One gun a month is merely a start
Editorial boards have stock arguments they use when promoting any new firearm regulations, including one-handgun-per-month purchase limits. Well, that’s what I say. They say:
The National Rifle Association has stock arguments it uses when anyone suggests new firearm regulations, including one-handgun-per-month purchase limits.
The NRA’s stock arguments tend to be more convincing than those contrived by editorial boards at papers. Like this one:
Two bills languishing in Pennsylvania propose such a limit. The legislation is meant to make it harder to buy handguns – the weapon most often used in Philadelphia homicides – through a transaction known as a straw purchase.
In a straw-purchase scheme, a felon, barred by law from buying guns, recruits someone who can legally buy numerous guns at one time. The intermediary fills out forms, passes a background check, purchases the guns, then gives them to the felon, who uses them to commit crimes or illegally resells them for a big profit.
Handguns bought this way don’t end up in the homes of law-abiding citizens who want to defend their families against intruders.
A handgun purchase limit would help to dry up the illegal market that sells to criminals and young people.
Being that they are alleged to be doing this by straw purchases, they are already breaking the law. What makes you think they’ll abide by another? And, of course, there is the little detail that such laws have been shown to have roughly zero impact on crime, according those NRA cronies at the Centers for Disease Control.
May 30th, 2006 at 11:25 am
I’d be willing to bet that people who traffic in illegal guns don’t use the straw purchase route to obtain them. The reason these laws do squat is that, I suspect, most straw purchases only involve one firearm at a time; a girlfriend buying a gun for a prohibited boyfriend, etc.
Of course, even if you could totally shut down the straw purchase route, that makes the assumption that other channels for illegal weapons won’t make up the slack. I think experience has taught us that when there’s demand for a product, someone will step up to meet it.
May 30th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
The article says that law enforcement uses gun purchase data to prosecute straw purchasers.
I would like to see some prosecution statistics to support that claim.
I would also like to see some authority for the proposition that the a gun a month law reduces crime and that its absence helps the criminals.
While we are awaiting those statistics, let’s get the authority for the crime-deterring effects of the AWB.
May 30th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
I saw the title of this article, and before it sunk in what you were discussing, I thought “mmm… gun of the month club.” Now *that* would be cool.
May 30th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Yeah, most straw purchases are “doing a favor for a friend” sort of a transaction.
I’m not going to incriminate myself, but buying a throw-away in this city for a few hundred bucks isn’t that tough. If you know people in the right business & social circles, it’s easier than buying a car.
And I’m not talking about crack-head, gang-bangers. Middle-class, hard-working, blue-collar decent folk. If you needed to travel acrost the country and wanted protection, would you risk bringing your personal weapon or have one you could throw out the window in the event of a road-block / “inspection”?
Bad things happen to every kind of person – good, bad, smart, and no-so. Being prepared means the difference between a bad thing happening and the end of your life.
But for the politico’s, it’s all about “Control”. They don’t care about the individuals, they just want to believe they control people. They want to believe that people follow *their* rules. So they make more rules. It’s a sick cycle.
May 30th, 2006 at 9:32 pm
“…handguns – the weapon most often used in Philadelphia homicides…”
What weapon is used most often in Philadelphia self defense? And why would anyone ever care about self defense when we can concentrate only on crime, which is much more expedeient?
Oh, and;
Second Amendment Second Amendment Second Amendment (for those of you who’ve never heard of it, it means that our elected officials have all taken an Oath NOT to make any gun laws, because this country’s founders knew how reckless and dangerous legislators can get).