XO and friends don't want us to be able to protect ourselves! The Hell With That

[Plane]

Car registrations have indeed saved lives, as they have made it possible for manufactures to inform second and third owners that defective parts that would cause fatal accidents and injuries are available for replacement.

Recalls do not require registration with the government , they require warranty cards or failing that a public notice defective guns are a serious thing , but it is already adequately addressed.

I bet you think that the constitution allows children to own guns, because they are citizens.
Guns should be registered. It would make it necessary to report thefts of guns, which could then be put in a database of stolen weapons.

You would win that bet. I myself owned a rifle as a preteen, when my father adjudged me mature and careful enough, I ran a lot of 22 rim fire through that little rifle

Cars are traceable by license plate and VIN numbers. Guns should be at least as traceable.

Why? What causes this to be beneficial?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Crimes are committed, children are abducted, people have emergencies to communicate to others, and an all points bulletin on white 2010  Toyota Corolla BFD-456 can be flashed on overhead signs, given to patrol cars.

Donlt tell me that knowing the serial number of a gun that was used to shoot someone cannot be helpful to the police. It is obvious that it can be.

[sirs]

In other words, registration doesn't prevent anything

[Plane]

Crimes are committed, children are abducted, people have emergencies to communicate to others, and an all points bulletin on white 2010  Toyota Corolla BFD-456 can be flashed on overhead signs, given to patrol cars.

This is exactly what you cannot do with information about a gun , no matter how specifically and correctly you have the information.

Imagine.... and an all points bulletin on blue 2010  Beretta 9mm registration # BFD-456 can be flashed on overhead signs, ....

This would help , in what way?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Information on stolen guns, of course, would be used by the police to track gun crimes, based on ballistics tests and other information.  The question I was answering was about cars and how it was helpful to have a national registry for them.

[Plane]

  In the fast and furious fiasco , the government marked a few hundred guns and sent them into the stream of guns flowing into criminal hands along the border.

    What were they thinking would be the benefit?
     When one was used for a crime there is the chance of saying , there it is!

        How does this help ?

          Some of these guns were actually fitted with radio pingers , even this hasn't given the government any idea where these things are right now.

         I think that a gun registry would be very hard to accomplish, very very expensive to operate , prone to fail and usefull very seldom.

        Why do I feel confident to say this ? Not just logic on my side , also experiment on large scale , this has been tried before.

   

............  Canada tried it and gave up, discovering like several other nations that attempting to identify every gun in the country is an expensive and ultimately unproductive exercise. Criminals, of course, don’t register their guns. And even law-abiding citizens tend to ignore registration when it comes to long guns mostly used for hunting and target shooting.....
 
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2013/01/22/canada-tried-registering-long-guns-and-gave-up/

[sirs]

  In the fast and furious fiasco , the government marked a few hundred guns and sent them into the stream of guns flowing into criminal hands along the border.

    What were they thinking would be the benefit?
     When one was used for a crime there is the chance of saying , there it is!

        How does this help ?

Exactly my point as well.  Nothing is being prevented.  Registration doesn't save one life.  If the inertia is combating these supposed epic number of deaths, at the hands of a gun, there has yet to be a rational explanation as to how registration actually achieves that supposed goal. 
At best, it might help police track down a killer, AFTER the fact. 
At worst, it can be used by the Government to localize legal gun owners for far more nefarious legislation.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Registration allows law enforcement to do a better job.

[Plane]

Registration allows law enforcement to do a better job.

   This is entirely disproven by the Canadian attempt to do this.

    I provided a link previously, but you can find accounts elsewhere.

     The Canadians have a lower population , fewer guns percapata, and a generally good attitude towards their government .

      What they found was a low rate of compliance , a much higher than expected expense and a useless list in the final result.

       All of these problems would scale up for the US, and if it were done with ten times the efficiency and co-operation of the Canadian experience, the result would still be a list useless to the police for any practical purpose.

      Why ignore the Canadian experience? Not that they are the only ones to have the same experience.

       I can imagine a circumstance in which a registration list might help solve a crime , but as it turns out this is a pretty rare situation and when the Canadians had their list they didn't use it much.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Why not check and see how the Germans and the Swiss have handled gun registration.

[Plane]

Why not check and see how the Germans and the Swiss have handled gun registration.

OK , but this tells me that you didn't read the link I found about the Canadian experience.

The bigger lesson of Canada’s experiment, Mauser says, is that gun registration rarely delivers the results proponents expect. In most countries the actual number registered settles out at about a sixth. Germany required registration during the Baader-Meinhof reign of terror in the 1970s, and recorded 3.2 million of the estimated 17 million guns in that country; England tried to register pump-action and semiautomatic shotguns in the 1980s, but only got about 50,000 of the estimated 300,000 such guns stored in homes around the country

This is the same link as earlier.http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2013/01/22/canada-tried-registering-long-guns-and-gave-up/


   Since you ask, and I am curious myself I will look up the Swiss registration situation if I can.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I realize that this may seem strange to you, but all this discussion about gun "rights" I find to be boring. I don't have a gun, I don't want a gun. After my father died, we found a pistol in his desk. I did not want it, my sister did not want it, so we turned it in the the police.  It wasn't loaded and there was no ammo for it. My father was the Recorder of Deeds of the county, and I think he found the gun in the desk when he took the job, and it originally belonged to some previous Recorder who died long ago.

I don't much care about the Second Amendment, I think we could get along just fine without it. There are too damn many guns in circulation, but I have no plan to remedy that.

[Plane]

Gun ownership in Switzerland defies the simple categories of the American gun debate.

http://www.guncite.com/swissgun-kopel.html

Oh really?

This is part of a long article that includes some interesting things I am leaving out.

From the very first years of Swiss independence, the Swiss were commanded to keep and bear arms. After 1515. Switzerland adopted a policy of armed neutrality. For the next four centuries, the great empires of Europe rose and fell, swallowing many weaker countries. Russia and France both invaded, and the Habsburgs and later the Austro Hungarian Empire remained special threats. But Switzerland almost always retained its independence. The Swiss policy was Prévention de Ia guerre par Ia volonté de se défendre During World War I, both France and Germany considered invading Switzerland to attack each other's flank. In World War II, Hitler wanted the Swiss gold reserves and needed free communications and transit through Switzerland to supply Axis forces in the Mediterranean. But when military planners looked at Switzerland's well-armed citizenry, mountainous terrain, and civil defence fortifications, Switzerland lost its appeal as an invasion target. While two World Wars raged, Switzerland enjoyed a secure peace.
.........
In 1847-48, liberals throughout Europe revolted against aristocratic rule. Only in Switzerland did they succeed, taking control of the whole nation following a brief conflict called the Sonderbrund War. (Total casualties were only 128.) Civil rights were firmly guaranteed, and all vestiges of feudalism were abolished.
....................
   Today, military service for Swiss males is universal. At about age 20, every Swiss male goes through 118 consecutive days of recruit training in the Rekrutenschule. This training may be a young man's first encounter with his countrymen who speak different languages. (Switzerland has four official languages: German, French, Italian and Romansch.)

Even before required training begins, young men and women may take optional courses with the Swiss army's M57 assault rifle. They keep that gun at home for three months and receive six half-day training sessions.       
........
  From age 21 to 32, a Swiss man serves as a "frontline" troop in the Auszug, and devotes three weeks a year (in eight of the 12 years) to continued training. From age 33 to 42, he serves in the Landwehr (like America's National Guard); every few years, he reports for two-week training periods. Finally, from ages 43, to 50, he serves in the Landsturm; in this period, he only spends 13 days total in "home guard courses."
........

By the Federal Constitution of 1874, military servicemen are given their first equipment, clothing and arms. After the first training period, conscripts must keep gun, ammunition and equipment an ihrem Wohnort ("in their homes") until the end of their term of service.

Today, enlisted men are issued M57 automatic assault rifles and officers are given pistol, Each reservist is issued 24 rounds of ammunition in sealed packs for emergency use. (Contrary to Handgun Control's claim that "all ammunition must be accounted for," the emergency ammunition is the only ammo that requires accounting.)

   After discharge from service, the man is given a bolt rifle free from registration or obligation. Starting in the 1994, the government will give ex-reservists assault rifles. Officers carry pistols rather than rifles and are given their pistols the end of their service.

When the government adopts a new infantry rifle, it sells the old ones to the public.


.......
Swiss military ammo must be registered if bought at a private store, but need not be registered if bought at a range The nation's 3,000 shooting ranges sell the overwhelming majority of ammunition. Technically, ammunition bought at the range must be used at the range, but the rule is barely known and almost never obeyed.

The army sells a variety of machine guns, submachine guns, anti-tank weapons, anti-aircraft guns, howitzers and cannons. Purchasers of these weapons require an easily obtained cantonal license, and the weapons are registered, In a nation of six million people, there are at least two million guns, including 600,00 fully automatic assault rifles, half a million pistols, and numerous machine guns. Virtually every home has a gun........... Besides subsidised military surplus, the Swiss can buy other firearms easily too. While long guns require no special purchase procedures, handguns are sold only to those with a Waffenerwerbsschien (purchase certificate) issued by a cantonal authority. A certificate is issued to every applicant over 18 who is not a criminal or mentally infirm.

There are no restrictions on the carrying of long guns. About half the cantons have strict permit procedures for carrying handguns, and the other half have no rules at all There is no discernible difference in the crime rate between the cantons as a result of the different policies.

Thanks to a lawsuit brought by the Swiss gun lobby, semi-automatic rifles require no purchase permit and are not registered by the government. Thus, the only long guns registered by the government are full automatics. (Three cantons do require collectors of more than 10 guns to register.)

Gun sales from one individual to another are regulated in five cantons and completely uncontrolled in all the rest.   

Oh man XO is right the Swiss have militarized their whole society, this is exactly what we should be doing. This is in the spirit of the second amendment , or even better.

[Plane]

I realize that this may seem strange to you, but all this discussion about gun "rights" I find to be boring. I don't have a gun, I don't want a gun. After my father died, we found a pistol in his desk. I did not want it, my sister did not want it, so we turned it in the the police.  It wasn't loaded and there was no ammo for it. My father was the Recorder of Deeds of the county, and I think he found the gun in the desk when he took the job, and it originally belonged to some previous Recorder who died long ago.

I don't much care about the Second Amendment, I think we could get along just fine without it. There are too damn many guns in circulation, but I have no plan to remedy that.

   That is because you have evil ideas , but that is what I  like about you.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Swiss society is not militarized, it is simply very orderly, which is interesting in a country that has four languages and two religions. John McPhee wrote an excellent book on Switzerland. Another very good one is Swiss Watching.

One thing the Swiss rarely do is shoot one another.