em2nought wrote:Arcanis wrote: or inadequacy securing your firearm will put the imperative on gun owners to be responsible with their weapons.
So if I live in a house with deadbolts and bars on the windows that's not enough? Can I make booby traps then? I've always wanted one of those contraptions from John Wayne's Green Berets.
If we're going to penalize me this much, we better damn well have background checks for people buying bolt cutters, or bump keys off the internet.
Did I define adequate? This is something that should be debated and discussed before being defined into law. IMO it should require at least 1 more lock within your castle* if not on your person. And Hep hit the other reason on the head. You don't want it easy for kids or guests in your house to get a hold on a firearm.
*Castle being as the castle doctrine defining your home, car, etc...
gbasden wrote:Arcanis wrote:
You start by trying to limit the ways legal guns get into the hands of criminals. The big factors here are intentional straw purchases and stolen weapons.
Why do you not consider the gun show loophole to be an issue? If I can sell a gun to anyone without requiring ID or a background check, doesn't that make it a lot easier for undesirables to get their hands on weapons? Why do purchases through a gun store need scrutiny, but selling the same weapon in a different venue blindly is A-OK?
First the fact is if you are selling more than a couple of guns a year you get classified as an illegal gun dealer. The ATF doesn't give a specific number but
the guidelines make it pretty clear that they can pop you for virtually any sale if the circumstances around it lead them to believe you are doing so for illicit purposes. Second from a practicality standpoint is that there is no realistic way for a private citizen to do a background check. I actually went to the FBI web site and started navigating the process to see if I could perform a NICS check. The very first line on the enrollment for asks for your FFL number. So if you want to close the "gun show loophole" you need to circle back to fixing the background check system and include the ability for a person performing a private sale to actually do a background check.
I was curious enough to go through everything I had found and in the linked PDF above they give the official answer to how you are intended to do a check for a personal sale if you choose to do one:
What if I don’t need to be licensed, but I want to make sure a
background check is run on a potential purchaser of my gun?
Private, unlicensed sellers can help ensure that potential purchasers are not prohibited
from possessing firearms by using a licensed dealer to facilitate the sale and
transfer of a firearm. For a small fee, many licensed dealers will facilitate a sale of
a firearm between two unlicensed individuals. This service provides both customers
and the community assurance that individuals who want to purchase firearms
undergo a comprehensive background check which helps to ensure the buyer is not
prohibited from possessing a firearm, and can improve the ability of law enforcement
to trace firearms if they are later recovered in a connection with a crime. In
2013, ATF published an open letter ) to
licensed dealers educating them on how to facilitate private sales, and published
ATF Procedure 2013 – 1 ), which provides
further guidance. The decision to facilitate private sales is wholly voluntary on the
part of the licensed dealer
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."--George Orwell