First, Gary Thompson:
> Sorry, but you don't seem to get it. By far, most gun violence does not
involve gangs, which is a red herring talking point.
Gary, your strawman misses the fact that I pointed that out myself. Most
crime, nationwide, doesnât involve *gangs*.
Most DOES involve perps, and often victims, with criminal records. Thatâs an
important distinction that you and your pals in the gun grabber movement keep
trying to spin past. Itâs dishonest.
> A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 70 percent of gun owners
leaning Republican and 88 percent of those leaning Democratic support
background checks for private sales and at gun shows.
The study was a phone survey of people who arenât necessarily any more familiar
with the facts than you are, Gary.
Gun shows already have background checks.
Criminals are no more going to take background checks for private sales when
theyâre mandatory than they are today. The ONLY purpose to âprivate sale
background checksâ is to register civilian guns. Thatâs not going to happen.
> This is a bipartisan issue.
Only among the uninformed and those disinforming them.
> Minnesota legislators must be told about this and other important gun-safety
facts.
They have been. Thatâs why a REAL bipartisan majority has been voting to
uphold citizens 2nd Amendment rights for the past 15 years.
> Another gun-violence safety issue is that â though people of color are very
disproportionately the victims of gun violence â by far the largest totals are
white people..."By far, gun violence deaths are white citizens' problem, and by
far a white male problem
Another exceptionally misleading statement.
People of color are EXTREMELY disproportionally likely to be victims of all
crime, including guns.
2/3 of gun deaths are suicides; these people are overwhelmingly white, older,
rural, and have been handling guns since they were children. How do you do a
background check on someone whoâs been shooting without incident their whole
lives?
Simple fact: the local anti-gun groups - âProtectâ Minnesota, Everytown and
Moms Want Action - have never, not once, made a statement that was
simultaneously substantial, original and true. I welcome a chance to prove it
to anyone who wants it. (But not in this forum).
Gary - law-abiding Minnesotans have more carry permits per capita than Texas.
And our murder rate is lower than Norwayâs. If you leave out the Twin Cities,
Minnesotaâs murder rate is lower than most of Europe.
Why do you people never mention that?
Next, Sheldon:
> Others, like me, think we're already far past the point where we can
conceivably keep track of the ones that exist and assure that guns don't get
into the wrong hands, whether it be children or criminals or kooks or whomever.
Perhaps. But you seem to miss this key fact, and keep missing it: *Gun crime
is down*. 50% in 20 years. This, as the number of guns in civilian hands rose
by third.
> Pardon my ignorance, but as far as I know, all the guns in circulation, which
I imagine, once manufactured, remain serviceable for a very long time, are not
registered like an automobile. There's a Department of Motor Vehicles that
licenses cars and trucks. As far as I know, there isn't a Department of
Firearms that licenses guns and rifles.
With good reason. We shooters have learned the hard way that you can NOT,
EVER, NEVER, trust government not to use that information to confiscate law
abiding citizensâ guns. Three times in the past five years, governments have
*tried* to use registration data to confiscate firearms (NY and CT in 2013, and
the California law that was just struck down by the 9th circuit).
Cars are an economic necessity but not a civil right essential to separating
âcitizensâ from âsubjectsâ.
> As I recall, you were criticizing the Chief of Police or the US Attorney or
someone you probably think is some sort of DFL lackey for not tracing some
recovered guns to so-called âstraw buyers.â My question was, and still is, how
do they do that?
Asked and mostly answered, Sheldon. But what the heck, Iâll do it again.
The first sale of every brand-new gun has a background check and a federal
transfer form. Every second-hand sale at a store, gun show sale and online
dealer sale involves a background check and transfer form.
The only sales currently not involving the background check and paperwork are
private sales between individuals. Many if not most involve sales between
people who know each other - relatives, family, friends, etc. Some donât;
because of the risk if one sells to a criminal, many if not most people selling
to strangers get the background check and transfer form anyway. And - hereâs
the part that the gun grabbers keep missing - if someone wants to âtransferâ a
gun to someone they know is a criminal (or they just donât care), how do you
*force* them to get the background check? *Theyâre criminals*. They already
ignore laws!
And the *only* way to make registering private sales effective is to keep a
list of all the guns being transferred, which is a registry, which means âlist
of law-abiding peoplesâ gunsâ (since the criminals, again, donât register
them!). And thatâs never going to happen, outside a few states that are too
far-gone to care about.
âââââ
To turn the subject back to the Chief: So, DID he manage to break the
victims down by criminal record?
Thanks,
MBerg