I caught CSPAN last night as I was working on a client's project, and watched some of the various Pro and Anti gun arguments used. From what I saw, the deck was particularly stacked against the Pro side, as I only saw 1 speaker (Richard Feldman) vs 6 or so Anti's.
Richard, however, I feel did a superlative job getting his point across, IMHO.
One of the things that really was interesting though was how he addressed the "One gun a month" law, and how it was a bad idea.
Let me give you some background on this law:
Everyone wants to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, right? One of the problems was that people with no criminal records (whether they be friends or girlfriends of the criminals) were going in and buying 10+ firearms at a time, then turning around and selling them to the gangs that evening. They'd then turn around and do the same thing the next day. FYI: This is a felony, providing criminals with firearms.
Anyhow, long story short, law makers decided that "Hey, if we limit it to one gun a month, that will stop the selling!" Nice idea, but it's flawed.
What they didn't know is that the BATF has a form that is filled out EVERY TIME SOMEONE PURCHASES MULTIPLE FIREARMS AT THE SAME TIME. That form is faxed to the local, state, and federal agencies, with the serial numbers of all the firearms sold. So, if one of these firearms is used in a crime, and traced, they can pinpoint who is providing them to the criminals. Not a bad idea IMHO. Richard Feldman suggested having the purchaser filling out this form, and having it say in big bold letters "This is immediately going to the law", which would act as a deterrent, since right now they think they've found a loophole.
Anyhow, the "one gun a month" law has effectivly taken away this law enforcment tool. And, the criminals have found a way around it (they are funny like that).
Here's what they do now: Instead of sending in one person to buy 10 guns, they send in that 1 person with 9 friends, all of whom don't have a record. So, now there are the same number of firearms in the hands of the criminals, but there is no multipurchase form because these are all single buys.
No multipurchase form, no red flag to the BATF. One less way to track the criminals. Congratulations, we've helped the criminals instead of tracking the weapons.
Anyhow, just thought you should know this.
Think about it: Pro Gun or Anti Gun, we are both ANTI CRIMINAL! We are on your side here, you just have misidentified the enemy and are essentially wasting time and resources.
Richard Feldman did one hell of a job demystifying the issue and addressing the topics, too bad he didn't have more time. Anyhow, I really wish he was out there in the spotlight more often, because he was a really effective speaker. Anyone know where I can email him my thanks?
Spark
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Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com
www.bladeforums.com
