courtesy of The Regulatory Review
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“One of the most frequently repeated tropes about gun laws and regulations is that they are ineffective, or—worse yet—ultimately useless at thwarting the adverse consequences of guns. Yet one need not search far to find effective gun laws, or to understand why this is so often said about gun regulation.

“The lessons of the 1934 law are several. First, gun regulations can be effective if they are written with effectiveness as a bona fide goal. Second, a thorough, detailed background check and waiting period process to qualify for a handgun permit, as exists today in some states, is more effective in identifying disqualifying factors than the current National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Third, licensing and registration are very effective strategies in keeping guns out of the hands of those who should not have them. A growing body of contemporary research confirms the efficacy of these regulatory devices and others, like waiting periods.” – Robert J. Spitzer, The Regulatory Review, Effective Gun Regulation Can Be Compatibly with Gun Rights

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60 COMMENTS

  1. “licensing and registration are very effective strategies in keeping guns out of the hands of those who should not have them”

    Yeah, wouldn’t want those poor people or people without the ‘right connections’ getting their hands on firearms would we?

    • “licensing and registration are very effective strategies in keeping guns out of the hands of those who should not have them”…like citizens???

      • That, and knowing right where to go when the Liberals want to take them. It’s more control over our lives, PERIOD. New red flag laws, already cost a life. There will be many more to come. They all have one purpose, turn law abiding citizen gun owners, into instant felons.

    • “licensing and registration are very effective strategies in keeping guns out of the hands of those who should not have them”

      Yeah because all those murders in Chicago are stopped by licensing and regulation. The author of that article is either extremely stupid or purposely lying.

    • Yeah, statists just gotta have more state involvement in people’s lives. Like the “War On Drugs” has been so successful. Despite decades of “effective regulations” , growing bureaucracies, and billions upon billions of dollars wasted, more, better, and cheaper illicit drugs are freely available on America’s street corners.

      • yep…more powerful…more available…more types…cheaper than ever
        that “war” is an utter failure…

        • Depending on your view, it’s not a failure at all:
          Billion$ spent each year. (That’s a lot of control, right there)
          Guaranteed jobs for a lot of people.
          A lot more power for those in law enforcement (with each offer to drop/reduce charges for information from the arrestees, more power accrues to the LEO)

          That’s a lot of winning, right there.

    • Well, licensing & regulation sure hasn’t kept guns out of the hands of the bad guys here in BALTIMORE! It HAS, however, kept them out of the hands of us law-abiding citizens. I was just turned down for my wear & carry permit because our State Police decided that when I teach and have to carry thousands of dollars in guns to a training class, that I don’t have a “good and substantial reason” to have a carry permit to protect me and my property while transporting.
      Interesting!

      • Politicians like to make decisions that they believe will get them the most votes. It’s much easier than doing research. Very few gun laws decrease crime. He’s a novel idea. If someone commits a crime using a firearm double the sentence. Liberals want to allow felons the right to vote but New Jersey as of December 10 everyone owning a magazine with a capacity of more than 10 rounds becomes a felon. This has no impact on public safety since felons don’t follow the law. This is as rediculous as when Cuomo restricted magazine capacity to 8 rounds and forgot to give a carve-out to police. And then in his campaign this month his ads touted his aggressive firearm legislation.

  2. ….”detailed background check and waiting period process to qualify for a handgun permit, as exists today in some states, is more effective in identifying disqualifying factors than the current National Instant Criminal Background Check System…..”

    Sounds like BS to me.

    I have yet to hear what exactly is wrong with NCIC from these people.

    • ”…detailed background check and waiting period process to qualify…” and NCIC should apply equally to the entire Bill of Rights. What? We can’t do that? Because they’re rights? Infringement on one Amendment/Right should be applicable to all of them. Or, how about we just have equal rights for ALL of the Bill of Rights.

    • https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/03/us/atf-gun-store-violations.html

      To simplify it for you, the AFT is crap when it comes to actually shutting down the FFLs who don’t actually follow the law. They have to prove that the FFL knowing sold a gun to a prohibited person, not just sold it. There is a reason that at one time the AFT reports showed that direct FFL transactions with criminals was outpacing straw purchases. ATF doesn’t publish those types of reports anymore. Any guess why?

      On a side note, you want to make a tabletop FFL nervous, talk about firearm law during you first transaction with them. It scares them because the ONLY thing that can get them into trouble is KNOWINGLY breaking the law.

      But you do have a point, they only thing that happens when you clean up the FFLs is you just end up with straw purchases instead.

        • …while at the same time making it more difficult to get an FFL if you are not a high volume business with a storefront, while also trying to crack down on banking and lending for legitimate gun businesses, and also trying to say anyone selling a small number of guns needs an FFL and to be in the business.

          Can’t get a gun (legally) if no one is selling them! Or even allowed to advertise them. All by design. Thus they also aren’t a fan of making your own guns, 80% receivers, 3D, etc. Meanwhile be soft on the criminals actually caught with stolen guns, they were just about to turn their life around.

        • How do they plan to force me to do shit? If I want to sell a firearm to my neighbor they can kiss my rosy red ass before I’ll be involving an FFL. BTW, my usual hiway speed during the entirety of the 55 mph speed limit was 90 mph. The entire time. And I got zero tickets for it. I was *passed* quite a few times, but never ticketed.

    • What is wrong with NICS is a lack of reporting of disqulifying convictions and involuntary mental health holds. The Virginia Tech shooter was prohibited, but the state where he was involuntarily held was not a reporting state to NICS. That guy who shot up the church in Texas was a prohibited person–but the Air Force had never reported his conviction. As I recall, the Air Force had a failure to report rate of 26%, the Navy somewhat higher, and the Army about 46%. In other words, the problem with NICS, that FixNICS was supposed to fix, was a lack of data.

    • What’s wrong with NICS is that it’s impartial; it’e either yea or nay, with no input from the local agencies (unless they decide to supply the FBI with information, which many are loathe to do).
      What the locals want is to be able to add their own opinions to the process. They figure the localities should be able to decide for themselves just who can do what. (The “sanctuary cities” come from the same thinking; “Just who do the Fed think they are telling us who can live here?”)
      So we get “enhanced” BCs, waiting periods, “bullet buttons,” forbidden ammo, “No Go” localities for gun stores and ranges, and all the other local laws that are nothing other than local officials expressing their opinions as law.
      NICS doesn’t do that, so it’s not enough.

  3. Gotta start attending gun control events with signs like “no guns for the poor”, “disarm the indigent”, “take my rights” and “my life is worth less than yours.” Really embrace their message.

  4. social engineering at it’s finest, you have a bunch of control freaks ( for their own safety ) telling a free people what they can and cant do in passing or attempting too pass rules and falsehoods for their own betterment at the expense of freedom for the Average little guy! The US used too be free, now its a state of Mamma may I.
    Self righteous, self appointed, better than thou, protectors of what? just feel good control freak-ism!

    • Social engineering is so pervasive that all entertainment, including commercials, seem oddly out of place IF they don’t contain the most current social engineering elements… homosexuality, black man/white woman relationship, uber/alpha-women and weak white men….to name a few.

  5. if you live in a vacuum in fairy tale land where laws stop criminals from buying things on the black market, then everything he said is true.

    i would love to hear the automatics are never used in crimes evidence. that only applies if the actual weapon is recovered and since most crimes where automatics are used are gang related, how convenient, no evidence to refute that claim.

    they are doing the same thing Trump did during his campaign: not afraid to swing low and brainwash the people who are vastly uneducated/spiteful/emotionally vulnerable.

    • Don’t equate this tripe with people voting for Trump. They were a lot smarter and educated about what was at stake two years ago that most people.

    • Wait wait wait. Yes I know you are a troll, but you have to keep up with the actual claims being made if you want to troll/try to refute them. Automatics, i.e., fully automatic firearms (machine guns) have very rarely been used to commit crimes. since the 1934 NFA, principally because the real things are hideously expensive, are a limited commodity, and are sold to truly law abiding folks. Semiautomatic rifles (AR 15s, AK47s) are rarely used to commit crimes because the FBI statistics say so, and the FBI says that rifles account for about 1% of all shootings. Semiautomatic handguns are very often used by criminals, and recovery of the gun is unnecessary because most criminals don’t pick up their brass after they shoot up the other gang, do a home invasion, whatever. The brass is marked by the manufacturer stating the caliber and maker, so it is pretty easy to tell what was used. Recovery of the gun is only necessary, absent a confession, to convict. Revolvers are harder because the revolver doesn’t eject brass, so you need to find an actual fired bullet to know what was used.

  6. Lying apparently comes as naturally to this guy as swimming does to fish.

    Nice looking photo of a CZ in the article.

  7. It all depends on law enforcement doing its job but law enforcement does not work most of the time. When you see a cop on the street, on TV, in the newspaper, what is the cop doing? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

  8. … licensing and registration are very effective strategies in keeping guns out of the hands of those who should not have them.

    The FACT that millions of convicted felons have acquired firearms through illegal means tells us that licensing and registration are most assuredly NOT “very effective strategies in keeping guns out of the hands of those who should not have them.”

    Chicago proves my point in spectacular fashion — unless you are willing to suspend reality and claim that every attacker who used a firearm to rob, assault, and/or murder were “upstanding people” with no previous criminal convictions.

    • another fact. As gun laws have become more restrictive mass shootings have increased in frequency and number of victims. I addition many of the killings have occurred in states with very restrictive gun laws. And yet many states refuse to grant carry permits so that people can protect themselves and their loved ones. And criminals don’t follows laws.

    • another fact. As gun laws have become more restrictive mass shootings have increased in frequency and number of victims. I addition many of the killings have occurred in states with very restrictive gun laws. And yet many states refuse to grant carry permits so that people can protect themselves and their loved ones. And criminals don’t follows laws.

  9. Will someone please tell Elliot he has more then enough laws already on the books. We don’t need any more. As an Attorney General.
    Enforce what you have and don’t let these turds plea bargain and then get an early release. Nothing else or all your doing is harming the law abiding citizens.

  10. Spitzer for gun control…I’m so shocked I just had to pick myself up off the floor. Seems to be a correlation between the most prominent and vocal gun grabbers and the most prominent and vocal people pushing for mandatory medical/pharmaceutical procedures and removal of the public’s right to make their own informed medical decisions. Guess I’m racist to notice this though.

  11. Liberal elitists love to find “rights” that don’t actually exist in the Constitution – like abortion and gay marriage – while disregarding rights that really do appear – like the 2nd Amendment. They also don’t seem to get that the Constitution (government) doesn’t grant us our rights, it only recognizes rights we inherently already have. So using Spitzer’s logic poll taxes and competency tests are OK when applied to voting?

    Spitzer and his ilk think of us as potential criminals. They distrust the 10’s of millions of citizens who own guns and will do anything they can to regulate out of existence a right they consider antiquated.

    There is a network of billionaires pushing gun regulations nationwide. They’re buying laws they want passed. Look what just happened in the State of Washington. They ARE coming for your guns.

    • Gay marriage isn’t a right guaranteed by the Constitution, but due process and equal protection under the law are guaranteed under the 14th Amendment. The State controls all aspects of marriage, and therefore, being a public entity, it must accord due process and equal protection to all applying for a license. Which is what the Supreme Court said.

      • Not going to get into an argument on gay marriage but I will say the logic used by SCOTUS was tortured – as it always is when libs create non existent “rights”. You seem to disagree so there’s no point in arguing further. I stand by my original view previously expressed.

  12. What a pile of crap! Someone should tell this dick that saying it is so does not make it so. IOW, what the FUCK makes you think so, shithead?

  13. “a thorough, detailed background check and waiting period process to qualify for a handgun permit, as exists today in some states, is more effective in identifying disqualifying factors than the current National Instant Criminal Background Check System.”

    That’s only if you try to get a permit in the first place… So what your point? It’s not catching the person that carry’s a gun without a permit.

    • He is stating that as a fact. However, it sure sounds like bullshit to me, and he offers not a whit of evidence. Nor any reference as to where we would find this wonderful “thorough, detailed background check” which does not exist.

      • Mark N’s post below points out how much Bull the idea is, and how true my statement is, in the testbed of Kalifornia.

  14. We shouldn’t do it because it’s susceptible to abuse; look at virtually any “shall issue” locality. Only the connected get permits

  15. “False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm those only who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.”
    – Cesare Beccaria (1738–1794) quoted in The Right to Arms and the American Philosophy of Freedom (via heritage.org)

  16. Logically, and theoretically, it’s not a complicated process to distinguish between those that may legally have guns vs. those “who shouldn’t have them”. Our government (federal or state) writes a “Prohibited-Person” law. That establishes the distinction.

    We must take great care in crafting the criteria making someone a P-P to be sure that he is disqualified on some basis that is Constitutional (federal and state). We ought to be able to figure this out. E.g., aliens can clearly be declared to be P-P at whim; this IS Constitutional. Other criteria are subject to debate. Once we have a law we apply it.

    Modern telecommunications and databases enable governments to avail police and prosecutors of access to information. E.g., is a particular individual an alien? Does he enjoy some specified exemption (e.g., Green Card, tourist visa with a hunting license, etc.)?

    As we are all well aware, the police have ready access to the FBI’s database on fugitives and felony convicts. FFLs have access to the FBI’s database on these and individuals who have other disqualifications (e.g., illegal aliens, domestic violence misdemeanants.) Whether we enforce the P-P law via a real-time inquiry at the moment of detention, on the FFL’s sales floor, or through issuance of an FOID/CWP is a relatively minor implementation decision. (Certainly worthy of vigorous debate; but, nevertheless, at a level beyond determining the principles that govern our choices.)

    What is crucial is the criteria in the P-P statute. Are these criteria Constitutional? Then, implementation. Is the information in the database correct? Is the information in the database complete? These are the standards to be strived for; and, they will prove to be imperfect an subject to regular reform

    The huge difficulty is that our public safety goal would be to solve the holy grail of a means of determining “pre-crime”. I.e., that because of X, this individual presents too great a risk of committing a crime to be allowed to have a gun. And, criterion X is a Constitutional exclusion.

    Suppose X is “not employed by a government agency”. Clearly, that is UN-Constitutional.
    Suppose X is “doesn’t have a net-worth exceeding $1 billion”. Clearly, that is UN-Constitutional.

    If we faithfully apply Constitutionality as a prerequisite to every candidate “X” to make one a P-P, we will end-up with a quarter billion adults who enjoy their Constitutional right-to-arms. And among such a number, there will be a few who will inevitably use them illegally.

    That’s the price of liberty; the rule of law under a constitution adopted by the People – or, tyranny of men. A sobering choice; one our forefathers made for us in 1788. If we wish to make a change in this system we do so by Constitutional amendment.

  17. Rights without responsibility are quickly censored; proper regulation actually ensures the rights can continue to exist.

    Few can imagine letting violent felons own guns. The real question is what regulations are reasonable as the Supreme Court said and which regulations infringe on rights; this debate will never end.

    • Rights always exist. The question is how much tolerance do we have for the suppression of those rights in the name of some mythical “greater good”.

  18. I guess this Spitzer guy has never done any research about gun crime in the LA Basin. California has a universal background check law, mandatory–and apparently retroactive–handgun registration (even requiring antique guns without serial numbers to be serialized and then registered), a 10-day waiting period, “may issue” CCW licensing (which is virtually no-issue in the Basin), and its own background check system run by the State DOJ. Yet with all of that, there is still plenty of crime in which firearms are used, firearms that more often than not have been illegally obtained by an prohibited person (e.g., gang banger), and one of the highest crime rates in the nation.

  19. “One of the most frequently repeated tropes about Jew laws and regulations is that they are ineffective, or—worse yet—ultimately useless at thwarting the adverse consequences of Jews. Yet one need not search far to find effective Jew laws, or to understand why this is so often said about Jew regulation.

    “The lessons of the 1934 law are several. First, Jew regulations can be effective if they are written with effectiveness as a bona fide goal. Second, a thorough, detailed background check and waiting period process to qualify for a Jew permit, as exists today in some states, is more effective in identifying disqualifying factors than the current National Socialist Party. Third, licensing and registration are very effective strategies in keeping Jews out of the Fatherland. A growing body of contemporary research confirms the efficacy of these regulatory devices and others, like waiting periods.”

  20. Not gonna give the article the time of day, but I’m guessing he talks about the NFA, which unfortunately has become more public knowledge these days.

    Anyway – the NFA restricted items that weren’t terribly common to begin with. Full-auto guns weren’t used that often in crime – certainly not enough to warrant the restrictions imposed on them. Same for SBRs, SBSs, and suppressors. We all know the NFA was to originally apply to all guns, but even the Dem supermajority knew they couldn’t get away with that one. So it fell to only restricting guns that weren’t common to begin with.

    MGs were a rich man’s toy, simply due to ammo consumption. A poor man couldn’t afford to feed them, basically, so they weren’t that common even though you could order them easily.

    So yeah, the restrictions “worked” because they only applied to rare items. If MGs remained as they were, or at the most, Title 1 guns, there’d be little to no difference in crime rates.

    The only reason MGs were put on the chopping block is because of notoriety – someone used one in a notorious crime, and the Dems, primed to restrict a right, decided to “do something” about guns.

    Did the NFA preserve the Second Amendment somehow? No. It only set the stage for the erosion of the right.

  21. He is also terribly disingenuous with his statistics, first the 11,000 inspections, he makes it sound like this is every FFL dealer and that ½ are committing violations. Most of these violations are paperwork or out of business (21.9%). Data from the ATF:

    Firearms Licensees:
    ATF has 134,738 active Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL)

    Inspections:
    ATF conducted the following firearm compliance inspections: 11,009
    Firearms compliance inspections resulted in the following recommendations [1]:
    • No violations: 5,033 (45.7%)
    • Report of violations: 1,682 (15.3%)
    • Warning letter: 1,354 (12.3%)
    • Warning conference: 472 (4.3%)
    • Revocations/Denials: 40 (0.4%)
    • Other (out of business, etc.): 2,413 (21.9%)

    • Oh yes, this is a common statistics slight of hand – playing with the denominator.

      Recalculating with the total FFLs in the denominator:

      11009 Inspected = 8.2%
      5033 No violations = 3.7% (45.7% of those inspected)
      1682 Report of violations = 1.2%
      1354 Warning letters = 1.0%
      472 Warning conference = 0.35%
      40 Revocations/Denials = 0.03%
      2413 Other (out of business, etc.) = 1.8%

      So, a grand total of 2.58% of FFLs had some ATF action taken against them and all of 0.38% had to deal with something more than a note in their file. Those numbers don’t look so damning now, do they?

  22. CZ-85 Combat in the photo. I’ve got one in brushed chrome. Nice gun.

    Current “waiting period process to qualify for a handgun permit, as exists today in some states…” in Suffolk County, NY is about 22 months. Be careful what you wish for.

  23. Once sat a short comment that sums up the effectiveness of gun control laws:
    HOW TO SOLVE THE GUN CONTROL PROBLEM:
    Just make posession on any type of firearm illegal.
    We made drug posession illegal and look how well that has worked!

  24. The problem with licenses and registrations, as well as ‘common sense’ background checks, they are only good when issued, what you do after you leave the building makes the difference, just like a driver operations the car like a maniac after getting the driver license or the sports car.

    Criminals ignore all laws and no piece of paper will change that.

    • Instead of enforcing existing regulations politicians want to issue new ones. Enforce what we have. If a regulation has no impact except on legal gun owners eliminate it. If a gun is used in the commission of a crime throw the book at the person by increasing mandatory sentences. New Jersey ban on magazines holding 11-15 rounds is scheduled to go into effect on December 10 making anyone with a 15-round magazine a felon. How many criminals are expected to turn in their 11 plus capacity magazines. – zero.

  25. Communists, elitist fools. Admiral Yamamoto understood the eventual destination of this path, even though the revisionists are trying to credit to someone else. The sleeping giant has awoken and the results will be truly terrible. No compromise, no retreat, no surrender. Both sides have provoked their fanatics. Like all others before them, they think they can control the outcome. Like all others before them, they are wrong. Unfortunately, before this is over, we are all going to pay a dreadful cost. -30-

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