Everyone has a Secret Plan. Admit it, if you were suddenly found to be the secret heir to an unknown branch of royalty, and your words was suddenly about to become law, youve got some kind of plan for what youd do. Ban cars. Ban advertising. Ban fat people. Ban diet food. Make everyone buy a lhasa apso.
In my case, other than the obvious school for wayward supermodels that Id be forced to open on the island of Catalina, it has involved gun regulation (driver regulation, too, and disarmament, and taxes, but well have to wait on those
).
We have two problems to solve simultaneously.
On one hand, it is useful to carefully screen people who were buying guns to make sure they werent criminals, insane, etc. etc., and better still, had some reasonable amount of training. It would even be nice to be able to ballistically test all the guns out there so when a crime was committed, wed know what gun did it and where it was likely to be, and to require that my guns be tested before I can buy ammo for them or carry them legally.
On the other hand, there are a large group of people in this society who hate guns, and devoutly wish to make them go away
at least except for the ones they get to carry (see CA state Senator Beretta Perata) or their bodyguards carry (see Rosie). And these people are close to the levers of power, and it isnt hard to imagine that one day theyd get those levers, and use them to do whatever they could to take guns away from everyone who wasnt them.
Solving the first problem isnt too hard (assuming people comply) technically. But you wind up with this big list somewhere of who owns guns and what guns they own.
And that feeds the potential that people like me see for the second problem, in which Rosie and Sen. Beretta Perata team up to use that Big List to target all the known gun owners out there and forcibly take away their guns.
Which I think, for a variety of reasons, would be a Bad Thing.
So one day I was thinking about this, and then I had to go to traffic school. This is a California institution in which a traffic offender, such as I was once, get their record cleared and insurance premium protected in return for sitting through an eight hour class in traffic laws and traffic safety.
It turned out that there was a class just down the street from where we live.
Sadly, it wasnt staffed by supermodels. But it was a private agency licensed by the State to certify that I had been trained.
Which gave me the germ of an idea, which as germs do, grew.
Why does the government have to keep the Big List?
Why cant I get my certification from a private list-holder, who agrees that under specific conditions, they will release my data to the courts or police, or to a firearms dealer checking on me?
Some of them could be open and easy about my data.
Some of them could be run by rugged survivalists who keep their data centers under mountains in Idaho with EMP bombs next to the RAID arrays.
All of them would have to be subject to audit, and post an immense bond to assure performance. Im sure the NRA and other gun-rights organizations would be the first to become registrars, and Id be happy to have them register me.
They would store ballistic data about my guns, and training data about me, and check me against the governments do not sell guns list periodically.
When a crime was committed, the police could submit the ballistics to a query engine that would query all the registrars, and the one holding the registration would return the data.
When the police got the appropriate warrant, they could check an individual and see what guns they owned.
I can envision a time when an attempt is made to change the laws and pry the data out of the registrars, and Im sure that the registrar that I entrust with my data would be happy to wipe the database before turning it over.
Its not a perfect solution, or a fully-baked one (unlike the supermodel idea), but it keeps coming back to me as a framework that might allow both sides in this issue to get what they want. As usual, I look forward to people’s responses to see if I’m out of my mind again…
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
Brad–I’ve thought of yor compromise proposal before. It would be nice if that would work.The big problem is that the gun controllers won’t just go away. They’ll come back again and again. Every time a new gun control bill gets passed, someone says “This is a start.” A start of what?In the meantime, there’s no reason to think that such a proposal would do anything to prevent crime unless the concealed-carry side of it worked out.
Date: 10/10/2002 00:00:00 AM
>> but most guns don’t get used that much,But, most guns aren’t used criminally. The relevant question is the utility of ballistic info of so-called crime guns when everyone and his brother knows about the database. (There’s also the fact that crime guns either won’t be in the database or won’t be associated with the relevant party, no matter how much we’d like otherwise.)>> and there are indicia that wear much less than rifling.Like a serial number? And how often do you have the gun but not the shooter?Unless they’re available when the shooter isn’t…. That’s the nice thing about bullets, and it doesn’t apply to shotguns….
Date: 10/09/2002 00:00:00 AM
Well, at least were talking…1) re ballistics; yes defraudable, and degrade over time, but most guns don’t get used that much, and there are indicia that wear much less than rifling.And it will make the nervous-about-guns folks happy, so why not?I could design a system that would create a ‘digital signature’ for strike marks and query a series of databased in about 30 days…Sean, what am I missing here?2) Re privatization. How else do you create the data assemblage needed for checking without giving the government the Big List which I don’t want them to have?3) Negative permission. I thought about that, but it seems that the nervous-about-guns folks want (and I can see some good arguments for) more than just a list of who doesn’t have guns……so let’s keep talking about how we solve these problems.A.L.
Date: 10/09/2002 00:00:00 AM
Ballistics – this is just stealth registration, and subject to all the same objections as regular registration. The ballistics-on-file thing works only if you have a database of most of the guns in the country and you know exactly who owns them at all times – in other words, registration. Don’t fall for it, or at least don’t fool yourself that it it doesn’t create exactly the same database as a registration program. It might help solve a few crimes, but it would not be worth the civil liberties risks, IMO. And remember, in the USA we are quite willing to sacrifice the convenience of the cops for the freedom of the citizens.Privatization – does not solve the problem of the registration lists being used later as the basis for confiscation. A government that will seize guns will certainly seize a list of guns.Negative registration – what problem would this solve, again? Sure, if I was a criminal I would love to have a list of the poor saps who aren’t armed, but what other good would this do?
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
My Grand Compromise ProposalHere is my proposal for a REAL compromise between the NRA and the gun-control crusade. The crusaders get one of their fondest wishes, mandatory national licensing for handgun ownership. But that license is not just for ownership, it also functions as a concealed carry weapon permit valid everywhere in the United States. Plus that license must not be any more difficult to qualify for than say, the current CCW permit now available in Texas.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
This whole concept is based on the fear that gun confiscation could occur in the future due to some change in the political climate. A much easier and simpler method of easing such fears is for the Supreme Court to definitively rule that the Second Ammendment does indeed provide an individual right to keep and bear arms. As we have argued in the past here the second amendment right exists but is not unlimited. Once such a consitutional right was firmly eastablished, there would be no possibility that guns could be confiscated and a program of ballistic checks on new guns would not present any realistic risk of confiscation. The data base could then be kept in the normal course of police proceduresBy the way, would you support drug testing as a prerequisite for the purchase of a gun.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
Er…. yeah, it’s nothing that fifteen minutes and a rasp won’t fix: ballistics can be changed pretty radically and only marginally effect accuracy.It’s a nice idea, but this wouldn’t cut it.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
>> Ballistic checking can be done at the manufacturer, so all guns can be checked. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work.It doesn’t work because the relevant surfaces of the gun “wear”, so the markings change. Moreover, it’s easy to accelerate the changes.It’s also looking at something in the noise, namely where the police don’t know who did the shooting.Also, it doesn’t even have a prayer for shotguns.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
I’m not so keen on “privatization”. With government, my relationship is spelled out by law and I have recourse to the judicial branch and the ballot box. I don’t want to repeat the (what-a-surprise) discovery that all those mandatory arbitration clauses with banks and brokers go to arbitrators who rule in favor of their frequent clients over the little guy.Do you think Wayne LaPierre would ever release anybody’s gun records?On the overall picture, as long as we’re agreed (and I think we are!) on [1] yes to gun identification (serial number, sample markings), [2] yes to ownership and chain-of-custody records, [3] serious efforts to keep guns away from disqualified persons (like felons), I’m ready to listen to all your other proposals.I don’t think we need to agree on the impact of more widespread lawful gun ownership to come to consensus on sensible regulations.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
Ballistic data changes. Not knowing who’s reading, I won’t go into details of how to make the changes occur faster. If no one was to ever shoot their firearm after it left the factory, and kept it carefully, then you could indeed make matches like that. But they’re not going to do that, so you can’t. You could get lucky, I suppose, but that’s all it would be, and not always good luck; there are a finite number of possible markings.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
Privatization of the data opens up an entire can of worms that are best left to the imagination, rather than reality.If the fact that your gun ownership is so secret, how in the world is the local and state Police / Federal Authorities going to know which private gun registration company to serve a subpeona to, in order to see if you are a registered gun owner?And what about crooked private gun registration companies? You know that is going to happen when there’s money involved. Sooner or later crime will enter into this area in the form of falsification of records.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
How about this:When you get a government issued ID (required for check-cashing, getting a loan, purchasing alcohol, etc.) the government performs a background check on you prior to issue. If you are legally prohibited from purchasing a firearm due to prior (I’d limit it to violent) felony conviction, a symbol is placed on your ID (say, a gun in the international “NO” symbol). If you are ajudicated mentally incompetent or dangerously violent, the court takes your ID and issues you a new one. If you are convicted of a violent crime, you are issued a new ID upon release. In both cases, someone is assigned to verify that you are divested of your personal firearms. You can give them away or sell them (or, if mentally incompetent, a responsible person is assigned to do that for you.) No, it’s not perfect, but it’s better than what we have now. Someone could conceal that they still possess a firearm, (no registration, remember?) but it is better than doing nothing at all. And it doesn’t interfere with private-party sales. Look at the purchaser’s ID – if the symbol isn’t there, sell the gun. If it is, refuse the sale. Registration isn’t going to work. First, I really don’t thing registration affects crime, but regardless, we don’t trust the government not to abuse registration no matter who “runs” it. Any attempt to establish national registration will result in massive non-compliance. Look at Canada’s current registration disaster.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
Nathan,Ballistic checking can be done at the manufacturer, so all guns can be checked.Don’t forget, none of this is designed to solve a crime and put somebody in jail. It used to *help* solve a crime. It provides the initial direction.As THardin states the biggest problem is who do you trust with the data?
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
How long would it be before the “private” database was either copied or confiscated by the government? The whole fear about registration is that the government will abuse it. A government that is willing to seize guns will not stop at seizing a list.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
First reaction: I could go for that. An excellent idea. If you are serious about using guns responsibly, you should be willing to do this.Then 2 problems occurred to me:1) Criminals won’t agree to this, so their guns won’t be checked ballistically; most of the database queries will come back negative.2) If my gun is stoen and used in a crime, I could go to jail. I can imagine some scenarios in which I don’t know my gun is stolen, or others in which I declare the gun stolen, then go commit a crime with it.But this idea is a start. It needs some tweaking, and I’d still be willing to register with that database because I think those scenarios are unlikely enough to not be a real threat.