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Today CNN lauds a new study by Bindu Kalesan, an anti-gun Boston University researcher which states that just 3 new gun laws could cut firearms deaths by more than 90%. These laws are:
Universal background checks for firearm purchases
Background checks on ammunition purchases
"Ballistic fingerprinting" for firearm identification
Meanwhile the Washington Post says there are deep problems with the study, quoting David Hemenway, professor of health policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center for Gun Policy & Research.
Most laws are irrelevant to actual criminals. That's what makes them criminals.
Is it your contention we should simply have no laws, since criminals don't obey them?
No, but my contention is that it is counterproductive to try to bring back laws which have been tried and have failed. The USA had nationwide ammunition sales registration as part of the 1968 GCA, saw no benefit, and it was finally repealed in 1986, having solved zero crimes in it's 18 year history. In the repeal hearings, ATF testified "The Bureau and Department have recognized that current record keeping requirements for ammunition have no substantial law enforcement value."
The study author, Bindu Kalesan, even says the benefit of a "ballistic fingerprinting" law would be more about reducing firearms availability than about any utility of the database:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Washington Post
Daniel Webster said that those fingerprinting laws aren't even currently being implemented, raising the question of how they would prevent gun deaths -- and particularly in suicides where tracing the bullet to the gun hardly seems like a deterrent. Bindu Kalesan said that that the laws would result in fewer guns, and said the study wasn't designed to distinguish how policy contributions to suicide or homicide deaths.
"What I find both puzzling and troubling is this very flawed piece of research is published in one of the most prestigious scientific journals around," Webster said in an interview."Something went awry here, and it harms public trust."
Gee, you'd think that a professional Boston University study on how laws impact firearms deaths, of which more than half are suicides, would take the time to isolate suicides and control for suicide means substitution. Or maybe Bindu Kalesan has a bit of an agenda?
“We are not claiming that these reductions would occur overnight, or even within a year,” says co-author Jeffrey Fagan of Columbia University, in an email interview with the Monitor. “But after a longer period of sustained and intensive efforts to implement the three measures we cite, we would begin to see significant reductions in gun deaths in places that take implementation seriously.”
What this research shows, according to lead author Dr. Kalesan, is that President Obama was right, when he “tried really hard but failed to implement comprehensive background checks”.
“This is a first definitive step towards providing sound policies,” says Kalesan. “We need to inform the public: nobody’s trying to take the guns away, but just introducing background checks could help reduce injuries and deaths across the country.”
Let's see. Published by CNN, check. Written by an avowed "anti-gun" author, check. Author is a member of the propaganda...errrr..."educational" system, check. Yep, all of the elements of pure-d bull feces. Thought something smelled really bad, not hard to figure out this has no real credibility.
If the headline were true, there would have been very few homicides in Maryland, because they did all of those things. Homicide rate didn't change one iota; our taxes merely went higher.
Most laws are irrelevant to actual criminals. That's what makes them criminals.
Is it your contention we should simply have no laws, since criminals don't obey them?
No.
If you legalize murder, a lot more people would do it, because they wouldn't be criminals for doing so.
People who are out there shooting people even though it's illegal are criminals. They're not going to follow another law that would make it more difficult to knowingly commit the crimes they're planning on committing.
Criminal: "Hey, I want to break the law and rob people. But first, I need to obtain the gun in a law-abiding manner. No Jack, I don't want to buy the gun you stole last week. I have to obtain it legally, because that's what law-abiding criminals do!"
Most laws are irrelevant to actual criminals. That's what makes them criminals.
Is it your contention we should simply have no laws, since criminals don't obey them?
laws can be a good thing to have, but there is such a thing as too many laws, as well as bad laws. it is already a crime to shoot someone without cause, so what are you going to do when criminals do in fact shoot someone without cause? make it more illegal to shoot someone? it is already illegal for a criminal to possess a firearm, are you now going to make it more illegal for s criminal to possess a firearm?
punishing the law abiding citizen for things criminals do is not the answer to reducing crimes, severely punishing the criminals is. instead of sentencing someone to a mere five years for armed robbery, put them away for something more like 15 years. if someone kills another and is convicted of murder, then it should be an automatic sentence of 25-life, no ifs ands buts or maybes. no plea bargains except perhaps to keep the death penalty off the table.
gun control laws are not the answer, criminal control is.
I'll compromise on this with the following conditions. 1)It's instant. 2)The fee is no more than costs, should be no more than a dollar or two. 3)It's not used to build a gun registry. In return for my compromise I get conceal carry in all 50 states.
Quote:
Background checks on ammunition purchase
Irrelevant, costly and completely impractical. I can make all the bullets I need, legally purchased bullets will just end up on the streets in the black market. .
Quote:
"Ballistic fingerprinting" for firearm identification
Also irrelevant, costly and completely impractical. NJ just scrapped such program, I believe it resulted in 0 apprehensions.
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