The Liberal Gun Club Forum

Author proposes that a private, third-party registry could be implemented via EO.
https://themacdavisethic.wordpress.com/ ... ifference/

If Obama actually does issue some EO related to guns, it would likely be limited to administrative rule-making to federal seller laws. I don’t think he could for instance issue an EO expanding background checks to private sales. That would almost certainly be nullified by the courts as out of his purview. However, one thing he probably *could* do, is change the FFL licensing rules to require licensed sellers to move to electronic reporting of the 4473 forms. Make them type the information into a web portal. And here’s the kicker: contract with a private sector company to maintain the database for the feds. This will circumvent the rule about the fed not maintaining a gun registry, because they *won’t* be maintaining one.

Rules pertaining to agency requirements for various federal licenses wouldn’t normally be expected to have to be approved by Congress. And since ATF and FBI are directly under the President’s purview, he could simply order the Directors to make the new rule by presidential order. San Bernadino makes this the perfect time to do it too, as that event goes directly to guns and counter-terrorism.

While he's at it, maybe he can have someone start keeping a database of all the Muslims here... not a government agency of course.

So, the federal gov't wouldn't be doing it, eh? Just like NSA isn't doing any surveillance of citizens "within the borders of the U.S." ?

If you can outsource CIA-sponsored torture, I guess anything is possible.

Can an EO allocate money to a third party? Someone will expect to get paid to do this 'service'.

Also, the cost would be enormous. Didn't I read somewhere that Canada just stopped trying to keep up their long gun registry because it was too expensive and impossible to keep up with?

It seems there are several federal agencies that have trouble keeping up with their own firearms, all of which are registered -except when they aren't.
http://www.vocativ.com/news/209306/fede ... you-think/

Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Secret Service—failed to account for the whereabouts of 289 guns

The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives—a much smaller agency than the DHS—could not account for 76 firearms during a 59-month review period between October 2002 and August 2007

the U.S. Park Police, actually had over 1,000 more weapons in their arsenal than they had listed in their inventory

The OIG found that the USPP had more than 1,400 unlisted firearms in their arsenal, including 477 automatic and semi-automatic rifles, 20 M1 Garand rifles and four Thompson sub-machine guns (Tommy Guns). As of 2013, the USPP had 640 sworn officers.

Maybe a third party could do a better job.

Outsourcing of things government removes control from The People. This is to be rejected.

Money bought the Politicians. The Politicians continue to support outsourcing, further concentrating more power into fewer hands.

Transnational corporations are more powerful than nation states.

>really unkind stuff deleted<

CDFingers

virtualhabitat wrote:Can an EO allocate money to a third party?

Good question. Congress controls purse strings, but a quick read of Charlie Wilson's War by George Crile demonstrates there is a way around that.

virtualhabitat wrote:Someone will expect to get paid to do this 'service'.

Also, the cost would be enormous.

No doubt the friend(s) of a gun prohibitionist politician would get that gig and soak us for its registering of our guns. Enormous cost would be by design.

virtualhabitat wrote:Didn't I read somewhere that Canada just stopped trying to keep up their long gun registry because it was too expensive and impossible to keep up with?

Their failure is a lesson their failure is worth repeating.

virtualhabitat wrote:It seems there are several federal agencies that have trouble keeping up with their own firearms, all of which are registered -except when they aren't.
http://www.vocativ.com/news/209306/fede ... you-think/

Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Secret Service—failed to account for the whereabouts of 289 guns

The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives—a much smaller agency than the DHS—could not account for 76 firearms during a 59-month review period between October 2002 and August 2007

the U.S. Park Police, actually had over 1,000 more weapons in their arsenal than they had listed in their inventory

The OIG found that the USPP had more than 1,400 unlisted firearms in their arsenal, including 477 automatic and semi-automatic rifles, 20 M1 Garand rifles and four Thompson sub-machine guns (Tommy Guns). As of 2013, the USPP had 640 sworn officers.

Why miss an opportunity to expand upon such failure exponentially?

virtualhabitat wrote:Maybe a third party could do a better job.

The point would not be to do a "better job."

Wow, if there's one thing that would be worse than a government-run registry it's a third-party registry. Holy crap.

Privatization is no answer...I can just imagine some clowns fouling up the Registry with only making a profit in mind...not actually doing it right.

A grand delusion has been planted in the minds of Americans, that privately run systems are more efficient and less costly than those in the public sector.
Most of the evidence points the other way. Private initiatives generally produce mediocre or substandard results while experiencing the usual travails of unregulated capitalism, higher prices, limited services, and lower wages.

Just look at our Health Care System...as one example...there are many more....oh, and I'm sure this privately owned company with 'police itself' adequately.

MaxwellG wrote:Privatization is no answer...I can just imagine some clowns fouling up the Registry with only making a profit in mind...not actually doing it right.

A grand delusion has been planted in the minds of Americans, that privately run systems are more efficient and less costly than those in the public sector.
Most of the evidence points the other way. Private initiatives generally produce mediocre or substandard results while experiencing the usual travails of unregulated capitalism, higher prices, limited services, and lower wages.

Just look at our Health Care System...as one example...there are many more....oh, and I'm sure this privately owned company with 'police itself' adequately.

In a word, "Wackenhut".

Or Diebold.

Wackenhut has a checkered history at best....a murder, involvement with the CIA and 'security' foul-ups at several Nuclear Power Plants...this is NOT the group to administer a Federal Firearms Database.

The actual registry itself would be cheap.

300+ million records? That's not as large as you might think.

Registration doesn't have to be expensive. Just make it online and make any government ID office capable of filling it out for you if you don't have a computer/internet. That place in turn would just do what you would do at home. Make registration cards printed only; no snail-mailing.

So how would registration work then? Well, from a gun owner point of view, much like registering a car only easier. You log into a website using SS, full name, and birth date. Then you punch in the serial number for the gun, select whether it is a long gun or hand gun, and check any boxes for NFA stuff like SBR, AOW, or full auto. You'd also enter the brand and model. It generates a registration number. You can then print it. You can do so for as many guns as you want. If there's a fee, that would be handled like a store, with a shopping cart and a checkout when you are done with you not receiving the registration "cards" until they are paid for.

From a database perspective, this is cake. A website like that would be pretty simple. The amount of traffic would of course be larger most stores, but it's not insane. There are many stores out there that have to track hundreds of millions of past orders so this is not really different.


As for the benefit of such a system? Honestly I don't think there is one. I really don't understand why anti-gun people think registration would accomplish anything.

virtualhabitat wrote:Can an EO allocate money to a third party? Someone will expect to get paid to do this 'service'.

Also, the cost would be enormous. Didn't I read somewhere that Canada just stopped trying to keep up their long gun registry because it was too expensive and impossible to keep up with?

It seems there are several federal agencies that have trouble keeping up with their own firearms, all of which are registered -except when they aren't.
http://www.vocativ.com/news/209306/fede ... you-think/

Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Secret Service—failed to account for the whereabouts of 289 guns

The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives—a much smaller agency than the DHS—could not account for 76 firearms during a 59-month review period between October 2002 and August 2007

the U.S. Park Police, actually had over 1,000 more weapons in their arsenal than they had listed in their inventory

The OIG found that the USPP had more than 1,400 unlisted firearms in their arsenal, including 477 automatic and semi-automatic rifles, 20 M1 Garand rifles and four Thompson sub-machine guns (Tommy Guns). As of 2013, the USPP had 640 sworn officers.

Maybe a third party could do a better job.

The Canadians also could not prove that the registry had any effect on crime. But it did make it easier to confiscate weapons deemed scary by a clerk in an office in a major metro area who had never touched a gun.

If you create a registry and spend some money, should you not be able to set some measurable goals up front, so we can hold you responsible for failure.

dougb wrote:

virtualhabitat wrote:Can an EO allocate money to a third party? Someone will expect to get paid to do this 'service'.

Also, the cost would be enormous. Didn't I read somewhere that Canada just stopped trying to keep up their long gun registry because it was too expensive and impossible to keep up with?

It seems there are several federal agencies that have trouble keeping up with their own firearms, all of which are registered -except when they aren't.
http://www.vocativ.com/news/209306/fede ... you-think/

Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Secret Service—failed to account for the whereabouts of 289 guns

The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives—a much smaller agency than the DHS—could not account for 76 firearms during a 59-month review period between October 2002 and August 2007

the U.S. Park Police, actually had over 1,000 more weapons in their arsenal than they had listed in their inventory

The OIG found that the USPP had more than 1,400 unlisted firearms in their arsenal, including 477 automatic and semi-automatic rifles, 20 M1 Garand rifles and four Thompson sub-machine guns (Tommy Guns). As of 2013, the USPP had 640 sworn officers.

Maybe a third party could do a better job.

The Canadians also could not prove that the registry had any effect on crime. But it did make it easier to confiscate weapons deemed scary by a clerk in an office in a major metro area who had never touched a gun.

If you create a registry and spend some money, should you not be able to set some measurable goals up front, so we can hold you responsible for failure.

Measurable Goals! We don't need no stinkin' measurable goals.. We are the government we are not helps responsible for anything but spending your money to make corporations and their owners wealthy. If you don't believe us check the following quote attributed to Karl Rove by NYTimes

"aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

I think they should hire the same contractor who maintains the DNC database.

bigstones wrote:I think they should hire the same contractor who maintains the DNC database.

Or the one that hired Eric Snowden.

I agree that setting up a secure online registration form and database would be a relatively simple task for a small team of good software engineers. It took a team of hundreds (probably thousands) to complete hose up the Obamacare site and a team of maybe a dozen or so rock stars to fix it in less than a month.

A registration site would be far, far simpler. 6 smart people with the right skills could have a working prototype up and running in a week.

Wurble wrote: As for the benefit of such a system? Honestly I don't think there is one. I really don't understand why anti-gun people think registration would accomplish anything.

It would accomplish a critical thing for them: Making confiscation easier.

That's literally the only value that registration adds as far as I can tell.