Been wondering when this one would show up again.. been hashed out a few times in the O'club.
Hey Toad!! Where are ya man?!? Whatever happened with those programs you linked in the last debate over gun/anti-gun?
I'm pro-gun. I'm also pro-gun education. Some of the worst arguements of my life have with anti-gun idealists, and been more than once that an anti-gun nut has thrown a punch at me because I shot down every arguement he made using nothing but logic (and yes, I stayed calm while they got aggitated).
Gun fingerprinting and registration. They're both worthless and I'm against both. And here's why: THE COST!
Many folks have already said how easy it is to alter the finger print a gun leaves on a projectile. It's rediculously easy. So you've got some buearacracy created to manage all these finger prints. That's alotta fingerprints to keep up with. Then ya add registration to what they have to keep up with. What kind of animal is the DMV where you live? Whatever agency was created to keep up with all this info would prolly make your DMV look like a sunday bridge club meeting. And WE have to pay for that worthless mess, and yes it's worthless for all the reasons mentioned above.
And registration... well.. what was one of the things old Adolf did when he came to power back in the '30s? Wasn't it registration of firearms? Then confiscation? A person with a gun is a citizen, a person w/o a gun is a subject.
Let me give a prime example of why I'm against fingerprinting, and this is a true story. A good number of years ago I was roommates with a real good friend of mine. He'd been wanting to get a handgun for home defense and casual sport shooting for awhile, but life kept getting in his way every time he tried to save up some money. So, to skip alot of details, I have a nice chunk of change dropped in my lap, and my friend went with me to the gun shop/range one day, and I bought a Colt Delta Elite in 10mm for him. He paid me little by little every week on payday til it was paid for. So we have a gun with my name on the yellow sheet, but it was never my gun.
Ok, a few months after he has finished paying me for the weapon it was stolen by a crack head we knew. We got it back and the crackhead went to jail. I got married and moved away. A few months later my friend is robbed again, and you guessed it, they took the delta elite. Police report is filed, etc etc etc, and he told me how the cops commented he got lucky last time it was stolen, but don't expect the same luck this time. 6 months later the gun turns up one state over. It had been used to committ a murder, and the cops have the gun.
(begin hypothetical here)
The cops run the fingerprint and come up with my info on the yellowsheet, so I've got cops coming round looking at me as thier prime suspect until they find out where the gun is, do I still have it, who did I sell it to, etc etc. Then my friend becomes the prime suspect until they talk to him and get the police report etc.
(begin worst case scenario)
Then ya get an overzealous Asst DA who desperately needs a win on a capital crime. I'm halfway across the country, so even though the chain starts with me I'm safe from the nutcase prosecutor. My friend gets hauled in because that's where the chain stops. He was close enough to have committed the crime, and unless he's got an iron clad, airtight, God himself couldna dispute it alibi he's in a world of hurt. Reported the gun stolen, killed the guy a few months later, tossed the gun, etc etc. They've got the gun, they've got me saying I sold it to my friend, and my friend saying he bought it from me. It's reported stolen and turns up a few months later being used to kill.
Allowing, of course, that the fingerprint hadna changed significantly.
And the same thing could be said about registration. They've got the gun, so they run the registration. Me, my friend, reported stolen, and they wonder if it was really stolen or just a report made to cover the crime it would committ.
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And to say the sniper has a friend in the NRA is just ludicrous. Whoever started trying to make that connection needs some more education.
