Its time for Democrats to drop the gun control platform

[Straw Man]

115. Then you have profoundly misunderstood.

What I see above is just another post that says don't do anything about the slaughter because of

"My Guns" and a faulty interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. What matters to you are you guns over dead people, so let's not do anything.

I was wondering when that canard would come out. Your invocation of the blood of innocents as a justification for whatever spur-of-the-moment wish list of gun control you care to fling against the wall devalues your entire argument.

What I'm telling you is that your proposals won't help prevent violence and will do further damage to the already intensely polarized American polity. But if it makes you feel warm and fuzzy because you've "done something," then go ahead. Just don't expect to be welcomed with open arms when you come back with your next round of "common sense" regulations after the first batch fails to accomplish much of anything.

I don't recall having said anything about the Second Amendment.

The bad guys have so many weapons because the "good guys" insist on easy access for more guns for themselves, not realizing they are helping to arm the bad guys also, because lax firearm laws that makes it easier for the bad guys to get their guns too.

Is that what you think the resistance to gun control is about? Easy access? Let me disabuse you of that peculiar notion right away.

I live in one of the most highly regulated states in the Union, yet when the last raft of gun control bills passed our legislature, some of our lawmakers proclaimed from the floor that "this is just the beginning" and "there's more to come." Yet I'm told that "the slippery slope is an NRA myth," that "nobody's coming for your guns." These are transparent lies. There is nothing short of a total ban on private ownership of firearms that would satisfy these latter-day Carrie Nations.

Easy access? In my state, we've never had that. Every gun owner I know who resists these proposals sees them as the thin end of the wedge, the camel's nose in the tent, the next step down the slippery slope. And the rhetoric I'm reading here suggests that they are right.

Again the Old West had better firearm control than we do now. You did nothing to refute that.

You did nothing to support it -- nary a quote, statistic, nothing. "That which has been asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence," or something like that.

Internet sales do not have to go through a licensed dealer. Only legal sales of weapons from dealers. Plenty of people buy and sell their firearms privately through the internet. No licensed dealer involved.

You are woefully uninformed. I have bought and sold many guns on the Internet. Every single sale had to be completed through a licensed dealer and was subject to a background check. Federal law makes no distinction between Internet sales and any other kind: interstate sales must go through a licensed dealer and therefore a background check.

As with any sale, the only exception to the federal requirement for background checks is private sales between unlicensed residents of the same state -- the so-called "gun show loophole." (Some states have their own laws that disallow this exception.) This is irrespective of where the sale takes place, and has nothing to do with either gun shows or the Internet.

Go look at Gunbroker.com; look at Gunauction.com. Read the Terms of Service. Read the listings. Most of the sellers are licensed dealers, and the ones that aren't will only ship an FFL. These auction sites even offer a service to help buyers find an FFL in their area to receive the shipment. You can inveigh against the "gun show loophole" if you like, but don't try to pretend that the Internet is some kind of firearms bazaar where the normal rules do not apply. That would be ... dishonest.

Again lax firearm laws and easy access to firearms for the good guy makes it that much easier for the criminals to get their hard to trace weapons. Especially since somewhere along the line, it has to be a good guy selling to the criminals. Most of the criminals weapons are not stolen. They are bought legally.

Hard to trace? What does that have to do with keeping guns out of criminal hands? Could you explain how tracing a gun will help?

I wouldn't call a straw purchaser a "good guy." A straw purchaser is a gun trafficker -- a "bad guy" who just hasn't been caught yet. I would like to see aggressive investigation and prosecution of gun traffickers. We have the legal tools we need; what we lack is the will. It makes me question the sincerity of our supposed commitment to reducing gun violence. Call me cynical, but why are 4473 violations never prosecuted? Every time a prospective buyer who has "lied and been denied" walks out the door, a trafficker has been given a free pass to try again another day.

If we devoted a fraction of the resources we waste on the War on Drugs to the War on Guns, we would see real progress in gun violence. One suspects that this is not the real goal.

You are reaching in each and every point you made above.

An unsupported opinion. Perhaps you'd like to elaborate.