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ATF uses rogue tactics in storefront stings across nation

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Re: ATF uses rogue tactics in storefront stings across nation

#81

Post by pjungwir »

talmand wrote: post #64
cgore wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with gun registration versus car registration is that there is no real use to having a list of car owners, other than legitimate ones. But, a list of people with weapons would be the first thing any would-be dictator would love to have. I realize I am inviting the wrath of Godwin's Law here, but, as a real-world historical example of the threat of gun registration, the Nazis: "In 1931, Weimar authorities…

Oh, people down voting because of Godwin's law? Fine... Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, Anti-Communists/Stalinists in Soviet Union, Anti-Communists in China, Mayan Indians in Guatemala, Christians in Uganda, General Population in Cambodia There are lots of examples of gun confiscations preceding mass murders. Not that every gun confiscations lead to mass murder since there are examples of that not happening. But to igno…

Even if the situation does not progress to dictatorship or mass murder, gun registration often (inexorably?) leads to confiscation. See Canada and New York State.

Re: ATF uses rogue tactics in storefront stings across nation

#82

Post by [deleted] »

talmand wrote: post #47
herbig wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You already carry a cellphone, I presume. Also, I am against most forms of gun control, being otherwise very liberal in my worldview. However, I cannot possibly understand why a developer would need to carry a gun at all times. You are inviting trouble with that, and more likely to die to your own gun than you are to protect yourself from some bad guys. If you want to carry a gun with you, I support your right to do…

Your claim about more likely to die to your own gun is often a misleading statement. The leading type of death caused by firearms in the US is suicide, by a large factor. The leading method of suicide in the US is by firearms. Therefore, if you remove suicide from those numbers the chances of you dieing by your own gun is reduced significantly. Sorry, but this is one of my pet peeves whenever I see a statement like t…

[deleted]

Re: ATF uses rogue tactics in storefront stings across nation

#83

Post by talmand »

[deleted] wrote: post #78
talmand wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your claim about more likely to die to your own gun is often a misleading statement. The leading type of death caused by firearms in the US is suicide, by a large factor. The leading method of suicide in the US is by firearms. Therefore, if you remove suicide from those numbers the chances of you dieing by your own gun is reduced significantly. Sorry, but this is one of my pet peeves whenever I see a statement like t…

[deleted]

I think the assumptions you provided is more than enough to not support the idea of gun control because of suicide.

I fail to see how an individual deciding their own fate, whether it makes sense or not, is a "Public Health" issue; especially if it's an issue because of the most chosen method. If the number of suicides increases enough to become a real public health issue, then I'd rather they spend the resources trying to determine the why as opposed to restricting everyone on the how.

I feel I understand the other side of the argument; I just disagree with it. I do not agree that an individual's rights on owning an inanimate object should be restricted based on how another individual may or may not use said inanimate object on themselves. People who use homicide rates, and I mostly disagree with them as well, have more credibility on this for me.

Re: ATF uses rogue tactics in storefront stings across nation

#84

Post by logfromblammo »

dm2 wrote: post #18

Moral of the story? Police and federal agents must be more transparent and accountable for their actions and expenditures. The whole concept of "spend money so that our budget doesn't shrink next year" has go to be fixed also. I don't know a solution other than having more auditors and efficiency experts (GAO, gao.gov). Would people flip out if there was a bill proposed to require all guns in the US to have a GPS tra…

Your proposed bill has some flaws.

- It could be considered an unreasonable search. - The data would be accessed and used by police without warrants, despite your admonishment that they shouldn't. - The system would be used by criminals to track gun-carrying police and identify gun-owning households. - Criminals would remove, disable, or spoof the trackers, or simply make guns that didn't have them. - Gun rights devotees would flip out and kill the bill deader than a mayfly on the Moon. There are perhaps 10 districts in all of America where supporting such a bill would not seriously endanger any supporter's chances at re-election.

Additionally, you are a horrible person for even suggesting it. If you have guns, agents of the state will be arriving shortly to transfer them to more worthy owners with less unfortunate bone structure. As compensation, you will be given a cake--not that you need to eat another one today.

Re: ATF uses rogue tactics in storefront stings across nation

#85

Post by JHSheridan »

grey-area wrote: post #72
JHSheridan wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Facing bankruptcy is facing bankruptcy. Politicians can make it sound as complicated as they like, but at the end of the day, if you owe a man $20, you're going to have to pay him. It doesn't really matter who is at fault. I don't know enough about the NHS to say with any certainty, but I imagine the way the hospitals stay open and patients get their drugs is by the NHS going into more debt (please correc…

The NHS is not set up to make money, it is set up to spend it. You appear to think it is some kind of profit making enterprise - it is a way of spending taxpayers money to safeguard their health, and does so in a demonstrably more efficient manner than private healthcare systems based on insurance, despite any flaws it may have. Compare costs with the US for example. Clearly it will never turn a profit in pounds and…

Whether or not private companies can provide better health care than public institutions is an entirely different argument, and was not one I was trying to make.

Bankruptcy has nothing to do with whether an organization is for-profit or not. It has to do with whether it can pay its debts or not.

Trying to figure out how to pay for things you can't afford isn't nonsense. Believing government institutions are exempt from debt is.

No matter how valuable a service is, someone must pay for it. Saving lives is a wonderful thing, but doctors still want to be paid.

Re: ATF uses rogue tactics in storefront stings across nation

#86

Post by Crito »

wtbob wrote: post #80
dm2 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anyone be against that? Both of those things seem perfectly reasonable. I'm sure there would be a provision for a type of license that would allow a larger magazine if you had a valid reason and very clean record. If you live on a large farm and like to shoot for fun, then maybe a larger magazine would be acceptable. If you live in an apartment in a city, then you don't reasonably need extremely large magaz…

> Why would anyone be against that? Both of those things seem perfectly reasonable. Because there's nothing wrong with having a magazine which holds more than 15 rounds. That's the standard size for many black rifles. The universal background check law means that it's illegal for me to give or lend my firearm to my brother, my cousin or my good friend. The existing law was fine: it should be illegal to knowingly tran…

> The universal background check law means that it's illegal for me to give or lend my firearm to my brother, my cousin or my good friend. The existing law was fine: it should be illegal to knowingly transfer a firearm to someone ineligible to own one.

To improve the efficacy of the existing law, I think it would be useful to provide a free and anonymous service to the public that allows private gun owners to query the ATF, asking if a particular person is ineligible to own one. Use of the service would not be required by law (and possibly would be done with the permission of the person in question? I'm not sure there; there might be privacy concerns) but would allow law abiding citizens, who almost certainly have no interest in selling guns to criminals, to make an informed decision when selling a gun privately.

Re: ATF uses rogue tactics in storefront stings across nation

#87

Post by JHSheridan »

grey-area wrote: post #68
JHSheridan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile, very, very large government programs like the NHS do well and provide healthcare to millions in an affordable way with great outcomes. Isn't NHS facing bankruptcy?

No, it is not. How does a government funded org ever face bankruptcy, unless the government wants it to for political reasons? The NHS provides healthcare to the entire nation for about 7% of GDP. If there's any question of bankruptcy there are plenty of other areas to look at first.

> How does a government funded org ever face bankruptcy

When there is no money to pay its debt. Simple as that.

Re: ATF uses rogue tactics in storefront stings across nation

#88

Post by dragonwriter »

grey-area wrote: post #68
JHSheridan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile, very, very large government programs like the NHS do well and provide healthcare to millions in an affordable way with great outcomes. Isn't NHS facing bankruptcy?

No, it is not. How does a government funded org ever face bankruptcy, unless the government wants it to for political reasons? The NHS provides healthcare to the entire nation for about 7% of GDP. If there's any question of bankruptcy there are plenty of other areas to look at first.

> How does a government funded org ever face bankruptcy, unless the government wants it to for political reasons?

It depends on the bankruptcy laws, and its possible that a "government funded" org still would be covered by them.

OTOH, in this particular case, its probably the common confusion of "bankruptcy" with "insolvency" playing a major role. Insolvency is usually the reason an entity enters (voluntarily or not) bankruptcy, but the two states are not equivalent.

Re: ATF uses rogue tactics in storefront stings across nation

#89

Post by farginay »

jonnathanson wrote: post #20
viraptor wrote: post #9

So what they're doing in general goes in the direction completely opposite to what the broken windows theory would suggest... It seems really weird to me - it's one thing to try to be friendly with someone who's already planning a crime and something completely different when you're providing both incentive and funding for new crime (pawn shops).

I'm surprised nobody's gone after them for entrapment. IANAL, but my understanding is that the definition of entrapment is inducing someone to commit a crime that he wouldn't have been likely to commit otherwise. In the case of convincing a mentally disabled teenager to run drugs and guns, the shoe seems to fit.

We have privatized prisons with quotas for the number of prisoners.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/19/private-prison-quot...

What is a cry of "entrapment" next to incentive?

Re: ATF uses rogue tactics in storefront stings across nation

#90

Post by Crito »

bambax wrote: post #66
dm2 wrote: post #18

Moral of the story? Police and federal agents must be more transparent and accountable for their actions and expenditures. The whole concept of "spend money so that our budget doesn't shrink next year" has go to be fixed also. I don't know a solution other than having more auditors and efficiency experts (GAO, gao.gov). Would people flip out if there was a bill proposed to require all guns in the US to have a GPS tra…

> On the other hand, if you purchase a gun without a license or attempt to hire a contract killer and it turns out to be a police officer you are in contact with, then that sting just save a life, which is good. How do you know that? How do you know the whole thing wasn't completely created by the police, enticing unstable individuals to do things they would never have done without their help? Stings are not just "sl…

(Replacing guns and drugs with cars, so that it isn't a topic we feel strongly about (I am pro-legalization for either, in any event))

If a unstable person walking down the street is enticed by a bait car and attempts to steal it, I think we can caulk that up as a win for society. Maybe they would not have tried to steal a car that day, but they are evidently the sort of person that is willing to steal cars. It is better to get them into the justice system now, rather than wait for them to steal a non-bate car and possibly get away with it.

The bate car scenario eliminates the possibility that the officers involved talked the person into it. Entrapment certainly is problematic, but I do not think that sting operations in general are.

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