How can one gun-control\group be so wrong in so many ways?
A gun-control group calling itself gunsensevoter.org has presented a "poll", intended to be sent to legislators, asking them to explain their political opinions on "Gun Control". While obviously biased, it's worthwhile to examine the questions they are asking.
From this article, here are the questions they are asking (some questions are edited for brevity .. go to the original article for details):
(1)
(General statement on Gun Control) "Do you agree: we can both do more to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people and protect the rights of responsible, law-abiding people?"
[Wow! What an all-encompassing question! Wonder what the author intends to achieve this goal? What's this "we" word? And by the way, what are you doing to protect the rights of responsible, law-abiding people? It sounds as you want to take guns out of their hands, too.]
(2)
(Gun Show Loophole) Background Checks ; Keeping Guns Out of the Hands of Dangerous People
(Questions whether firearms transfers should not ALL be subject to background checks)
[No definition of terms. "ALL"? Would impose draconian solutions, and registration would be necessary to enforce]
(3)
(Restraining orders) Federal law prohibits anyone from having firearms if they have been convicted of abusing their spouses, or if they are the subjects of active restraining orders taken out by their spouses, but not if they have been convicted of stalking or have been convicted of abusing their dating partners. The share of intimate partner violence that occurs in dating relationships has been steadily growing—and as of 2008, more domestic violence homicides were committed by dating partners than by spouses.
Do you support a law that would prohibit gun possession by by convicted stalkers and people convicted of—or, who after due process, are actively restrained from— abusing a dating partner?
[The problem is that restraining orders can be filed without a court order. There is no opportunity for the 'abuser' to protest the court order,or to present the 'other side' of the argument. This is just another excuse to exercuze your gun-control agenda.]
(4
) (Online websites which sell guns without background checks): Do you support legislation that would level the playing field by treating sites like Armslist as licensed gun brokers, and require a
background check every time someone buys a gun through one of these sites?
[I don't know the rules here, but I know that responsible owners generally tend to check out their buyers before the complete a deal. Not a question without merit. However, it considers all transfers as equivalent,]
(5)
Background checks; keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people. (NICS doesn't have all records of mental patients) Do you support an increase in congressional funding for the federal grant programs that help states submit their records?
[Again, not a question entirely without merit. Except .. who will guard the guardians? How are we to know that the people who are charged with diagnosing their patients are not giving in to their private "gun control at all costs" agenda? Even the Center for Disease Control has been found 'guilty' of advancing a private agenda, and were prohibited from examining the question for decades because their bias was so great that they were professionally unable to omit their bias from their conclusions. ]
(6)
(Gun trafficking, straw purchases and stolen guns) People listed on the federal government’s terror watch lists are prohibited from boarding airplanes—but current federal law does
not bar them from buying guns or explosives. Indeed, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office, people on terror watch lists bought firearms or explosives from licensed dealers 1,321 times between 2004 and 2010. Do you support legislation --- drafted by the George W Bush Administration --- that would close this “terror gap” by giving the FBI the discretion to block these people from buying guns?
[Is this an issue? I thought you had to present identification and undergo a background check before buying explosives. Is this equivalent to purchasing a firearm? What happened to NICS?]
(7) (More about
gun trafficking, straw purchases, and stolen guns) Under current law, it is difficult to prosecute and convict people suspected of of trafficking illegal guns because the penalties for trafficking are small and difficult to prove. In fact, the current penalty for gun trafficking is the same as for trafficking chickens across state lines. Do you support legislation that would create a strong federal gun trafficking statute with serious penalties?
[This sounds like hyperbole bullshit.. I don't believe it.]
(8)
(High Capacity Magazines) In many mass shootings, including the 2011 shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, AZ, bystanders have been able to subdue perpetrators of mass shootings when the shooters stop to reload. Research from Virginia showed that the federal limit on high-capacity magazines in effect from 1994 to 2004 led to a 50% reduction in criminals being armed with high-capacity magazines— and when the law expired, the share of crime guns with such magazines doubled. Several states have enacted limits on the size of ammunition magazines. Do you support limits on the capacity of ammunition magazines?
[They lulled us into slumber with their soft-ball questions, and now they're throwing the fast-ball questions at us. Do you support limits on the capacity of ammunition magazines?" Why should anyone? Anyone who knows anything about guns knows that (a) a reload is only a minor inconvenience, and (b) magazine capacity has never been an issue in the kind of 'mass shootings' which this article purports to address. It's just an attack on legal firearms owners.]
(9)
(Child Safety) Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia have child access prevention laws, which allow criminal charges for adult gun owners who fail to store their guns safely and keep them out of the reach of children. Do you support laws that allow a prosecutor to bring charges if a gun owner stores a firearm negligently, a minor accesses the gun, and harm results?
[One wonders who is a responsible gun owner. Most of us are responsible. Adding felony penalties when your child foxes your gun safe after he has killed you (Adam Lanza) seems unproductive.]
(10)
(National Concealed Carry Mandate) Some in Congress have proposed “national concealed carry reciprocity” legislation, which would create a new federal mandate forcing every state to recognize concealed carry permits from every other state, no matter how lax a state’s laws are. Do you oppose national concealed carry reciprocity, which would overturn state public safety laws and replace them with a lowest-common denominator standard?
[This is reminiscent of the Shalleen Allen situation, where a legal gun in one state is a felony just across the border. It has recently been reconciled with no serious penalties to the 'perpetrator', because (in this case) New Jersey was embarrassed by their draconian "no credit for being an honest person" gun laws. The question about "Lax gun Laws" is hyperbole at best]
