04-05-2016, 03:11 PM
(04-05-2016, 12:50 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I think this is something that should be more thoroughly discussed. How seriously does our justice system actually take firearm offenses? I know of violent felons caught with a handgun and are out on time served once it processes through. Illegally possessing, trafficking, or using firearms ought to carry stiffer penalties.
Agreed, but because of mandatory sentencing laws often times the first thing pled out is the firearm related charge. The wind is definitely blowing in the direction of leniency which I can tell you from personal experience. Making firearms related sentencing stiffer, and not allowing them to be pled out or to a lesser crime, would go a fair way towards reducing gun related crime.
(04-05-2016, 01:19 PM)fredtoast Wrote: No. We need gun registration.
I don't want to take people's guns away.
Maybe you don't, there are many who do.
Quote: I just want some way to hold the "irresponsible" gun owners responsible.
Please define "irresponsible" in this context.
Quote:Same reason we require people to registers their cars. They kill lots of people and do lots of property damage.
While I get your point you don't have a constitutional right to own and drive a car. You do have to pass a firearms related safety course and test to purchase a firearm, unless you are peace officer exempt. At least you do in CA.
Quote:BTW your 99.99% claim is complete bullshit. Where did you get that number?
I love it when you talk dirty. Let's break it down as best we can shall we? A gallup poll conducted in 2011 showed that around 47% of adults in the US owned a firearm. I think it's safe to say that is a fair number and it may even be higher now, but I'll even compromise and go with 45%. The US census shows that 76% of the US population of around 320 million are legally adults, or 243,200,000 people. 45% of that number is 109,440,000. I'll be even kinder to your argument and round it down to an even 100,000,000. The uniformed crime report shows the following:
Quote:
- There were an estimated 1,165,383 violent crimes (murder and non-negligent homicides, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults) reported by law enforcement.
Let's be even more generous to you and round that up to 1.5 million to allow for "unreported" crimes. Note that not all violent crimes involved a firearm so let's, again generously IMO, round that number down to one million firearms related crimes per year. Now let's be really generous to you and say that 500,000 criminals committed those one million crimes, which we both know isn't close to true, that means that gun related crime was committed by .5% of gun owners. So you're right, my number was bullshit. The actual number is 99.5% of gun owners. Let's even be insanely generous to you and say all one million gun related crimes were committed by separate individuals, which isn't even close to true. That would mean that all of those gun related crimes were committed by 99% of gun owners. Even in this perfect fantasy land for you it shows that the overwhelmingly vast majority of gun owners commit no gun related crimes at all. Given the fact that the vast majority of crime is committed by a small percentage of the criminal population I think my 99.99% number is very close to dead one. Feel free to form a cogent argument otherwise if you'd like.
