Why Americans don't like Obamacare
Jan 18th 2011, 6:44 pm
#391
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 7,605
Re: Why Americans don't like Obamacare
What is it with the left's obsession with calling everybody who disagrees with them a loony?
Are you honestly saying that you believe those checks are the least bit effective at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals? This article argues that they're useless.
Background checks are actually very ineffective to begin with and are mostly an inconvenience for regular people. Unfortunately, many law-abiding citizens end up being erroneously flagged. People intent on horrific crimes are not going to be deterred if they cannot get the guns legally. They can easily enough get guns illegally.
The statistics are clear on this issue: Virtually the only people inconvenienced by background checks are law-abiding citizens. Just as law-abiding citizens accidentally get their names on the government’s “no-fly” list, Americans without a criminal record also find themselves prevented from buying guns.
In 2008, 1.5 percent of those having a Brady background check were forbidden from purchasing a gun. Unfortunately, virtually all these cases represent so-called “false positives.” In 2006 and 2007 (the latest years with detailed data), a tiny fraction — just 2 percent — of those denials involved possible unlawful possession; and just 0.2 percent of the denials were viewed as prosecutable — 174 cases in 2006 and 122 in 2007. Even when the government decided that the cases were prosecutable, at least a third of them failed to result in convictions. And even the few convictions were often for people who simply made mistakes — they hadn’t realized that they were prohibited from purchasing a gun.
The Brady background checks have done virtually nothing to prevent people with criminal intent from getting guns. Given that, it isn’t too surprising that no academic studies by economists or criminologists have found that the Brady Act or other state background checks have reduced violent crime.
The statistics are clear on this issue: Virtually the only people inconvenienced by background checks are law-abiding citizens. Just as law-abiding citizens accidentally get their names on the government’s “no-fly” list, Americans without a criminal record also find themselves prevented from buying guns.
In 2008, 1.5 percent of those having a Brady background check were forbidden from purchasing a gun. Unfortunately, virtually all these cases represent so-called “false positives.” In 2006 and 2007 (the latest years with detailed data), a tiny fraction — just 2 percent — of those denials involved possible unlawful possession; and just 0.2 percent of the denials were viewed as prosecutable — 174 cases in 2006 and 122 in 2007. Even when the government decided that the cases were prosecutable, at least a third of them failed to result in convictions. And even the few convictions were often for people who simply made mistakes — they hadn’t realized that they were prohibited from purchasing a gun.
The Brady background checks have done virtually nothing to prevent people with criminal intent from getting guns. Given that, it isn’t too surprising that no academic studies by economists or criminologists have found that the Brady Act or other state background checks have reduced violent crime.
Jan 18th 2011, 6:44 pm
#392
WTF?
Joined: Aug 2003
Location: Homeostasis
Posts: 79,367
Re: Why Americans don't like Obamacare
) had holes in hers but the boy's abuser (I mean principal ) did not. Different factions fought and died over which one hurt the worst but we could never find out because the beatings were gender segregated. 
Jan 18th 2011, 6:45 pm
#393
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Dec 2006
Location: Nova Scotia Canada
Posts: 27,078
Re: Why Americans don't like Obamacare
So then drug dealing should be legal too. Interesting. Dealing in biochemical agents as well. Certainly should be no law against selling unsafe cribs that kill babies, knowingly selling tainted food, dealing in forged documents, and I could make a list a mile long. We intervene regularly by reasonable regulation, and rightly so, in the transfer of property or goods for the protection of the general public in the areas of health and safety and security. I would have it no other way. I am sure that you totally agree with such intervention in areas where you consider that it serves to protect you and yours.
Jan 18th 2011, 7:03 pm
#397
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Dec 2006
Location: Nova Scotia Canada
Posts: 27,078
Re: Why Americans don't like Obamacare
What is it with the left's obsession with calling everybody who disagrees with them a loony?
Are you honestly saying that you believe those checks are the least bit effective at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals? This article argues that they're useless.
Are you honestly saying that you believe those checks are the least bit effective at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals? This article argues that they're useless.
In most states convicted felons, domestic violence abusers, and those who are dangerously mentally ill can walk into any gun show and buy weapons from unlicensed sellers. Only a handful require checks at gun shows. The Columbine shootings involved just such guns. As have many others. If someone knows they are going to fail a background check, go to a gun show. And since those unlicensed sellers are, well, unlicensed, how do we know they are not criminals? When there have been background checks for all gun purchases in force for a year, you can trot out statistics. Until then, no. Because they are useless and mere tools of the gun lobby to taint the facts.
It also doesn't help when States fail to submit the necessary data to the system. The Virginia Tech shooter had been determined to be mentally ill and under court order to undergo treatment, and yet he legally bought a gun because that information never made it to the database in spite of the fact that Virgina is the leading contributer of such information to the database. These two numbers are an indication of why the system is not performing as it should, and the blame goes to the states involved.
Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence reports that Arizona has submitted only about 4,400 mental illness records out of an estimated total of 121,700. (North Carolina has submitted only 12,500 out of an estimated 330,000.)
That is a pretty damn big loophole to slip through. Wouldn't you say?
Last edited by dakota44; Jan 18th 2011 at 8:50 pm.
Jan 18th 2011, 7:11 pm
#400
BE Site Lead
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: MA, USA
Posts: 92,170
Re: Why Americans don't like Obamacare
What is it with the left's obsession with calling everybody who disagrees with them a loony?
Are you honestly saying that you believe those checks are the least bit effective at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals? This article argues that they're useless.
Are you honestly saying that you believe those checks are the least bit effective at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals? This article argues that they're useless.
I'm all for guns, but I'm also of the thinking that owning a gun should have some responsibilities, which you seem not to want.
Making it easy to buy a gun does in fact make it easy to get in the hands of the criminal. I say that, because that's just how the majority of illegally used guns in my state come from, from Georgia and Maine, who do have very laid back laws of not requiring ID, background, or even residential checks to buy and sell guns, so plenty of people go up there and buy them legally, because it is in fact easier than getting them else where and then go on to move them around and sell them illegally.
So yes, it would help quite significantly. Sure illegal guns will still be had, people will still steal them etc, but to get an illegal gun, it must first have been a legal gun. Taking that easy step out of the equation changes things.
Jan 18th 2011, 7:12 pm
#401
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Nov 2007
Location: Bay Area, CA
Posts: 13,110
Re: Why Americans don't like Obamacare
Do what now? Nobody has suggested that, but I guess it's understandable that folks whose world view is based upon the idea that everything which is not forbidden is compulsory and everything which is not compulsory is forbidden might jump to that conclusion.
How about we leave grown ups alone to make their own decisions? Not everything has to be micro-managed by dictat.
How about we leave grown ups alone to make their own decisions? Not everything has to be micro-managed by dictat.
A teaching position is open and we are down to the two final candidates. One carries, the other does not. Whoever does not get the job could claim discrimination. We find out the principal does not like guns; the 'carry' guy argues the school is biased against carrying candidates. Or vice versa. Some poor performing teacher who 'carries' is fired. He claims he was fired because he carried ... or vice versa ....
Some school in texas has a bunch of parents who have an agenda for gun ownership; they start having their kids boycott classes taught by non-gun carriers "in the name of my childs safety'. Or vice versa in some liberal state ....
A school must now allow teachers to carry on the job. They are required to install gun safes at some significant expense. They are required to provide training to the 'carriers' (how to deal with a crisis situation, etc). They are required to increase their insurance coverage. Parent's sue to block these expenditures ...
Bottom line is - a substantial majority of the US population, while supporting gun ownership, don't support 'carrying' in schools (I'm willing to bet serious coin on that), and if public opinion is against it, the plan is doomed to failure. This would make 'teaching Creationism' and 'prayer in school' look like minor issues.
I guess we could have PRIVATE schools that were free to allow/disallow carrying ... so instead of the Catholic or the Baptist school, we have the 'armed' and the 'disarmed' schools. The disarmed schools would be targets of outside loonies, while the armed schools would be full of self-inflicted wounds!
We could run that way for 10 years and then compare outcomes. Thank God I don't have kids ...
Jan 18th 2011, 7:16 pm
#402
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Nov 2007
Location: Bay Area, CA
Posts: 13,110
Re: Why Americans don't like Obamacare
I had a teacher in 'high school' (11-15 year old) who did exactly that. French teacher .. Mr Ainsworth ... in the 60s ...
Jan 18th 2011, 7:19 pm
#404
I have a comma problem
Joined: Feb 2009
Location: Fox Lake, IL (from Carrickfergus NI)
Posts: 49,598
Re: Why Americans don't like Obamacare
Same school as Chris Barrie went to believe it or not.