Gun owners’ private information leaked by California Attorney General
thereload.com
thereload.com
I'm staunchly pro regulation but this even I can't understand. Like someone just did SELECT * FROM GunOwnersDB and pushed is straight to the web.
Edit: Clearly I'm wrong and this is all malice from top to bottom /s Use your f-ing brains. You think someone is gonna risk their cushy government job to dox a bunch of gun owners and the managers are gonna risk their jobs signing off on it?
It was probably a _lot_ more involved than "SELECT *"
But yeah whatever really happened I'm quite certain that "the government of California just DELIBERATELY and with MALICE doxxed all the judges with carry permit" is the argument which needs to be met with "that's a hilariously large load of speculation".
I doubt anybody will lose their jobs for this as long as there is even a modicum of plausible deniability (every unruly child knows the "it was an accident" excuse, but somehow adults seem to conveniently forget about it in cases like this.)
Also, this is why I dislike government databases.
It's not like the old days where an attacker would have to haul tons of paper around and go through it manually.
Yeah, we wouldn't want the ability to pay people what they're owed, or what they've given to Social Security when it's time for payouts, or what people have criminal convictions for various crimes, or who owns what license plate, or who is registered to vote, because we want all those things to be as wild, wild west as possible. right? No need to track how much money you have in the bank, you can just trust them. No need to track how much you've paid off a loan, you can trust them to tell you when they feel like it. No accountability, no tracking, complete ignorance on everyone and everything...
Or we can have databases because they are extremely useful for a modern, well functioning society, and try to mitigate negatives as much as possible.
>It's not like the old days where an attacker would have to haul tons of paper around and go through it manually.
You mean longer ago than most people have been alive? When things were vastly slower, making them unusable with the numbers of people we serve now? When you paid more for most things since the slowness and overhead of every was also people having to go through all the records manually to get things done?
Good idea. We can set mankind back nearly 100 years, or if we really try, let's push us back before any automation.
Did I say we should stop using databases altogether? No. I said this is a reason to dislike them.
Did I say we should go back to using paper recordkeeping for everything? No. Again, that was never argued.
Have you considered that maybe there's a middle-ground between collecting, trading, and analyzing every possible scrap of data we can squeeze out of people... and the Butlerian Jihad?
>Did I say we should stop using databases altogether?
Claiming this is a reason to dislike all databases coupled with your wistful statement "it's not like the old days..." sure looks like your advocating for the old days.
>Have you considered that maybe there's a middle-ground between collecting, trading, and analyzing every possible scrap of data we can squeeze out of people... and the Butlerian Jihad?
Yes, which is why I mocked your dislike of all such databases (including as you wrote, banks and ISPs) and a weird reference to ancient systems as if they were a better option.
If you thought middle ground was a good solution, you could have simply written that instead of writing two extremes. But you chose the extremes.
I didn't say what you listed amounted to the "Butlerian Jihad," but you were clearly and deliberately implying that I said we should get rid of every database.
That's a strawman argument. You need to stop. Ok?
> Claiming this is a reason to dislike all databases coupled with your wistful statement "it's not like the old days..." sure looks like your advocating for the old days.
Nope. It's possible to dislike things and still compromise with them.
> Yes, which is why I mocked your dislike of all such databases
Right. You approached the conversation in bad faith. Quite a lot of that going on in this thread.
> a weird reference to ancient systems as if they were a better option.
A pointed reference to the fact that paper records couldn't be completely compromised remotely. A strength that's very, very pertinent to the discussion of a leak that includes ALL of California gun owners.
> But you chose the extremes.
This is precisely the strawman to which I was referring. YOU chose the extremes, not me. You've been told by the source (me) that this is not what was being said. Now you need to stop pretending it was.
I generally expect a higher level of conversation here than on certain other social media websites. I see that when it comes to political discussion, my expectations are unfounded.
To the parents post, litigation and firearms training are two things the NRA does well, which includes suing California over privacy issues such as this.
And on one hand, your relationship with your government is not the same as your relationship with private entities. However, at some level it doesn't matter who leaked a particular piece of information. If your favorite gun store gets hacked, and your collection is exposed along with your address, the effect is essentially the same as if it were the government of California getting hacked.
yeah, to government you are a voter, but to Equifax and Facebook you are a product,
you have as much influence over them as a barrel of wheat has over the farmer.
There was a registration list of every person and what religion they were for tax purposes, everyone was fine with it. Then 1941 happened.
Everyone must fill this form soon after moving to Germany. It's very difficult to proceed without registering one's address.
1. People can come target me for stealing
2. If the steppers pass a law targeting something then they know I have to turn it in or they come kick down my door and shoot my dog. I really don't want a database of e.g. AR pistols or braces so if the govt decides they are illegal they can't try to force me to turn them in.
> The California Rifle & Pistol Association (CRPA) slammed the leak and said it was looking into potential legal action against the state.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/illinois-officials-spar-ove...
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/illinois-house-approves-bil...
One thing I dislike about the news is that every article drops you into a situation, but you don't know how it ended up like that or what happened afterwards. It would be nice if some modern news site placed stories on a timeline.
Doesn't it do the opposite though? It gives criminals a map of exactly who they shouldn't rob, lest they risk getting shot. I imagine criminals will go after the softest, easiest targets, not the hardened, well-armed ones.
>Criminals get guns through burgling and robbery.
Are you sure about that? I thought it was more via buying guns in states where they're easy to get and which don't keep registrations or records, then illegally, covertly transporting them across state lines, and then sometimes removing/filing serial numbers and other identifying info.
In high school, my driver's ed instructor (here in California) said (jokingly) if you screw up and hit a person, you better hope they die. The implications of a death on your hands is a bounded lawsuit / jail problem. Someone surviving is a much less constrained problem. While crass, it made a point.
If you shoot someone in self defense and they are killed, you are dealing with voluntary manslaughter as the most likely charge, argue accordingly. If they survive, they get the opportunity to muddy the waters.
Either it is on your person or locked in a safe.
I'd say thieves generally want to rob when _nobody_ is home so it doesn't matter if they are armed or not. Knowing that there are guns stored in the house is just advertising something specific they might be able to steal.
Robbery is to steal under threat of force. Give me your wallet or I break your knee caps. That's a robbery.
You don't "rob" when nobody is home.
This is the mythos the gun owners fashion for themselves, but in reality, they don't live in forts camped out behind sandbags. They only have two hands, work day jobs, own cookie-cutter houses in the suburbs, drink at night, have kids and bitter ex-spouses, follow predictable routines, and are as bad at security as everybody else.
There are plenty of opportunities to get the drop on a gun hoarder. Being brazen has its rewards.
That much doesn't really matter. It's still lucrative to steal iPhones and fence them at those "recycle your device" kiosks.
Even if the owner calls the police and leads them to the box, there's nothing they will do-- by the time they get a warrant, the phone will be on its way to Brazil.
And yeah, you risk getting shot if you just barge into a house with a strapped owner, but all you need to do is ambush him when he's going to his car, or just enter his house when he isn't at home.
Not even close. Because most people aren't trying to advertise it.
About half of households in the US have guns. Do half of cars have NRA stickers? A quarter? One in ten?
Gun owners are shy. Thats why we prefer concealed carry instead of open carry.
I was not able to find a good state on this one. Some stats are reporting a stat from 30 to 40% of ownership with data jumping up and down every alternate year, whereas others are porting 20-something percent ownership. About half of households in US having guns means gun control issue being totally dead.
No one knows how many guns there are in America (more than one per person though) and who owns them. We know its mostly men, with a significant, increasing, number of women. Minorities are also increasing their share of legal gun ownership.
About 20%-30% of the adult population owns a gun, but many women don't say they "own a gun" if their husbands own one - guns are, for many reasons, very much "personal" property. It's the husband's gun or the house's gun, not necessarily hers [1]. However, in my experience talking to other gun owners, the wives support or encourage their continued ownership. Hence "household" ownership estimated somewhere about a third to half.
(Its actually probably closer to the mid to low 40s, but varies regionally. Chicago has very little legal handgun ownership, Kennesaw GA has basically universal gun ownership.)
Furthermore a lot of Americans own a gun without considering themselves a "gun owner". The single shot .22lr they got for their 12th birthday. The Ruger 10/22 that was passed down. An emotional relic they cling to that is still very much a firearm. Then there is the "shy conservative" who will lie on a survey. This to say, there is a significant amount of people with guns who will answer "no" to a survey question about gun ownership.
I think the best way to gauge this, an to your point about gun control, is its electoral significance. Democrats aren't really affected at the pols for failing to deliver gun control, but Republicans are demolished if they waver a little bit (note every GOP senator who voted for bill is retiring or not up for election). I think this hints that gun ownership and tolerance is widespread among the GOP and independents.
[1] imagine 250 lb hubby has a double stacked 10mm and is married to a 90lb petite. The physics doesn't work. Even myself, Id love for my wife to come to the range one day, but Ill have to rent her a smaller pistol - the 92 has a very large grip even for me.
Indeed but pro-life voters voted for the GOP with their nose pinched, mostly aghast (their perspective) at the alternative (the Dems have long moved away from "safe, available and rare").
Anyway, gun control is far less popular than overturning Roe. At least until you slice "Roe" up (partial birth, first, second, third trimester). Gun control will have to happen through the administrative state
40% of people (or adults, not sure) live in a household with a gun. Not all of those people consent to the gun's presence.
"percent of households" is probably in between.
Gun control issue is not dead, because the percentage varies regionally, and gun control can stop people from buying and using a gun immediately in a fit of passion.
No, of course not. But most do.
Anyway, to my original post, a criminal entering a household has about an even chance to burgling an armed home. It varies regionally, so in Kennesaw the chance is nearly 100%, in Chicago it's nearly 0% (legally owned anyway).
Concealed carry also has the benefit of a criminal not knowing who is armed or not and thus can't really assume that any one person is a soft target, which is a great deterrence factor.
Apples and oranges.
I feel like this puts everyone without a gun at risk. I hope every gun owner in CA sue him up and down.
>People with guns at home kill themselves at triple the rate of normal people.
Those studies are widely known to have serious statistical problems since those with suicidal tendencies also may purchase a gun, completely breaking the independent variable requirement to make such a claim. [1] for example at least addresses that these are real issues.
Also, Japan's suicide rate, without guns, is larger than the US suicide and homicide rates combined.
I think you're pushing as true things that are not demonstrated, and may well be untrue.
[1] https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/fir...
It's important to remember, in the context of this obviously intentionally vague language, that until 2018 the CDC was explicitly prohibited from conducting research into the statistics of gun violence by the Dickey Amendment, and has only published cursory data in the few years since that research ban was abolished. But -- that language still remains in legislative force: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2018/03/22/...
> Language in the report accompanying the bill clarifying that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can, in fact, conduct research into gun violence. A long-standing rider known as the Dickey Amendment, which states that no CDC funds “may be used to advocate or promote gun control,” has been interpreted in the past to bar such research. The amendment itself remains.
This study is quote controversial, not reproducible, and Kellerman would never release his dataset for others to check. This lack of credible scientific behavior is what led to the Dickey Amendment. The summary in the 2013 report is being quite kind to Kellerman (who was on the report committee - knowing his research and history I suspect he was livid about this conclusion dismissing his most famous work).
>that until 2018 the CDC was explicitly prohibited from conducting research into the statistics
This is false, which is why Obama called them on it and had them do a study, even though no law was changed. Also during the years 1999-2018 there are CDC sponsored studies on gun violence, which show up on their site and can be found via Google scholar.
The CDC self-imposed the ban. Even after the above, CDC still self-banned https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2015/01/14/...
Also there are many other national and private sources of funding to do the same research, from NIH (with 10x the budget of the CDC), to Bureau of Prisons to DoJ funding, to many private foundations.
> I think you're pushing as true things that are not demonstrated, and may well be untrue.
As if this refutes their entire thesis, which it does not. Can you provide some sources on your non-suicide gun violence assertions?
Now imagine that the government requires you to register your safe because a child could be trapped in your safe.
Now imagine that the database was leaked.
Your important documents were safer because you had a safe, now they are less safe because thieves know exactly what houses have home safes and thus where they should go to steal from.
And suppose this conversation is about real guns. Not nerf guns.
My anonymous gun ownership make me and my neighbors safer because I:
1. Can protect myself and my family.
2. Gun seeking criminals (e.g. Mexican drug cartels) that are better armed for the occasion do not know to target my house for my rifles, shotgun and handgun.
3. Burgling my very (yet cool) progressive neighbors is risky since every other house in America has a gun (I found a corner of swing state America that looks down on lawn signs). Widespread gun ownership significantly lowers the EV of committing crime.
Be useful to post evidence of this claim.
I have a safe, trigger locks, don't have a history of violence, etc. The small minority who are irresponsible gun owners get slaughtered increasing the numbers for the larger pool.
That partition function in the denominator is key!
So, no. My gun does not endanger my family.
USA is first by incarceration rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera... even with 120 arms every 100 persons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...
South states (where AFAIK at least looking at international news, people is more willing to own a gun) have incarceration rate really high: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra... Probably there's a problem with illegal immigration, that doesn't explain everything, overall is incredibly higher than other western countries.
This is quite old https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9715182/ "Conclusions: Guns kept in homes are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal accidental shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.
Also: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/sites/default/files/2014-... Almost all KPI but Defensive Use are increasing since 2014. Of course it's only correlation with number of arms, much higher in USA than most other countries.
But, there's a 2013 CDC study https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cdc-study-use-firearms-... that says * "that guns are an effective and often used crime deterrent and that most firearm incidents are not fatal" * "stolen guns account for only a small percentage of guns used by convicted criminals."
Or another one https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a2.htm: that says "In summary, the Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed for preventing violence."
Or from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concealed_carry_in_the_United_... it's not clear if concealed arm licenses had impact on crime, in any way.
Also, you must really be willing to use a gun. Uvalde police waited 45 minutes before going in, protocol says to go in as soon as possible, they were scared. They are humans afterall, even if trained.
So, it's not really clear to me that more arms means more or less safety. But I know this: in 2020 Chicago alone (where AFAIK there are what you could call "strict laws") there have been almost 3 times murders than whole Italy. Rate is about 60 times, and Chicago is not even in top 10 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...). Something to think about.
However, I didn't state a statistical fact, or assert the effect of guns on the amount of criminality.
"Widespread gun ownership significantly lowers the EV of committing crime."
EV is expected value, not expectation. That is, I didn't say that crime is less likely. I said that a person who comes into a house in the US has a not insignificant chance of leaving on a stretcher, which I consider negative value from the invader's PoV.
Cool do you have any evidence or a citation to back up the claim. I’m surprised, seems more likely they would buy off the black market.
Edit: Instead of downvoting, provide the source.
Edit2: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/guns/procon/g...
> An expert on crime gun patterns, ATF agent Jay Wachtel says that most guns used in crimes are not stolen out of private gun owners' homes and cars. "Stolen guns account for only about 10% to 15% of guns used in crimes," Wachtel said. Because when they want guns they want them immediately the wait is usually too long for a weapon to be stolen and find its way to a criminal.
I don't subscribe to the argument that firearms serve as an effective deterrent to robbery, so it almost certainly can't help.
But you asked where the black market gets it's merchandise. Theft, smuggling, and straw purchases immediately spring to mind. It would be interesting to see data comparing the effectiveness of each.
Reads to me as:
“I’m surprised [criminals steal guns] seems more likely they would buy [stolen guns] off the black market.”
The suggestion guns are sourced from a black market is not a compelling argument against those items being stolen. Invoking the black market itself establishes the incentive to steal.
I merely responded to the question regarding where else the black market could have acquired those guns.
As far as your rhetorical device, I'm sorry but theft isn't the only way firearms get into that market.
You're trying to attribute arguments to me that I never made, and I'd appreciate it if you'd stop.
Thanks.
I explicitly did the exact opposite of that.
You are clearly confused but at this point I don’t think I can help you.
I replied to sha256sum’s (not you!) comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31912312 with a rhetorical question. You then answered it as if it were an actual question. Since that wasn’t the reason for the question I then explained my interpretation of the original post (that again, you did not make).
Since that point you seem to believe I claimed sha256sum’s post was yours but in fact I did no such thing and actually disclaimed it specifically.
I'm tired of the disingenuous way you've approached this conversation, and your awful attitude.
As I said in my last comment, you need to cut it out.
The question is if any guns are stolen and the effect of publishing this list on the number of stolen guns.
I’m not sure how that is controversial. There can be other sources of guns. That doesn’t make this less bad.
if some contrived scenario represents less than 1% of the problem we are discussing, it's not a real problem.
there are 8 billion people in the world, and it is always possible to find someone who has done something, no matter how ridiculous.
The existence of a problem does not dismiss the validity of another.
Its not the governments responsibility to secure your guns either way. If anything more public detailed information about who owns guns is better so that people can properly avoid dangerous gun owners
Ok? So we agree?
> Its not the governments responsibility to secure your guns either way.
Ok? But that’s not been argued. It is also the government’s responsibility to not endanger the lives of citizens.
> If anything more public detailed information about who owns guns is better so that people can properly avoid dangerous gun owners
This list contains the names and employment details of judges and corrections officers (and their families) who are at risk of revenge. It may also contain the name of survivors of assault who wish to protect themselves from their abusers.
Included in the 'leak' were people who merely _applied_ for a CCW. Not necessarily that you have a weapon or even a CCW license.
And where does this 'so we can avoid dangerous <x>' end? For instance, controlled substance prescriptions become government owned data when they are relayed to the DEA. Shall we publish private information of anyone prescribed anything related to conditions that increase their chance of being at risk of committing a violent crime?
Many are likely stolen from cars. Leaving a gun in the glove compartment isn't terribly uncommon in America, nor are car break-ins.
USA sending mountains of guns to Ukraine now. I expect many will go into black markets.
Ok? Is that a lot?
> were given to gangsters in Mexico by Holder and Obama.
There are two options here.
One, you believe this is true, and that it is somehow relevant.
That means you are arguing for more gun restrictions. Which means you are a person that makes it harder for me to preserve an important fundamental right of gun ownership.
The second is that you are playing the part of an ignorant rube that plays into stereotypes of gun owners which are ultimately self-defeating to anyone who actually cares about the issue.
Either way I can’t come up with a way that you are simultaneously making an interesting and honest argument.
The first link you mentioned is about a failed operation, rather than Obama arming gangsters. Is it bad, that it failed, yes. But it's not like they were given to them to arm them. There is a lot of context missing there.
3.6 roentgen per hour? That's actually significant...
This took place in 2007. It was about midnight or 1AM and we were watching Clone High when there was a knock at the door. This being Canada and such I just opened the door, and the three guys pushed their way in with what I believe to be a Beretta 92 pointed at my face. Two of them guarded me while the other retrieved my then-girlfriend, now wife.
They proceeded to steal basically all of my father's firearms. They had significant difficulty in opening the safes and at one point brought me down to the basement (where my father's workshop was) to try to help them out.
They loaded everything into my mother's Dodge Neon. This process took them about two hours, during which time they rotated who was guarding us. Once they were finished, they bound us at ankles, wrists and hands with duct tape, flipped the main breaker, and drove off.
I gave them a count of approximately five minutes, and then worked to free us. When our hands were bound I moved my hands a bit apart to be able to get the tape off easier. I could then reach into my pocket for my knife (a Kershaw Leek) and cut the rest of the tape off both of us. I then called 911.
Over the next few weeks, I was the main suspect in the police investigation. I was interviewed repeatedly and polygraphed (the results of which were inconclusive, apparently). At one point one of the detectives basically asked my wife to "flip" on me, which she thought was pretty hilarious.
These guys are basically still at large, I guess you could say. Two of the guns have since been recovered but the rest have never been seen again.
Throughout this incident I remained quite calm. In fact, they played for me the recording of the 911 call, and suggested I must have orchestrated the incident because of how calm I sounded. Funny stuff.
I sounded too calm on the phone with the 911 dispatcher, I used "big words" ("affirmative", etc.) when giving my statement, and, and this one is my favorite, I didn't get super angry when they asked me what should happen to the bad guys. Yeah, like from that episode of The Office. I said something like "well, whatever the law says... do that" and apparently I should have said something more like "TEAR THEIR FUCKIN HEADS OFF AND SHIT DOWN THEIR NECKS AND THEN RIP THEIR DICKS OFF AND SHOVE THEM UP THEIR ASSES".
https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/suficspi16.pdf
300k-600k are stolen every year.
"That’s enough firearms to provide a weapon for every instance of gun violence in the country each year – several times over."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/21/gun-theft-us...
There are numerous city level reports as well if one cares to Google them.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/guns/procon/g...
> An expert on crime gun patterns, ATF agent Jay Wachtel says that most guns used in crimes are not stolen out of private gun owners' homes and cars. "Stolen guns account for only about 10% to 15% of guns used in crimes," Wachtel said. Because when they want guns they want them immediately the wait is usually too long for a weapon to be stolen and find its way to a criminal.
> In fact, there are a number of sources that allow guns to fall into the wrong hands, with gun thefts at the bottom of the list. Wachtel says one of the most common ways criminals get guns is through straw purchase sales.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/25/sources-secret-serv...
I hadn't heard about it before.
As a gun owner, sure there is. If your gun shows up in a crime, you get indicted as well. That would put a big dent in people being willing to buy guns for others.
Also making sure there are no secondary sales without background checks, which is supported by (I think?) the majority of Americans would help.
Repeat offenders at losing guns lose the right to any guns.
All of these would stop repeat offenders, and if I recall, the majority of straw sales are repeat offenders knowing they don't get in much or any trouble buying guns this way.
It's only supported by the majority of Americans until you ask them about specific situations and policy implications. Instead of a generic "Do you support universal background checks?" question they should try asking "Should you have to perform a background check to loan a gun to your roommate to take to the range?" or "Should you have to perform a background check to loan a gun to your next door neighbor who is worried her violent stalker ex-boyfriend has figured out where she lives?" and you'll find much lower levels of support.
Not at all, the current state-level bans on private sales only make exceptions for immediate family members and a few other specific groups/situations, they would make the behavior in my questions a felony.
Here's Washington State's exceptions (note that c would not apply to my violent ex scenario because the violent ex would need to be actually present at the time of the transfer and threatening harm):
(4) This section does not apply to: (a) A transfer between immediate family members, which for this subsection shall be limited to spouses, domestic partners, parents, parents-in-law, children, siblings, siblings-in-law, grandparents, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, first cousins, aunts, and uncles, that is a bona fide gift or loan; (b) The sale or transfer of an antique firearm; (c) A temporary transfer of possession of a firearm if such transfer is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to the person to whom the firearm is transferred if: (i) The temporary transfer only lasts as long as immediately necessary to prevent such imminent death or great bodily harm; and (ii) The person to whom the firearm is transferred is not prohibited from possessing firearms under state or federal law; (d) A temporary transfer of possession of a firearm if: (i) The transfer is intended to prevent suicide or self-inflicted great bodily harm; (ii) the transfer lasts only as long as reasonably necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm; and (iii) the firearm is not utilized by the transferee for any purpose for the duration of the temporary transfer; (e) Any law enforcement or corrections agency and, to the extent the person is acting within the course and scope of his or her employment or official duties, any law enforcement or corrections officer, United States marshal, member of the armed forces of the United States or the national guard, or federal official; (f) A federally licensed gunsmith who receives a firearm solely for the purposes of service or repair, or the return of the firearm to its owner by the federally licensed gunsmith; (g) The temporary transfer of a firearm (i) between spouses or domestic partners; (ii) if the temporary transfer occurs, and the firearm is kept at all times, at an established shooting range authorized by the governing body of the jurisdiction in which such range is located; (iii) if the temporary transfer occurs and the transferee's possession of the firearm is exclusively at a lawful organized competition involving the use of a firearm, or while participating in or practicing for a performance by an organized group that uses firearms as a part of the performance; (iv) to a person who is under eighteen years of age for lawful hunting, sporting, or educational purposes while under the direct supervision and control of a responsible adult who is not prohibited from possessing firearms; (v) under circumstances in which the transferee and the firearm remain in the presence of the transferor; or (vi) while hunting if the hunting is legal in all places where the person to whom the firearm is transferred possesses the firearm and the person to whom the firearm is transferred has completed all training and holds all licenses or permits required for such hunting, provided that any temporary transfer allowed by this subsection is permitted only if the person to whom the firearm is transferred is not prohibited from possessing firearms under state or federal law; (h) A person who (i) acquired a firearm other than a pistol by operation of law upon the death of the former owner of the firearm or (ii) acquired a pistol by operation of law upon the death of the former owner of the pistol within the preceding sixty days. At the end of the sixty-day period, the person must either have lawfully transferred the pistol or must have contacted the department of licensing to notify the department that he or she has possession of the pistol and intends to retain possession of the pistol, in compliance with all federal and state laws; or (i) A sale or transfer when the purchaser or transferee is a licensed collector and the firearm being sold or transferred is a curio or relic.
They would also stop of lot of existing homicides, which are also felonies already being committed. Your cases are honestly quite contrived and rare, especially against the number of homicides and other crimes using straw purchases.
I think most people would trade common case homicides for rarer cases you pick. The stats are pretty clear on which cases are most common. That is why the support for such laws is so widespread and bipartisan.
And you know, this problem has to be solved right now: too much of an imposition to look out for them while they go and buy a gun from one of the numerous gun stores - but giving away a loaded gun, that's what you want to do (no one would do this in this scenario).
Yes to both. It takes 30 seconds to run the check. They're not required to interview kindergarden classmates or something crazy.
For every person you cherry picked getting raped that would have stopped the assailant with a gun, many more are killed under the current system.
Instead of picking outlying events and trying to put them forth as common, why not look at common events to start with? You'll get much better policy and understanding from that.
Sounds possible in theory, but not so much in practice. Let's say I live my whole life as a model citizen, then one day buy a gun with the intent to kill a bunch of people. No background check in the world would deny my purchase. What now?
In any case, your hypothetical model citizen wouldn’t be bothered by background checks and waiting periods, so there’s no harm in restrictions that prevent crimes that would be stopped by a mandatory cooling off period.
The CDC disagrees with you. In the study that is fairly well known at this point, the CDC estimates 500k defensive gun uses every year in the US. Note that I am giving you the lowest number in their range. However there are about 40k deaths due to gun usage every year. 75% of all deaths due to gun usage are suicides. In actuality, there are 10k deaths due to gun usage we need to look at during discussion of gun regulation in the United States.
Also, since I've never heard of this CDC study, you should provide a link if you plan to cite it. I think it's more common in your social circle/internet bubble than with the general population.
> At least 2/3 of suicides are based on a fleeting desire
How do you know?
I'm not being snarky. I'm genuinely curious.
We obviously can't ask someone who was successful at committing suicide about their mental/emotional state, eh?
For the sake of discussion let's assume the point.
These suicides by gun due to "a fleeting desire" would be presumably among people who already had guns? How fleeting is the desire? Is the idea that if someone who has been struck by the "fleeting desire" to kill themself has to go get a gun first then there's time for the "fleeting desire" to wear off before they can act on it?
The point isn't that people buy a gun to commit suicide, it's that if you already have a gun you will use it when overwhelmed as opposed to attempting to kill yourself in a less successful way.
FWIW the argument still seems weak to me. The methodology here is still unclear:
> You look at the rates of people attempting suicide a second time if their first attempt was interrupted, and you do your best to identify only the serious first attempts
You find people that definitely attempted suicide and were interrupted, then track them (for how long?) to see if they try again? An attempt is counted as "serious" only if they try again (within some time frame)? Are you saying that 2/3 of them don't try again?
- - - -
> if you already have a gun you will use it when overwhelmed as opposed to attempting to kill yourself in a less successful way.
Okay, but then what's the intervention here?
Are you saying that we remove guns from everyone just in case someone has a really bad day and offs themself? (I do not mean to sound flippant, I hope I'm not coming across that way. I'm thinking of Hunter Thompson here, RIP, who arguably should not have had access to firearms in his condition.)
Yes.
> ou find people that definitely attempted suicide and were interrupted, then track them
Pretty much. Obviously, people's natural lifespans exceed how long these studies have been going on, so there's a natural timelimit. I think most studies look 5 years out.
> An attempt is counted as "serious" only if they try again
No, the exact opposite. You try to find out if the interrupted attempt was serious. I'm saying that the 2/3 number isn't counting people who idly speculate about suicide or write a note. It's counting people who take steps that realistically can be interpreted as an attempt.
Of those people who made a "serious" attempt, 2/3 will not try again.
> Okay, but then what's the intervention here?
I mean, if you're jumping from "suicides are irrelevant" to "what policies can prevent them", I'm not sure. If we didn't care about self-defense, there would be lots of policies (requiring guns to be locked up at ranges or something), but people do care about self-defense. And any barrier that will prevent suicide likely will prevent that. Consider some magic program that assesses mental state. You're probably under similar emotional stress in both suicide and self-defense.
But as is, that does seem to be one thing "red flag" laws are for.
Fund mental health if you want to help the suicidal people.
When they cited a number they gave a range: 60,000 to 2.5 million. Quite the uncertainty there. They've since replaced the wording on that page entirely, because the CDC doesn't actually know: the CDC is effectively prohibited from investigating gun violence [2]
[1] https://www.thetrace.org/2022/06/defensive-gun-use-data-good...
If you're not involved in gang banging / drugs then in the extremely uncommon chance you die by firearm, it's most likely it was a choice of suicide. In Europe and many other developed nations with harsh firearm laws, suicide via physician is an option so a more comforting and society-approved solution rather than firearm becomes more favored for suicide.
As far as I know, in Massachusetts anybody who has a license to carry has already passed a background check. If the recipient has an LTC, then you know they're okay. And as the transferer, you most likely want to be entering the transaction into the state's database of ownership ^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h transfers so that if something nefarious is done with the gun, they don't come looking at you.
Of course the waiting time (and possible hoops, depending on city/town/class/race/etc) to originally get your license to carry dovetails right into your (hyperbolic) point. And I don't particularly enjoy having to register personal property with the state, nor needing a license to possess personal property. And overall Massachusetts is known as one of the most restrictive firearm regimes in the nation. Still I just feel its worth looking at how existing regimes tackle the problem, to see where their pain points and loopholes are. I feel electronic databases would be a lot less onerous in general if they were built with foundational cryptographic privacy, with a public audit log for every access.
Overall I feel like we'd be better off focusing on fixing our society's pervasive mental health problem rather than turning the whole country into a padded room by myopically focusing on inanimate objects. Mentally healthy people don't want to shoot up schools/trains/churches.
(I'm aware my comment is full of non-partisan nuance. Downvote away)
It is quite common that the perpetrators of mass shootings have previously had the police called to them by their partner. Rarely is anything done about this, but that's the motivation for "red flag" laws.
There were reasons things were rarely done. Most importantly, under 18 or non-married calls didn't count as red flags. Congress just passed a bill fixing those two issues going forward that Biden is extremely likely to sign into law.
In CA it takes two visits to an FFL for each transfer (to them and back to you) with a 10 day waiting period in between the two visits and a $35 fee. Your "it takes 30 seconds" tells me you have no idea the reality of how gun laws affect the law abiding.
California's more draconian rules than what's been proposed has no bearing on anything.
I just bought a rifle in Nevada a couple weeks ago. It took multiple days to run the check.
No to both.
It also seems you're trying to stack the deck in your favor. If you're going to ask questions designed to pull support away with cherry picked circumstances, then you should also ask cherry picked questions leading the other way, like pointing out how many mass shootings are done with guns that bypassed background checks.
So cite your poll please. I'd like to see the questions.
Or you can ask a fairly neutral question, like [1], a poll with the question "How much do you support or oppose each of the following? Requiring background checks on all gun sales"
73% strongly support, 15% somewhat support, 4% somewhat oppose, 4% strongly oppose, 5% don't know/no opinion.
That's a pretty neutral question, has massive support.
Let's see your data on your split questions.
[1] https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000180-fe72-d0c2-a9ae-ff725...
Can you name some? Better yet, can you point to data on how often this has happened?
Off the top of my head, I can think of several instances where the guns were legally purchased and the shooter passed the background checks. I can think of a couple where they were stolen, and one where they were taken from a family member after that family member's murder. I can't think of any where the firearm(s) were acquired exclusively through private sale.
so, someone breaks into my house while I am on vacation for three weeks, ignores the alarm, rips open the gun safe, takes a gun, kills someone...I go to jail?
but even in the case of actual straw purchases, the buyer is often victimized by the ultimate intended user...gangs browbeating vulnerable people etc. doesn't excuse the crime, but imprisoning a mule won't stop much
Not if you report it or demonstrate it was stolen. And I didn't write "go to jail" - indicted means they're going to investigate you, just like they do now when a gun registered to someone shows up in crimes. And those people don't "go to jail" if they didn't have the gun.
What it does curtail is people buying guns to give away, because at some point enough guns will show up having been registered to them then used in crimes, and that should be prosecuted. That behavior is what is going to bring even stricter regulations if it is not curtailed by some set of laws.
I'd prefer a decent background check on firearm transfers - I already pass them with zero problem, but it would hinder people that should be banned from working around such measures.
That's not what "indicted" means. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment#United_States
How would it help at all? They've already proven willing to break the law with the straw purchase.
> All of these would stop repeat offenders, and if I recall, the majority of straw sales are repeat offenders knowing they don't get in much or any trouble buying guns this way.
You don't know what you're talking about. It's a felony, and precludes you from purchasing or even possessing a firearm ever again. It's not possible to be a repeat offender.
I did a quick Google, and -- sure enough! --
"Biden nominee for ATF Director says he's never owned a gun"
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2022/06/biden-nominee-for-a...
And I'm also pretty sure it's not "Republican" DAs and AGs refusing to prosecute crime.
"At the N.R.A.’s instigation, Congress has limited the bureau’s budget. It has imposed crippling restrictions on the collection and use of gun-ownership data, including a ban on requiring basic inventories of weapons from gun dealers. It has limited unannounced inspections of gun dealers. Fifteen years ago, the N.R.A. successfully lobbied to make the director’s appointment subject to Senate confirmation — and has subsequently helped block all but one nominee from taking office."
I'm pretty sure no DA is refusing to prosecute violent crime. One party is limiting the gun crimes that DAs can prosecute. https://www.salon.com/2022/06/06/us-laws-are-causing-mayhem-...
What does a firearm have to do with alcohol and tobacco?
These days they can even catch over stamping, I heard about some cases using xray to do it. So it's more trouble than it's worth to remove serials on new guns usually. For some reason I hear about almost no instances of peening to hide it, which is probably because you need to know the right size and pressure so it mostly makes sense at scale.
It's funny the number of criminals that run around with literally filed off serials and get themselves literally 10x the time on the gun charge as whatever else they caught for.
You can instead get a shitty gun bc some have badly done serials (speshul wepunz has done this before, but ofc then you have to shoot one lol), you can get an old gun, you can finish an 80% lower. But most criminals just steal or straw buy, or buy smuggled guns (the philippines is notorious for this).
Also just scratching the surface smooth is not enough, and most people screw that up. The stamping leaves strain marks in the metal under the surface, and these can be recovered from a completely smoothed surface.
For example https://www.horiba.com/int/science-in-action/raman-breakthro... and https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2...
These are just the tip of the iceberg for recovery techniques.
The classic trick for removing serial numbers and foil attempts at recovery is to weld over. For guns this gets complicated because you're potentially altering heat treated parts that would need to be re-treated but that's doable. The kind of people who tend to own heat treat ovens tend to be the kind to ask questions but that would cost $$. There are many common and popular guns where the serialized parts are not mechanically significant enough to warrant special heat treating in which case weld away.
Welded over is trivial to recover the serial numbers. See the refs I posted for example.
This is A) obviously nonsense B) does not incentivize any positive behavioral changes C) equivalent to banning re-selling your guns.
We already have the ability to prosecute people who perform straw purchases.
> the majority of straw sales are repeat offenders
Sounds like the problem lies with straw purchase enforcement, not with the entire concept of gun resale.
If you loan your car to someone and they commit a crime with it, you can face charges for it. If you sell your car without a termination of interest notice filed with the state and the new owner doesn't file the signed title, it is still legally your car and what the new owner does with it can get you in legal trouble.
In general if you have no reason to believe someone will commit a crime with your car, you typically can't be found criminally liable for merely loaning it out. With firearms, it's actually a federal crime to lend a firearm to an out of state resident except for lawful sporting purposes (not general purposes, like lawful self defense).
if your car is involved in a crime, the cops will come looking for you. maybe you can beat a conviction but you might face an uphill battle even with an attorney. but sure, it's not illegal to sell a car without transferring the title, but neither is it considered a legal sale. that is still your car as long as the title is in your name.
Sure, they'll come looking for you. Registration and titling of cars just makes that even worse, not better, for innocent people who lend out cars. If that's your argument, that's one against having registration / serial numbers / record of transferring firearms.
The police can also rake you over the coals for anything. I had a search warrant once served to me because a few corrupt DHS agents (CBP and HSI) fabricated a warrant that suggested I had drugs up my ass (not even embellishing here). Police can come looking for you for any reason they want.
Hopefully innocent people are eventually vindicated (as I was), but it's definitely better to never be identified in the first place if you're an innocent.
Arguing against regular old accountability is not a good look.
Taking a group, the vast majority of which have done nothing wrong, and wholesale holding them 'accountable' by releasing their private information is senseless and indefensible.
There is so much more to this story than you're telling us. My first thought is that there is probably a reason for that. But I'm genuinely interested in hearing more.
Temporary use for lawful sporting purposes. I've taken that to mean I can let my out-of-state buddy try my rifle while we're at the range, or use it while on a hunting trip together. I would be pretty careful about lending out a gun to an out-of-state resident without being present the whole time they are using it, otherwise I'd be afraid of getting into a legal battle about whether it was temporary use.
I would be quite shocked if anyone was prosecuted under 18 U.S. Code § 922 (a) (5) for a firearm loaned exclusively for sporting purposes, but this is not legal advice. Personally I can think of at least one long-running skeet/trap range that will lend out shotguns for sporting purposes without any representative being anywhere near present while you use it, and they've been on the radar in plain sight doing this for decades across thousands of people (and they'll lend to any tom/dick/harry without any scrutiny).
Buying a gun "for" someone else is a very gray area. For example, if I bought a gun and ten years later sold it to some guy who committed a crime, should I be indicted? Was this a straw purchase with a looooong time window? Or if I truly did buy a gun for someone else (as in, purchased and delivered the same day) and he waits ten years to commit a crime, was this also a true straw purchase? How can you tell?
No, because for you to sell it to him, you'd have done the background check, and transferred it to him. That is the point.
Same as car titles, or mortgage deeds, or others items in society that transfer ownership.
In most (all?) states there's no need for a background check or any kind of record keeping when two individuals are selling/transferring to one another [0]. Between states it's another story.
> Same as car titles, or mortgage deeds, or others items in society that transfer ownership.
There's no constitutional right to any of those things, which is what makes the situation different.
0: https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/resources/federal-ccw-law/f...
Have you followed this thread at all? I am fully aware of this, having done many gun transfers.
This thread is about adding universal background checks.
>There's no constitutional right to any of those things, which is what makes the situation different.
It is not different at all - it is perfectly constitutional to require background checks and transfers - that is how the current system is legal.
And all constitutional rights have bounds. 1st Amendment free speech has limits on what you can say, where you can do it, even requiring permits for many cases. 3rd, 4th, 5th Amendments about housing and property - you have a constitutional right to property, but it can be deprived, and many forms are registered and require paperwork to transfer. So it's not at all different from other property registration and transfers.
Most definitely yes. It makes no difference even if he never commits a crime, it's still a straw purchase. Per 18 USC 922(a)(6), you cannot lie to a federal dealer when purchasing a firearm. Question 21(a) on the mandatory Form 4473 (Firearm Transaction Record) asks if you are the actual buyer and not buying on behalf of someone else. If you answer no, the sale is denied. If you answer yes and it isn't true, you have violated 922(a)(6).
So again, as many others have said, if your gun is stolen then what? You’re implying that if your gun showed up at a crime scene you’ve done something wrong, which is clearly not true in many cases.
All this will do is decrease gun ownership due to liability.
Please search the FBI and ATF online data for people arrested and or convicted of straw purchases.
Then tell me how serious they are about stopping it.
If I purchase for myself, and then sell it to someone else, when does that constitute a straw purchase?
If that is your earnest intent when you bought it, then ostensibly it would be legal. However...
Laws aren't computer code; gray areas get hashed out in court. How often you've done this and the amount of time that passed between the purchase and sale would be considered, as well as any paper trail you might have left. Simply put, there is no firm answer to your question. Talk to a real lawyer if you think you're wading into a gray area like that.
Exactly.
My point was that GP skipped straight over the fact that this is significantly difficult to prosecute, and stated with no evidence that the federal authorities must "not be serious" about it.
Say the seller transfers a gun they've owned for several years to an out-of-state prohibited person. The gun turns up in crime. The original purchases lies and says they sold it just one year after ownership to an in-state person, and haven't possessed this gun for several years. There's no requirement for sellers to keep record of who they sold firearms to, so it's hard to prove this defense wrong.
"Oh, gee, I just bought the gun on Tuesday and sold it on Thursday for no particular reason. It just happens that the gun appreciated by 20% during that time and my friend really didn't want to spend so much gas getting all the way to the gun store anyway. Who would have guessed such a fine person would be a felon? Same for the other 14 counts."
A straw purchase is someone asking you to purchase on their behalf and doing things like providing funds, telling you how to fill out the form and/or coming to the store with you. Those are the people that end up convicted.
You can think of it similar to tax evasion. Failing to declare $10,000 in income because you didn't understand the tax code is not a crime. Intentionally hiding $10,000 of income is.
21.a. Are you the actual transferee/buyer of the firearm(s) listed on this form and any continuation sheet(s) (ATF Form 5300.9A)? Warning: You are not the actual transferee/buyer if you are acquiring the firearm(s) on behalf of another person. If you are not the actual transferee/buyer, the licensee cannot transfer the firearm(s) to you.
If you answer No to this question, the transfer cannot continue.
Cite: https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/4473-part-1-firearms-trans...
It may not be a straw purchase, but it’s also not primarily for your collection. The threshold of “business” or “dealing” seem intentionally vague by the ATF, but what you described can be interpreted as illegal without an FFL. My two cents anyway.
Straw purchases can happen if you are selling privately too. You should take a few steps to make sure the buyer is legit. Ask to see a concealed carry permit or FOID card. Or ask for a driver's license, and put the info down on a bill of sale that you then both sign. Keep the bill of sale forever, in case the gun should ever be stolen or used in a crime - it can help get the gun back to the new owner if the ATF does a trace.
I've known people who buy and sell quite a few guns, and even though there was no legal requirement for them to do so, this was their policy. Show them a matching permit to acquire or carry permit and driver's license, or they wouldn't sell a gun. Nothing was written down, but if you weren't willing to show matching paperwork and an ID, they wouldn't sell it to you. And I think in a few cases, if the buyer was being unusually squirrely and evasive, they didn't even get that far.
Very, very few gun owners have any desire to sell guns to prohibited persons.
I know an awful lot of gun owners, and I can't think of one who would sell a gun to someone they suspected wasn't permitted to own one.
I bring this up because people like yourself slowly erode rights by doing "the right thing" when that thing is giving up something you will never get back.
Nope - it doesn't matter whether or not the actual buyer can legally purchase or possess it. A straw purchase is a crime regardless.
> You should take a few steps to make sure the buyer is legit.
Morally, yes. Practically, no.
You're only committing a crime if you know or should reasonably know the person you're selling to is prohibited. You have no legal duty to ask, and asking only proves that you considered the possibility, and could be construed as evidence that you were suspicious.
In college I would find deals on guns on Backpage, buy them cheap, and then resell them at a much higher listed price.
No background checks were required for private sales, so all I had to check was that the person had a driver's license for the correct state when I sold it, and even then no bill of sale or info was required.
Make your selling process known, and you'll get some very sketchy buyers that are willing to pay high prices, and it's all technically legal as the seller as you don't even need to ask if the buyer is legally able to purchase a firearm, and it helps fund college tuition.
Do you ever feel bad about selling guns to people who have been convicted of a severe enough crime to not be able to buy one directly?
I find that intuition is far more reliable than documentation anyhow. I’ve turned down several sales because the buyer struck me as irresponsible.
Having a higher willingness to pay could be a whole bunch of things; I just found there was a curious number of buyers that would pay over the going rate, which in a free market may have meant there was a reason for it.
I also take ideological issue with the felons cannot own firearms rules. Imo, if you've served your time, your debt to society was served, and your rights should be restored.
I was never under the impression that these weapons would be used for violent crime.
1) acting as a dealer (buying with intent to resell - aka 'dealing in firearms' [https://fflconsultinggroup.com/federal-firearms-license-what...])
2) likely selling to those who were not residents in the same state (you mention drivers licenses 'for the correct state', which implies not all the same state) [https://thefirearmfirm.com/gifting-or-selling-a-firearm-acro...]
3) selling to those you reasonably suspect may not be eligible to own. [https://www.nrablog.com/articles/2016/4/buying-and-selling-a...]
The way it works with firearms, purchasing a gun on behalf of somebody else (not as a gift) is illegal regardless of that other person's legal status as a gun owner. If you and I are both allowed to buy and own guns but for whatever reason agree that you will give me money and I'll buy a gun for you, that's illegal.
It's more of a gray area when it's an intrafamilial transfer.
As far as actually catching perpetrators? Again, without a database its usually down to undercover work and tips.
https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/crime-g...
https://giffords.org/lawcenter/state-laws/trafficking-straw-...
https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/56-arrests-dozens-of-narco...
A straw purchase is when a gun is purchased on behalf of someone else. The person buying the gun isn't using their own money, or the person they're giving it to has traded them something of value.
A gift doesn't involve an exchange of reciprocal value. In other words, I can legally take you into a gun store, let you shop, buy the gun for you, then hand it to you. In practice, a gift purchase is almost always when the recipient isn't there, because it looks like a straw purchase.
Ironically, if you take someone shopping to buy them a gun as a gift, by law you're the one that's supposed to have the background check run - not the recipient. Almost all FFLs will deny the sale if you tell them that you're buying it as a gift for someone who is present at the time, and there is no easy and legal way to run a background check on the intended recipient.
If memory serves, a cop was convicted a few years ago of a straw purchase after buying a "blue label" (police discount price) Glock for someone else. That person gave the cop the money, the cop bought it, then gave it to the person. The actual buyer in that case was not a prohibited person, and the straw purchase itself was the only crime committed.
> Ironically, if you take someone shopping to buy them a gun as a gift, by law you're the one that's supposed to have the background check run - not the recipient.
That is contrary to what is on ATF Form 4473 [0]. Form 4473, question 21.a., asks if the purchaser is the actual transferee of the firearm. The form makes it very clear that it is a crime to answer "yes" if the buyer is purchasing the firearm to transfer to another person.
[0] https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/4473-part-1-firearms-trans...
I have my doubts that in the situation that you described that there would be interest and motivation to prosecute, but if that buddy had gone on to commit a felony, or this was a repeated offense, then they would use warrants, subpoenas, and other standard prosecutorial tools to try to find the cache, get electronic records, and compel witnesses to testify. As someone else noted, all that's required is falsifying the the purchase details (Abramski vs US).
How are there so many repeat offenders that are violent with guns?
It seems to be some kind of trend to make guns a white-collar crime or something. Like, if you don't file the right paperwork before loaning someone a pistol at the range, then it's a crime; but if you mug someone its the gun's fault.
Ask people if they want gun laws enforced, and they say yes. Ask people if they like it when prosecutors charge a guy with 30 crimes for committing one act of armed robbery, and many start singing a different tune.
In this case though, straw purchases _are_ the main crime and there is a real lack of enforcement for that particular crime.
Such a subcrime would be a "lesser included offense"; you can charge for both offenses, but you can't get a conviction on both of them at once.
What this discussion touches on is not multiplicity but unreasonable multiplication of charges (at least in my jurisdiction we call it that). The test here is not the logical question of whether one necessitates the other by definition; it's the factual question of whether the offenses are part of substantially the same transaction. For example, a prosecutor might charge perjury, fraud, and larceny, wrt someone swearing to some materially false fact and fraudulently obtaining someone else's property with intent to permanently deprive them of it. These three offenses are not subsets of one another, but are closely related; it isn't logically necessary to commit perjury to commit fraud, in the abstract, but in a particular case that might be the mechanism by which one commits fraud. In my jurisdiction, UMC charges can stay on the charge sheet (perhaps the jury finds guilt on one but not all?) but, if convicted of more than one, they are merged for sentencing.
if a straw purchased gun is used in a crime, I'd be surprised if it didn't get investigated.
Well, let's say the original purchaser happens to be suspected of a crime (completely unrelated to a straw purchase, let's say bank robbery) and during a search of that purchaser's house, federal agents find a receipt for a check with "Glock 19" written on the memo line, it'll get their attention [0]. Very likely scenario :)
Other than that, good old fashioned surveillance plus a getting a confession [1]. I've also heard ads on the radio for a tipline to tell cops about straw purchases. No idea how well that works, though.
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abramski_v._United_States#Fact...
1 - https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/philadelphia-woman-conv...
This is usually resolved by not adding the jail times for the crimes, but by doing MAX(a, b, ...) on them. Prosecutors will suddenly only care about the most important ones.
Also see why some gun laws are written in an extremely obfuscated and convoluted manner, for example the law that became a point of contention in State v. Rittenhouse.
Abramski v. United States suggests that SCOTUS recognizes that straw purchases are illegal. Although, I guess the current SCOTUS isn't above ignoring precedent that is popular with the people.
I assume you are referring to roe v wade, which is a case of where the precedent was wrong ín the first place (Abortion was pretty much banned everywhere in common law, so there was no precedent of it being an unenumerated right, for example) and was kept as a precedent because it was a precedent (ignoring the lack of underlying constitutionality)
Isn't this always the court's opinion when it overturns precedent?
The gun problem is synonymous with the Republican problem.
Because blaming Republicans is just a canned argument at this point, can you unpack the mechanism a bit more? Are Democrats trying really hard to fund ATF, FBI, etc and Republicans are blocking it? Can you substantiate this claim with examples? I don't necessarily doubt it, but without substance this just reads like vapid flamebait.
Nuance is required. In Florida, for example, it's legal for person to person private sale of firearms. There are restrictions that you're legally obligated to follow. Pulled this quick list from a search; https://www.pumphreylawfirm.com/blog/can-i-sell-a-gun-privat.... "Straw purchases" then means there has to be intent to provide it to someone free of charge (hard to prove) in addition to providing the firearm to someone for which it is illegal for them to own one. Otherwise it's merely a private sale.
This isn't a very good definition of a straw purchase. Buying a gun as a gift for someone is legal (federally, at least) and usually not considered a straw purchase. It's a straw purchase if you aren't the actual buyer, but are acting as an agent for somebody else, whether or not they could have bought the gun themselves legally, and whether or not money changes hands. It is, of course, up to the prosecution to prove you were acting as an agent rather than gifting, or buying for yourself and then later deciding to resell.
Sounds like a BS statistic: what about all the crimes people got away with committing? How do they know the status of the guns used in those?
The real answer is probably that stolen guns are probably used by more sophisticated criminals (i.e., the ones that elude the police). And straw purchases are used by the people who keep getting caught, hence the need for the straw purchase to begin with.
This isn't good.
> It makes the gun owner a lucrative target.
I mean, on one side they're saying that owning guns is necessary to protect their property. But now they're saying that owning guns makes them a target for crime? To me it seems like they're trying to have it both ways on this.
> Criminals get guns through burgling and robbery.
Private transactions are still legal. The gun show loophole is still around. Buying a gun and gifting it is legal.
They're saying that the government leaking their personal information makes them a target for crime. Is this comment a joke? I'm having trouble believing that anyone could seriously view this as somehow indicating that gun owners are hypocritical. I guarantee you that no gun owners wanted California to track and subsequently leak their personal details. If you're being serious, this is some of the (unintentionally) funniest sophistry I've seen in a while.
> Private transactions are still legal.
If you can't legally buy a gun at a store, you can't legally buy a gun privately.
Why is this? Are we talking about burglars who want the valuable guns? That does seem odd as the number two deterrent to burglary is knowledge that the home-owner has a gun (the number on apparently are large dogs).
If the above is the case, the idea is that a burglar will scan this list for nearby homes and target them? On the basis that they have a gun alone (which again, is the number two deterrent to burglary). Plus, there is a lot of precedent that it takes almost nothing to use deadly force against an intruder and have zero consequences.
> I guarantee you that no gun owners wanted California to track and subsequently leak their personal details.
I'm guessing that California gun owners are perhaps amongst those who particularly do not want their personal details leaked. There are all sorts of reasons to not want that for anyone. This argument though of "we're now bigger targets for crime", when they have guns to "prevent" that crime, I can't reconcile that. So is the gun a deterrent, or not?
I can think of a lot of other things that would make someone the target for burglary, like having a 4 car garage and gated fence.
> If you can't legally buy a gun at a store, you can't legally buy a gun privately.
While that is the case, if there is no obligation to run a background check (gun-show loophole) - then how do you prevent these people from purchasing guns?
The loophole is not that it's legal or illegal, the loophole is that someone is obtaining a gun that shouldn't.
Given this context, the fear that those looking for guns would use this information to target a relative minority that have them becomes much more plausible.
So, the fear is that burglars would actively mine this data, go to the physical location, wait and ensure nobody is home, then break in? All that compared to say doing the same for someone that has an expensive car in their drive way?
How would the burglars feel about travelling to that neighborhood to first case it? Would you go a few dozen miles to first just find out if there are security cameras, neighborhood watch, etc..?
I think this speaks to a sufficiently motivated burglar. Would this list be the different for that motivated burglar to target someone on that list, compared to any other target? For that motivated burglar, was this leak really the difference in who they target?
Thinking through this scenario concretely, it seems like there are plenty of other actual dangers to worry about.
It makes me think that this side of the coin is just high-pitched whining (my opinion),vs a very legitimate complaint regarding data breaches.
Almost without exception, every discussion with anti-gun advocates is predicated on this kind of attitude, in concert with an astonishing ignorance of the subject they wish to further regulate.
Kind of like conservative men and their beliefs on women's reproductive rights.
The reason is because it allows improved matchmaking of criminals and victims, and allows criminals to improve the efficiency of their crimes. A criminal that's looking for guns could go outside your house, wait until you leave, then rob you looking for the guns and getting out quickly (with a fence ready to buy them). A criminal looking for something else could see that you're not on the list, break in with their gun while you are home, and do who-knows-what to you.
Sure, there are exceptions. Maybe you want a "beware of dog" sign or a "closed-circuit camera" notice that might push the criminals to keep looking for their next victim. These notices are best to prevent crimes of opportunity, and probably better posted on the house than in a leaked database online.
The "gun show loophole" doesn't exist. It is still a crime for a prohibited person to possess a firearm no matter how they get it. In many states including California, it is illegal for a private sale to occur without a background check. Somehow, many prohibited persons still acquire them, and their info wasn't just leaked by the California AG.
And they will need an FFL if they make a business of selling privately.
I think you inadvertently hit on why people are opposed to further gun regulation. The people committing the crimes aren't gonna follow the law and it stands to only further burden regular citizens.
Can you give me an example of how this would work?
Anyways, it's kind of a moot point in California because that's a felony here.
I'm inclined to believe that this will push home robberies onto those without guns.
If you get burglarized, your ham radio equipment probably won't get stolen. And if it does, it's a crime of opportunity, not because someone found you in a database and somehow knew you had the good equipment.
But sometimes criminals are desperate for guns, or the quick cash that guns can bring. You don't want desperate, potentially violent criminals finding out that your house has exactly what they are desperate for.
If they want the cash, they could even prearrange a fence based on the database search. That's a little too convenient.
I think you missed the premise here: ham radio equipment = $$$, open registry of people who may have ham radio equipment available for years, chance of having other expensive things very likely, correlation to crime and open registry of names pretty much zero. The article is just trying to foment a controversy when there isn't one.
Fabio A, Duell J, Creppage K, O’Donnell K, Laporte R. Gaps continue in firearm surveillance: Evidence from a large U.S. City Bureau of Police. Social Medicine. 2016; 10(1).
I've not submitted a PRI in the state of CA (which is what I believe is required for CCW data), but based on privacy laws I assume they're not handing out addresses on a whim.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/outrage-after-ny-newspaper-publ...
True. But, not BY robbing people on the CCW list. That is a damn death wish. CCW is a privilege in CA. CCW permits are difficult to get, a large portion is issued to ex-police and judges. CCW holders practice at the gun range as it is required to pass and hold the CCW. EG. There isn't dust on their pistol.
God help you in court - if you are standing there charged with armed burglary of another judges / officers house [with CCW].
I don't know if the map was dynamically generated from the data on every page load (thus requiring the data to be there), but the slowness of the server suggests maybe it was. Another good reason to use static sites unless there is a good reason to do otherwise. This database only went through 2021, so it wasn't changing.
[1] https://thereload.com/new-california-bill-would-allow-the-re...
Paranoia about my data in government databases wasn't on my radar 15 minutes ago...
Wait, really?
If you really want to be scared check this out: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List
The government in most forms is my biggest fear for my personal data security
The DMVs are all selling this stuff.
See, the state banned them before the feds did. But unlike the feds, the state did the right thing and compensated the owners who surrendered theirs to the State Patrol (which required filling a form with a bunch of PII). That program was put together rather hastily due to the impending federal ban tho, and they didn't really consider the privacy angle.
Then they got two FOIA requests for all the submitted forms, one of which explicitly stated that it's to compile and publish the registry of former owners. The legislature actually had to scramble to pass another law to specify that data as private before the response was due.
Now we have an accidentally-disseminated list of gun owners. "Oops," indeed. Turnabout is fair play?
Arguably the second most important one in 2A jurisprudence?
Also the OPM not being able to secure the personal info of everyone with a security clearance.
It's too conveniently timed--and too specific in content--to be coincidence. They didn't leak a list of everybody on food stamps during a slow news cycle.
Everything other states have threatened to do regarding abortion, California has responded to by doing the exact same thing, only replacing the word "abortion" with "guns."
Some states have actually banned all abortions so it seems like you should be able to point to a single statewide official suggesting all guns be banned. Otherwise you might be guilty of exaggerating just a bit.
Should've been the end of it. Why do you ho on to argue why you think it's true?
That is a disappointing disregard for modern public discourse.
You may well have something interesting to say. Alas, we will never know.
Here's a famous one:
> Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, Inc., for the 2009 fiscal year was publicly posted; the document included the names and addresses of hundreds of donors.
https://reason.com/2021/03/04/californias-requirement-that-n...
The law they were using to sabotage groups they didn't like finally got ruled unconsitutional.
As it should be, "I told you so" all day long.
prediction comes true
Gun control advocate: "good job now they'll use this as an example"
Yep.
In other words, just because guns aren't being used to keep the government in check right now doesn't mean there aren't valid situations where they could be. I'm not entirely sure if your comment is insinuating that. If it's not, sorry for misinterpreting it.
In other words, can we have some concrete example when, in your opinion, it is appropriate to shoot a cop?
The government wants to maintain a monopoly in the use of force and violence. I don’t think they should have that option. Call me a libertarian.
This does not clarify the issue. When is violence justified against an ordinary person in your opinion? If you're proposing a legal principle, there should be a clear line.
Moreover, who gets to decide when violence is justified? Are we leaving that up to each person's own sense of justice? Or does everyone have to use your standard? How do we resolve post-facto disagreements about the justification of use of violence?
What punishment would you support for someone who uses unjustified violence that they feel is justified? What if they disagree with that punishment?
"Defense" is not a simple idea. Proving self-defense in court is quite difficult. Self-defense has not ever been in the US a legal defense against the charge of resisting arrest. We currently discourage violence against cops by giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are acting in the best interests of the law; we may in fact give them too much credit, but to give them no credit at all would turn any arrest procedure into a brawl.
Allow me demonstrate: if a cop A wants to arrest person B, rightly or wrongly, A is using physical coercion, which is violence. By your argument, under ther principle of self-defense, any citizen has the legal/ethical right to oppose use of violence. So now we have a situation where two people simply have differing opinions: A thinks that B should be arrested, and B thinks that B should not be arrested. In your argument, the way to resolve this dispute is not in courts, but immediately, with violence. Either way, someone will get hurt or killed.
Another aspect: if a person's legal justification for resisting arrest depends on their guilt or innocence, why would anyone voluntarily submit to arrest, since doing so would be interpreted as a sign of guilt? If only guilty people can be arrested, then what is the point of courts?
I fail to see how this legal framework would not lead to massively escalating violence everywhere in society. Your worldview is juvenile.
This is possible and I accept this end point. My worldview is consistent, yours is bound up in perverse gotchas and outs for when force that is otherwise unjustified has to be justified or else "bad things" will happen to society. You assume that my framework ends with "massively escalating violence everywhere in society" but you haven't proven that and, more importantly, your worldview (assuming it's the current one) has resulted in the same problem. Or are we to take George Floyd's death and the related national civil unrest as not a massive escalation of violence everywhere in society?
I'd rather be juvenile than a hypocrite.
Come on man. You're arguing like a 12 year old here. "You can't prove that!" is not an argument. Try to at least form a cohesive logical defense of your position.
> Or are we to take George Floyd's death and the related national civil unrest as not a massive escalation of violence everywhere in society?
Overall, violent crime is massively down since the 1990s. George Floyd's death and the resulting civil unrest highlights important problems in our society nonetheless, and should result in reforms. The fact that those reforms have been weak or non-existent is a result of regulatory capture by the police, the unjustified strength of police unions, a judiciary that gives too much credit to police, the police culture of protecting each other, and other issues. Hopefully, we will, through legislatively-enacted reforms, reach a position where the actions of those police officers are sufficiently disincentivized that they will become rare. I don't think that an appropriate resolution of the George Floyd incident would be for by-standers to execute the cops.
> bound up in perverse gotchas and outs for when force that is otherwise unjustified has to be justified or else "bad things" will happen to society.
Yeah. What you call "perverse gotchas" is what I call "necessary complexity," because human society is complex and the rules regulating is are complex. I understand the allure of using simple rules at all costs, but thousands of years of jurisprudence suggest that humans are too complex for that; that's why we have thousands and thousands of laws. Understanding that a complex system requires complex rules is not hyprocricy, it's just good engineering.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." Australia was violating human rights every time they made it illegal for one of their citizens to enter the country. Don't lump these "illegal border crossing"s in with foreigners trying to illegally immigrate.
Which is a shame, really. I quite like it.
The idea that the person your forcing to do something (anything) may be armed makes the government less likely to force people to do things.
Sometimes we all need to heed the rules of the society in which we live.
If an elected government cannot make rules because "someone might get shot" then the government needs to control the guns. Otherwise we're all at the mercy of those willing to kill so they don't have to abide by the rules.
Government officials already need to worry about the political implications of their actions, they shouldn't need to worry about being murdered by a loon with a gun who disagrees.
How would the government act differently if citizens owned fewer or different or no guns? Where does the fantasy that the everyone is out to get you and you had better be armed and ready come from? Cowboy movies? The whole idea of the cowboy is myth[0].
If you want to see real power hungry government in action, don’t think SWAT coming for you, look at the Missouri State Health director keeping a spreadsheet of women’s menstrual cycles, in order to make sure that if any became pregnant the state could intercede [1].
If you’re reading HN, you’re probably some kind of engineer. So tell me, how is a problem which is itself generated by the accumulation of brute power solved by a countervailing accumulation of brute power? Which then just becomes an arms race. Which is objectively insane. It is an infinite loop. How do you break it?
[0] See "This Land" pg 61-66 by Christopher Ketcham (https://lccn.loc.gov/2019018042), citing Lynn Jacobs "The Waste of The West" (https://lccn.loc.gov/92121736)
[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/missouri-health-directo...
It raises the stakes for oppression. How would Hong Kong look right now if the population were lightly armed? Instead of a civilian police force repressing millions the Chinese military would have had to occupy its own territory. That has political and international consequences.
I believe in gun regulation. But I recognise the civic core of the opposition’s argument.
Let’s be honest, if they were armed and gun ownership weren’t already against the law, the Chinese government would sweep in and pass a law that day and start going door to door, seizing weapons, take the people from their families and send then to reeducation camps. It wouldn’t forward their cause at all.
The word “civic” is odd here too (I recognize that your comment is about the intent of the parent comment’s argument), because the opposite pole to political violence is… civil discourse. There is an unavoidable incoherence to the idea that gun ownership is about civic responsibility.
What the GP said about "upping the stakes" is very true.
Never mind that gun owners in America don't have the organization, training, resources, or equipment to effectively combat a police department, much less the US army quelling an armed insurrection, even if their rights ever were legitimately threatened. Never mind that private gun ownership as it currently exists would never be a realistic check on any government. The macho fantasy endures, and colors so much of our discussion on gun rights.
The other missing datum from the macho fantasy is under what conditions is armed revolt justified. The sibling post mentions Hong Kong as an example. So what if, on the other hand, the government wants to compel citizens to vaccinations? Are the citizens justified in murdering cops and healthcare workers in order to avoid mandatory vaccination? What if the citizens believe that an election was fraudulent? Are the citiens (legally, ethically) justified in raiding the Capitol to forcibly overthrow the government?
There are no good answers to these questions because the justification for gun ownership is not based in any real-world conditions: it's purely a fantasy.
This is a common argument, but completely ignores what the Taliban/Iraqis/ISIS did to the best and most well funded military for 20 years. What the Vietnamese did 40 years before that; completely ignoring 60 years of actual events.
Do you think ordinary Americans have the skill or appetite to take up arms against other Americans? Especially better trained and equipped Americans?
How far do you think the Jan 6 insurrectionists would have gotten had the capitol police taken the threat at all seriously?
The argument that "America's armed forces have lost wars" does not support your conclusion that "ordinary Americans are capable of defeating America's armed forces."
And you also conveniently ignore the rest of argument, pointing out that a democratic government doesn't need armed insurrections.
IDK. Ask the Irish.
The Taliban, VC, etc, had basically ZERO ability to mess with the invading army's supply lines or the political process keeping those supply lines open. Furthermore, the martial law steps taken in places like Iraq to stem the violence would be much more politically costly domestically. I can crap out plenty of non-US examples of this kind of thing if that helps.
This shit is all basic stuff covered in Armchair General 101. Educate yourself.
Based on the snide tone of condescension, this response sounds like it was written by precisely the kind of delusional macho wannabe who fetishizes firearms and dreams of one day murdering someone.
Or maybe I've read just a little bit of history and think you're the delusional one.
Civil wars don't go down like foreign occupations. If this nation breaks down into widespread violence (I don't personally think it would, I think it would balkanize before we ever got to that point) I hope that you live long enough to be subject to is so that you may learn an important lesson and that some future generation may be spared the task of mopping up the mess.
That's exactly the problem: you've read some history and now you think you're an expert in civil war.
Are you? What are you basing your opinion on?
Great idea, let's apply it in other contexts. Next time I get a parking ticket, I'll follow around the traffic cop with an assault rifle until they lower the fee.
You may think that waiting to vote at the ballots or having your phone calls dumped to a voicemail and never returned is an appropriate response to being locked up in your own house against your will with the threat of state action if you leave; however, a few people in Minnesota did not think that it was appropriate. So they showed up and they showed up armed.
That’s their right and it’s the right the second amendment protects. You may not like it, but that’s just because you haven't disagreed with the government hard enough yet.
Sure, if by "checked" you mean "threatened with violence." My comment is intended to question whether or not that's a good idea, by attempting to applying the same principle to other walks of life.
> being locked up in your own house against your will with the threat of state action if you leave
You mean the usual way of dealing with the outbreak of a deadly contagious disease?
> That’s their right and it’s the right the second amendment protects.
Threats are not protected.
It often doesn’t even give local police enough pause to make sure they are invading the correct home in the middle of the night.
What camps? At some points, some international arrivals were quarantined in "camps" and, interstate or international travellers were variously required to isolate in hotels. The US had a range of at-home and government supervised quarantine too.
TO say they "set up camps" is disingenuous.
Having armed citizen is terrible for freedom. It means that the kind of person willing to use violent force against another person has power.
We're way past that phase. New York has been playing this game for years[1]
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2012/12/25/us/new-york-gun-permit-map/in...
Please don't call me a jackass.
Now that we have that out of the way: Gun owners have brought this kind of thing on themselves. I've observed them for years.
Most of the demands for "privacy" for gun owners stem from the fact if you did a fair and accurate background check... they wouldn't be able to own them.
I don't own one, but they took me out on Pearl Harbor day when I was sixteen and showed me how to shoot a 1911 at the local range. Prior to that, I learned on BB guns, then at the archery range in Cub Scouts, then finally on bolt action .22s in the Boy Scouts. I can't hit a target accurately with a pistol more than 10 yards out, but I know enough if someone gives me one I can make use of it.
Anyways, the ugly truth is most gun owners in America... shouldn't. They're obsessed with movie plot threats and movie plot guns, when if you truly want to have a militia geared at ovethrowing fascist oppressors, you want to take a look at how they handled such things in places like occupied Prague or Amsterdam.
Hint: they didn't run up on the Nazis with deagles or AK-47 clones with drum clips so large they jam sooner than if you stuck with a 30 round banana clip -- they walked up with a .22 revolver so quiet you can't hear it from the next apartment over, emptied it into the skull of some local party official, dropping no casings, because it's a revolver, not a deagle with a dick extender, then dropped it in a canal or whatever and never spoke of it again, and slit the throats of those who felt otherwise as they slept.
The second amendment was about maintaining arms for hunting and/or a small guerilla force to hold off invaders until an organized militia could provide reinforcement, not so every tom dick and sally could replicate the National Guard armory.
This is literally what this thread is about.
How did this ever go live? Like, was it a bug or did they actually think putting this on the web was a good idea?
I'm thinking that we should have a MTBL (Mean Time Between Leaking) companies and government. The data they have in their system will only be safe for X number of years, on average.
If anything the gun owners should be happy, the government gave them free deterrence from being the target of crime.
Unless you want to steal a gun of course.
> If anything the gun owners should be happy, the government gave them free deterrence from being the target of crime.
Unless they are the kind of person exposed to abnormal risk. The same people who are more likely to need or want a concealed weapon. Examples include judges and correctional officers who are called out in the data explicitly. Or anyone with an abusive partner or stalker who can look them up by name.
They’re probably feeling less thankful right now.
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/01/1004062322/the-supreme-court-...
Like the 1A, 2A isnt absolute, even conservatives say it isnt. You cant shoot guns for fun in a patio in NYC (but you should be allowed to own a mortar!). Not absolute but unconstitutionally stifled for decades.
You just have to pony up $200 for the mortar itself, and then $200 for each shell, to register them with ATF as destructive devices. Well, and find someone to willing to sell them for you. Or make your own.
Nevertheless, if you follow the procedure, it is legal, and rich collectors do it. Also applies to larger artillery pieces, tanks with working main gun etc.
A quick search found this list of examples: https://www.learnaboutguns.com/2019/08/11/the-meaning-of-wel...
(linking to that site rather than its source since the source is sending a bad SSL cert)
There are other writings by the Founding Fathers from the time of the ratification of the US Constitution reiterating the need of a right for people to own arms in case it's necessary to overthrow the government, specifically including the government they had just created.
social security is for determining who to pay and who not to pay.
> voters
voter registration is to determine who can and cannot vote
> drivers
driver registration is for determining who can and cannot drive
> students
is this even true?
> people on disability, people who are unemployed
again, for determining who to give money to (people are free not to file). those are voluntary
> but gun owners would be too much
to what end? it seems like the purpose of all of those other registries is to know who they should take away benefit of the program from.
Why does a driver and car need to go on a registry? You just said that was ok.
A right is a right!
So mandate that the last registered owner of a firearm is an accomplice to any crime committed with it, unless it was reported missing or stolen prior to the time of crime.
This would have the incentive effects of:
Parents keeping their nutso incel kids from their guns.
People would voluntarily get a notarized bill of sale for transfers, even private. They could not, but then they would be putting a high level of faith in the buyer and all future owners in perpetuity.
The notaries and bills of sale are now a de facto, decentralized but private source of record for transfers.
Unless there is something I don't understand about notaries.
You put no intellectual effort into rebutting, and made senseless and incorrect assumptions about me. I made a good faith attempt at making an incremental improvement in keeping guns out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them.
You just compared two objects. State your case or move on.
I'm not liable for a criminal taking my car and running over pedestrians even if I leave the door open and engines running in a public place.
No, someone would not be immediately thrown in an incarceration pit if someone stole their gun on a Saturday afternoon and killed someone on a Saturday night. Jesus, this is a HN thread. It's a whiteboard, not legislative text. Open your mind.
Ahh, the true sign of someone arguing in good faith.
> you have a very bad faith manner of making your points.
As opposed to your "stay calm and passive aggressive" nonsense.
> nothing in your tone suggests humility, decency or the willingness to debate with people as if they are partners in the community. You're looking for a fight. You aren't looking for solutions.
I'm not willing to debate your insane proposal. There's no humility here because I'm right. You're not going to change my mind because it's a stupid idea. I'm not looking for a fight, your idea is dumb. It has no corollary in any situation where something deadly is stolen (cars, prescription drugs, literally anything). To make an exception for the one thing that is constitutionally guaranteed is the most absurd way of going about such a thing. Not to mention the fact that it's completely _impractical_ politically, even if you could convince someone that it was a good idea.
I have the solution, stop proposing this bad idea.
The Supreme Court just handed down an opinion that essentially struck down California's concealed carry law, not to mention Dobbs. This smacks of childish retaliation for not getting your way.
They only eliminated requiring a “good cause” to obtain a CCL. Self-defense was not considered a good cause in a number of cities and counties. Being a celebrity or donating was.
Bonte is leaning hard on the other requirement of “good moral character”, so there’s going to be more lawsuits.
They effectively did. Many counties were using the CCL as defacto gun control and/or sources of bribery and corruption. Now _anyone_ who is willing to follow the has equal access to a CCL instead of relying on the whims of a sheriff.
California politicians don't use the phrase "only" when they talk about removing the "good cause" requirement.
I wonder just how "accidental" this leak was.
> Licenses and applications to carry firearms are public. CBS Inc. v. Block, 42 Cal. 3d 646, 652-53, 725 P.2d 470, 230 Cal. Rptr. 362 (1986). However, certain information contained in the application is expressly exempt. Cal. Gov’t Code § 6254(u) (information indicating when and where applicant is vulnerable to attack, information concerning applicant’s mental health, and home address and telephone number of prosecutors, public defenders, peace officers, judges, court commissioners, and magistrates set forth in the application and license is exempt). The agency must segregate the exempt from non-exempt material. See Cal. Gov't Code § 6253(a).
Attorney General Bonta Releases Name, DOB, and Address of CCW Holders - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31903486 - June 2022 (77 comments)
This is unbelievably stupid!
why is the govt tracking the race of gun owners?
It's just funny to see it happen again.
Here's from the transcript between Alito and the Solicitor General from California from https://www.oyez.org/cases/2020/19-251 at around 1:19.
Samuel A. Alito, Jr.
All right.
The brief filed by the ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund says that we should regard your system as a system of de facto public disclosure because there have been such massive confidentiality breaches in California. And from the perspective of a donor, that may make sense.
A donor may say: This is a state that has been grossly negligent in the past.
No sanctions against anybody who's leaked this information.
I have to assume that this may happen again. Why isn't that a reasonable way to look at this?
Aimee A. Feinberg
I don't think even the district court regarded it that way, Justice Alito.
At 62a of the Law Center petition appendix, the district court said that the Attorney General's Office efforts to rectify past lapses and to prevent them in the future were commendable.
Samuel A. Alito, Jr.
It said your past record was shocking, did it not?
Aimee A. Feinberg
In the foundation decision, it did.
Following the court's analysis of the evidence regarding the changes to the State's protocols, it called those efforts commendable.
Its concern at the Law Center -- its concern at that point was that the State could not guarantee confidentiality.
Edit: something else I just thought of. Gun-owning judges are explicitly called out in the spreadsheet. Gun-owning judges are also probably less likely to agree with Attorney General Bonta when he's in court. Is it possible that those judges will have to recuse themselves in cases involving Bonta?
The party of the state AG enjoys full control of the state, I'm pretty sure he feels quite secure in his position.
The difference, though, is if any of the above is stolen, the gun owner will say "SEE?" and buy more guns for protection.
I think a DOXing lawsuit against CA DOJ is needed. The data isn't wholly accurate but relevant to 12/2021.
Except for the right against slavery and involuntary servitude, the Constitution doesn't say that.
"State Dept. finds no ‘systemic’ classified violation in Hillary Clinton private-server emails"
...
"38 individuals committed a total of 91 security violations involving emails sent to or from Clinton’s private server."
Nothing in the constitution signals you have a right to privacy as so decreed the court, so while you may have a right to own guns it can be made as public as the state wants with no recourse. In this scenario it's more pure incompetence, but that's the way I see it going down.
Not really, the court refused to hear it on purely procedural grounds (it is constructed to be a civil lawsuit in TX and not criminal).
That's not true. There's a previous ruling that determines that "liberty" in the 14th amendment includes privacy for many things. Roe v Wade determined that abortion was one of those things. Overturning Roe doesn't overturn the precedent it was based on.
The leaked information includes the person’s full name, home address, date of birth, and date their permit was issued. The data also shows the type of permit issued, indicating if the permit holder is a member of law enforcement or a judge.
So that is "easy to draw conclusions".
Another case of criminals having more rights than law abiding citizens.
To be clear, the AG wanted to make public the elements of permits that are public.
The AG made technical mistakes that led to private information being leaked.
That's why the site is now offline.
"We are investigating an exposure of individuals’ personal information connected to the DOJ Firearms Dashboard," his office said via email. "Any unauthorized release of personal information is unacceptable.We are working swiftly to address this situation and will provide additional information as soon as possible."
Oh, really? How so?
https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/houston-police-crime...
I would like you to expand on your supposed pitbull ownership correlation as well.
You'd be very surprised at the diverse demographics of gun owners.
I'd say most pitbull owners aren't using them as guard dogs. That would be a stereotype. As is stereotyping the actions of pitbull owners.
Most pitbull owners are just normal dog owners. I think you have this sort of caricature of this junk yard scene that you see in movies/tv.
Your assumptions makes leaps of logic, you could just as easily say a family got a large dog instead of getting a gun for protection.
Ok then my argument still holds true, and you're just upset that I called out pitbulls specifically. Your argument for negative correlation also doesn't really make sense - if it did, gun owners would just stop at buying one gun because they already have one. People who take their self-defense seriously don't usually just stop at the bare minimum.
You stereotyped pitbull owners specifically, not dog owners. Then you backed off as the logic fell apart. You're just spouting off assumptions (which you've admitted are assumptions) without anything to back it up.
> if it did, gun owners would just stop at buying one gun because they already have one.
Many gun owners do only have one gun for protection. Again, another stereotype assumption.
Some people aren't comfortable with guns, so they get a dog for protection.
Now that you've done "gun owners" and pitbull owners would you like to stereotype anyone else?
Or do you just want to stop at the one that is acceptable to?
You keep using this logic, but it's just another strawman. I've never claimed these statements apply to everyone - that's a very weak interpretation, so I don't think you're arguing in good faith.
First off, that response was not refuting your main point, but a secondary point. (I'm really not sure what your main point was as you changed it from profiling pitbull owners to profiling dog owners after I pointed out the flaw in your logic)
I was simply disputing your statement that dog owners would have also have a gun because gun owners own multiple guns. That's not sound logic.
Your logic is jumping around and you don't have a cohesive point.
Would you like to rephrase your main point so we can add straw back to the man?
Which of your incredibly classist and racist indicators above can you apply to that many households?