Reduce the number of murders committed by blacks to the same proportion of those committed by whites, and our murder rate drops to about 1.9/100k. Oh but no -- GUNS are the problem.
By your own citation, the united states is barely in the top fifty. It is ranked forty eight out of one hundred and eighty three countries. The obvious question of "so what?" must be asked with regard to the above. What ultimate, meaningful difference is made in what the implement used is? The nation of Japan is ranked twenty six out of one hundred and eighty three, with a suicide rate even higher than that of the united states. Explain why that is.
So you think universal background checks would infringe on your person freedom and individual liberty. How about not being able to discriminate based on race or gender or religion?
I'm allowed to discriminate on race, gender and religion. If I were single, I would say that I don't typically find most African American attractive, I don't date men and wouldn't date anyone who was religious. Universal background checks are not "universal", nor are the effective without comprehensive registration. In my state, UBCs cost me money. They don't cost bad guys money, nor do they stop bad guys from selling guns to bad guys.
It is a concept that cannot be enforced, without a corresponding registration of every single firearm in existence. The united states congress has admitted to such. One cannot be had without the other.
That is probably true. No way to write any law so that lawbreakers can't break the law. That should not stop efforts to write laws that can have a positive effect.
I read "law enforcement" as the entire justice system, from LEOs to DAs to judges to the prison and parole systems.
What's the positive effect of a nationwide registration effort? Does having one's name tied to the serial number of a gun deter either straw purchasers or corrupt FFLs from providing firearms to criminals?
Actually, I'm okay with licensed dealers being required to conduct background checks. I'd even like to see private citizens having access to the NICS system to conduct checks regarding private sales to individuals they can't vouch for personally, with the proviso that those checks must be INSTANT checks, without delays, and there are no registration lists generated from those checks. I believe that every American, regardless of race, creed, gender, or national origin, should have equal protection under the law and be accorded the same respect as any other American, and I've never said otherwise. I just shake my head when gun banners want to throw non-sequiturs like this into the discussion. It's getting to the point where the political left uses the race card like a club to try and beat down opposition; regardless of the subject being discussed.
Can we really trust government to maintain the integrity of a database? Especially a database of all gun owners?
The point gun control advocates miss - again and again and again - is that writing laws that place restrictions upon the rights of the American people who have committed no crime is against the very spirit this nation was founded upon, especially when those restrictions target a clearly defined Constitutional right, and cannot be shown to have achieved any kind of "positive effect" where they have already been enacted elsewhere in the world.
Lonnie Phillips, rapid anti-gun lobbyist, shows on his Linked-in account that his organization is actively engaged in creating a database of gun owners, and a previous version there showed that he worked for the Brady Campaign with the same activity. "* Led the department in adding names of gun owners to data base" https://www.linkedin.com/in/lonnie-phillips-72200a16/
When even the NSA can't protect its Top Secret data why would anyone trust any agency with their personal information?
I agree. The NRA and all Americans should resist the creation of any database that identifies gun owners.
We haven’t the past had much common ground for agreement, but I and many gun rights advocates, would agree with that statement.
Indeed -- enforce the laws already in place. Liberals have no interest in this, however, as it might work; fewer gun related crimes means less support for more gun control.
Why indeed? https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/23/concealed-weapons-permit-holders-exposed-data-brea/ http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/25/us/new-york-gun-permit-map/index.html https://ballotpedia.org/Public_access_to_concealed_carry_lists
The liberal agenda is to create more laws that can be used to vilify and suppress political opposition rather than target criminals.
