The "Gun Show Loophole" and Other Myths

a reply to: verschickter
Found it Gun Gripes.

Perfect for the topic:




Love the guys. Sadly, the old guy died lately.
I could listen to him for hours.
Great person, rest in peace.

originally posted by: verschickter
a reply to: verschickter

To sumarize it:

I think you have something called like American Gun Association. If all the trainings are so bad and it´s a common opinion, why does the big AGA (let´s call it like that) not support better training? I mean it can not be in anyones interest to give someone a weapon for self defense but not take the time to teach it the right way. The association should do more constructive work (training, information) instead. As long as it´s not a straw puppet for the firearm industry to push hard on gun sales and nothing else.

I´m just not understanding it. Instead of working towards a goal, no side wants to move an inch it seems. Even if it would safe lifes and do good.

The NRA has gun safety programs for children but the anti gun crowd does everything in their power to block those programs.

The anti gun crowd doesn't want people to be properly trained and informed about guns, they just want guns to go away altogether.

It's hard for the pro gun side to focus on other goals like organizing proper training when we're so busy playing defense.

a reply to: Answer
Only for children? If so, I can see reason the "anti-gunners" bring up. :-/

I like our discussion but the anti-gun-crowd surely can not be blamed for everything. The last sentence sounds like an excuse to me. I just can´t believe that´s the whole reason. It´s not that there is no training material out there they can throw together. Hell even I managed to introduce a friends son into the range and told and showed him everything crucial. I bet it wasn´t even one hour with some talk to other members and some interogation as to why he is here. Then we started shooting. Everything after that hour is just rinse and repeat + physical training. Much of the last one of course but the ground stone has been placed.

originally posted by: Answer
a reply to: MrMasterMinder

I've decided to focus my efforts on people who have actual questions and want to discuss the topic rationally. You made it clear in your first post that you weren't interested in either. I stated what I thought of your input on the matter and those posts were removed by a moderator because I implied that your opinion is hopelessly skewed thanks to your country's treatment of the issue.

Again more lies, your post's were removed for breaking the T&C about "gate keeping" as explained by tothetenthpower www.abovetopsecret.com...

Ive had many dealers at gun shows offer me their private guns off the books they had at their tables.
Ive had gun shops offer me guns with no yellow sheet from their off book pawns and storages or fedcheck.

Its a common practice and easy to overcome if you personally know them or they can tell you're cool

Just because unkle sammy says its so, doesn't make it so.

most gun dealers always threaten to burn their shops when they retire, to ensure no yellow sheets exist

a reply to: SPECULUM
And here we have the best example why there could be so much gun-crime with unregistered weapons. But hey, they can tell you are cool.

a reply to: SPECULUM

Well since there's no such thing as a "yellow sheet" the rest of your post is not exactly what I'd call "up to date information."

If you know dealers who are keeping guns "off book", they're breaking the law.

originally posted by: verschickter
a reply to: SPECULUM
And here we have the best example why there could be so much gun-crime with unregistered weapons. But hey, they can tell you are cool.

There is no gun registry in the US. A couple of states have it but it is not nationwide.

SPECULUM is talking about a legal activity of selling privately owned firearms. If those dealers are actually keeping guns off of their books to sell without a background check, they're corrupt and breaking the law.

A large number of guns used in crimes come from "straw purchases" which are already illegal. Also, corrupt dealers account for a large percentage and that is, again, already illegal.

a reply to: Answer
That´s the problem. What are the cautious gunners do against it?

originally posted by: verschickter
a reply to: Answer
That´s the problem. What are the cautious gunners do against it?

Give me some suggestions about what we should do and I'll be happy to mention those ideas to my fellow gun owners.

If those dealers are willing to break federal law, I'd like to know what can be done by us regular Joes to fix the situation.

The problem with the current system is that there are just to many loopholes that can be exploited. The whole argument of you shouldn't bring in one law because people might go and break a different one is just a shallow excuse. If that was the case then we shouldn't have any laws at all about anything. You have to either ban guns outright like Australia did (and had great results, not a single mass shooting since) or tackle it one step at a time and close the loop holes which allows the government to monitor any remaining routes to people owning guns a lot more closely.

If you want to stop people privately selling guns to criminals using loop holes like gun shows and online private ad's then ban all private sales. Make people have to sell through licensed dealers.

Have a national gun register and make people have to prove they still own the guns every 6 months.

Will it stop all illegal gun sales? No of course not but it will make it more difficult, it will make anyone buying a gun more accountable for the weapons they buy. It would also make more of the guns used illegally more traceable. Any responsible gun owners should have no problem complying to these requirements. Only people who want to do anything illegal should be objecting.

As we have seen in other countries when illegal guns are more difficult to obtain the black market price on them rises steeply which means even less people will have the means to buy them illegally.

a reply to: MrMasterMinder

Everything you've advocated are steps toward an outright ban because, once the government figures out that their new laws aren't working, they'll keep pushing for more.

American gun owners aren't willing to give up that sort of control to the government because we know that outright bans are the next step. The anti gun agenda in the US is to ban them all. They push for "sensible measures" because they know they can't just ban them outright.

The gun culture is different here, which is why your ideas simply aren't realistic. I know you want to keep the focus on gun crime only but the overall violent crime problem is where our energy should be focused. The UK has a terrible problem with violent crime and while there are fewer shootings, I doubt a person who was stabbed to death feels like gun control solved the crime problems in the UK.

Simply going after the tool never works to address the actual problems. Just look at prohibition and the war on drugs as prime examples. Instead of figuring out how to ban guns, we should be figuring out what makes a person want to use one to kill someone in the first place.

a reply to: Answer

That's just ridiculous fear mongering and a poor excuse for implementing sensible controls that would help to protect the public. The present laws are clearly not working and the government haven't banned guns altogether because of it have they?

Alcohol and drugs are not traceable back to a legitimate manufacture are they? Making guns more traceable forces accountability on the people making and owning them. If it turns out that lots of weapons from a specific manufacture or dealer are falling into the wrong hands then the authorities will know exactly where to start investigating to fix the problem.

The UK has a terrible problem with violent crime and while there are fewer shootings, I doubt a person who was stabbed to death feels like gun control solved the crime problems in the UK.

Trying to compare breaking one law with people breaking another is nothing but using strawmen arguments. try sticking to the topic for a change which is guns and the loopholes surround the sale of them. It shouldn't be to hard as you did start the thread..

Simply going after the tool never works to address the actual problems. Just look at prohibition and the war on drugs as prime examples

It obviously does work because in the UK we dont have the same ridiculous amount of deaths by gun that you do in the US.

originally posted by: MrMasterMinder
a reply to: Answer

That's just ridiculous fear mongering and a poor excuse for implementing sensible controls that would help to protect the public. The present laws are clearly not working and the government haven't banned guns altogether because of it have they?

That's an ironic statement coming from a person who lives in the UK. The term is "give an inch and they take a mile."

Registration is a step toward confiscation. History proves it to be so. As soon as stricter gun laws are passed and they don't work, the next step will be even worse. It's a given.

Alcohol and drugs are not traceable back to a legitimate manufacture are they? Making guns more traceable forces accountability on the people making and owning them. If it turns out that lots of weapons from a specific manufacture or dealer are falling into the wrong hands then the authorities will know exactly where to start investigating to fix the problem.

Guns are already traceable back to the original dealer who sold the gun. How do you propose making them more traceable?

Criminals already file off serial numbers.

Trying to compare breaking one law with people breaking another is nothing but using strawmen arguments. try sticking to the topic for a change which is guns and the loopholes surround the sale of them. It shouldn't be to hard as you did start the thread..

It is not a strawman. My point is that violent crime is the problem and eliminating guns does not stop violent crime. You want to focus on guns only, I want to focus on eliminating violent crime. Until violent crime is reduced, law-abiding citizens are not going to willingly give up their mode of self defense. The two issues are mutually inclusive whether you want them to be or not.

It obviously does work because in the UK we dont have the same ridiculous amount of deaths by gun that you do in the US.

Again you want to make it all about "gun crime" while ignoring the overall crime problem. Address the root problem and the "gun crime" problem will solve itself instead of simply turning into "knife crime" or "baseball bat crime."

Even before the UK passed sweeping restrictions on guns, there were nowhere near the number of shootings because, again, the demographics and cultures are different.

Violent crime rates in the US, including shootings, are down dramatically over the last 20 years but to hear the media, you'd swear we're seeing blood in the streets like never before.

Why are UK members of ATS so heavily invested in America's gun debate?