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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:

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
    criminals has a loose definition, but I think the more plausible concern is people who are barred from legally possessing a gun by existing regulation (the chance they will use it for offensive violence has been deemed above the acceptable risk threshold) will have information on private residences to burglarize for the purpose of acquiring a gun. But to your question, lots would prefer that when it's unoccupied, some either way.
  - jki275 8y ago
    I would imagine most of them have the basic level of intelligence to know that it's a good idea to target such houses when the owners are not present...
- JauntyHatAngle 8y ago
  Australia has had a gun registry for many years. This has not happened to it. So in Australia this database is fine. USA may implement it differently or in a less secure way, but it can be implemented effectively.
  - jki275 8y ago
    Australia has a gun registry that is essentially ignored by the majority of its population. I read once that they believe their registration percentage when they implemented it was around 1-2%.
    - JauntyHatAngle 8y ago
      Where are you getting that info? There are certainly unregistered guns, but only guns rights groups with a barrow to push say unregistered guns make up an order of magnitude less than what you are saying - like, 25 times less.

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
  criminals has a loose definition, but I think the more plausible concern is people who are barred from legally possessing a gun by existing regulation (the chance they will use it for offensive violence has been deemed above the acceptable risk threshold) will have information on private residences to burglarize for the purpose of acquiring a gun. But to your question, lots would prefer that when it's unoccupied, some either way.
- jki275 8y ago
  I would imagine most of them have the basic level of intelligence to know that it's a good idea to target such houses when the owners are not present...
JauntyHatAngle 8y ago
Australia has had a gun registry for many years. This has not happened to it. So in Australia this database is fine. USA may implement it differently or in a less secure way, but it can be implemented effectively.
- jki275 8y ago
  Australia has a gun registry that is essentially ignored by the majority of its population. I read once that they believe their registration percentage when they implemented it was around 1-2%.
  - JauntyHatAngle 8y ago
    Where are you getting that info? There are certainly unregistered guns, but only guns rights groups with a barrow to push say unregistered guns make up an order of magnitude less than what you are saying - like, 25 times less.