{"id":2536,"date":"2002-06-13T20:28:28","date_gmt":"2002-06-13T20:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.armedliberal.com\/?p=81"},"modified":"2002-06-13T20:28:28","modified_gmt":"2002-06-13T20:28:28","slug":"looking-through-loopholes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=2536","title":{"rendered":"LOOKING THROUGH LOOPHOLES"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brian Linse, another confused liberal, writes about the practical, as opposed to legal, gun show loophole here<\/a>.
\nIn effect, what is happening is that the law allows private individuals who are not in the business of selling guns, much like private individuals who are not in the business of selling cars, not to comply with a bunch of regulations designed in the case of cars to defend consumers, and in the case of guns to regulate who can buy and how.
\nNow, on paper, this distinction is just fine, and perfectly clear, as has been pointed out ad nauseum by, among others, The Professor<\/a>. I\u0092m a private individual, and should I decide to unload\u0085er, sell\u0085a gun, I can do so to a private individual and not be in violation of various laws.
\nPersonally, unless I knew the individual I was selling to, I\u0092d run it through a dealer and make the buyer go through the background check anyway; I\u0092d feel pretty crummy sitting on the witness stand after my buyer did a drive-by. And my insurance would be kinda bummed as well. But that\u0092s just me.
\nAnd, practically, I have to give one to Linse, because I\u0092ll bet there are<\/u> people who make a living selling guns at gun shows, but do not register as dealers, just as I\u0092ll bet there are people who make a living selling cars and not registering as dealers, or running \u0091permanent\u0092 garage sales. They\u0092re cheating, breaking the law, and in our society the fact is some people get away with it.
\nOn the other hand, in my experience, at the gun shows at Pomona, Ventura, and Orange County, I have never interacted with a seller who wasn\u0092t going to run me through the paperwork and waiting period, and wasn\u0092t going to act like a dealer\u0085whether they were or not, I can\u0092t say because I never asked for a copy of their FFL.
\nAnd politically, I have to wave my hands in the air and go \u0093are you kidding??\u0094 THIS is the important public safety legislation you want to waste your time and my money on?<\/b>
\nIn other words, I think that \u0093closing the gun show loophole\u0094 legislation is symbolic, probably unnecessary, and generally useless. And I oppose it, flatly.
\nWhy? I\u0092ll tell you simply; because it has little to do with gun crime or violence, and everything to do with legislators who confuse passing laws with solving problems.
\nLook, there are probably a hundred million guns in circulation in the U.S. The genie isn\u0092t going back into the bottle. I won\u0092t get into what kind of regulation of firearms I could or don\u0092t support\u0085my mailbox isn\u0092t that big. But I am abso.damn.lutely clear on one thing.
\nMost of the gun laws that are passed\u0085and they probably are a good proxy for most laws\u0085have little to do with solving the problem, and everything to do with the sociology of electoral and administrative politics in our day and age.
\nThe reality is that if I want to buy an illegal weapon, I probably just have to ask my son in high-school. Give me 5 benjamins, drop me in MacArthur or Will Rodgers Park here in L.A., and I\u0092ll come home with a gun.
\nBut the fact that it will have no impact doesn\u0092t matter. The fact that that there is a regulatory loophole simply infuriates those who look for intellectually solid, completely realized regulatory programs. (note, in case you haven\u0092t figured it out: I believe that liberal goals are better accomplished in other<\/u> ways)
\nThe gun show loophole crisis is like the .50 caliber rifle crisis. It doesn\u0092t exist.
\nI don\u0092t doubt that some guns are sold at gunshows to people who couldn\u0092t get them at a traditional dealer. Some being a very small number, near the limit of statistical measurement. I don\u0092t doubt that someone has, or likely will, commit a crime using a .50 caliber rifle.
\nBut in terms of impacting the overall level of crimes using guns in this county, we\u0092re looking at something less than rounding error.
\nAnd, simply, it\u0092s time to stop passing laws because a) they give legislators something to say they did come re-election time; and b) because they sound good on TV. You want to propose gun laws?? Make a convincing argument, not based on anecdote, but on statistically valid research, that it will have an impact. And, best of all, convince me that the laws you are passing aren\u0092t simply turning up the heat under the frog.
\nWhen someone proposes a package of gun legislation that a) has some reasonable likelihood of measurably reducing crimes where firearms are used; and b) has some built in, irrevocable, defendable baseline guarantee of my right as a noncriminal citizen to arms, I\u0092ll look really hard at it and probably support it.
\nIt\u0092s all just re-election posturing until then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brian Linse, another confused liberal, writes about the practical, as opposed to legal, gun show loophole here. In effect, what is happening is that the law allows private individuals who are not in the business of selling guns, much like private individuals who are not in the business of selling cars, not to comply with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2536"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}