@JOL
I'm not prepared to argue with you on most of these, and hope you're right. I've not checked to see how Illinois, California, New York, New Jersey, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia have reacted to that legal defeat.
My brother was stationed in Hawaii a few years back, before the verdict. Hawaii has had CCL for awhile, but to hear him tell it, it was pretty much you had to be a celebrity to qualify. I've heard similar for California.
Yes, since Illinois was forced to allow for CCL, every state has had CCL for its citizens, in theory.
It's why I used the word "practically".
As you might guess, I live in one of the "shall issue" states, and hope never to be forced to reside in a "may issue" state.
I've heard New York's CCL application process is particularly onerous. Maybe that has changed, but I wouldn't bet on it.
As for selling guns out of the back of a truck. There are two things wrong with that argument. If you sell a gun, you better remember who you sold it to; Someone remembers selling it to you. The gun store it last passed through has official records on who it was sold to. Even the "gun show loophole" hasn't been more than a theory for most of the years since the instant background check was implemented. The first year it was in effect, I saw a few dealers with signs on their tables saying "private collection", indicating they weren't doing the newly implemented background checks. Not since. Nearly all the booths at a gun show are licensed dealers already, who abide, and have to abide, by the law that says they have to run the check. Everyone else does so because who wants to be the guy who sold a gun to a madman? Doing so knowingly is already a crime, whether or not you were obligated to check with the FBI first.
Criminals and former criminals are already barred from buying guns. Whether or not this is appropriate is questionable. We seem to have created a new underclass in our ex-con population, to replace all those former underclasses we're no longer allowed to give the really rotten jobs to. I sometimes think it was subconsciously intentional. Owning a gun is just one more thing they can never again do, along with voting, or getting employment in certain fields, (or easily getting employment in any field where HR does even a cursory background check.)
Finally, while you cited the body of the constitution, I'll cite the classic for this topic, the 2nd amendment. It, like most of the rest, is a restriction on the government, forbidding it from abridging the right of the people to keep and carry weapons. That amendment was tacked on, along with the other original nine, to appease the anti-federalists, and as such, means the language of the main body isn't to be interpreted in a way that would allow the federal government to disarm the populous, just because congress has decided an unarmed, or poorly armed, populous makes for a more ordered militia.
Not that the congress has ever let a little thing like the constitution, or the spirit of the document, get in the way of writing laws that sidestep its intent.
As an aside, frankly, that may be the "easiest" way out of our prison overpopulation addiction. Declare that ex-cons only count as three-fifths of a person when determining representation. See how reluctant states are to incarcerate so many, when it means they have fewer congressmen as a consequence. I wonder how well that'd play?
46
@JOL
I'm not prepared to argue with you on most of these, and hope you're right. I've not checked to see how Illinois, California, New York, New Jersey, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia have reacted to that legal defeat.
My brother was stationed in Hawaii a few years back, before the verdict. Hawaii has had CCL for awhile, but to hear him tell it, it was pretty much you had to be a celebrity to qualify. I've heard similar for California.
Yes, since Illinois was forced to allow for CCL, every state has had CCL for its citizens, in theory.
It's why I used the word "practically".
As you might guess, I live in one of the "shall issue" states, and hope never to be forced to reside in a "may issue" state.
I've heard New York's CCL application process is particularly onerous. Maybe that has changed, but I wouldn't bet on it.
As for selling guns out of the back of a truck. There are two things wrong with that argument. If you sell a gun, you better remember who you sold it to; Someone remembers selling it to you. The gun store it last passed through has official records on who it was sold to. Even the "gun show loophole" hasn't been more than a theory for most of the years since the instant background check was implemented. The first year it was in effect, I saw a few dealers with signs on their tables saying "private collection", indicating they weren't doing the newly implemented background checks. Not since. Nearly all the booths at a gun show are licensed dealers already, who abide, and have to abide, by the law that says they have to run the check. Everyone else does so because who wants to be the guy who sold a gun to a madman? Doing so knowingly is already a crime, whether or not you were obligated to check with the FBI first.
Criminals and former criminals are already barred from buying guns. Whether or not this is appropriate is questionable. We seem to have created a new underclass in our ex-con population, to replace all those former underclasses we're no longer allowed to give the really rotten jobs to. I sometimes think it was subconsciously intentional. Owning a gun is just one more thing they can never again do, along with voting, or getting employment in certain fields, (or easily getting employment in any field where HR does even a cursory background check.)
Finally, while you cited the body of the constitution, I'll cite the classic for this topic, the 2nd amendment. It, like most of the rest, is a restriction on the government, forbidding it from abridging the right of the people to keep and carry weapons. That amendment was tacked on, along with the other original nine, to appease the anti-federalists, and as such, means the language of the main body isn't to be interpreted in a way that would allow the federal government to disarm the populous, just because congress has decided an unarmed, or poorly armed, populous makes for a more ordered militia.
Not that the congress has ever let a little thing like the constitution, or the spirit of the document, get in the way of writing laws that sidestep its intent.
As an aside, frankly, that may be the "easiest" way out of our prison overpopulation addiction. Declare that ex-cons only count as three-fifths of a person when determining representation. See how reluctant states are to incarcerate so many, when it means they have fewer congressmen as a consequence. I wonder how well that'd play?