NationStates Jolt Archive

So I was looking around and couldn't find a single firearms resolution. So I decided to take a whack at it. This is what I have so far:

APALLED that in some areas, it is legal for firearms of any kind to be sold to criminals.

SEEING the need for the sale of firearms to criminals to be outlawed.

MANDATES that the laws in every nation must be equally or more strict than the following:
A) Sale by Private Collectors
1)A private collector is to be defined as a single person who purchases firearms for the purpose of novelty, hunting, or self-defense.
2)A private collector may not employ any other people to assist in the sale of his or her firearms.
3)A private collector must own a firearm for at least three months before he or she may sell it.
4)A private collector may not sell more than 30 firearms in the period of one month, unless selling at a gun show or auction.
5)A private collector may sell his or her firearm to whomever he or she wants, provided that the collector does not know of any malicious intent, or past major crimes by the purchaser.
6)No waiting period is required for purchases of weapons from a private collector, unless otherwise dictated by local, provincial, or national law.


B)Sale by Commercial Vendors
1)A commercial vendor is to be defined as any person or group which does not fit the criteria listed above for a private collector.
2)A commercial vendor may accept any form of payment that is legal under local, provincial, and national laws.
3)Commercial vendors must check the history of the purchaser, to ensure that he or she has not committed any major crimes. If the purchaser has committed a major crime, he or she may not be sold a firearm by a commercial vendor.
4)Major crimes shall be defined, for the purpose of this resolution, as intentional murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, and assault with a deadly weapon.
5)The vendor must wait until 10 days after the purchaser requests the firearm before the vendor may give the firearm to the purchaser.

STRONGLY SUGGESTS that nations create their own registries of firearms within their states.

NOTES:
*This resolution does not force a right to bear arms.
*This resolution does not affect any acting member of any military or police force, nor the organizations themselves.


PLEASE read that last part under NOTES.

This resolution does not affect any acting member of any military or police force, nor the organizations themselves.

Feel free to comment, ask questions, and constructively critisize.

Why should only cash or check be allowed? I know of some nations where they don't have cash or check (see http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Orca) and I don't see a compelling reason to restrict it.

Enrique Lopez
Ambassador to the United Nations

Cash or check is the least of your worries. Check Clause C.

Why the hell should all assault-firearm owners register their private information with the United Nations? What? National governments aren't doing enough privacy-invasion already? This constitues a monumental breach of the individual right to privacy, and we hardly think the United Nations ought to be directly infringing upon that right any more than we think it ought to be protecting it.

Automatic fail. The Federal Republic opposes.

[EDIT: Wrong account. This is Omigodtheykilledkenny.]

Why the hell should all assault-firearm owners register their private information with the United Nations? What? National governments aren't doing enough privacy-invasion already? This constitues a monumental breach of the individual right to privacy, and we hardly think the United Nations ought to be directly infringing upon that right any more than we think it ought to be protecting it.
Abso-bloody-lutely.

Though we may not agree with the representative of Omigodtheykilledkenny's communist witterings about some form of "right to privacy", the idea that the UN would be instituting this form of police state, Big Brother, intrusion is out of the question.

If you want a UN proposal on firearms, I suggest something on arms trafficking - or something like Dashanzi's current Arms Code of Conduct proposal.

Why should only cash or check be allowed? I know of some nations where they don't have cash or check (see http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Orca) and I don't see a compelling reason to restrict it.

Enrique Lopez
Ambassador to the United Nations

Reasonably, a private collector, which is intended to be a person who sells a gun over the backyard fence to a neighbor, would not be paid with a credit card. That clause is meant to prevent a person from selling large amounts of weaponry and claiming to be a private collector so that their clients don't have to use the waiting period.

I could remove this clause. But I really think that this is neccecary to the private collector idea, and I think without the private collector idea, the proposal would fail.

Perhaps I could change it to: "
3)A private collector may only accept cash or check payment for his or her firearms, except where such forms of payment do not exist. In this case, a private collector may accept the default form of payment in the nation of sale."

But really that whole Orca thing is an extraordinary circumstance.


Cash or check is the least of your worries. Check Clause C.

Why the hell should all assault-firearm owners register their private information with the United Nations? What? National governments aren't doing enough privacy-invasion already? This constitues a monumental breach of the individual right to privacy, and we hardly think the United Nations ought to be directly infringing upon that right any more than we think it ought to be protecting it.

Automatic fail. The Federal Republic opposes.

[EDIT: Wrong account. This is Omigodtheykilledkenny.]
So, by private information you mean name, address and the type of weapon. (I'm thiking of removing age. Not really neccecary).

If you would prefer, I could change that to national governments. I may even change it to a "STRONGLY SUGGESTS" line. But I think that an enforced firearm registration for non-hunting weaponry is a reasonable thing to ask. All that would be known is that John Smith owns a weapon. It doesn't ask why. It only associates a gun with a name and an address. So that way if a person is murdered in city A with a gun of type X, and person Q is the only person the police can find with a motive and that gun, the police don't have to waste their time checking out all the other suspects. And if he has an aliby, he's fine.

Normally I don't like the idea of "If you didn't do anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about."

Oh, and calling it an automatic fail without even seeing if I would be willing to remove it isn't very polite.

I like the username, though.

EDIT: Oh, and Gruenberg, New York is not a police state.

But anyway, I think that it may actually be a good idea to change it to a "STRONGLY SUGGESTS" national registry.

EDIT 2:
Removed section C, replaced with:
STRONGLY SUGGESTS that nations create their own registries of firearms within their states.

Changed section A3 to:
3)A private collector may only accept cash or check payment for his or her firearms, except where such forms of payment do not exist. In this case, a private collector may accept the default form of payment in the nation of sale.

Reasonably, a private collector, which is intended to be a person who sells a gun over the backyard fence to a neighbor, would not be paid with a credit card. That clause is meant to prevent a person from selling large amounts of weaponry and claiming to be a private collector so that their clients don't have to use the waiting period.
I think the definition should be tightened up then, not restricting the form of payment. The definition includes a single person who has a small booth in front of his house buying and selling firearms for his collection. It is reasonable that that person may have a credit or debit card reader, or that a nation would have a system allowing debit or credit cards to be used privately, or that someone would want to buy a gun using a money order, or barter for it, or whatever.

Enrique Lopez
Ambassador to the United Nations

Okay. I'll get rid of the payment restrictions and add more restrictions to the definition.

EDIT: Just re-read your post. Had I thought of bartering I would never have put that clause in.

EDIT2:
Adding these in section A:

2)A private collector may not employ any other people to assist in the sale of his or her firearms.
3)A private collector must own a firearm for at least three months before he or she may sell it.
4)A private collector may not sell more than 30 firearms in the period of one month, unless selling at a gun show or auction.

I'm not sure about the three month thing. What do y'all think of it?

I'm not sure about the three month thing. What do y'all think of it?
I think it's excessive micromanagement.

But then, I think that of the whole proposal, so my advice is kinda meh.

~Rono Pyandran
Chief of Staff

How about this idea; a greatly condensed version that just touches the stuff that I REALLY want to have happen, and ignores all the jargon about sellers and stuff.


APALLED that in some areas, it is legal for firearms of any kind to be sold to criminals.

SEEING the need for the sale of firearms to criminals to be outlawed.

ILLEGALIZES the sale of firearms to persons who have been convicted of intentional murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, or assault with a deadly weapon by any person or group that has knowledge of said conviction.

MANDATES that the sale of a firearm must be proceeded by a background check, to ensure that the purchaser in question did not commit any of the above listed crimes, except when the seller is a single person selling his or her firearm in a non-commercial area.

MANDATES that the seller may not give the firearm to the purchaser until 7 days after the background check is completed, except when the seller is a single person selling his or her firearm in a non-commercial area.

SUGGESTS that nations make additional laws to restrict the sale of firearms to people who should not have them.

SUGGESTS that nations create registries of who owns firearms.

NOTES:
*This resolution does not force a right to bear arms.
*This resolution does not affect any acting member of any military or police force, nor the organizations themselves.

I think this post is best explained by UN cards:

http://test256.free.fr/UN%20Cards/crad44wu.pnghttp://test256.free.fr/UN%20Cards/hate.png


bump.

http://test256.free.fr/UN%20Cards/uncardssss2vy.png

OOC: God damn I had forgotten what a fine looking camel I drew.

IC: I still don't like this, I'm afraid. As much as anything, the "ILLEGALISES" clause seems to be instituting ignorance of the law as a means of legal defence in UN nations...I don't like that at all.

~Rono Pyandran
Chief of Staff

What? Ignorance of the law is never a reason to defy it! Where is that implyed? All it says is that it makes the selling of weapons to people who commited certain crimes ill illegal, unless the seller doen't know about the crimes. If, in your nation, ignorance of the law is a defence, then fine. But in most nations that isn't true.

What? Ignorance of the law is never a reason to defy it! Where is that implyed? All it says is that it makes the selling of weapons to people who commited certain crimes ill illegal, unless the seller doen't know about the crimes. If, in your nation, ignorance of the law is a defence, then fine. But in most nations that isn't true.
No, look:

"ILLEGALISES...by any person or group that has knowledge of said conviction."

The bolded section is irrelevant. It's a crime whether they know about a conviction or not.

I still think it should be in there, but I'll remove it anyways.

So: New draft proposal:

APALLED that in some areas, it is legal for firearms of any kind to be sold to criminals.

SEEING the need for the sale of firearms to criminals to be outlawed.

ILLEGALIZES the sale of firearms to persons who have been convicted of intentional murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, or assault with a deadly weapon by any person or group.

MANDATES that the sale of a firearm must be proceeded by a background check, to ensure that the purchaser in question did not commit any of the above listed crimes, except when the seller is a single person selling his or her firearm in a non-commercial area.

MANDATES that the seller may not give the firearm to the purchaser until 7 days after the background check is completed, except when the seller is a single person selling his or her firearm in a non-commercial area.

SUGGESTS that nations make additional laws to restrict the sale of firearms to people who should not have them.

SUGGESTS that nations create registries of who owns firearms.

NOTES:
*This resolution does not force a right to bear arms.
*This resolution does not affect any acting member of any military or police force, nor the organizations themselves.

Right, but you still haven't justified in any way why what are necessarily very domestic matters should be legislated on by an international body. What value is there in UN legislation on this matter?

Harkening back to the "unless unaware of the convictions" thing (or did that get changed? Man, I'm lazy) (yes, it did get changed. Mk.), isn't that what background checks are for? How could one be unaware of such crimes unless they didn't perform a background check?