So the City Council and Mayor John Lindsay required registration of all long guns. The criminals, obviously, did not comply. Thanks to the 1911 Sullivan Act, New York City already had established registration lists for handgun owners.

Then, in 1991, the City Council decided that many lawfully registered firearms were now illegal “assault weapons.” The New York Police Department used the registration lists to ensure that the guns were either surrendered to the government or moved out of the city. When he was mayor of New York City, Bloomberg did the same, after the “assault weapon” law was expanded to cover any rifle or shotgun with an ammunition capacity greater than five rounds.

In Australia and Great Britain—which are often cited as models for the U.S. to follow—registration lists were used for gun confiscation. In Great Britain, this included all handguns; in Australia, handguns over .38 caliber. Both countries banned all semi-automatic or pump-action long guns.

Most American jurisdictions don’t have a comprehensive gun registration system. But even if your state legislature has outlawed gun registration, firearm stores must keep records. Those records could be harvested for future confiscations. Under the Bloomberg system, the store’s list would include not just the guns that the store actually sold, but all the guns (and their owners) that the store processed, for friends or relatives borrowing guns.

So it sounds like your saying there is nothing technically wrong with universal BG checks except for what you think might come afterwards which is registration. Am I understanding you correctly?

No........I posted just a few things wrong with the universal background checks.......and they are all deal killers. Gun registration alone is the reason to stop them, then when you get into the details and you find out how they attack normal gun owners it just shows even more reasons to block them at all cost.

And on top of that....they don't even work to stop criminals or mass shooters....

So complete, hard, no to universal background checks.

Do you truly believe that no laws have ever prevented somebody from getting and using a gun to commit a crime?

No.....I think we have all the laws we need, right now, to arrest and jail people who use guns for crimes. I also believe that the call for more laws are not based in trying to stop criminals from getting and using guns, but are simply small steps to removing guns from the hands of normal, law abiding Americans.

I have shown you that universal background checks do not stop criminals from getting illegal guns. I have shown you they have no effect on mass public shooters.

I then showed you the ultimate goal....gun registration that will be used for gun confiscation.

You can't show any reason that we need universal background checks when the laws we already have deal with all of the gun crime issues.

I understand that you think we have all the laws we need but you didn’t answer my question. Do you think that gun regulation has ever stopped a person from getting a gun and committing a crime with it?

Yes......and then they either used a straw buyer or stole their gun. So no.

They all use straw buyers or steal a gun? You really believe that?

Yes.....or they steal their guns. They mainly use girlfriends, or family members, mothers and grandmothers....to get their guns......from gun stores that require background checks...or they steal their guns. The gangs in L.A. have robbery crews devoted completely to finding and stealing guns.....they get the addresses of gun owners from their relatives, sisters and mothers, who work for the state government.........

As to the straw buyers...

America Should Be Prosecuting Straw Purchasers, Not Gun Dealers | National Review

Wisconsin isn’t alone in its nonchalance. California normally treats straw purchases as misdemeanors or minor infractions. Even as the people of Baltimore suffer horrific levels of violence, Maryland classifies the crime as a misdemeanor, too. Straw buying is a felony in progressive Connecticut, albeit one in the second-least-serious order of felonies. It is classified as a serious crime in Illinois (Class 2 felony), but police rarely (meaning “almost never”) go after the nephews and girlfriends with clean records who provide Chicago’s diverse and sundry gangsters with their weapons. In Delaware, it’s a Class F felony, like forging a check. In Oregon, it’s a misdemeanor.

--------

I visited Chicago a few years back to write about the city’s gang-driven murder problem, and a retired police official told me that the nature of the people making straw purchases — young relatives, girlfriends who may or may not have been facing the threat of physical violence, grandmothers, etc. — made prosecuting those cases unattractive.

In most of those cases, the authorities emphatically should put the straw purchasers in prison for as long as possible. Throw a few gangsters’ grandmothers behind bars for 20 years and see if that gets anybody’s attention. In the case of the young women suborned into breaking the law, that should be just another charge to put on the main offender.

 

[2aguy]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

It will give anti-gunners the ability to demand gun registration.....that is the only real reason the anti-gun extremists want them. If they get universal background checks...which criminals will avoid the same way they avoid current, federally mandated background checks by using straw buyers or simply stealing the guns......

Then criminals will still get guns and the gun crime rate won't go down in democrat party controlled cities....

Mass public shooters who can pass any and all background checks will still commt mass public shootings...

Then, a few years after getting them.....anti-gunners will come back with the same tactics and demand gun registration.....which they need before they confiscate guns ........

There are also other attacks that universal background checks will allow...

The following links explain exactly why universal background checks need to be stopped....

Textual analysis of HR8, bill to "To require a background check for every firearm sale"

Summary

HR8 requires that loans, gifts, and sales of firearms be processed by a gun store. The same fees, paperwork, and permanent record-keeping apply as to buying a new gun from the store.
If you loan a gun to a friend without going to the gun store, the penalty is the same as for knowingly selling a gun to a convicted violent felon.

Likewise, when the friend returns the gun, another trip to the gun store is necessary, upon pain of felony.

A clever trick in HR8 effectively bans handguns for persons 18-to20.

The bill has some narrow exemptions. The minuscule exemption for self-defense does not cover stalking victims. None of the exemptions cover farming and ranching, sharing guns on almost all public and private lands, or storing guns with friends while on vacation. The limited exemption for family excludes first cousins and in-laws.
And this......they love this...

The bill authorizes unlimited fees to be imposed by
regulation.
-----
The narrowness of the self-defense exemption endangers domestic violence victims. For example, a former domestic partner threatens a woman and her children. An attack might come in the next hour, or the next month, or never. The victim and her children cannot know. Because the attack is uncertain—and is certainly not "immediate"—the woman cannot borrow a handgun from a neighbor for her defense. Many domestic violence victims do not have several hundred spare dollars so that they can buy their own gun. Sometimes, threats are manifested at night, when gun stores are not open.
-------

HR8 requires almost all firearms sales and loans to be conducted by a federally-licensed dealer. Because federal law prohibits licensed dealers from transferring handguns to persons under 21 years, HR8 prevents young adults from acquiring handguns. This is a clever way to enact a handgun ban indirectly.

HR8 would prohibit a 20-year-old woman who lives on her own from acquiring a handgun for self-defense in her home, such as by buying it from a relative or borrowing it from a friend.
-----

Exorbitant fees may be imposed by regulation

"(3)(A) Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Attorney General may implement this sub-section with regulations."

"(D) Regulations promulgated under this paragraph may not include any provision placing a cap on the fee licensees may charge to facilitate transfers in accordance with paragraph (1)."

Regulators may set a minimum fee, but not "a cap on a fee." The Attorney General is allowed to require that every gun store charge a fee of $30, $50, $150, or more. Even a $20 fee can be a hard burden to a poor person.

------
Family members

You can make a "a loan or bona fide gift" to some family members. In-laws and cousins are excluded.

The family exemption vanishes if one family member pays the other in any way. If a brother trades an extra shotgun to his sister in exchange for her extra television, both of them have to go to a gun store. Their exchange will have all the fees and paperwork as if she were buying a gun from the store.
=====

Gun Control Won't Stop Crime

“Universal” Background Checks
Part of the genius of the Bloomberg gun control system is how it creates prohibitions indirectly. Bloomberg’s so-called “universal” background check scheme is a prime example. These bills are never just about having background checks on the private sales of firearms. That aspect is the part that the public is told about. Yet when you read the Bloomberg laws, you find that checks on private sales are the tip of a very large iceberg of gun prohibition.

First, the bills criminalize a vast amount of innocent activity. Suppose you are an nra Certified Instructor teaching an introductory safety class. Under your supervision, students will handle a variety of unloaded firearms. They will learn how different guns have different safeties, and they will learn the safe way to hand a firearm to another person. But thanks to Bloomberg, these classroom firearm lessons are now illegal in Washington state, unless the class takes place at a shooting range.

It’s now also illegal to lend a gun to your friend, so that you can shoot together at a range on your own property. Or to lend a firearm for a week to your neighbor who is being stalked.

Under the Bloomberg system, gun loans are generally forbidden, unless the gun owner and the borrower both go to a gun store first. The store must process the loan as if the store were selling the gun out of its inventory.

Then, when your friend wants to return your gun to you, both of you must go to the gun store again. This time, the store will process that transaction as if you were buying the gun from the store’s inventory. For both the loan and the return of the gun, you will have to pay whatever fees the store charges, and whatever fees the government might charge. The gun store will have to keep a permanent record of you, your friend and the gun, including the gun’s serial number. Depending on the state or city, the government might also keep a permanent record.

In other words, the “background check” law is really a law to expand gun registration—and registration lists are used for confiscation. Consider New York City. In 1967, violent crime in the city was out of control. So the City Council and Mayor John Lindsay required registration of all long guns. The criminals, obviously, did not comply. Thanks to the 1911 Sullivan Act, New York City already had established registration lists for handgun owners.

Then, in 1991, the City Council decided that many lawfully registered firearms were now illegal “assault weapons.” The New York Police Department used the registration lists to ensure that the guns were either surrendered to the government or moved out of the city. When he was mayor of New York City, Bloomberg did the same, after the “assault weapon” law was expanded to cover any rifle or shotgun with an ammunition capacity greater than five rounds.

In Australia and Great Britain—which are often cited as models for the U.S. to follow—registration lists were used for gun confiscation. In Great Britain, this included all handguns; in Australia, handguns over .38 caliber. Both countries banned all semi-automatic or pump-action long guns.

Most American jurisdictions don’t have a comprehensive gun registration system. But even if your state legislature has outlawed gun registration, firearm stores must keep records. Those records could be harvested for future confiscations. Under the Bloomberg system, the store’s list would include not just the guns that the store actually sold, but all the guns (and their owners) that the store processed, for friends or relatives borrowing guns.

So it sounds like your saying there is nothing technically wrong with universal BG checks except for what you think might come afterwards which is registration. Am I understanding you correctly?

No........I posted just a few things wrong with the universal background checks.......and they are all deal killers. Gun registration alone is the reason to stop them, then when you get into the details and you find out how they attack normal gun owners it just shows even more reasons to block them at all cost.

And on top of that....they don't even work to stop criminals or mass shooters....

So complete, hard, no to universal background checks.

Do you truly believe that no laws have ever prevented somebody from getting and using a gun to commit a crime?

No.....I think we have all the laws we need, right now, to arrest and jail people who use guns for crimes. I also believe that the call for more laws are not based in trying to stop criminals from getting and using guns, but are simply small steps to removing guns from the hands of normal, law abiding Americans.

I have shown you that universal background checks do not stop criminals from getting illegal guns. I have shown you they have no effect on mass public shooters.

I then showed you the ultimate goal....gun registration that will be used for gun confiscation.

You can't show any reason that we need universal background checks when the laws we already have deal with all of the gun crime issues.

I understand that you think we have all the laws we need but you didn’t answer my question. Do you think that gun regulation has ever stopped a person from getting a gun and committing a crime with it?

Yes......and then they either used a straw buyer or stole their gun. So no.

They all use straw buyers or steal a gun? You really believe that?

You are obsessed with the guns......I want to stop criminals...your focus will do nothing to lower the gun crime rate....my focus will cut gun crime by about 95%......

The problem isn't access to guns...the problem, again...which you don't care about....is the democrat party judges, and prosecutors keep releasing violent gun criminals from jail and prison.....the most recent example is a criminals using a gun for armed robbery sentenced to only 5 years.....and he only served 2.5 years, got out and shot 3 police officers with an illegal gun.

The problem is that the democrat party policies keep releasing criminals like him who are the ones doing the crime...

Stop the democrat party and you lower the gun crime rate in democrat party controlled cities..

but you don't care about lowering the crime rate...you just want to make it more difficult for normal people to own guns.

 

[2aguy]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

It will give anti-gunners the ability to demand gun registration.....that is the only real reason the anti-gun extremists want them. If they get universal background checks...which criminals will avoid the same way they avoid current, federally mandated background checks by using straw buyers or simply stealing the guns......

Then criminals will still get guns and the gun crime rate won't go down in democrat party controlled cities....

Mass public shooters who can pass any and all background checks will still commt mass public shootings...

Then, a few years after getting them.....anti-gunners will come back with the same tactics and demand gun registration.....which they need before they confiscate guns ........

There are also other attacks that universal background checks will allow...

The following links explain exactly why universal background checks need to be stopped....

Textual analysis of HR8, bill to "To require a background check for every firearm sale"

Summary

HR8 requires that loans, gifts, and sales of firearms be processed by a gun store. The same fees, paperwork, and permanent record-keeping apply as to buying a new gun from the store.
If you loan a gun to a friend without going to the gun store, the penalty is the same as for knowingly selling a gun to a convicted violent felon.

Likewise, when the friend returns the gun, another trip to the gun store is necessary, upon pain of felony.

A clever trick in HR8 effectively bans handguns for persons 18-to20.

The bill has some narrow exemptions. The minuscule exemption for self-defense does not cover stalking victims. None of the exemptions cover farming and ranching, sharing guns on almost all public and private lands, or storing guns with friends while on vacation. The limited exemption for family excludes first cousins and in-laws.
And this......they love this...

The bill authorizes unlimited fees to be imposed by
regulation.
-----
The narrowness of the self-defense exemption endangers domestic violence victims. For example, a former domestic partner threatens a woman and her children. An attack might come in the next hour, or the next month, or never. The victim and her children cannot know. Because the attack is uncertain—and is certainly not "immediate"—the woman cannot borrow a handgun from a neighbor for her defense. Many domestic violence victims do not have several hundred spare dollars so that they can buy their own gun. Sometimes, threats are manifested at night, when gun stores are not open.
-------

HR8 requires almost all firearms sales and loans to be conducted by a federally-licensed dealer. Because federal law prohibits licensed dealers from transferring handguns to persons under 21 years, HR8 prevents young adults from acquiring handguns. This is a clever way to enact a handgun ban indirectly.

HR8 would prohibit a 20-year-old woman who lives on her own from acquiring a handgun for self-defense in her home, such as by buying it from a relative or borrowing it from a friend.
-----

Exorbitant fees may be imposed by regulation

"(3)(A) Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Attorney General may implement this sub-section with regulations."

"(D) Regulations promulgated under this paragraph may not include any provision placing a cap on the fee licensees may charge to facilitate transfers in accordance with paragraph (1)."

Regulators may set a minimum fee, but not "a cap on a fee." The Attorney General is allowed to require that every gun store charge a fee of $30, $50, $150, or more. Even a $20 fee can be a hard burden to a poor person.

------
Family members

You can make a "a loan or bona fide gift" to some family members. In-laws and cousins are excluded.

The family exemption vanishes if one family member pays the other in any way. If a brother trades an extra shotgun to his sister in exchange for her extra television, both of them have to go to a gun store. Their exchange will have all the fees and paperwork as if she were buying a gun from the store.
=====

Gun Control Won't Stop Crime

“Universal” Background Checks
Part of the genius of the Bloomberg gun control system is how it creates prohibitions indirectly. Bloomberg’s so-called “universal” background check scheme is a prime example. These bills are never just about having background checks on the private sales of firearms. That aspect is the part that the public is told about. Yet when you read the Bloomberg laws, you find that checks on private sales are the tip of a very large iceberg of gun prohibition.

First, the bills criminalize a vast amount of innocent activity. Suppose you are an nra Certified Instructor teaching an introductory safety class. Under your supervision, students will handle a variety of unloaded firearms. They will learn how different guns have different safeties, and they will learn the safe way to hand a firearm to another person. But thanks to Bloomberg, these classroom firearm lessons are now illegal in Washington state, unless the class takes place at a shooting range.

It’s now also illegal to lend a gun to your friend, so that you can shoot together at a range on your own property. Or to lend a firearm for a week to your neighbor who is being stalked.

Under the Bloomberg system, gun loans are generally forbidden, unless the gun owner and the borrower both go to a gun store first. The store must process the loan as if the store were selling the gun out of its inventory.

Then, when your friend wants to return your gun to you, both of you must go to the gun store again. This time, the store will process that transaction as if you were buying the gun from the store’s inventory. For both the loan and the return of the gun, you will have to pay whatever fees the store charges, and whatever fees the government might charge. The gun store will have to keep a permanent record of you, your friend and the gun, including the gun’s serial number. Depending on the state or city, the government might also keep a permanent record.

In other words, the “background check” law is really a law to expand gun registration—and registration lists are used for confiscation. Consider New York City. In 1967, violent crime in the city was out of control. So the City Council and Mayor John Lindsay required registration of all long guns. The criminals, obviously, did not comply. Thanks to the 1911 Sullivan Act, New York City already had established registration lists for handgun owners.

Then, in 1991, the City Council decided that many lawfully registered firearms were now illegal “assault weapons.” The New York Police Department used the registration lists to ensure that the guns were either surrendered to the government or moved out of the city. When he was mayor of New York City, Bloomberg did the same, after the “assault weapon” law was expanded to cover any rifle or shotgun with an ammunition capacity greater than five rounds.

In Australia and Great Britain—which are often cited as models for the U.S. to follow—registration lists were used for gun confiscation. In Great Britain, this included all handguns; in Australia, handguns over .38 caliber. Both countries banned all semi-automatic or pump-action long guns.

Most American jurisdictions don’t have a comprehensive gun registration system. But even if your state legislature has outlawed gun registration, firearm stores must keep records. Those records could be harvested for future confiscations. Under the Bloomberg system, the store’s list would include not just the guns that the store actually sold, but all the guns (and their owners) that the store processed, for friends or relatives borrowing guns.

So it sounds like your saying there is nothing technically wrong with universal BG checks except for what you think might come afterwards which is registration. Am I understanding you correctly?

No........I posted just a few things wrong with the universal background checks.......and they are all deal killers. Gun registration alone is the reason to stop them, then when you get into the details and you find out how they attack normal gun owners it just shows even more reasons to block them at all cost.

And on top of that....they don't even work to stop criminals or mass shooters....

So complete, hard, no to universal background checks.

Do you truly believe that no laws have ever prevented somebody from getting and using a gun to commit a crime?

No.....I think we have all the laws we need, right now, to arrest and jail people who use guns for crimes. I also believe that the call for more laws are not based in trying to stop criminals from getting and using guns, but are simply small steps to removing guns from the hands of normal, law abiding Americans.

I have shown you that universal background checks do not stop criminals from getting illegal guns. I have shown you they have no effect on mass public shooters.

I then showed you the ultimate goal....gun registration that will be used for gun confiscation.

You can't show any reason that we need universal background checks when the laws we already have deal with all of the gun crime issues.

I understand that you think we have all the laws we need but you didn’t answer my question. Do you think that gun regulation has ever stopped a person from getting a gun and committing a crime with it?

Yes......and then they either used a straw buyer or stole their gun. So no.

They all use straw buyers or steal a gun? You really believe that?

I have article after article on straw buyers who are caught and given light sentences...that is the problem....criminals released over and over again.

 

[alang1216]

And there are limits on the Right to own and carry guns.....you can't use a gun to rob, rape and murder people.......we laws for that already....we don't need anymore.

There are limits on the Right to own and carry guns yet people still use guns to rob, rape and murder people. Maybe the laws we have are flawed?

No...the laws are fine......if you use a gun for a crime you can be arrested and put in jail.

The problem isn't the laws....the problem is the democrat party keeps releasing violent repeat gun offenders...on another thread I posted about a violent criminal.....sentenced to 5 years for an armed robbery...out in 2.5 years and he gets another illegal gun and shoots 3 police officers......

That is our problem.......the democrat party releasing these violent criminals who are the ones using guns illegally.

We don't need more gun laws that that individual will ignore...we need to keep him in jail for 30 years........

We already have the one of the largest prison populations in the world. I don't think more prisons are the answer unless you're in China.

 

[daveman]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

You've been saying this whole thread how you support the Democratic platform plank on guns.

I brought up this case to make a point: That leftist lies about how easy it is to purchase firearms are not based in reality.

Very little of what leftists say is based in reality.

Haha, I have not said anything close to that. Come back when you can have an honest conversation. I’m not interested in talking to liars

Really? Very well, I retract.

But you have no business calling anyone else dishonest, kid.

I’m nothing but honest... when you say I’ve been on here saying that I support the democratic platform on guns that’s blatantly dishonest. Why do I have no business calling that out? It’s not true

Yeah, the thing is, I don't agree.

Prove me wrong then. Show where I said that. We both know you can’t

Then why do you keep making arguments for it? Be honest, or just shut up.

 

[daveman]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

My post #296 gives you the exact reasons universal background checks are an infringement on the Right to own and carry guns, and simply a backdoor way to get to gun registration, as well as ways to make it harder for Americans to exercise their Right...

You can't give any reason to support universal background checks.

I think it’s a much cleaner and more efficient system to have universal BG checks. That’s a pretty simple and basic reason. I imagine if pressed you also wouldn’t technically have a problem with registration except for the fact that you think it is the step that leads to confiscation. Am I right?

Why do you think the government needs to know what people own?

 

[Slade3200]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

You've been saying this whole thread how you support the Democratic platform plank on guns.

I brought up this case to make a point: That leftist lies about how easy it is to purchase firearms are not based in reality.

Very little of what leftists say is based in reality.

Haha, I have not said anything close to that. Come back when you can have an honest conversation. I’m not interested in talking to liars

Really? Very well, I retract.

But you have no business calling anyone else dishonest, kid.

I’m nothing but honest... when you say I’ve been on here saying that I support the democratic platform on guns that’s blatantly dishonest. Why do I have no business calling that out? It’s not true

Yeah, the thing is, I don't agree.

Prove me wrong then. Show where I said that. We both know you can’t

Then why do you keep making arguments for it? Be honest, or just shut up.

Because we are having a debate and questioning everything is always fair game. There’s no reason to get personal or start stereotyping. You can either answer the questions and explain your arguments or you can’t. But don’t pretend that I’m saying things that I’m not saying.

 

[daveman]

I don't support all the gun legislation proposed as some of it I don't see how it makes a practical impact. But I do see much of it and the inherent intent to keep dangerous guns out of hands of dangerous people. I think its a fair discussion that needs to be taken issue by issue. These blanket attacks are useless to me.

"Dangerous guns".

No such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. They don't act; they are acted upon. They are a tool to be utilized.

"Dangerous people".

Getting closer there. Two problems, though.

1. Dangerous people will act dangerously regardless of the tools available or the laws preventing their actions.

2. It really depends on who's defining what's dangerous, doesn't it? To some people, ideas are dangerous and their dissemination must be prevented and those who believe in them must be punished.

Of course there are dangerous guns... extreme example... put a musket next to an Auto with a 100 round magazine... are you really going to tell me that the Auto isn't a more dangerous weapon? Give me a break

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said nothing about the degree of danger.

You wouldn't want someone with a mental illness to have a .50 Barrett sniper rifle. Are you okay with them having a .22 Derringer? The .50 is far more dangerous a weapon.

Where do you draw the line? Or why don't you just go ahead and admit you don't have a line?

I think you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that there are people that propose a higher risk than others and there are guns that propose a higher risk than others. There for when regulating it makes sense to consider both as factors. I think the fact that a mentally ill person can't walk into a 711 and buy an uzi is a good thing. Yes extreme example but it sets the premise that regulation makes us safer. So lets agree on that and then move forward to do what is most practical and makes the most sense giving each individual situation.

Chicago has lots of gun regulations.

How well are they working?

From Tuesday of last week:

23 shot, 4 fatally, Tuesday in Chicago

Chicago has many problems with gun violence, I think its rather simplistic to blame it on gun regulations or claim that gun regulations don't have any effect. Lets say all gun regulations were dropped in Chicago and anybody could easily get and carry whatever kind of gun they wanted. Do you think the violence would go up or down?

Generally speaking, when legal gun ownership goes up, crime goes down.

Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (and additional data from another Wonkblog article “There are now more guns than people in the United States”), the number of privately owned firearms in U.S. increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

Adjusted for the U.S. population, the number of guns per American increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56 percent increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same period when gun violence decreased by 49 percent (see new chart below). Of course, that significant correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but it’s logical to believe that those two trends are related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families and homes.

Meanwhile, criminals don't obey gun laws. Obviously. What deters criminals is not knowing if their intended targets are armed. In places where gun ownership is heavily regulated, criminals can be sure their targets are defenseless.

Obviously.

Interesting... Thank for the link... What do you think of these studies?

A landmark, comprehensive review of studies looking at the effectiveness of gun control laws in 10 countries was published in 2016. Researchers at Columbia University reviewed 130 studies to compile an overall picture of how effective laws limiting firearms were in reducing deaths.

The authors concluded “the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple elements of firearms regulations reduced firearm-related deaths in certain countries”, and “some specific restrictions on purchase, access, and use of firearms are associated with reductions in firearm deaths”.

More recently, further studies on gun control in the US have been released that show stricter laws by US state, and states nearby, are associated with reduced suicide and homicide rates.

And those studies are crap.....they even fall apart with simple questions.....such as how does universal background checks lower gun crime rates when criminals ignore them?

Well there's an easy answer to that... background checks don't stop the criminals that ignore them. They stop the people who don't get guns because they don't pass a check and they don't have resources to get an illegal firearm.

Oh, you mean like this guy?

A newspaper columnist is crying foul after a gun store rejected his application to purchase a firearm following a background check that uncovered his "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife."

"Gun manufacturers and the stores that sell them make their money in the dark," the Chicago Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg wrote in his column following his failed attempt to purchase a rifle.

"Congress, which has so much trouble passing the most basic gun laws, passed a law making it illegal for the federal government to fund research into gun violence. Except for the week or two after massacres, the public covers its eyes. Would-be terrorists can buy guns. Insane people can buy guns. But reporters ... that's a different story," he added.

The owners of Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., however, maintained Steinberg's application was rejected not because he's in media, but for the simple reason that a background check raised several red flags.

"Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. 'Journalist' is not a protected class, [by the way]," the store said in an explanation made available to the Washington Examiner's media desk.

"We contacted his editor and said that, while we don't normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here's why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He's free to believe or disbelieve that's why he was denied, but that is why he was denied," the statement added. "There was no 'We'll see you in court!!!!' type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn't really our problem, is it?"

Steinberg explained he tried to buy an AR-15 rifle this month following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which claimed the lives of 49 victims, so that he could give a firsthand account of how easy it is to purchase a firearm in the United States.

Since the shooting in Orlando, several newsrooms have produced similar stories bringing attention to the fact that many privately owned gun shops have efficient operations in place by which a customer with a clean record can purchase a firearm in a short amount of time.

Steinberg decided on Maxon Shooter's as a suitable candidate for his experiment.

He claimed he had hang-ups about financially contributing to an industry he despises, but decided anyway to make the trek to the gun store, which he referred to as the "Valley of Death."

He wrote that after introducing himself to the store's staff, he informed them he planned "to buy the gun, shoot at their range, then give it to the police." Steinberg said he was dissuaded of that idea after a salesman, Mike, suggested he sell the firearm back to the store.

Forty percent of gun transactions in the U.S. have "no background checks," the columnist continued, repeating a claim that earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact checker. "Here, I had paperwork."

"Our transaction took nearly an hour because we chatted. Mike used to read newspapers but doesn't anymore because of opinion writers like me. He knew whether it was legal to bring the gun to Chicago — it's not. He was friendly, candid, so I asked difficult questions. Did he ever feel guilty about the people killed by the guns he sells? No, he said, that's like asking a car dealer if he felt guilty if someone gets drunk and kills somebody in a car he sold. It seemed a fair answer. I asked him if I could quote him in the newspaper, and he said no, I couldn't, so I'm not quoting him," he wrote.

Steinberg submitted his paperwork and waited. And then he got the call.

"At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? 'I don't have to tell you,' she said. I knew that, but was curious. I wasn't rejected by the government? No. So what is it? 'I'm not at liberty,' she said," he wrote.

Steinberg told the woman he suspected his application was rejected because he's in media. She denied the charge.

Maxon Shooter's explained later in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that it rejected Stenberg's application because a background check had, "uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife," he wrote.

I don't know... what do you think?

I think he's pretty stupid, thinking he could just waltz in a buy a gun with a record. But then, he's a leftist, and believes leftist bullshit about guns. He blamed the store employees for not selling him a gun, instead of his own actions.

Why shouldn’t he be able to buy the gun. It’s a god given right isn’t it?

He's not able to buy the gun due to the laws in place...the laws you support and want to expand.

Unless, of course, you want to apply an ideological filter to the law.

first of all you don’t know which laws I support or don’t support.

In this case do you think the guy with the record should be able to waltz into that store and buy a gun no questions asked?

We already have back ground checks for gun stores...we don't need universal backgroundchecks......criminals already get most of their guns through straw buyers who can already pass any background check......

What harm to you see with universal background checks

My post #296 gives you the exact reasons universal background checks are an infringement on the Right to own and carry guns, and simply a backdoor way to get to gun registration, as well as ways to make it harder for Americans to exercise their Right...

You can't give any reason to support universal background checks.

I think it’s a much cleaner and more efficient system to have universal BG checks. That’s a pretty simple and basic reason. I imagine if pressed you also wouldn’t technically have a problem with registration except for the fact that you think it is the step that leads to confiscation. Am I right?

Wrong on all of it.........I am against universal background checks and gun registration...completely against them.....

There is no reason for either one, and you can't show a good reason for either one.

We have all the laws we need to arrest and jail criminals who use guns...we have them right now, we do not need any more.....

I can show good reasons for both. UBC is a better process than we currently have to prevent the legal sale of firearms to dangerous people who shouldn’t be owning guns. And Registration is a system that helps law enforcement trace guns that are used in crimes and promotes responsible gun ownership. Same concept that’s used with cars.

Oh, look. There you are, promoting the Democratic Party's gun control plan.

Now lie again and tell me you don't.