Build Your own Gun Laws : What would YOU do ?

[Ronin13]

As controversial as this may be- we should have ONE new law regarding guns/criminals- they should know that they can't purchase a gun (got this idea from Penn Jillette), if you're a felon and you attempt to purchase a firearm (not just denied for whatever reason, because my brother has been denied in the past and then cleared it up and could buy), you shouldn't be told 'no' then be allowed to just walk away. I'm not a lawyer or legislator, so I'm not sure what you could punish them with, but I'd say something to the effect of community service and/or probation or something.

[OneGuy67]

As controversial as this may be- we should have ONE new law regarding guns/criminals- they should know that they can't purchase a gun (got this idea from Penn Jillette), if you're a felon and you attempt to purchase a firearm (not just denied for whatever reason, because my brother has been denied in the past and then cleared it up and could buy), you shouldn't be told 'no' then be allowed to just walk away. I'm not a lawyer or legislator, so I'm not sure what you could punish them with, but I'd say something to the effect of community service and/or probation or something.

This one point is an interesting issue that I've tried to deal with before. I have tried to prosecute a felon who lied on the federal form 4473 in order to obtain a firearm and was denied. The local DA wouldn't take the case as he believed it was a federal issue due to lying on a federal form; the federal prosecutor wouldn't take the case as it didn't satisfy their minimum threshold for prosecution. So what is the local LE to do other than be blamed by the likes of Rich Wyatt for not doing anything about that issue? It would take a revamping of our current system and to have state level forms instead of federal level forms, state level control over federal control to change the environment. California requires state forms ON TOP of the federal forms for certain purchases. We may be right there shortly, depending upon what the Dems propose this legislative session.

[TFOGGER]

This one point is an interesting issue that I've tried to deal with before. I have tried to prosecute a felon who lied on the federal form 4473 in order to obtain a firearm and was denied. The local DA wouldn't take the case as he believed it was a federal issue due to lying on a federal form; the federal prosecutor wouldn't take the case as it didn't satisfy their minimum threshold for prosecution. So what is the local LE to do other than be blamed by the likes of Rich Wyatt for not doing anything about that issue? It would take a revamping of our current system and to have state level forms instead of federal level forms, state level control over federal control to change the environment. California requires state forms ON TOP of the federal forms for certain purchases. We may be right there shortly, depending upon what the Dems propose this legislative session.

CRS 18-12-108 covers possession, but doesn't address attempted purchase. Perhaps we can get Looper to settle for making state law more effective, instead of passing do-nothing feel-good bullshit...

[james_bond_007]

... I have tried to prosecute a felon who lied on the federal form 4473 in order to obtain a firearm and was denied...

I'd like to offer my thanks for at least TRYING to do the right thing.

I'm sorry the authorities were not more cooperative.


To another point, any chance this guy would TRY to buy a firearm FTF after being denied by an FFL? (add sarcasm here)

In FTF transactions it is hard to tell the "good guys" from the "bad guys", even if you WANT to do the right thing.
After all, there is not a big "FELON" tag marked on a DL, or rotated DL like the "Under 21" licenses, to make it easy to identify them.
There is not, to my knowledge, even a more discrete way, to determine felons, like a publicly accessible online DB, as there is for sex offenders.
(The THOUGHT of something like that probably violates a former felon's "rights" in someway, right ?)

And in OneGuy67's case, when he COULD tell it was a "bad" guy, no one would HELP him do the right thing.