Help PAFOA with a secret project: Arguments and Research Needed

[danp]

These are some of the website's I've used in the past

http://gunfacts.info/ this one is real nice, includes a downloadable e-book
www.guncite.com/index.html
www.keepandbeararms.com
www.saf.org Second Amendment Foundation
www.lizmichael.com/ninemyth.htm


other side, should read that as well,
http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp
http://www.bradycampaign.org/
http://www.aclu.org/crimjustice/gen/...s20020304.html

Please keep in mind that I am looking for arguments related specifically to these two issues (One-Gun-a-Month and Lost & Stolen Reporting) not just general pro/anti-gun arguments. For example gunfacts contains no information on either as far as I can tell.

[P89]

Pick a county, or if you'd like me to take the time to break all this out let me know.

http://ucr.psp.state.pa.us/ucr/Repor...reCountyUI.asp

[danp]

Pick a county, or if you'd like me to take the time to break all this out let me know.

http://ucr.psp.state.pa.us/ucr/Repor...reCountyUI.asp

I'm definitely looking for people to take the initiative, I am but one man!

If there is something in those statistics that would further prove one-gun-a-month and/or lost & stolen are bad laws, please post your findings.

[P89]

I'm definitely looking for people to take the initiative, I am but one man!

If there is something in those statistics that would further prove one-gun-a-month and/or lost & stolen are bad laws, please post your findings.

It is a lot of info to go through. I'll see what I can do to break it out into something that is easy on the eyes. Might just be major citys/towns in each county that I use, that's still alot of info.

[vetter3006]

Lost or stolen firearm reporting is from when he or she knows about it, any wrongful person (criminal) would just say I just found out that it was missing and either just reported it or am about to before I was questioned.
All the States state days or hours after he or she knows about it, so like most laws I see this as a loop hole that any criminal can get around.
Any honest person would report the firearm to LEO as we are responsible already.

[CommonHighrise]

On Lost & Stolen;

Gun crime laws need to help, in some way, to either provide information to apprehend criminals, or to deny them the ability to commit a crime with a gun. Creating the Lost & Stolen Report law does neither of these things. No information will be gathered about the criminal who stole the gun further than what would be gathered by the lawful owner reporting the theft of their own free will. Secondly, it in no way poses a threat to those intending to commit a crime via straw purchase, as it creates no law against actually losing a firearm, which would be absurd, nor does it contain a provision preventing them from buying another after the firearm is sold off through a straw purchase, which also would be an absurd provision.

This law is a bad law for the simple fact that anyone with common sense can see it does nothing to prevent or prosecute a crime, and only stands to interfere with legal gun ownership of law-abiding citizens.

[Mtbkski]

One Gun a Month

Devil's Advocate Arguments For

Argument 1

Argument 2

Arguments Against

Argument 1 What if I find a deal for me and the wife on different guns at different shops on different days. I want to buy it for her as a gift. So, I can't have her buy it.

Argument 2 I buy a gun on a whim. Only to find out that two weeks later, they are having a super sale at another shop and I could save myself hundreds of dollars if I buy another pistol now.

[LastManOut]

Special exceptions can be issued by the sheriff's department for collectors and those that may be buying an estate or matching set of guns.



If an otherwise law-abiding citizen discovers a gun is missing, and has been for a few weeks/months, that citizen may be reluctant to report it missing, after the stated timeframe, not fully understanding the law.

FWIW

[imperialism2024]

Arguments that work against either:
-If it works as intended, criminals will either commit more crimes to get the money to pay the inflated prices of a limited supply of black market guns (capitalism 101), or they will resort to other tools to commit acts of violence (see knife crime in the UK).
-Infringing on the rights of individuals to prevent crimes they are suspected to commit, as this law seems to imply that gun purchasers will commit the crime of straw purchasing, would be as ridiculous as chemically castrating all males except for 12 days per year, in order to prevent rape.



I fear that my Devil's Advocate arguments might be too good, and the anti-gunners might use them against us

[GunLawyer001]

The arguments against "1-gun a month" are numerous and obvious.

The arguments in favor are thin.

- It will make it harder for gun traffickers. They will have to hire more people each month to make straw purchases, to get the same number of guns for resale. (There are plenty of dirtbags without prohibiting records, and the influx of illegal aliens has made good-quality fake ID's easier to obtain, and identity theft is at an all-time high. Straw purchasers will just make their purchases under different names of real citizens.)

- Who needs more than one gun a month? (We have a Bill of Rights, not a Bill of Needs, we don't have to justify how many times we exercise our rights if WE aren't hurting anyone. Our rights are not defined by what a criminal would do with them, they are defined by our status as law-abiding American citizens.)

- Guns kill people, so they are different than any other collectibles like stamps and coins. (Guns don't kill anyone, they are tools. People can use them to murder, or to defend themselves. It's already illegal to murder someone. It's illegal to provide guns to criminals. It's illegal to be negligent with guns. The fact that crimes may be committed with something doesn't provide blanket justification for infringements. Guns can also be used to save lives, by warding off attackers or by justifiably shooting them.
The fact that I could save my life or your life by having a gun is not blanket justification for me to do whatever I want with it, like shooting into the air or carrying it into a courtroom. It goes both ways, you can't ban them because they could be misused, and you can't make them totally unregulated just because they have important positive uses (I don't want them sold to kids or the insane, and I don't want violent felons to buy them from vending machines.)
Automobiles can be used for commuting to work or to flee the sense of your bank robbery, for taking people to the hospital or to run down small children on the playground; society regulates them by outlawing the bad stuff and permitting everything else, and cars don't even have specific Constitutional protection.)



As for mandatory reporting of lost or stolen guns: The argument in favor of the stolen gun reporting requirement is that it gives the police an additional crime to charge the straw buyer with, if he fails to file a report. OK, so he'll file the report, say it's missing and he doesn't know how it happened. And the police will show up, do their cursory investigation, file it, and then what?

So we get zero benefit from the law. No straw purchases deterred, no stolen guns recovered. If you have a gun stolen and you want it back, then file a report, get it into the system, and if the police happen upon it then they might return it to you. I'd voluntarily report any lost or stolen guns as soon as I actually knew they were missing.

The main problem I have with mandatory reporting with criminal sanctions is that most versions make it a crime to fail to report something of which you have no actual knowledge, if they decide that you SHOULD have known. This puts law-abiding gun owners at risk when they have done nothing bad, if a guest steals a gun from the attic and they don't find out for months. To balance that, the law does nothing to stop the criminal misuse of guns; if cops find a prohibited person with a gun, they can already prosecute for that possession, and probably for concealed carry as well. If they don't find the gun, they sure as hell aren't going to dedicate resources to looking for it just because it was reported stolen.
It also is no deterrent to a straw buyer simply reporting the gun stolen a week after he bought it. He can comply with the reporting requirement and still provide the gun to the criminal.