NationStates Jolt Archive

Well this is interesting. I know we have tough gun laws in many parts of the nation but I didnt know this whole area was looked over. I am an avid pro-gun supporter. I own several including what is termed assault weapons. I have a concealed weapons permit. Have had to had my "background" checked with the federal government when buying "assualt weapons". So why is this not checked. Where does privacy take precedent over the safety of others? What else should be allowed as evidence of ones ability to own a firearm?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/26/gun.data.ap/index.html

Well this is interesting. I know we have tough gun laws in many parts of the nation but I didnt know this whole area was looked over. I am an avid pro-gun supporter. I own several including what is termed assault weapons. I have a concealed weapons permit. Have had to had my "background" checked with the federal government when buying "assualt weapons". So why is this not checked. Where does privacy take precedent over the safety of others? What else should be allowed as evidence of ones ability to own a firearm?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/26/gun.data.ap/index.html

But isn't that all of them, anyway? *zing!*


I kid, I kid!

Well this is interesting. I know we have tough gun laws in many parts of the nation but I didnt know this whole area was looked over. I am an avid pro-gun supporter. I own several including what is termed assault weapons. I have a concealed weapons permit. Have had to had my "background" checked with the federal government when buying "assualt weapons". So why is this not checked. Where does privacy take precedent over the safety of others? What else should be allowed as evidence of ones ability to own a firearm?

Because it is largely unenforcable. There is no nationwide database of people with a history of mental illness. Further, the nature of mental illness is such that you would need some fairly stringent definitions of exactly what would preclude you from buying a weapon. Does a woman who was once hospitalized for postpartum depression count? What about someone with conflicting diagnoses (such as an epilepsy patient who was originally diagnosed as episodic catatonic schitzophrenic)? Many mental illnesses are transitory or easily controlled, how far back do you look? Finally, let me ask you this: if you were to go buy a gun tomarrow and the store owner asked for a copy of your complete medical history, how would you respond? This isn't a minor privacy issue. Making potential mental illness an issue in firearm ownership would mean that EVERYONE who owns a gun would have to be willing to give up any claim on medical privacy and get regular mental health checkups, at their own expense, in order to excercise a constitutional right. Still sound reasonable?

"Mental illness" should have as little impact on law is feasibly possible, on ANY matter. It takes your liberties out of the hands of the people and the government and places them in the hands of a few pseudo-scientific 'experts' who may whimsically define what is and isn't an "illness."

[QUOTE=Marrakech IISNIP...So why is this not checked. Where does privacy take precedent over the safety of others? What else should be allowed as evidence of ones ability to own a firearm?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/26/gun.data.ap/index.html[/QUOTE]

Ask that question to all the liberals who insisted all those privacy laws be passed. Of course, their solution will be not to repeal those laws, but to ban guns :mad:

Maybe that's the reason you get called "gun nuts?" Just kidding.

Well here is my take on this

If you posess GUNS then you HAVE a MENTAL ILLNESS. Guns should be banned altogether and not be made possible to buy by the common folk...guns are for the army and the police.

Now if you still want guns well then go AirSoft...thats the best thing to do!

I love my Ak74 U.

Ask that question to all the liberals who insisted all those privacy laws be passed. Of course, their solution will be not to repeal those laws, but to ban guns :mad:

Privacy laws don't stop a cashier from knowing that somebody is mentally ill unless you are suggesting we make everybody with a mental illness walk around carrying a card to identify themselves as such. That's just basic human rights.

Ask that question to all the liberals who insisted all those privacy laws be passed. Of course, their solution will be not to repeal those laws, but to ban guns :mad:


Yeah, privacy is some overrated liberal bullshit. I mean, if you're going to own a gun, the government should be able to keep tabs on you. There should be records of who bought what gun and where they live. These records should be kept forever and indexed so law enforcement can use them if the need arises. Just to make sure they're kept up to date we should probably include a mandatory registration scheme, too, and a small fee to cover the costs of administration and such. Also, should the police ever see the need, they should be able to knock on your door, day or night, and ask you to produce all your registered firearms, just to make sure they're where they should be. You can't argue with that, I mean, who wants privacy. Its not like a system like that could be abused, because, well, our guys are in power and they'd never do that. Yeah, no, I'll pass on that, thank you.

Seriously...why do so many conservatives see privacy rights as liberal? What could be more integral to a free society than the right to live your life without having to ask permission or submit to scrutiny? Privacy is about removing power from the government and putting it in the hands of individuals. A government that doesn't know who has guns can't effectively confiscate those weapons, can't harass citizens who own them. If theres no registration, someone 20 years down the line can't attempt to raise registration fees to make weapons prohibitively expensive or (as happened in Chicago) simply refuse to register certain kinds of weapons (thus banning them by fiat). Just as importantly, strong privacy rights keeps the government out of how you worship your god, what things you choose to read or publish, and what you decide to do in your bedroom.

Privacy isn't some liberal invention. Go back and read the text of the 4th ammendment. If "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" isn't talking about a right to what we would today term privacy, what the hell is it refering to? More importantly, if you read on to the 9th ammendment, the argument against privacy becomes even more difficult to make, as you have to explain why it isn't one of those "other [rights] retained by the people." Now take one more step and couple the tenth and fourteenth ammendments and you start to get the impression that the government is supposed to have a very specific, very focused, very small role. The power to look into everything just to be on the safe side isn't one expressly delegated to the State by the constitution, and a pretty strong argument can be made that ti is a power expressly prohibited.

Then again, I suppose none of that really matters. Both liberals and conservatives have a long record in America of reading only those ammendments that gel with their platforms and wiping their asses with the rest. If you don't like what the other side is doing, too damn bad, your side opened the door. Bush built on the abuses of Clinton, who built on the abuses of Reagan and Nixon, who built on the abuses of Kennedy and Roosevelt, who built on the abuses of Lincoln. This "its only ok when my side does it" shit is getting REAL old.

Well, the day that they start cataloging everyone who has a mental illness, regardless of whether or not that person ever intends to buy a firearm in their entire life, we'll hear stories from the same whiners that their privacy has been taken away.

BTW, on the form you fill out to purchase a firearm, ATF Form 4473, you personally certify several things in addition to not being a former felon.

You certify that you are not a fugitive from justice.
(this certifies that you aren't an idiot)
You certify that you are not now, and never have been, under the influence of marijuana, narcotics, or other controlled illicit substances.
(I'm sure we can regularly piss test everyone in the country and put that in a database)
You certify that you haven't been treated for mental illness (a rather vague term).

All in all, the system works rather well. It DOES prevent felons from purchasing guns through legal channels.

And firearms violence has dropped over 60 percent in the last 10 years. For a while there during the Clinton Administration, the number of firearm homicides nearly exceeded the number of highway deaths. Going from nearly 55,000 firearm homicides to just over 16,000 a year is a radical improvement.

But of course, CNN is never going to report that.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/wuvc01.pdf