The FAST Approaching Gun Ban

[maxpower]

Legal Curbs Said to Hamper A.T.F. in Gun Inquiries - NY Times By Erica Goode and Sheryl Gay Stolberg

Law enforcement officials say that in theory the A.T.F. could take a lead role in reducing gun crime, but that it is hampered by politically driven laws and by the ferocity of the debate over gun regulation.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/us...gun-crime.html

[maxpower]

Silencing the Science on Gun Research - FREE ONLINE FIRST JAMA by Arthur L. Kellermann, MD, MPH; Frederick P. Rivara, MD, MPH

The nation might be in a better position to act if medical and public health researchers had continued to study these issues as diligently as some of us did between 1985 and 1997. But in 1996, pro-gun members of Congress mounted an all-out effort to eliminate the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Although they failed to defund the center, the House of Representatives removed $2.6 million from the CDC's budget—precisely the amount the agency had spent on firearm injury research the previous year. Funding was restored in joint conference committee, but the money was earmarked for traumatic brain injury. The effect was sharply reduced support for firearm injury research.
To ensure that the CDC and its grantees got the message, the following language was added to the final appropriation: “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”


http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article....icleid=1487470

[martin48]

This seems like a good summary of some of the many questions:

Why can’t the US just ban guns?
The US Constitution prohibits Federal government and States from completely banning gun ownership. Despite the popularity of this statement, gun owner was actually a grey area until 2008, when the US Supreme Court ruled that gun ownership was actually an individual right.
However, this ruling doesn’t mean the US government or the States can’t ban ANY gun. The federal government has passed laws prohibiting the sale or ownership of assault weapons, which generally include many semi- and fully-automatic rifles. States can also pass their own laws, which vary significantly. However, the last major federal ban on assault rifle ended in 1996, due mainly to influence from the National Rifle Association (NRA).
Other laws have also been passed, such as the Brady Bill, which governs who can’t own a gun, such as felons, anyone judged to be a mental defective, or a drug addict.

What would it take to get a total federal gun ban?
Two things would be needed.
First, you would need a general turnaround in the mindset of most Americans. In a 2011 Gallup poll, only 43 percent of American thought there was a need for stricter gun laws. That’s a dramatic shift from
20 years ago, when 78 percent of Americans supported stricter laws.
Second, you would need an amendment to the US Constitution. To even start that process, you need either the approval of two-third of both the US House of Representatives and the Senate or for two-third of the states to call for a national convention. Getting the amendment passed is even harder. The result has been that only 17 Amendments have passed over the last 220 years. Given today’s polarized political environment, an amendment would be practically impossible.

What is the NRA?
The National Rifle Association is a not-for-profit lobbyist group in the US, with estimated assets of $280 million. They are routinely listed at the most influential lobby in the US. It was established in
1871 and has an estimated 4.2 million members.

Why is the NRA so controversial?
They are known for opposing any law that would limit or restrict gun ownership. Notably, the NRA successfully opposed a 5-day waiting period for gun-ownership in the Brady Bill, a US law which governs who can be stopped from owning a gun. They also successfully opposed a federal law requiring local enforcement to conduct background checks on anyone seeking to purchase a gun.
The NRA is also known for arguing that Americans should be allowed to have guns to protect themselves from crime - a position many anti-gun advocates argue only increase the likelihood of violence and would be better left to police - and to protect people from governmental oppression. In 1996, Former President George H.W. Bush resigned his membership in the NRA when the group issued a fund raising letter that described federal law enforcement agents as “jack-booted thugs.” NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre later apologized for the letter, saying the statement didn’t apply to “all federal law-enforcement officials.”

Are the NRA members generally responsible for gun crime?
No. Actually, NRA members are usually viewed as being responsible gun owners who take gun safety quite seriously. It is the organization’s active resistance to laws that seek to govern guns that often lead it into controversy.

Was the NRA serious in its suggestions that more armed police officers in school would stop assaults?
Probably not, but they were certainly aware of the unfeasibility of their own suggestions. Due to the financial situation in the US and its impact on federal and state budgets, 53 percent on countries in the US had fewer staff members in 2011 than in 2010. Twelve-thousand officers across the country were laid off. 2012 is also looking bad for local law enforcement budgets. Putting aside for a second the desirability of armed guards in school, police forces are struggling to keep the staff they do have, let along add staff.

Wouldn’t a ban on assault rifles cut down on the number of murders?
That’s hard to say. Certainly a ban on assault rifles would make it more difficult for gunmen to commit mass slaughter, but the main culprit in most US gun crimes is handguns, not assault rifles. While FBI statistics don’t specially address assault rifles, in 2011, handguns were responsible for at least 72 percent of gun-related homicides. Twenty percent of firearms homicide was listed as “type not stated.”

How easy is it to get a gun in the US?
Laws governing gun ownership vary tremendously from state to state.
Anyone purchasing a gun from a federally licensed gun dealer must have a background check. Unless a check find some reason the person should not own a gun, such as a mental disability or prior criminal record, the sale will be permitted. However, an estimated 40 percent of all gun sales in the US are conducted between private parties, which do not require a background check. As of 2012, 156 million background checks have been performed.

It seems like everyone in the US owns a gun. Is that right?
No, 45 percent of homes in the US have a gun, and even that number is often taken out of context. In California, the largest state by population, only 21.3 percent of households own a gun, according to USACarry.com. In New York, gun ownership is only 18 percent. Even in Texas, a state often associated with a pro-gun population, only 35.9 percent of household own a gun. According to the Pew Research Center, 49 percent of Americans in 2011 believes it is important to protect the right of Americans to own guns.

Lost the link I ripped it off!

[Stavros]

A useful set of indicators, Martin. As I argued around the time of the massacre in Aurora, the Second Amendment does not confer the right of gun ownership on individuals, this has been the most profound mistake in American history, but my interpretation of the amendment is not commonly accepted and is in practical terms merely academic and not just because I am not American with no input into policy.

If there were to be a repeal of the Amendment and a new one to replace it, the precision of the language required would be as difficult to agree on as the process of changing it, so I don't see the US choosing to make substantial changes to its gun laws in the near future.

However, I do think that Americans are these days more hostile to gun ownership than before, and that this may make it easier for Congress to make important changes to the law.

This suggests that the change that is most practicable would be minor changes to the definition of the firearms that inviduals can own and purchase, and I think as other posters have indicated that battlefield weapons are on the list of firearms that no individual should be allowed to purchase. How you get existing owners to hand in their weapons of this calibre I don't know.

There is a broader issue here which I don't think has been discussed enough. As far as I can make out, in both the UK and the USA, most gun crime takes place between criminals, and I suspect most of it is drug related, and turf related. The substantial decline of gun crime in Washington DC between the 1990s and the present day has been attributed to a combination of fierce policing and sentencing, but also the actual decline in the use of hard drugs. The loss of a market for these goods has in turn reduced the competition for its control, and thus the cause of gun crime, although I believe there are some situations in which a decline in the market can actually increase gun crime if gangs are competing for a diminishing share of a smaller market and thus need to be even more ruthless in protecting/extending what little they have left; this may be a temporary phenomenon as the market adjusts, although it seems to have had a prolonged life in Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala.

This suggests to me a two-pronged approach to drugs
a) to get the 'conventional' hard and soft drugs out of the criminal market, through controlled legalisation and distribution; and
b) a survey needs to be made of the medically prescribed drugs that are being given to young people in particular who are being diagnosed with 'behavioural' disorders or 'mental health' issues, and whose daily lives are therefore chemically affected.

If these people are also not being given any treatment that enables them to become part of wider society, their isolation plus the chemical input seems to me to be creating time-bombs that in extreme situations are liable explode in violence; and I am not even sure that these people are being correctly diagnosed in the first place.

Removing as many guns as possible from individuals cannot be a bad thing, but unless a better understanding of gun crime informs policy, even removing battlefield weapons from homes will not prevent massacres or claims of 'self-defence' in shootings. Somewhere in the mix, drugs are shaping this issue, so that the US has two politically difficult issues to deal with -guns and drugs. And I believe the US is not alone in this.

[Ben]

[arsenalfc70]

Gun ban in US is necessary, comparing the data from European countries, its clear that guns are the problem.

[buttslinger]

Gun ban in US is necessary, comparing the data from European countries, its clear that guns are the problem.

I may be wrong, but I think the USA was the first country not ruled by some kind of king. Electing a civil servant was a brand new idea. Just like minimum wage, or tax rates, it's where you draw the line.

Whatever team Obama comes up with, it's going to be practical and hard to argue against. Nobody likes the idea of some guy with no ID buying 30 semi-automatic weapons at a gunshow.

[Willie Escalade]

I was looking for that...!

[Queens Guy]

[/QUOTE] robertlouis wrote:

What I can't understand, however, is the view expressed here which instantly assumes that any call for reasonable control, such as a review of assault weapons and multiple cartridge magazines, implies the intention to take away all weapons. That simply isn't going to happen. Yet the hysterical overreaction of people like Phil will not countenance even the sanest review.

What a fuckup.[/QUOTE]



One reason for the 'overreaction' is that some politicians say they are merely in favor of reasonable 'gun control' but they are really extremists that want a 'gun ban'. (And I'm not trying to say the 'gun rights' side doesn't have extremists, too).

The way the 'gun ban' politicians have ruled while claiming to be 'gun control' is the problem.

Until very recent US Supreme Court decisions, the 'gun ban' politicians, who called themselves 'gun control', did in fact ban guns. Their version of 'reasonable' was a complete ban.

In Washington, D.C. a man who worked as a Special Police Officer in federal government office buildings was not allowed to bring his gun home with him after work. He carries his gun on duty. He has cleared a federal background check. Maybe he has even been trained to respond in the case of an active shooter, since he worked at the Supreme Court Library. He has the power of arrest while on duty. 'Reasonably', I think he should be one of the people that should be allowed to carry a concealed weapon. Washington, D.C. would not allow this trained professional to bring his gun home. The city took an extreme position.

Illinois did not allow anybody, including retired law enforcement officers, to carry concealed weapons, until a few weeks ago. The plaintiff in a recent case retired after 30 years as a Correction Officer (Jail Guard) and now works as the head of his local County Jail. It's a civilian position, which does not allow him to carry a gun. Illinois would not issue him a gun permit. Now, 'reasonably' I think he may have a few former customers who might want to do him harm. Even if they don't, isn't he the kind of person we'd want to see issued a gun permit? The State took an extreme position. Not even retired law enforcement officers are issued gun permits. Nobody is.

Actions speak louder than words. Those politicians may think of themselves as 'gun control', but they took actions which are clearly 'gun ban'. Which is why when some 'gun rights' people hear the words 'gun control', they think it really means 'gun ban'.


P.S. The name of the 2 cases are 'D.C. vs. Heller' and 'Moore vs. Illinois'

P.P.S. I'm not a 'wing-nut' gun-loving extremist who sees a gun as a replacement for my penis, or whatever. I think there is a reasonable middle ground we should all agree on. I'm just trying to explain why some people see this debate the way they do.

[trish]

One reason for the 'overreaction' is that some politicians say they are merely in favor of reasonable 'gun control' but they are really extremists that want a 'gun ban'.

name names and provide proofs.

'Reasonably', I think he should be one of the people that should be allowed to carry a concealed weapon

There is no legitimate need for anyone to secretly carry a firearm. If you're going to carry, have the balls to carry in the open.