gun owners.

I can see two major problems with your idea.

1) Having such a list would allow criminals to target the homes of gun owners and lead to the theft of their firearms while their homes were unoccupied. (Even if a gun owner stored his weapons in a very expensive safe, an experienced thief can break into the safe giving enough time).

2) Such a list would enable a criminal to find homes of non gun owners and invade them with impunity (especially if he was armed with a gun he had stolen from a gun owners home). You and your family could find yourselves victims of a home invasion.

Often what seems to be a great idea has unintended consequences.

The criminal element is largely responsible for gun violence in our nation. They often obtain their weapons by either stealing them or buying stolen weapons on the street. Of course another means is by buying a weapon that has been bought by a straw purchaser for the criminal or bought and then smuggled into the city for illegal sale.

...to steal guns or invade houses, that they're waiting only for this list to become public, at which point the hordes will rush forward to fill this cavernous gap.

Are there homes available in your neighborhood?

Which is why I strongly support universal background checks, improvements to our NICS background check system and increased efforts to stop the straw purchase and smuggling of firearms into the streets of the inner cities of our nation.

I also support modifying our failed War on Drugs which we lost decades ago by the legalization of some fairly benign drugs such as marijuana. This would reduce much of the profit motive that drives the drug cartels and consequently help to curb drug gangs fighting over turf that is plaguing cities like Chicago and Detroit.

I realize that our educational system is failing to provide students with the education to obtain good paying jobs. Of course we have lost the manufacturing base that once provided a good living for many people with only a high school education in our nation. I can see how tempting it is for a person with little education to choose a life as a drug dealer rather than one as a hamburger flipper.

Social problems are complicated but I feel we could make a lot of positive headway in reducing the level of gun violence by passing truly reasonable gun laws. I had great hope that some of the ideas I support would become law after the tragic shooting in Newtown but unfortunately the gun control advocates and the media sensed an opportunity to pass another assault weapons ban at a national level. This overreach allowed the NRA to garner enough support to stop any changes to our gun laws in Congress. It also caused the sale of firearms and ammunition to absolutely skyrocket. Many of the people who decided to buy their first firearm have any real reason to own a one and lack the necessary training to safely handle it. While I am a gun owner, I often do my best to discourage people who ask me about buying a firearm for the first time from doing so unless they they have good reason and are willing to get the necessary training to know how to safely handle their new weapon and store it properly. I also try my best to convince any new gun owner to spend the time on the range to become proficient with his new weapon. This is far more complicated and difficult than it appears to be in the movies or on TV.

You asked about my neighborhood. I live in a small town in north Florida. Almost everybody I know has at least one firearm in their home. Deer and feral hogs are commonly hunted in this area and most people have grown up with firearms and know how to safely handle them. We have had no home invasions that I know of since I moved here seven years ago but it is wise not to leave anything of any value in your yard as there is an excellent chance it will disappear. There is a thriving drug trade in this area and there have been gang related shootings.

compiling a registry of gun owners to raise money. When all along the NRA has been compiling a registry of gun owners themselves, it just shows their hypocrisy. I would love to see a Bradley Manning type leaker in the NRA ranks, it would be hilarious.

It is also possible that computers used by the NRA could be hacked.

Unfortunately the results might not be hilarious. The results might be more tragedies.

Last edited Thu Aug 22, 2013, 11:04 PM - Edit history (1)

Even though I support Second Amendment rights, as a resident of NYC, I would have no objection to this legislation.

After one is convicted of a firearm felony, I do not see any reason why their names should be cloaked from public scrutiny.

However, note that as part of Governor Cuomo's expansive set of new gun laws here in New York, disclosure of the names of gun owners is mostly prohibited, primarily in response to the fiasco of the Journal News releasing the names of gun owners in Rockland County, NY.

owner data base while they use the fear of the govmunt compiling a gun owner data base.
If someone hacks the NRA data base of gun ownership that would be the exact thing they have been fear mongering over for the last 50 years. From my experience with the NRA they would be opposed to even a gun offender database. I hope someone hacks the NRA and publishes their data base.

I really do not see the equivalency between a government database and something compiled by a private organization, whether it is Facebook, Google or the NRA. If NRA members object to its practices, the organization will need to change or lose financing, support and members. In that, you may have something you can construe as a victory.

I'm generally not a fan of government lists, and it certainly has nothing to do with guns. Maybe it's the fact that I'm part of a family that included Holocaust survivors, or my studies in American History involved the McCarthy Era. As a general rule, I believed most other liberal similarly disliked government lists. Heck, if your name just sounds like someone else, you may be on a list that makes it difficult to board an airplane. I do not make an exception for lists of gun owners who have not committed any crimes.

Additionally, I have no idea what the position of the NRA is concerning the offender list. I first heard about it tonight when I read the OP. I also am not an NRA member, and they receive little coverage or attention here in NYC. I would not be surprised, however, if they opposed the list, as they generally take a more absolutist position due to fear of the "slippery slope." This fear is not entirely unjustified as many in this forum would use such a law as a stepping-stone to enact further gun control.

As for myself, I'm more of a compromise sorta guy. I have no problem with the offender registry or universal background checks. My good nature does end well before an assault weapons ban and magazine limits.

Not to mention the huge database of social security numbers!

And then there's the IRS that has not just a list of all taxpayers, but they even know exactly how much money every single one of them earned every year! Oh, the humanity!

lose sleep because they sleep with their big old guns to protect them.

As this is "your forum," I will be brief and direct, and note that I'm only responding to your implied inquiry. If you would like to debate the issue more intently, I would be happy to move the discussion to the other gun forum or GD.

First, citing the IRS is simply madness. Despite laws designed specifically to prevent such an occurrence, we currently are engaged in a scandal wherein the IRS targeted groups based on ideology and requested and maintained information that it was not entitled to possess. Years ago, Nixon did the same thing, only far, far worse. The IRS is the poster child for curbs on government access and use of personal information.

I'm not naive, I know perfectly well that my name and personal information are gathered and maintained by both the government and private entities for any number of purposes, both legitimate and absurd. That does not mean I have to support adding creating additional government lists. (See my prior issue with the errors and lack of accountability and appeals with the Terror Watch Lists and airlines, which most people on DU have opposed)

A government list of gun owners is of particular concern because these gun owners have broken no laws and the list can be used for later confiscation (see Australia and Britain). If government lists are no problem, should we also maintain a list of everyone's religion, or what websites you visit or forums where you participate, or maybe a list of valuables or important papers in your home, just in case the police may need to search.

I'm also always bemused by the DMV argument. Despite your almost certain disagreement with the premise, we do in fact have a constitutional right to keep and bare arms. We do not have a right to own or use and automobile. Similarly, gun registration is a state, not federal issue, and you only need a license to operate on public roads. Farmers with tractors and the like do not need a license. I should also remind you that operatives in DMV offices nationwide have been routinely known to use and abuse personal information. It's so commonplace that it is usually minor local news.

Let's all be honest. At best, you believe that far more draconian gun restrictions should be enacted (hence this particular forum), and at worst, you believe the private ownership of guns should be outlawed. Why would I, or most individuals who support gun rights, of any political persuasion, agree to make it much easier to achieve your goals? What is your evidence that a federal gun registry will demonstrably decrease gun deaths. It certainly had little impact in Canada (I know it was only for longarms), and it was ended due to unnecessary costs. I oppose a gun owner registry for the same reason why we are fighting laws about safety at abortion clinics after Gosnell. The slipper slope is alive and well.

If you've read my other posts on DU, you would know that I'm very liberal and we likely agree on most issues, and I'm not a gun owner nor an absolutist concerning firearm regulation. I believe that many proposed laws would be constitutional, and some may actually be effective. I've stated in this thread alone that I do not oppose the gun offender registry, nor universal background checks, in principle. I laugh when when some DU members attack me as some sort of NRA shill or gun zealot. Despite the absurdity of suggestion, I'm the type of person closest to you on the other side of the gun debate. If you completely lose or alienate me, you can expect both gun rights and ownership to continue to expand as you make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Citing the "IRS scandal"? Citing the 5-4 Scalia interpretation of the second amendment as an argument against gun registration, despite the fact that even Scalia doesn't come anywhere close to declaring a gun registry unconstitutional? And of course, the old classic: "registration leads to confiscation"!

Just about every expert on gun violence that I've read is in favor of a gun registry, at least for handguns. The reason is obvious: to reduce the diversion and trafficking of guns to criminals, and to make it easier for the police to catch perpetrators of gun crimes. You bring up Canada, which of course still maintains a registry of handguns, as does virtually every other developed nation other than the US. How is it working out? The US has a homicide rate several times higher than any other wealthy nation, despite the fact that our overall rates of violent crimes are not out of line.

As far as you being a progressive on other issues besides guns, that may or may not be true. Either way, it's odd that so many of your DU posts seem to be repeating NRA talking points verbatim. Your sense of self-importance is also a little bizarre (if I can't change your mind then the whole cause is lost).

What you are missing is that progress on gun violence in this country is not going to come by trying to reason with people who think that registration will lead to confiscation, or that car registration is different because you only need to register a car if you drive it on public roads (one of my favorites!). In fact, a comfortable majority of Americans are already in favor of gun registration, as every poll on the subject has found. The problem is political.

The people standing in the way of gun control are the same ones standing in the way of action on climate, income inequality, fighting abortion, etc. You may have noticed that the country has been sliding to the right on a lot of issues -- even Obamacare, which the GOP now hates, was actually hatched in right-wing think tanks in the 90s as a free market alternative to Clinton's health care plans.

Thank you for this...

"good" Gungeoneer attempts to disrupt this Group while sneakily attempting not to be disruptive. They just never give up...

I then responded to questions.

However, if you and others truly believe that I'm some NRA shill, don't care about dead children, or other banal evil, I will sadly leave the debate in this forum.

I'm the type of guy you would talk to if you really wanted to reach a compromise on some regulations. However, if your goal is to achieve some form of ideological purity, a purported total win a gun control, you are really allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good. The result will be many more guns on the streets, including illegal guns owned by demonstrably dangerous people. Instead of working together to find constitutional methods to target these individuals, nothing will be accomplished, and we all will be worse for it.

that we have heard all of this "advice" from other disruptors who attempted to convince others that they were being "so sincere" and only wanted what is best for we poor misinformed "purists."

Please take your faux "concern" back to the Gungeon where you will be welcomed with open arms and loaded weapons.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1262314

been permanently pinned. It describes "concerned" (read patronizing) gun humpers perfectly.

People looking for compromise don't start out by repeating well-rehearsed NRA talking points. When you say things like "registration leads to confiscation", you are signaling quite clearly not only that your right-wing views on this issue are fixed, but that in fact you adhere to the whole gun ideology.

As an illustrative example, consider climate change. Some people might say something like "I want to protect the environment, but I'm not sure that climate change is really a big threat". That is someone who might be reasoned with, or compromised with. But if a person starts talking about the climategate emails, or sunspots, or global cooling, or any of the other explicit talking points, that is a person who has pretty much been brainwashed by Glenn Beck.