How long does it take to pull a trigger, anyway? That’s the amount of time it takes for a “law-abiding” gun owner to become a law-breaking one. Here’s how the gun registry helps prevent crimes, including murder (I’m typing slowly so even the dullards among us will understand): knowing who has which guns allows the police to remove them as a preventative measure, should it become necessary. Why do critics of the long gun registry persistently ignore this simple truth? Enforcing the registry does prevent crime. Since its creation, close to 23,000 firearms licences have been refused or revoked because of just this sort of safety concern.
Beverly Akerman
Enforcing long-gun registry does prevent crime.
March 29, 2010
[Preventing crime… Shall we also prevent the crime of falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater by duct taping peoples mouths shut and tying their hands to their ankles prior to entering a theater so that can’t remove the tape? Or how about preventing women from engaging in prostitution by forcing them to wear a chastity belt with the only keys held by their fathers or husbands? Or preventing libel by registering all computers and printers? (actually, we sort of have this already).
Also note that she measures the effectiveness of the registration laws in terms of licenses refused or revoked rather than decreased violent crime rates. This is like measuring the effectiveness of anti-miscegenation laws by the number of people in prison rather than any imagined benefit to society.
It is also worthy of note that the advocates of miscegenation laws and hoaxes to further their cause were Democrats. This is also generally the case today with gun laws where advocates are generally Democrats and openly engage in hoaxes to accomplish their goals.–Joe]
“Licenses revoked” is interestingly parallel to the Brady’s frequent citation of “NICS denied” as a crime prevention measure. I have to ask, how many of the license revokees, and how many of the NICS denials, resulted in the criminal conviction of the person involved? It was a few handfuls out of millions in the US, and I would suspect the same proportion in Canada. How many of those 23,000 revocations were because of the death of the permit holder, or some other non-criminal change in status that caused revocation?
Until and unless the convictions are obtained, such stats are worse than meaningless, they are misleading.
Joe, You continue to be the true King of the Comparison. The lady’s talking about guns and you bring up prostitution and miscegenation. Not only do your comparisons fail to make the point, they complicate the discussion and confuse people.
The problem of law-abiding gun owners committing crimes is a very real one. I know you and your friends refuse to admit that, but it’s there. Maybe the lady has a point, but all you denial and mockery certainly don’t help.
“King of Comparison”? Cool. I like that. Thank you.
I use the comparisons to make it easier to understand. If you are still confused I’m not sure there is much more I can do to help you.
The problem of libel, slander, kidnapping, and ransom notes are very real also. But we don’t try to prevent those crimes (the first two aren’t actually crimes, but are actionable in civil court) by placing restrictions on the purchase and ownership of the tools that enable those crimes.
Another comparison is the No-Fly list. You seemingly can find yourself on that list for no apparent reason, and have no official means to challenge your inclusion on the list. People from innocent grandmothers to celebrities have been denied flight due to their inclusion on the list. I suppose the victorious statistic to be quoted here to demonstrate the list is working would be the number of people denied flights; as opposed to the lack of flights exploding in midair?
There is a story in Massachussetts where the son of a police officer threatened his neighbor – the neighbor, not knowing who he was dealing with, called the cops anyways. What did the cops do? Took away the neighbor’s guns.
Clear abuse of power. Unless your boys in the government think they’re all whistle angel clean, there WILL be abuses of power for all sorts of purposes and no one wins.
@mikeb
As Joe knows I have first hand experience with that so called registry. That registry attempts to prevent my purchase of a firearm every time I buy one. It actually full out denied me for a year when it was NOT legal to do so. Why because a prosecutor attempted to charge me with a felony and then dropped the charges. Why were the charges dropped because he couldn’t prove what he claimed cause it didn’t happen the way he claimed. As an FYI this charge was centered around a non violent crime where a car collided with something. I had a firearm with me that day, which was confiscated since I was being investigated for a felony. Charges dropped, firearm returned by the order of the prosecutor, yet for a year I was denied the ability to purchase a firearm. Explain that to me? As an FYI, some of those 23000 are me having dealers probe the system once a month to find out if it’s been fixed. And I’m sure I’m not the only individual who has done that!
Now thanks to those charges, even though there was no guilty verdict from a jury of my peers, my rights were and are continuously violated. What for? The premise that maybe out there is that it stops someone who shouldn’t have them. News flash, laws only affect the law abiding. Someone who isn’t supposed to have a firearm will get them by any means necessary. Also I would like to point out, that I can get my name off the nag list by paying money to the federal government. Bureaucrats can levee new fees on people attempting to exercise their rights by merely charging them with a crime.
So in closing, your argument is that legal gun owners out of no where go rogue. No one is arguing that doesn’t happen, what we are arguing is that is NOT a reason to punish a law abiding citizen. You obviously feel that if an innocent person is thrown in jail, as long as the proportion of criminals to innocent bystander is greater, the system is working. We however believe that a single innocent punished by the system is an injustice and not acceptable.
May you one day become the innocent bystander like I, then tell me how you like it.
Barron,
Different “registry”. I should have made it clear Akerman lives in Canada and is talking about the long gun registry of her country.
MikeB302000,
So, please explain to us why it is not a valid comparison.
Mikey’s using the logic of these dastardly death-penalty supporters – “better to kill 10 innocents then let one guilty go free”
dear god.
Joe, The invalid comparison was to prostitution and miscegenation.
Barron, I hear ya loud and clear, but disagree. Poor innocent you were punished with inconvenience while those same laws very well may have prevented violent offenders from getting guns. That is the purpose of the laws after all. You may find it hard to believe but the purpose is not to punish lawful people. I say preventing one murderer from getting his hands on a gun makes inconveniencing all of you well worth it.
Mikeb302000,
I asked WHY it was not a valid comparison. I didn’t ask what you thought was an invalid comparison. Please don’t change the subject. All you are doing is asserting it is invalid. I think we are running into your problem of being unable to determine truth from falsity again.
*crickets chirp*
Let me see if I can find my “surprised” face…