6 ms·

This varies state by state, and California is notorious as one of the states with stricter gun laws. In many parts of the country, person-to-person gun sales (

by nabnob 8y ago

This varies state by state, and California is notorious as one of the states with stricter gun laws. In many parts of the country, person-to-person gun sales (without a firearms license) are common and police rarely investigate them.

unityByFreedom 8y ago
notorious?
- LanceH 8y ago
  Notorious because a lot of the laws passed (or attempted) are designed not to regulate gun ownership, but to prohibit it in practice.
- solidsnack9000 8y ago
  Many of the laws of California, and of certain localities in California, reflect hostility to guns and gun owners more than they reflect any concern with public safety. For example, in San Francisco it was illegal for many years to own an airsoft gun (replica firearm that fires little 0.2g plastic pellets). This was struck down only when Arnold Schwarzenegger passed a law to the effect that replica firearms were to be regulated at the state level. It is hard to see what a ban on airsoft guns was intended to accomplish, since they are not viable as weapons at all. More seriously, California laws concerning handgun sales prevent Californians from benefitting from safety improvements in newer firearms (as well as preventing them from benefitting from the coolness of new firearms). Only handguns on a select list are permitted to be sold in California, and Kamala Harris closed the list some years ago. Ostensibly this is because the state of California would (a) like to see newer handguns implement "micro-stamping", where the gun imprints its serial number on each shell and bullet as it is fired and (b) believes this technology to be generally available. It's not that (a) is a bad thing but (b) is completely false; there are virtually no firearms that implement micro-stamping. Most absurdly, the ban on "assault weapons" is in practice a ban on rifles with a pistol grip, as opposed to those with a classic stock. Rifles are used in a small minority -- 5% -- of shootings, in any event. They are (a) inconvenient to transport and (b) harder to use for a robbery, where the robber would like to have one hand free to grab stuff. The ban on rifles with pistol grips is something that is more a matter of showing the flag than affecting a real positive public benefit. Travel restrictions on firearms are also more onerous than useful. In California, we can travel with firearms to any place where we may legitimately use firearms or transship them, but woe betide us if we should stop for a coffee on the way there. Thus we may travel to and from a shooting range, but not stop for lunch at any point. Given that we are to lock our unloaded firearms up when we travel with them, it's hard to see what is gained by preventing us from stopping along the way.
  - all_factz 8y ago
    It always gets me how eloquent and informed gun-rights people become about owning weapons which are basically intended to kill people.
    - OpenBSD-supreme 8y ago
      It always gets me how emotional and rabid do-gooder people become about owning weapons which are basically tools which have many legitimate uses.
    - solidsnack9000 8y ago
      Thanks. Why does it get you? Is it different from martial arts people who are eloquent and informed about swords?
    - salawat 8y ago
      They are intended to accelerate a small projectile at high speed using combustion gases as the prime mover. I don't want to turn this into a political flamewar, but please don't assume malicious intent as the primary motivation for a tool's existence. That's like saying lockpicks are only good for burglary, axes for dismemberment, or knives for stabbing. Non-violent guns: https://www.navalcompany.com https://www.navalcompany.com line throwing shotgun https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flare_gun https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flare_gun Flare gun And blanks are used to sink things in concrete. It's a tool. It has a function. The function of the tool is independent of the intents of it's wielder.
  - wl 8y ago
    I don't think SF's ban on airsoft guns reflected a hostility towards gun owners as much as a worry that they'd be mistaken for real guns and get people killed. An example of this 50 miles north: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Andy_Lopez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Andy_Lopez
    - solidsnack9000 8y ago
      Was SF a jurisdiction uniquely concerned about that? It seems unlikely. Openly carrying a replica firearm like that can be unwise. In SF, it is still unlawful. It seems like restricting brandishment and not ownership would be the minimal and reasonable legislation.
JauntyHatAngle 8y ago
This comes down to NRA lobbying I believe. There are some fascinating articles on this topic - https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-cops-actually-trace-a-gun-2016-8/?r=AU&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-cops-actually-trac...
- drewmol 8y ago
  I agree this topic is fastinating. From that article, "Since 1968, more Americans have died from gunfire than have died in all our wars put together. In 2014: 33,599. Who's doing all the shooting and where are they getting all those guns and how many do they have and can't we get control over this clusterfuck? Wouldn't a national gun registry give us a tool to stop some of the killing?" Consider that ~ 2/3 of those are suicide when interpreting the numbers and impact a searchable federal registry may have. >That's been a federal law, thanks to the NRA, since 1986: No searchable database of America's gun owners. I'm not a gun owner but the risk/reward of creating said digital registry is unclear to me. There was a newspaper (in NY I think) who published a list of registered gun owners names and addresses several years ago and it struck me as counter producitve.
  - jki275 8y ago
    Exactly... Do you really trust the government to safeguard such a database? If it existed, it would be hacked and the resulting data used to create target lists for burglaries. It would actually likely increase the number of guns in criminal hands.
    - yowzadave 8y ago
      > It would actually likely increase the number of guns in criminal hands. This seems like a fairly wild speculation. To pick just one possible counter argument: are you suggesting that criminals, if they could choose, would prefer to rob homes that they know beforehand are heavily armed?
      - drewmol 8y ago

by nabnob 8y ago

unityByFreedom 8y ago

notorious?

LanceH 8y ago
Notorious because a lot of the laws passed (or attempted) are designed not to regulate gun ownership, but to prohibit it in practice.
solidsnack9000 8y ago
Many of the laws of California, and of certain localities in California, reflect hostility to guns and gun owners more than they reflect any concern with public safety. For example, in San Francisco it was illegal for many years to own an airsoft gun (replica firearm that fires little 0.2g plastic pellets). This was struck down only when Arnold Schwarzenegger passed a law to the effect that replica firearms were to be regulated at the state level. It is hard to see what a ban on airsoft guns was intended to accomplish, since they are not viable as weapons at all. More seriously, California laws concerning handgun sales prevent Californians from benefitting from safety improvements in newer firearms (as well as preventing them from benefitting from the coolness of new firearms). Only handguns on a select list are permitted to be sold in California, and Kamala Harris closed the list some years ago. Ostensibly this is because the state of California would (a) like to see newer handguns implement "micro-stamping", where the gun imprints its serial number on each shell and bullet as it is fired and (b) believes this technology to be generally available. It's not that (a) is a bad thing but (b) is completely false; there are virtually no firearms that implement micro-stamping. Most absurdly, the ban on "assault weapons" is in practice a ban on rifles with a pistol grip, as opposed to those with a classic stock. Rifles are used in a small minority -- 5% -- of shootings, in any event. They are (a) inconvenient to transport and (b) harder to use for a robbery, where the robber would like to have one hand free to grab stuff. The ban on rifles with pistol grips is something that is more a matter of showing the flag than affecting a real positive public benefit. Travel restrictions on firearms are also more onerous than useful. In California, we can travel with firearms to any place where we may legitimately use firearms or transship them, but woe betide us if we should stop for a coffee on the way there. Thus we may travel to and from a shooting range, but not stop for lunch at any point. Given that we are to lock our unloaded firearms up when we travel with them, it's hard to see what is gained by preventing us from stopping along the way.
- all_factz 8y ago
  It always gets me how eloquent and informed gun-rights people become about owning weapons which are basically intended to kill people.
  - OpenBSD-supreme 8y ago
    It always gets me how emotional and rabid do-gooder people become about owning weapons which are basically tools which have many legitimate uses.
  - solidsnack9000 8y ago
    Thanks. Why does it get you? Is it different from martial arts people who are eloquent and informed about swords?
  - salawat 8y ago
    They are intended to accelerate a small projectile at high speed using combustion gases as the prime mover. I don't want to turn this into a political flamewar, but please don't assume malicious intent as the primary motivation for a tool's existence. That's like saying lockpicks are only good for burglary, axes for dismemberment, or knives for stabbing. Non-violent guns: https://www.navalcompany.com https://www.navalcompany.com line throwing shotgun https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flare_gun https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flare_gun Flare gun And blanks are used to sink things in concrete. It's a tool. It has a function. The function of the tool is independent of the intents of it's wielder.
- wl 8y ago
  I don't think SF's ban on airsoft guns reflected a hostility towards gun owners as much as a worry that they'd be mistaken for real guns and get people killed. An example of this 50 miles north: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Andy_Lopez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Andy_Lopez
  - solidsnack9000 8y ago
    Was SF a jurisdiction uniquely concerned about that? It seems unlikely. Openly carrying a replica firearm like that can be unwise. In SF, it is still unlawful. It seems like restricting brandishment and not ownership would be the minimal and reasonable legislation.

JauntyHatAngle 8y ago

This comes down to NRA lobbying I believe. There are some fascinating articles on this topic - https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-cops-actually-trace-a-gun-2016-8/?r=AU&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-cops-actually-trac...

drewmol 8y ago
I agree this topic is fastinating. From that article, "Since 1968, more Americans have died from gunfire than have died in all our wars put together. In 2014: 33,599. Who's doing all the shooting and where are they getting all those guns and how many do they have and can't we get control over this clusterfuck? Wouldn't a national gun registry give us a tool to stop some of the killing?" Consider that ~ 2/3 of those are suicide when interpreting the numbers and impact a searchable federal registry may have. >That's been a federal law, thanks to the NRA, since 1986: No searchable database of America's gun owners. I'm not a gun owner but the risk/reward of creating said digital registry is unclear to me. There was a newspaper (in NY I think) who published a list of registered gun owners names and addresses several years ago and it struck me as counter producitve.
- jki275 8y ago
  Exactly... Do you really trust the government to safeguard such a database? If it existed, it would be hacked and the resulting data used to create target lists for burglaries. It would actually likely increase the number of guns in criminal hands.
  - yowzadave 8y ago
    > It would actually likely increase the number of guns in criminal hands. This seems like a fairly wild speculation. To pick just one possible counter argument: are you suggesting that criminals, if they could choose, would prefer to rob homes that they know beforehand are heavily armed?
    - drewmol 8y ago