(04-30-2021, 05:57 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: As usual Fred is both oversimplifying the concept and misstating its actual implications in such a scenario. Say a residence in which ten people live (not at all unusual btw) is searched and five kilos of heroin is discovered. Everyone who resides there, hell everyone with common access, to the residence is in constructive possession of the heroin. There is no way in hell the DA's office will charge everyone in that home with possession of said heroin.
Technically yes, in reality not at all. Remember, a criminal case has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. You think in the above scenario that every single defendant charged wouldn't make the argument that it belonged to someone else, hence raising reasonable doubt in every instance? This is why evidence used to acquire a warrant is so key to determining possession. In the event of a spontaneous search prompted by reasonable suspicion, or a parole/probation search there will be other factors at play to determine possession. Quite honestly, usually someone makes a spontaneous statement that it belongs to them. Criminals aren't the brightest people and often talk themselves into trouble they could have avoided if they had just shut up.
Mr. Toast did not respond to my request for clarification, so I am not confident that I effectively understand the concept of "constructive possession."
In any case, it was not my assumption that if five kilos of heroin were found in a house full of people, it meant that "everyone in the home" would be charged.
Rather, my assumption was that someone would be for sure. The police would not simply confiscate the heroin but arrest no one. When all was sorted out out, SOMEONE would eventually be charged for having it.
But I'm not familiar with criminal law and drug busts and the like*; perhaps that does in fact happen. I'm imagining a police report in which police officers with a warrant to search for illegal weapons entered a home and found, not the weapons, but 10 people there and 5 kilos of heroin on the coffee table in the living room where all can see. But no arrests were made. Or arrests were made, but no charges could be filed because no one knew to whom the contraband belonged or where it came from. (These were all "bright" criminals and would not incriminate themselves; surely that must be the case sometimes.)
(04-30-2021, 05:57 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Fred is making a very poor, and bad faith argument here. He refuses to cite any evidence that his proposal will have any effect on gun violence. He has provided nothing but logical fallacies, straw man arguments and appeals to emotion. Maybe you can engage with him in this regard and get him to provide an argument with some substance? Lord knows no one else has been able to prod this out of him in this thread.
I have not followed this dispute from beginning to end. Perhaps he has indeed provided nothing but "logical fallacies and straw man arguments and appeals to emotion"--previous to his points about registration and constructive possession. But so far as I can tell, the points he made about them don't seem fallacious and the counterarguments don't vitiate them.
E.g. the CP argument is not invalidated if ALL in a car or residence are not arrested and all attempt to raise reasonable doubt as to possession. I admit to little experience in such matters. If it is indeed common that NO ONE is charged in when 5 kilos are found in a residence, or to continue the analogy, if a presumed stolen weapon is found on the coffee table, then Fred's argument would indeed be weakened, though not completely refuted, since the police could confiscate an unregistered weapon at the very least.
As far as whether his proposal has any effect on gun violence, the question would be whether adding this tool to law enforcement would result in confiscation of more weapons from criminals. If it does then, then one must explain why reducing the number of guns in criminals' hands would not reduce gun violence. Is there already data on that?
*Not WHOLLY unfamiliar though. I was busted for possession of illegal drugs in South Dakota in '71. And I spent a week in jail until it was determined that I, in fact, did not possess any illegal drugs.
(04-30-2021, 05:32 PM)BigPapaKain Wrote: Cars kill more people than guns. Should we ban them? How about fatty foods? Heart disease is the #1 killer in America.
I never said anything about banning any guns. All I want is registration and licensing.
How can we ever have any sort of reasonable discussion if you refuse to even read anything I write?
(04-30-2021, 05:34 PM)Dill Wrote: I have never heard of "constructive possession" though.
Is the legal logic that, in the case of an illegal substance found on the floor of a vehicle or someone's living room, SOMEONE must be legally in possession of it, and if no one cops to ownership, then ALL present can be charged--because unlike the unregistered weapon, it is illegal for anyone to possess it at all?
In Tennessee "constructive possession" covers anything with in your area of control.
It is how they charge everyone in a car for drugs found on the floor.
I'll post this here, since this is what this thread became. It perfectly highlights how absurd gun laws are.
EDIT: In the likely event you don't know, an AOW is "any other weapon" which is a firearm's classification that covers any firearm not covered by another category. Simple, I know.
(05-02-2021, 01:25 PM)Dill Wrote: Well I only checked into the tail end of this discussion, so perhaps I missed something.
Maybe, let's find out.
Quote:As I understood it, Fred said that gun registration would help prevent felons found with guns from keeping them. Stated that way, it sounds like a cop might frisk a felon, find a gun, and do nothing about it, which provoked Bels to say that possibility was "zero" (also my response).
If you find a gun on someone's person the question of "ownership" has already been resolved.
Quote:Fred then clarified by specifying contexts in which a gun could be found in the home or car of a felon, but with others present who could claim they own it. I don't doubt that Fred knows of such instances. If unregistered guns are legal, then there is nothing a cop can do about that.
Again, a gross oversimplification. There are so many variables inherent in finding a gun at the scene of a search.
Quote:But if guns must be registered to SOMEONE at least, and an unregistered gun can be treated as contraband, then that ploy won't work anymore. The cop will confiscate the gun, and perhaps arrest someone. Ergo, registration would, as Fred maintains, help law enforcement get guns off the street.
Guns are registered to someone, the legal purchaser. To purchase a new firearm a NICS check must be conducted. Of course older guns don't fall into this category. But older guns make up a small fraction of firearms in these scenarios and those that do occur are largely stolen and have been reported as such, making their provenance known.
Quote:Your counter is that most guns in criminal possession are stolen. This doesn't seem a solid objection to Fred's point, as without registration criminals could simply buy them as easily as a pack of cigarettes.
Yes, because they are. The rest of this statement is a gross oversimplification as this is clearly not the case.
Quote:And if there is no registration, who can prove a gun found in car or residence is stolen?
Because it's been reported as stolen? Small hint, legal gun owners whose property has been stolen tend to report it.
Quote:Sure, if a straw purchaser of a registered gun is present, nothing might be done in that case. But even if that happens 50% of the time registration would still be effective for confiscation in the other 50%.
The straw purchaser usually has little to do with the buyer on a day to day basis. Your attempt to put this occurrence at 50/50 is grossly inaccurate. More like 99/1.
Quote:If there were a debate in a state legislature over whether to register guns and this issue of straw purchase were raised, I doubt it would be treated as a substantial objection.
You're not really making a point here. No one is in favor of straw purchasers.
(05-02-2021, 01:54 PM)Dill Wrote: Mr. Toast did not respond to my request for clarification, so I am not confident that I effectively understand the concept of "constructive possession."
Indeed? One must wonder why that is the case.
Quote:In any case, it was not my assumption that if five kilos of heroin were found in a house full of people, it meant that "everyone in the home" would be charged.
I already answered this. Try addressing points already made instead of asking them like they're brand new assertions.
Quote:Rather, my assumption was that someone would be for sure. The police would not simply confiscate the heroin but arrest no one. When all was sorted out out, SOMEONE would eventually be charged for having it.
I already addressed this as well. Please refer to previous posts.
Quote:But I'm not familiar with criminal law and drug busts and the like*; perhaps that does in fact happen. I'm imagining a police report in which police officers with a warrant to search for illegal weapons entered a home and found, not the weapons, but 10 people there and 5 kilos of heroin on the coffee table in the living room where all can see. But no arrests were made. Or arrests were made, but no charges could be filed because no one knew to whom the contraband belonged or where it came from. (These were all "bright" criminals and would not incriminate themselves; surely that must be the case sometimes.)
There are so many variables that your attempt at a clever analysis has failed to cover. What evidence did you use to obtain the warrant? Why are you investigating this particular residence in the first place? Both you and Fred seem to treat these instances as occurring in a vacuum, with no prior evidence prompting them.
Quote:I have not followed this dispute from beginning to end. Perhaps he has indeed provided nothing but "logical fallacies and straw man arguments and appeals to emotion"--previous to his points about registration and constructive possession. But so far as I can tell, the points he made about them don't seem fallacious and the counterarguments don't vitiate them.
Wait, have you followed the argument or have you not? If you haven't then please do so and render this question moot. If you have, then actually ask a question instead of pussyfooting around the topic.
Quote:E.g. the CP argument is not invalidated if ALL in a car or residence are not arrested and all attempt to raise reasonable doubt as to possession. I admit to little experience in such matters. If it is indeed common that NO ONE is charged in when 5 kilos are found in a residence, or to continue the analogy, if a presumed stolen weapon is found on the coffee table, then Fred's argument would indeed be weakened, though not completely refuted, since the police could confiscate an unregistered weapon at the very least.
You admit to little experience, but appear to argue from a position of knowledge. Again, your position appears to spring from a position of ignorance as to how and why warrants are issued in the first place. In the event of a spontaneous search brought on by reasonable suspicion or a probation/parole search, there are already numerous other factors at play to determine this. You appear to want a hard and fast answer to a question with an obscenely large number of variables.
Quote:As far as whether his proposal has any effect on gun violence, the question would be whether adding this tool to law enforcement would result in confiscation of more weapons from criminals. If it does then, then one must explain why reducing the number of guns in criminals' hands would not reduce gun violence. Is there already data on that?
I suggest you ask Fred, as it's his position.
Quote:*Not WHOLLY unfamiliar though. I was busted for possession of illegal drugs in South Dakota in '71. And I spent a week in jail until it was determined that I, in fact, did not possess any illegal drugs.
A very well explained scenario, I know I wouldn't have any follow up questions.
(05-03-2021, 02:12 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Because it's been reported as stolen? Small hint, legal gun owners whose property has been stolen tend to report it.
I want to put this out there, because I feel like some people may not realize this. Even though registration isn't really a thing, the majority of responsible gun owners have a list. This list is of the firearms they own, including the serial numbers. There may be more information, but if their guns have serial numbers they have that on a list. Why? Because if one comes up missing/stolen they can provide that information to law enforcement.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
(05-03-2021, 02:12 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: But older guns make up a small fraction of firearms in these scenarios and those that do occur are largely stolen and have been reported as such, making their provenance known.
Only 30% of guns found at crime scenes that can be traced are reported stolen.
But the big problem is that many "law abiding" gun owners don't give a shit if guns end up in the hands of criminals. This is proven byt that fact that 40% of these guns are NOT REPORTED STOLEN UNTIL POLICE RECOVER THAM AT A CRIME SCENE. This means that gun owners are selling their guns to criminals and only report them stolen when the police find them.
But the other big fact you are missing is that the police don't run the registration of every gun they encounter at a traffic stop or during their investigation of other matters that don't involve the gun. Like I said before an unregistered gun is not contraband if it is not in the possession of a felon or used in the crime.
(05-03-2021, 07:21 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I want to put this out there, because I feel like some people may not realize this. Even though registration isn't really a thing, the majority of responsible gun owners have a list. This list is of the firearms they own, including the serial numbers. There may be more information, but if their guns have serial numbers they have that on a list. Why? Because if one comes up missing/stolen they can provide that information to law enforcement.
Except many don't. They sell their guns to anyone not caring if they are criminals or not and then they don't report them stolen until the police recover them at the scene of a crime.
(04-30-2021, 05:57 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: As usual Fred is both oversimplifying the concept and misstating its actual implications in such a scenario. Say a residence in which ten people live (not at all unusual btw) is searched and five kilos of heroin is discovered. Everyone who resides there, hell everyone with common access, to the residence is in constructive possession of the heroin. There is no way in hell the DA's office will charge everyone in that home with possession of said heroin.
You make up so much stuff I am beginning to believe you are not really a LEO at all. You like to post anecdotal evidence but you never back ti up with any details.
the fact is that DA's do this all the time. They try to scare the people who did not posses the drugs into giving statements against the ones that do. Just ask Paul Oberoff. You can look up his case in public record of Claiborne County Tennessee from just last year. He was spending the night with his girlfriend when the police conducted a raid. There was 20 gram of Meth found in another bedroom belonging to Jamie Short ( the brother of his girlfriend). EVERYONE was charged with possession of meth for resale.
This kind of thing happens all the time. IN the DA's eyes everyone who is ni the house knows what is going on (most likely true) so everyone is guilty.
(05-03-2021, 08:11 AM)BigPapaKain Wrote: Because the stuff you post is all emotional knee jerj nonsense I hear from every person who has never bothered to look in depth into gun statistics.
Actually all the arguments I am making for gun registration and licensing are logical and backed up with specific facts.
The only "knee jerk nonsense" was your squealing about outlawing guns when I never mentioned anything about that at all.
(05-03-2021, 08:24 AM)fredtoast Wrote: Actually all the arguments I am making for gun registration and licensing are logical and backed up with specific facts.
The only "knee jerk nonsense" was your squealing about outlawing guns when I never mentioned anything about that at all.
Facts which have been routinely disproven by other members of the discussion. I'm not in the habit of rehashing other people's posts.
(05-03-2021, 07:59 AM)fredtoast Wrote: Except many don't. They sell their guns to anyone not caring if they are criminals or not and then they don't report them stolen until the police recover them at the scene of a crime.
I think it would depend on how you define "many." In relation to the overall number of legal gun owners that percentage would be small.
Edit: Actually, no, I take my statement back. None of them would behave in the way you describe because I am talking about responsible gun owners. The majority of gun owners are responsible gun owners, as well, but still. Just needed to adjust my statement.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
(05-03-2021, 08:56 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Edit: Actually, no, I take my statement back. None of them would behave in the way you describe because I am talking about responsible gun owners. The majority of gun owners are responsible gun owners, as well, but still. Just needed to adjust my statement.
You havr no basis in fact to back up this allegation. You have no idea how a majority of gun owners behave.
SSF has said many times that no gun owner he knows would tell the truth about if they own guns or how many they own.
I am not saying all gun owners act this way. But almost half (40%) of gunowners whose guns somehow make it to a crime scene don't report them stolen until the gun is tracked back to them.
(05-03-2021, 08:33 AM)BigPapaKain Wrote: Facts which have been routinely disproven by other members of the discussion. I'm not in the habit of rehashing other people's posts.
None of my facts have been disproven.
Since you did not even read my posts I don't know how you can make this claim.
(05-03-2021, 12:13 PM)fredtoast Wrote: You havr no basis in fact to back up this allegation. You have no idea how a majority of gun owners behave.
SSF has said many times that no gun owner he knows would tell the truth about if they own guns or how many they own.
I am not saying all gun owners act this way. But almost half (40%) of gunowners whose guns somehow make it to a crime scene don't report them stolen until the gun is tracked back to them.
What percentage of gun owners have had firearms stolen?
As to SSF's statements, that and my position are not mutually exclusive. Responsible gun owners, even ones that would not give you information on what they own, will absolutely report them stolen if it were to happen. They don't want guns in the hands of criminals any more than you do. Your comments make it seem like you think gun owners don't care about gun violence or gun crime in general, but that is the furthest thing from the truth. We want gun violence numbers to go down, but the gun control measures being proposed don't have the evidence behind them to justify them. Root cause mitigation would be a better option that doesn't potentially infringe on civil liberties.
It's a lot like the abortion debate. Pro-life/anti-choice folks are a lot like the gun control side of things. They think outlawing the procedure would make abortion numbers go down. Their position, at least with current case law, violates civil liberties. It also isn't well founded in the evidence. The evidence says that the best way to lower abortion rates is to provide a solid foundation of sex education in our schools and make family planning options widely available and inexpensive. That's been a proven way to lower abortion rates while banning the procedure has not has as significant an impact on the rates and it has resulted in an increase in mothers dying in childbirth or through back-alley procedures.
In both scenarios, people on both sides are concerned about the numbers. Gun owners and gun control proponents want a decline in gun crimes. Pro-choice and pro-life folks all want lower abortion rates. We just approach it differently.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
(05-03-2021, 12:53 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: What percentage of gun owners have had firearms stolen?
As to SSF's statements, that and my position are not mutually exclusive. Responsible gun owners, even ones that would not give you information on what they own, will absolutely report them stolen if it were to happen. They don't want guns in the hands of criminals any more than you do. Your comments make it seem like you think gun owners don't care about gun violence or gun crime in general, but that is the furthest thing from the truth. We want gun violence numbers to go down, but the gun control measures being proposed don't have the evidence behind them to justify them. Root cause mitigation would be a better option that doesn't potentially infringe on civil liberties.
Good lord, it honestly baffles me why he continues to deliberately lie about other people's positions and statements. We all know he does it. We can all read the thread and see he's doing it. Yet, he continues to engage in this behavior. It comes off as compulsive.
Quote:It's a lot like the abortion debate. Pro-life/anti-choice folks are a lot like the gun control side of things. They think outlawing the procedure would make abortion numbers go down. Their position, at least with current case law, violates civil liberties. It also isn't well founded in the evidence. The evidence says that the best way to lower abortion rates is to provide a solid foundation of sex education in our schools and make family planning options widely available and inexpensive. That's been a proven way to lower abortion rates while banning the procedure has not has as significant an impact on the rates and it has resulted in an increase in mothers dying in childbirth or through back-alley procedures.
In both scenarios, people on both sides are concerned about the numbers. Gun owners and gun control proponents want a decline in gun crimes. Pro-choice and pro-life folks all want lower abortion rates. We just approach it differently.
An excellent analogy. Coincidentally, the ways the anti side attempt to chip away at both is identical as well. I applaud you for still trying, here, but you know this won't get through.
(05-03-2021, 12:15 PM)fredtoast Wrote: None of my facts have been disproven.
Since you did not even read my posts I don't know how you can make this claim.
You're making an awful lot of assumptions there, big guy. Just because I don't agree with your emotional rambling doesn't mean I don't read it. And just because you don't agree with the counter arguments levied against you doesn't mean that your facts haven't been disproven.
Make another blind assumption about me and what I do, and I'll get both of us banned from this forum. I'm not here to have my character attacked, and I won't put up with it.
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