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Massively over the top sensationalism (do these people actually understand any of that, or are they just parroting buzzwords? Frankly, it just makes them less believable when they get overwrought with idiot-speak), but clearly there’s an actual problem at the bottom of all the razzamatazz. All weapon sales should be subject to the same rules (on a state-by-state basis).
why on a state by state basis???
OMG! The Internet! Guns! Guns for Sale on the Internet!
Did you know you can buy guns over the Internet without an FFL and FBI background check? Only one problem . . .
YOU CAN’T. But that kind of fact checking seems to be beyond the ken of Jeff Rossen and NBC’s “national investigative unit.”
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2012/02/daniel-zimmerman/omg-the-internet-guns-guns-for-sale-on-the-internet-omg/comment-page-1/
This looks like a gun I can buy on the internet:
http://www.thegunsource.com/category/317-Tactical_AK-47_Rifles.aspx
No Greg you can’t just give them your credit card and get a gun on the internet.
Stay within the Law and the internet can be used to facilitate purchase of a fire arm but you need to find a FFL Dealer and pass a back ground check etc.
Go to the Legal Statement at the Bottom of the Page for the Cart
http://www.thegunsource.com/Cart.aspx
http://www.thegunsource.com/content.aspx?ckey=Legal
CONDITIONS OF USE
If you visit or shop at any website or company owned or operated by TGSCOM, Inc., you agree to and accept these conditions. Please read them carefully.
Lots of very detailed legal and contractual text
Please note that when you place an order for a firearm, it is solely your responsibility to contact your chosen FFL dealer (before shipment occurs) to ensure that they are willing and able to accept the transfer on your behalf. You are also responsible for ensuring the firearm is legal to own in your area.
Lots more very detailed legal and contractual text
PURCHASER’S RESPONSIBILITIES
You are responsible for knowing the laws in your own state, county, city, etc. BEFORE placing an order, ensuring that your purchase is legal in your area. If you have any questions, contact your local FFL dealer or law enforcement agency before you order. (Example: Maryland requires fired casings with the purchase of any new firearm-so if you order a firearm for the state of Maryland, be certain it has fired casings). Should a firearm need to be returned because it is illegal in your area, a restocking fee will apply in addition to shipping charges. See “Restocking Fees”.
Greg, to purchase a gun at the link you posted, a tranfer through a FFL would be required, along with a background check. This link I think is more in line with message in the report http://www.armslist.com/classifieds/arizona/guns It looks like a listing of privately owned firearms, which seemed to be the focus of the story.
OK, but what about the “fact check” that said YOU CAN’T. Can you or can’t you? Or is it ok to just make shit up while accusing others of making shit up?
Let’s get the story straight, boys. THESE ARE OUR TOYS WE ARE TALKING ABOUT HERE, DAMMIT!!!11!!
A friend of mine is an arms dealer who works with the US military, he’s got me firearms at cost, but they STILL have to come through a legal FFL transfer and so are subject to all the usual background checks (additionally, there is no “gun show loophole” in California, all gun show sales must also be carried out through an FFL transfer).
The problem occurs when you get guns for sale on shady websites that operate like Craigslist, where they’re basically conduits for private party sales between people who would rather not deal with “that whole paperwork thing”, it’s no different to buying a gun out of the back of a truck, but targeting legitimate online sales isn’t really the way to fix that is it?
Oh, and just so as we’re clear, I think the idea of private party firearms sales without any kind of check or log of the transaction is ridiculous, but there’s no special exemption for online sales.
I can’t sell a car without paperwork, I shouldn’t be able to sell a gun without at least some kind of recognition that I did so.
Registration may not solve any crimes, but acknowledging that you don’t mind government oversight of firearms transactions goes a long way to remove the general stigma of gun owners as being paranoid nutbags who jerk off to reruns of Red Dawn and have delusions of overthrowing the government.
Trying to hide any kind of firearms related activity just makes us look irresponsible, the 2nd amendment is useful in some regards but crippling in others, it makes it almost impossible to have a rational conversation about guns without one side wanting to completely ban them and the other side wanting them to be sold in grocery stores next to the fresh fruit.
I’m in favor of gun ownership because I’m in favor of increased personal responsibility; as a sane, rational and responsible adult, there is no logically coherent reason why I shouldn’t be allowed to own whatever firearm I want to as long as I don’t threaten anyone else with it (and I’m sorry, but if you’re threatened simply by the idea of my owning firearms, grow a fucking pair).
kyoseki, why are you so defensive? You are exactly the kind of person who should not own firearms. Do you actually own them? You actually got past the background check? Where do you live?
Come on now, that’s a pretty half-hearted attempt at a wind up, you can do better than that, surely?
Why on a state-by-state basis? Because different states have differing needs. Or at the very least, differing perceived needs (whether the differences are real or not is a reasonable topic for debate). If a state believes they need strong gun laws to keep weapons strictly regulated, cool. But if a state and it’s people feel otherwise, I don’t believe they should have regulations they don’t see a need for imposed on them.
There are laws that should be universal. I have seen, so far, no good argument why gun laws should come under this heading (and yes, I know people from strict states could go to permissive ones to buy guns. Just as people from dry states could go to permissive ones to buy alcohol. I view that as one of the prices we pay for having a Federal system – which I fully support).
The default is not state-by-state laws, the default is laws that make sense. I don’t see why making 50 different sets of laws ever makes sense. You suggest that the laws should be consistent but if the laws are overlain on a 50 piece jigsaw puzzle that isn’t even a remote possibility.
Well, I’ll admit that video was a bit sensationalistic, at least to someone who doesn’t know guns or laws controlling them, because it glossed over so much and went so fast (and deemphasized the state-by-state differences).
About 20 years ago I purchased mace mail order, destination Massachusetts, and from a pet supply company in Massachusetts, without question. I found out later (not much later though) that Massachusetts has some sort of licensing requirement. I imagine this differs from guns in that there is no registration for individual cans of mace, so the unlawfulness would be in my possession of it once it arrives.
(Massachusetts car purchase is, as far as I can tell, much more complicated: pay, transfer title, then you must provide proof of insurance in order to receive the registration in order to be able to drive it. This can make for some interesting bootstrap problems.)
50 different laws may well not make perfect sense. Nor is it especially efficient. But it is a good thing.
Why? Because what “Makes Sense” to you may be utterly abhorrent to me, not merely because of personal preferences or philosophical differences, but because of actual difference in circumstance and environment (not, of course, that personal preference or philosophical difference are unimportant, since, of course, they are).
50 states allows for fifty different viewpoints, every one of them right for it’s locality, to be expressed as law. To me, this is massively superior to “one size fits all” federal legislation – which usually ends up meaning “one size wrong for everyone.”
I do not accept absolutes. There is no absolute good, no absolute evil, and no, no absolute “good sense”. That is one test for law that I will not accept.
I’m sorry, but let’s take a look at some things that some portion of the 50 states decided was a good idea for their locality:
Slavery
Jim Crow Laws
Anti-Miscegenation Laws
Crappy, Underfunded Public Education
The first three are things the “one size is wrong for everyone” federal government had to step in to alter. The last still hasn’t been addressed to anyone’s satisfaction.
Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly a number of good reasons to have some varying state laws, but the US concept of “states rights” is stupid, and I can’t think of any good reason why state governments should have as much power to buck good national policy as they do.
There was once a set of regulations that required each and every federal housing unit to have certain specifications (for housing authorities). It was written in the Northeast and it did not take into account that the Federal Housing Authority manages housing in Alaska, Hawaii, Arizona, and Georgia, to name a few places where building the perfect house for New Jersey would be stupid.
That was a dumb-ass regulation, it died within months, and regional differences were then taken into account for these specifications.
It simply is not true that there are two alternatives: 1 big-ass stupid idea vs. 50 wonderful ideas.
So, no, I’m not accepting the argument that 50 states independantly putting their little minds to a problem will come up with a superior solution to a well thought out plan that takes into account variation where appropriate, but also sticks to certain basic well worked out principles where appropriate.
In particular, I have no clue yet as to why gun ownership, rules for sale, safety, or other regulation ideally varies from state to state. There are many reasons these things should be the same from state to state because people in the US are still free to move from one state to another.
What do you think about the idea of rules of ownership being different for cities vs. rural areas? And yes, that is probably a trick question, but also a valid question because it gets at the crux of the matter.
I’d certainly feel better about it than one sweeping generalization. I don’t, however, feel that it would resolve the issue. “Rural” covers a LOT of different terrains and environments. On a pure “need” basis, a farmer in rural Kansas might well require nothing more than a Varmint gun. Another, out the back of beyond in Alaska, could well see the need for something that will stop a Polar Bear.
Someone in upstate New York does not need to worry about Alligators.
A single, well considered bill, with sufficient allowance for variations in area, MIGHT be able to cover all of that as regards regional variation; I’m certainly not willing to say it couldn’t. But I see no need for it. This is pretty much the reason the Federal mechanism exists – if we’re not going to let the states deal with state matters, wy bother to have states? Why not centralize all power in D.C.? But if we’re going to let the states be the states, we can’t keep screaming “Federal Laws!” every time states make decisions we don’t like. And incidentally, I don’t find the minds of the Federal lawmakers any bigger than those in the state houses.
Alecthar: Jim Crow and the Anti-Miscengenation laws were overturned by Supreme Court rulings. Slavery was eventually killed by an amendment to the constitution, a decision the states most certainly had a say in. And as to education, the Federal interventions there have so far been somewhat less than stellar (“No Child Left Behind” (more like “No Child Learns Beyond the Testing Requirements”) being a pretty much perfect example of “one size wrong for everyone.” In none of the above cases did the Congress have very much input at all, save perhaps with the Emancipation Proclamation – which was primarily an executive measure and did not ban all slavery.
Now, it can be said (correctly) that the Supreme Court and the executive are part of the federal government, but if you’re talking federal law, you’re talking the Congress. Which does not have a good record on considering what happens even outside the Beltway, much less in individual states. “States Rights” exist specifically to delimit and degrade the power of the Federal Government – a elimitations and degradation I fully support. (Yes, I am a “small-government” conservative. No, I’m not a maniac on the subject – which is why I have no problem voting Democrat these days).
But now, you see, you are either down to an is-ought argument (why have states if states aren’t the way to do this?) on one hand or an over-regulated environment on the other (states with alligators get alligator guns. New yorkers have nothing to worry about out in the woods … which will cause a minor revolution in coy-dog country or when people remember Robert Garrow… etc.)
I’m not really seeing the problem here, Greg. The states are perfectly capable of regulating firearm ownership, within the bounds of the Federal and their particular state constitutions. And over-regulation is EXACTLY what I fear would happen with overall sweeping federal regulations – the last one I recall was the Assault Weapons Ban, a ban based on what weapons looked like as opposed to actual function.
I’m not an absolutist on this. The 1934 National Firearms Act was good legislation. The Gun Control Act of 1968, firmly based in the trade clauses of the constitution, gives a good base on which to build state regulatory frameworks. But in our federal system, I don’t see a compelling reason for the federal government to ride roughshod over the states’desires and impose their will, nor any good reason to believe that federal law will be any better even if it is the same everywhere.