Here's an article disussing some of the federal legislation which was proposed & quashed
recently:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/344763/turning-gun-owners-felons-dave-kopel
He goes into great detail about transfers which would have been felonies if the law had passed.
what prevents crime? More guns doesn't do it.
Yes, they do.
Here's an article from 2005, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. It explains that there is no evidence that gun-control laws of any sort, alone or in combination, lower the rate of violent crime.
http://www.thecommunityguide.org/violence/viol-AJPM-evrev-firearms-law.pdf
the evidence available from identified studies was insufficient to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed singly or in combination
A 2007 article from the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, explaining that firearms laws do not reduce violence, including murder & suicide. They looked at evidence from around the world.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf
”In 2004, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences released its evaluation from a review of 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some original empirical research. It failed to identify any gun control that had reduced violent crime, suicide, or gun accidents.”
CHARLES F. WELLFORD ET AL., NAT’L RESEARCH COUNCIL, FIREARMS AND VIOLENCE: A CRITICAL REVIEW 6–10 (2004)
”The same conclusion was reached in 2003 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s review of then extant studies.”
Task Force on Community Preventitive Servs., Ctrs. for Disease Control, First Reports Evaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies for Preventing Violence: Firearms Laws, 52 MORTALITY & MORBIDITY WKLY. REP. (2003)
“data on firearms ownership by constabulary area in England,” like data from the United States, show “a negative correlation," that is, where firearms are most dense, violent crime rates are lowest, and where guns are least dense violent crime rates are highest."
Joyee Malcolm, Guns & Violence: The English Experience 204 (2002).
Hans Toch & Alan J. Lizotte, Research & Policy: The Case for Gun Control, in Psychology & Social Policy, 223, 232 (Suedfeld & Tetlock, eds., 1992)
her said:
I don't think background checks and waiting periods are a problem - I have to go through similar inspection just to fill out certain prescription medications.
Bologna.
She doesn't seem to understand what "background check" and "waiting period" mean.
When's the last time the pharmacy did a criminal background check of a gov't database (looking for arrests, convictions, restraining orders) when you had a prescription filled?
They'll check to make sure the doctor's info is correct, it's not a forged prescription, but the wait is mostly for the pharmacy staff to count the pills & do their paperwork.
If they're doing a background check, why? Are there any laws which prohibit certain people from having certain medicine?
Explain that the background check for buying a firearm through a dealer is a state & federal check of criminal & court records, and the waiting period is after that comes back clean, and after you've paid for your property. Then it has to sit in the dealer's safe for X many hours/days before you can take your property home with you (even if you already own other firearms, and maybe even if you're carrying one).
They do weed out some obviously potentially dangerous people. Some of the shootings in the news lately were by those who bought it legally despite having a record.
According to the BATFE website, they admit to catching 7 in 1000 people as initial denials for the initial BG check.
"More than 100 million such checks have been made in the last decade, leading to more than 700,000 denials."
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/nics
No stats on how many of those are false positives - there wasn't a reason to deny them their right, similar name, records not updated to show a not guilty judgment, etc. - and they were eventually allowed to take their property home from the store.
In the case of people who shouldn't have been able legally to buy a gun, but did it anyway, that shows even further that the checks are a waste of time & money. They catch people who are perfectly legal, causing hassles, costing money (for every check), and criminals who want to harm people can still buy from a dealer (and of course, most of the ones criminals use are stolen).
database full of the gun owners' information would be a violation of privacy, though at this time no such database exists even if it would help law enforcement tremendously to have it.
It wouldn't. Check with Canada. They used to have a registry, but very quickly realized that it was an enormous waste of time & money and did nothing to help solve crimes.
whether the privacy rights of the majority of gun-owners, who are responsible and law-abiding, outweigh the worth of the lives of the victims of the minority.
It's not an either-or, because the two are not linked.
The government not knowing what property I own has no link to crime. Nobody has died because the gov't is unaware of what tools I possess.
If the gov't had a complete inventory of every bit of property I own, down to the last can of cat food (which reminds me... need to get more), it would not change the rate of crime.
Also, having a database showing which law-abiding citizen bought which firearm would do nothing to catch criminals, since they largely steal their guns or buy from someone who stole them. A very small percentage are straw purchases (which would lead police to a criminal who used it in a crime), and an even smaller percentage are bought by criminals from dealers.
Can we always be all for ourselves, or at there some compromises we can make
Read LawDog's allegory of the cake, then get back to us about 'compromise'.
http://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/2010/09/ok-ill-play.html
Compromise requires that both sides give & both sides get. So far, all gun laws have done is take away our freedom. (With the possible exception of things like FOPA.)
I don't know how necessary some of the more powerful varieties of guns are for hunting and basic self defense
So she's putting forth uninformed opinions, & is upset that people don't agree with her?
For self-defense, more power is better. At the same speed, a larger caliber is better than a smaller one, and at the same bullet weight a faster one is better than a slower one.
Keeping track of the guns that are legally-obtained would free up resources towards finding and intercepting illegal weapons
There's no reason to keep track of the lawful citizens. That frees up time & money to keep track of the criminals. Having a record of all the cars sold will do you no good when you're trying to find a stolen car.
I was thinking of assault rifles, large ammo clips
Assault rifles are rare & very expensive to purchase, plus there's a horrendously invasive background check and a high tax.
I don't know of any ammo clips which hold more than 10 rounds.
Magazines hold varying amounts of cartridges, and are sized to the gun they work with.
If she's trying the "high-capacity" meme, explain about self-defense shootings...
Let's consider a NY-legal 7 round magazine.
Even highly trained police miss with about half their shots under stress, so they're going to hit with 3 or maybe 4 shots.
That will most likely stop one attacker.
Meanwhile, his accomplice can still smash your head with a baseball bat.
Criminals often work in packs.
With my normal carry pistol, I have 18 rounds, so 9 on target, which would probably stop 3
attackers.
how would you suggest reducing gun crime?
I'd reduce overall crime by making it easier for citizens to protect themselves from criminals.
I'd work to make it harder for criminals to plea-bargain, especially if their crime involved harming someone, threatening harm, or if there was a weapon used. [That doesn't mean that a drunk who had a holster in a pistol gets the weapon enhancement, but if he points it at someone he would.]
I'd make the risk of immediate consequences higher (armed citizens), and the long-term consequences more punishing (longer sentences, no frills in prison).
Prison should have educational opportunities, vocational training, chores to keep the prison running (gardening, mowing, raising food for the prisoners to eat, raising flowers to sell, shoveling snow, laundry...), extensive libraries, and twice-weekly opportunities to participate in religious ceremonies if they choose. The leaders of those ceremonies would vary among whichever pastors/congregations sign up. Could be christian, bahai, moslem, jewish, pastafarian, hindi, jainism...
how can you claim to support personal freedom and then turn around and say, "well I don't like you doing that,"
She's expressing her opinion. As long as she doesn't try to force you to do or not to do X, it's all good.
there is strong evidence for gun control reducing crime... If it were proven that a certain level of gun control, say the background checks and database, made a signifigant impact on crime, then would your stance change
No. Courts have already ruled that in order for an infringement on a civil right to be legal & enforceable, there must be a strong correlation between the infringement and the good of society.
See above, about the very few people who are even initially denied on a BG check. And then most of them it turns into only a delay while NICS sorts out some problem like a similar name.
If police stopped 1000 drivers and found that 7 of them either were not carrying their license or didn't have a valid license, do you think that's OK? Courts have already said it's not.
And no, even if infringements were shown to cause lower crime, they're still wrong. They're still infringements. If the gov't required everyone to have an English degree & pass a test before they're allowed to speak in public or write their elected representatives, because we want a more literate society and we don't want people to have to listen to or read substandard English, would that be legal?
there must be a solution that can achieve the desired result: less crime, fewer murders. If not gun control, then what?
Criminal control.
It starts with improving the home life, creating more attentive & involved parents, lowering access to illegal drugs & gangs.
Phase 2 is letting would-be criminals know that many people out here in society are able & willing to fight back, they won't be victims, and the criminal is risking his life every time he commits a crime.
Phase 3 is punishment, confinement, keeping convicted criminals out of society. Hopefully there could be some rehabilitation. Once they're cured, when they've paid their debt to society, they're released and have all rights restored.
Guns can't be treated the same as every other pursuit of happiness and life, because by their very nature they do pose great and serious risk to the rights of others
BS. Guns are inanimate objects.
They do nothing by themselves, they are neither good nor evil, nor are they dangerous.
If used by the wrong person, they can cause injury.
If handled by someone who's not trained, they can cause injury.
Used by good people, they can prevent injury, crime, death.
They are not a threat to anyone's rights, unless you're thinking of the right to life of the criminal who tries to attack an armed citizen.
He chose to risk his life by committing a crime. He gave up his right to not be injured.
if my activity poses a potential danger to others, some guidelines to minimize that are needed.
There are already laws that prohibit wrongfully shooting someone, or killing without just cause, or even just pointing a gun at a person who's not trying to harm you.
Just like the restriction on your freedom of speech which says you're not allowed to shout "fire" in a crowded theater which is not on fire.
What is the crime rate, per capita, in states like Arizona, Alaska, and Vermont. What about Maryland, New York, and Michigan?
Here's the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports data tool
http://www.ucrdatatool.gov/
For 2010, the rate of violent crime per 100,000 people was:
Alaska 638.8
Arizona 408.1
DC 1330.2
Maryland 547.7
Michigan 490.3
NY 392.1
Vermont 130.2
We do not allow unlicensed people to drive cars, because cars have the potential for great damage and danger to other people. We have a way of verifying that the person has a licence.
And yet unlicensed people do drive, do cause damage & death. And stopping a car just to check to see if the driver is unlicensed is illegal. SCOTUS said so.
Background checks exist not to annoy people or spy on their concerns, but as an added measure to prevent those who have proven themselves to be untrustworthy to repeat their offence.
Bologna.
Since criminals largely steal their guns, or buy stolen guns from other criminals, doing checks on everyone who buys from a dealer is asinine. It does nothing to stop criminals from getting guns. Even the very few felons who have been 'caught' trying to buy from a dealer usually didn't know they were prohibited.
seems more like an emotional response than a reasoned one.
No, that would be the anti-gun zealots. They run on emotion instead of looking at information, statistics, studies, real life.
How to background checks destroy the rights of a person?
First, people are having to prove that they are innocent of crimes, rather than the gov't proving we are guilty before denying us a right.
Second, if you had to have a background check & pay a tax or get a permission slip from the gov't when you wanted to post on the internet, would you be OK with that? What about if you wanted to write your elected representatives? Or go to church? Or vote? Or refuse to incriminate yourself at trial?
Civil rights are civil rights. While the Second protects them all, they're all important.
You seem to expect me to have a thesis all well-researched, notated, and peer-reviewed, at the ready.
If you could find any serious research to support the anti-rights position, yes, I expect you to have it, be able to referece & cite it.
Using groups whose reason for existance is to prevent citizens from having firearms isn't good research.
There's a PDF free at this site
http://www.gunfacts.info/ which is over 100 pages long and gives conclusions from and citations to research and news from around the world, all of which disprove various gun-related myths.