Gun-abuse is a good term that should be entered into the public gun debate. We recognize a difference between the proper and legal medical use of drugs. Most people recognize that guns do have a proper use, although what actually constitues the proper use may vary. Everyone agrees that illegally shooting people who are doing nothing wrong is certainly abuse of guns. There is also a difference in what a range of people consider the proper use of drugs. This does not keep us from trying to keep drugs from being abused in those areas that most people do agree upon. If we take a similar tact to keeping guns from being abused in the most aggreigious ways, common groung might well be reached on these issues.
It is illegal for various classifications of people to own firearms. Convicted felons are one such group. There is even a process whereby some of these convicted felons can be allowed to have there rights restored to them, although this process is complicated and doesn't happen very often. Private individuals are not required to do a background check upon anyone who buys a gun privately from them, in most jurisdictions. It would seem that such private sales and slaes at gun shows by private individuals would account for a large number of illegal gun purchaes, however this is not the case. The low percentage of illegal guns exchanged by legal private gun sales or trades speaks well of individual citizens in controlling their own activites. We sometimes forget that most good citizens, given the opportunity to control their own behavior, will exercise honesty and good judgement in so doing.
But there are abuses of this process. Sometimes the abuses are due to a lack of understanding when it comes to the existing laws. Of course we are all taught from and early age that it is our duty to know and understand the law. Ignorance is no excuse. This becomes increasingly difficult as more and more laws are passed. Famous writer, Robert Heinline, whose works are credited with originating many popular sayings, once said something to the effect that, creating more laws creates more criminals, the point being that laws don't do much toward controlling human behavior. It is important that people know and understand laws. A good taste-test may be that if a person has a pretty good idea that womething is illegal, then it may be a reasonable law.
Again, I think most people would agree that it is illegal for someone to knowingly sell a gun to a convicted felon. Most people would also agree that it should be illegal for anyone to knowingly buy a gun for a convicted felon. This is certainly illegal and has been forever. This is also good commonsense behavior. It should not take a rocket scientist to know how irrresponible this is--which one would hope would reasonably govern s laws. And in this case it does. If a person comes to another person and asked them to go buy a weapon for them, this should raise a bunch of red flags. It should not be hard to know that if they won't buy the guns thermselves that one should probably not buy guns for them. Doing so is called a Straw Purchase, and it is very illegal to do.
The only situation in which I can see that a good ci/tizen might unknowing break such a law is if they buy a firearm as a gift for someone who is a convicted felon, but the buyer does not know this. The best way to keep this from ever happening is to never buy firearms for a second party. I never do. I have in the past bought guns as gifts for my minor children whose history I knew completely. I have gifted guns to my brothers, whose history I have also known. I never make exceptions to this and I won't do it. I am even very careful regarding whom I will sell a firearm to privately. And I go above and beyond the legal requirements when I do do. Mostly I don't sell my guns. I sometimes trade them though. I would never buy a gun as a straw purchase for someone whom I do not know about as well as I know myself. This seems fairly basic good sense--especially today.
Shortly after the recent shooting of elementary children in Connecticut, another shooting took place in Connecticut as well that invloved a man setting a fire and then shooting fire-fighters who responded. The facts that have com eout regarding the shooter are very disturbing. First, the shooter was indeed a convicted felon who had served seventeen years for murdering his mother. Why was anyone whowas onvicted of murdering his mother ever was allowed out of prison escapes me. By any or all accounts this man had demonstrated that he was a dangerous murderer. He should not have guns--ever.
It has since been learned that the shooter had also just killed his sister with whom he had been living since he served his prison time. At the very least, I think it is pretty clear that this was an inherently bad guy. Definitions of bad may differ. He may have been, and probalby was, mentally ill. The legal definition of mentally-ill is yet another thing. Our society is compassionate. My defineition of bad in the context is simply someonw who would kill an innoceand/or defenseless person. I think anyone who has been proven to have done so is a bad person--and is therefore fresh out of chances to own guns. To me this is a no-brainer. And actually it is basic law as well. This convicted felon should never have been allowed to own guns.
The news has recently reported that a former neighbor actually went to the gun store with the guy while the guy picked out the guns he wanted. The former neighbor bought these guns for him. I am only guessing that the shooter-guy had to provide the money for the former neighbor to buy the guns with. But it does not matter. The shooter could not buy the guns legally for his own use. The former neighbor illegally made a straw purchase in the shooter's behalf. Why? Shouldn't the buyer have likely known that the guy was a convicted felon--who had killed his mother and gone to prison for seventeen years? How hard is that?
If it can be proven that this is indeed what really happened--which is just hard for me to believe, but which may well be what actually happened--then this illegal gun buyer should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I think the law calls for a $10, 000 fine and up to ten years in prison. A jury or a judge should do this, but if more of these types of cirmes would be firmly prosecuted, it would send a message (assuming the media would publicize it, which is debateable), and it would go a long way toward drying up this as a means of the wrong people gettin gthier hands upon firearms.
Once again, it appears at first very cursoy glace that MULTITUDE OF LAWS WERE BROKEN that placed these guns illegally into the hands of a violent criminal. Isn't it apparent that what we need is a judicious follow-up in prosecuting such crimes. This one step would do infinitely more toward curbing illegal gun violence than all of the proposed actions now being pushed by liberals in Congress and out.
Let me remind those who do not yet know this that the so-called assault rifle is a name that has been artifically applied to a particular type of gun that is very popular among hunters, sport-shooters (shooting is after-all an Olympic Sport), and for home defense. This style of gun is NOT a military-style gun even though President Obama and others have said that it is. It merely looks a lot like military rifles. If banned, other kinds of guns will easily replace it. Any ban on these weapons will have no affect upon the availability of equally lethal models. So don't get too many warm-fuzzies about hysterically getting it banned. Those fuzzies would be misplaced and undeserved.
Remember too, that the handguns have no inherent advantage over other guns. In reality a semi-automatic weapon is more prone to jamming that other types of handguns and rifles. A simple old style revolver can be shot just as fast as can a semi-automatic handgun, and because a revolver is less prone to jam, that's what I commonly carry (legally with a permit).I also carry what is called speed-loader, which is the equivalent of another magazine for my revolver.
High-capacity magazines can easily be replaced by multiple magazines that can be changed in less than a second and which are much handier to carry and to conceal. Neither Law Enforcement nor the military uses high-capacity hand-gun magazines. Thes magazines tend to ignore the need for hand-guns to need to cool-off to avoid overheating , which leads to malfunctions. High-capacity magazines are less dependable when it comes to feeding because the spring tension necessarily changes from very gigh to very low. This is jsut one of the factors that causes them to be more prone to jamming. So, effectively, if a person does not hav eaccess to such magazines, he is even more dangerous and lethal.
But that's mere theory. In reality, there are already so many of these magazines in the legal pipeline, that it will not have any effect upon gun violence due to availability. It is just another bogus non-argument being argued by a unknowledgeable bunch of gun-haters who really don't know what they are talking aobut.
So pelase don't feel good about this measure either. Any good feeling about reducing gun violence obtained by poushing this measure throiugh would also be undeserved. It will do no good. But if you want to make a difference, you could press your local authorities to prosecute existing gun laws.
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