The gun show loophole is definitely one that should be closed as well as mandatory waiting periods expiring. Even these common sense approaches seem unable to get traction though. Politicians need to be reminded who it is they represent.
Do you really think that's the majority opinion of citizens here? "Common sense" gun laws have been proven time and time again to be anything but. They don't lessen crime, the facts show. Honest folks are already honest, criminals already ignoring laws they don't like and are unlikely to change. They get smuggled/stolen guns. They don't buy from gun shows or gun shops.
Politicians might be corrupt but they're not stupid. If the poll numbers showed it possible (because voters supported it) do you really think they would hesitate?
Do you really think we can keep drug dealers from getting guns in a world awash with heroin? You only need to smuggle a gun once, you need to move fresh drugs every day?
I think it's really a matter of a lot of good folks coming to different conclusions than you. They fear registration since the nearly universal experience with such lists is they are used to take guns away. Our own government even got into this. They used Nazi compiled lists to go door to door at the end of the war, I had a Gunsmith friend (now long dead) that had just such a .22 rifle. He bought it from a GI who was given it by a German citizen literally as the crews were clearing guns from the next block over.....he'd rather give the rifle his grandfather gave him as a child to 'his enemy' than have it destroyed.
Don't say 'it can't happen here', it just hasn't yet?
In that other thread melting pot stated that a gun was his ' carry everywhere gun'
This is exactly what's wrong.
I highly doubt anyone needs to be permanently armed. It's America not kosovo.
Aren't you in the UK? Not America, let alone the US? You don't have such rights under the Constitution there? Hasn't nobility traditionally controlled arms in the hands of the subjects (both ways, mandating peasants arm themselves and practice martial arts when it suited them)? Different rules here, no subjects.
While nobody needs to be permanently armed (remember we arm all our police, park rangers, EPA officials and a bunch of similar Government employees here) of course. Take for instance the UK, no guns? Yet over twice the rate of criminal assault with hands and feet? To people there have more hands and feet than here? It's not a tool that is the problem, it's the (criminal) actions of some folks.
Consider our Florida experience a while back. Small time armed robberies and especially RAPE became all the rage. The State started training women to pack and defend themselves, 20,000 in the first pass. Word got out as dangerous innocent victims started interfering with the program. For a brief time they started targeting rental cars and out of state plates (no permits....), but that didn't last. Took 'the percentages' out of being a criminal, they moved on. Having the occasional victim shoot back is a buzz kill for them. "Foxes prefer rabbits with no claws".
There is abundant, peer reviewed, research showing concealed carry of guns by law abiding citizens actually makes real communities safer here. The most dangerous places to live in the US (like Chicago, say) have the nations most restrictive gun laws.......lest you jump to the wrong idea here, the murders came before 'the common sense gun laws' (that are failing). Studies show changing local laws and allowing CCW (Carry Concealed Weapons permit) lowers existing violence overall. Banning guns just gives the drug dealers a safer workplace, really.
And I try to remain conscious that I'm fairly safe where I live. For instance, there are single mothers with little money living in conditions I'm not willing to with children to protect from very real threats. Who am I to interfere with her efforts?
OF