Here we go again

Uncategorized 2 Minutes

Biden’s crime plan is gun control

There is no doubt we have a problem with an increase is shootings in this country compared to the downward trend until about a year ago, President Biden seems to think that a crack down on new gun sales is going to stop that, as though there weren’t already plenty enough guns in circulation for criminals to use.

Of course, along with most 2nd Amendment supporters, I encourage proper use of the NICS background check system. After all, we got it passed. But that can’t be limited to acting against dealers.

  • The database must be properly populated, currently not all disqualifying crimes are reported by local authorities, and too often, disqualifying crimes are plea bargained to lesser offenses. HIPPA prevents reporting of mental issues, so crimes committed by the mentally ill must be prosecuted, and leniency employed in sentencing only after conviction.
  • Currently, less than 1 in 10,000 violations of Form 4473(background check application) perjury statements are prosecuted. If thee is no penalty for “lie and try” then prohibited people will continue to take a chance. The same is true of reported straw purchases. If they aren’t prosecuted, people will continue to do it.
  • I am concerned with the statements about pulling dealer licenses base on “BATFE trace requests” as many such requests are illegal. What the law allows is for the BATFE to obtain the 4473 form for guns recovered by police from crimes. They are not allowed to ask for records of other purchases made by that person or other statistical information.
  • I am concerned about BATFE ‘sharing’ of dealer inspection data’ with local police. There should be no data to share, when the BATFE inspects a dealers records, there is either a violation or there isn’t. The BATFE is not allowed to make copies of Form 4473s or dealer sales records not associated with a crime. BATFE agents have been caught repeatedly making such copies, with no consequences. If dealers lose their licenses for refusing to comply with unlawful requests, there’s going to be a problem to resolve in the courts.

More generally, Biden rambles about no one needing a 100 round magazine. I don’t need one, but it’s none of my business, or Biden’s, if someone wants one. There is no evidence of such magazines contributing to the crime problem.

Biden also misunderstands the 2nd Amendment as a deterrent to government overreach. Aside from the fact that the Taliban seems to be doing pretty well without F-15s of their own, the willingness of the people to stand against a lawless government is adequate deterrence as our soldiers are unlikely to make war on our own people.

But hopefully, that is just prattle for his base. If Biden remains within the law and the spirit of the NICS system, it can be useful,  but if he gives the BATFE license to break the law, he might bring a case to the Supreme Court he will regret.

Published by Don Tabor

I am a former Chairman of the Tidewater Libertarian Party and was the 2007 LP candidate for the 14th district VA Senate. Previously, I was the Volunteer State Director for the FairTax. I am married 50 years with two grown children and 5 grandchildren.

Published

44 thoughts on “Here we go again”

  1. “Biden also misunderstands the 2nd Amendment as a deterrent to government overreach. Aside from the fact that the Taliban seems to be doing pretty well without F-15s of their own, the willingness of the people to stand against a lawless government is adequate deterrence as our soldiers are unlikely to make war on our own people.”

    Love it when the president casually jokes about using fighter jets and nukes against his own citizens. Good stuff.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  2. The real driving force behind gun crime is grinding hopeless poverty. With the damage done to the economy in 2020 the increase was almost inevitable.

    You are correct, better gun control is not going to solve the problem but it will help.

    The real solution is meaningful changes that will reduce grinding hopeless poverty – things that the Democratic party has been constantly trying to achieve and which people like you have been stubbornly and successfully resisting.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. What grinding, hopeless poverty?

      Prior to COVID, we were experiencing rapid improvements in middle class income, minority employment, and low end wages. There were tons of hope for the future, and with OWS, we knew COVID would end.

      There is something else going on. The recent savagery we have seen, killings in broad daylight with no regard for innocent bystanders is new.

      Many things are new. but poverty is not, it is and was no worse than a decade ago.

      It may be that the recent restrictions we have placed on police have removed an expectation of consequences, or the nihilism of the fungibility of young black males has reached a peak and the value of life is simply not recognized.

      I don’t claim a certain answer but I know it is not something so simplistic as poverty or guns. There is a generalized sickness in our urban populations that leads no place good.

      Like

      Reply

      1. “What grinding, hopeless poverty?”

        You are TOTALLY divorced from reality if you pose a question like that.
        Even before the pandemic the share of the population living from hand to mouth with no HOPE of a brighter economic future was growing dangerously. With the pandemic it is even worse.

        Sickness in our “urban populations?”
        Yeah, now we understand what you are talking about.

        Here is a graphic showing where the real problem lies.

        https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm

        Notice the pattern? It is pretty plain to see.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

        1. Firearms mortality that includes suicide has not connection with crime.

          That’s why Alaska, which has little crime, has a high mortality, due to native American suicides.

          Like

          Reply

          1. “That’s why Alaska, which has little crime, has a high mortality, due to native American suicides.”

            So truthy! So definite! So UTTERLY FALSE!

            Here is a similar graphic not of gun deaths but of violent crime for that same year (2019).
            Again the pattern is clear. And, of course, Alaska is in the worst category when it comes to violent crime.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_violent_crime_rate

            Liked by 1 person

          2. I just looked at several different sources and Alaska ranges from first to fifth highest crime rate in the US. And it’s not exclusively the non-white people committing crimes.

            Liked by 2 people

          3. That really surprised me. I had incorrect assumptions about Alaska.

            I do know there is a horrendous suicide problem among Native Americans youth there, but I was unaware of the extremely high incidence of rape and drug addiction.

            Like

          7. Yeah, I know.

            One of my close friends left VA to practice Law in Anchorage, he died of COVID in February.

            My first cousin married an Alaskan native when he was stationed in Kotzebue. I really liked her, she hunted with us like one of the guys, but when we got home, she insisted that cleaning the game was women’s work and that men should drink beer and tell stories of the hunt. Did I mention I really liked her.

            Like

          10. “That really surprised me. I had incorrect assumptions about Alaska.”

            Is that an apology for throwing out a made up fact with your usual racial spin to it? You think we have not noticed that those gun deaths and violent crime graphics do not support your claims about “urban populations” being the problem. That is also an “incorrect assumption” and again with a racial spin.

            Liked by 1 person

          11. “Did I mention I really liked her.”

            I will give you this – you own your male chauvinist piggery with pride just like your European civilization chauvinism. Sad you have to travel to remote Alaska to find a woman who knows her place, eh?

            Liked by 1 person

          14. I’m not the one demeaning Alaskan natives. That would be you denigrating their traditions.

            Who are you to discount the value they place on their oral storytelling traditions?

            Like

          15. “Who are you to discount the value they place on their oral storytelling traditions?”

            Lame.
            We were discussing your “humorous” misogyny – not the storytelling traditions of the Alaskan natives.

            Liked by 1 person

      2. “I don’t claim a certain answer but I know it is not something so simplistic as poverty or guns.”

        You don’t like simplistic answers but you’re perfectly willing to make an essentialist argument about black men?

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply

        1. It is simply factual that the current increase is murders is nearly all Black on Black.

          If you’re looking for answers to the high number of murders, you have to look at the demographic where it occurs.

          Like

          Reply

          2. Not that disproportionate.

            But it may well be that poverty among Blacks and the high murder rate have no causal relationship, but both share a common cause. That being the single parent, matriarchal family.

            Like

          3. You’re essentializing again.

            Maybe a kid lives in a single parent home because his dad and all his uncles are serving life sentences because they got pinched with a gram of weed 20 years ago.

            Liked by 2 people

          4. If you’re looking for me to defend the drug war or deny its consequences, you’re going to have a long wait.

            But at the same time, the fact that for a large number poor families a husband and father have been rendered superfluous or at least fungible.

            But that trend has been ongoing since 1965, and doesn’t explain the barbarism of the last year and a half. I suspect some connection to BLM and the defund movement but I can’t assert that to be the real cause

            Like

          5. I know you’re not a drug warrior, that’s why I thought it might be a compelling argument.

            As far as the crime rise goes, we have to keep in mind it is relative to almost historic lows in the years prior. Had to come back up at some point. Also, only half joking here, I think people are just feral after having been locked down, some with no jobs or money, facing eviction uncertainties for the last year.

            There are large, systemic issues we must include in our analysis. Otherwise, the implication is one group of people are just inferior. I don’t believe that.

            Liked by 2 people

          9. FYI the Mayan civilization lasted from about 2000BCE with the rise of the Olmec. It ended when subjugated by the Spanish around 1500 CE. 3500 years.

            Soviets was an economic failure of communist plutocrats and massive corruption. Culture had little to do with it other than there was no history of democratic participation by the populace. Czars to Commissars was the only real change.

            Liked by 2 people

          11. Yes, but prosecutions in many jurisdictions have plummeted. There have to be consequences to little crimes or people on a criminal path will escalate.

            Like

          12. How can a Libertarian be a Broken Windows adherent? The “little crimes” are largely petty drug possession BS or other victimless offenses.

            Most people don’t murder someone just because they got away with smoking a joint or rolling through a stop sign.

            Liked by 2 people

          13. “Yes, but prosecutions in many jurisdictions have plummeted.”

            Uh, which jurisdictions and what crimes are you talking about?
            That smacks of being an “alternative fact” or “incorrect assumption” or whatever the euphemism du jour is for falsehoods.

            Under Trump, federal prosecutions did plummet for . . .
            Environmental crimes
            White collar crimes
            Corporate crimes

            But that, surely, is not what you are talking about.

            Maybe you are trying to spin Baltimore’s policy into something negative. After publicly announcing that the city would not prosecute drug crimes, prostitution and misdemeanors to keep people from incarceration where they could die of Covid, violent crime DECREASED 20%. That is the opposite of your theorizing.

            https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/03/26/baltimore-reducing-prosecutions/

            Liked by 1 person

          14. I really with not prosecuting victimless crime, but not prosecuting theft, resisting arrest, and criminal threats invite more serious crime.

            https://abc7.com/george-gascon-los-angeles-district-attorney-lada-misdemeanor-crimes/8674095/

            https://www.theblaze.com/news/dallas-da-wont-prosecute-crimes

            https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-prop-47-shoplifting-theft-crime-statewide

            https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/st-louis-riots-missouri-attorney-general-says-circuit-attorney-not-prosecuting-criminals/63-3cf5934f-623d-4f71-ac9f-05c2c2882b78

            https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-us-news-courts-arrests-wa-state-wire-270290ab45ff5c2fd86f21d9b0de9def

            https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jun/4/prosecutors-dismiss-looting-rioting-charges-agains/

            Like

          15. Here is the actual directive in LA that has your hair on fire . . .

            Click to access SPECIAL-DIRECTIVE-20-07.pdf

            It is an evidenced based policy covering extremely minor crimes and with plenty of carve-outs for repeat offenders or others deemed to be serious threats to others. It is, in general, recognition that mental health issues (about half of all previous arrests) need to be treated for what they are and not as criminal matters.

            None of these stories about innovative or experimental and/ or dumb policies has any connection to the gun violence that you claim they have.

            Liked by 1 person

      3. “That would be racist”

        I would like to be able to say “Nice try” but, sadly I cannot. You are getting lamer and lamer. Odd, you started out so boldly with your male chauvinism and now you are dancing away – only trying to not give offense to a native tradition. Yeah, sure.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

          1. Your “mine” has to go a lot deeper than mine to come up with such nuggets.

            And I will tell you frankly finding seams of racism in Trumpism and Trump supporters is very, very easy. It is at the surface – to continue the analogy – and very easy to see.

            Liked by 1 person

  3. Doesn’t it strike anyone odd that we have a President who simultaneously believes that citizens can’t stand up to the government without F-15s and nuclear weapons and that on January 6th a mob of 400 people almost overthrew the government with sharp flag staffs?

    Like

    Reply

    1. Uh, no.

      Nobody says the insurrectionists ALMOST overthrew the government. What they do say – because it is true – is that they TRIED to overthrow the government. Had they come even remotely close to success, say by hanging Mike Pence as planned, they would then have needed those F-15’s.

      Any original thoughts? This very silly one is already all over the right wing internet.

      By the way, you continue to LIE about the number of people involved in the Capitol invasion. The true number is at least double what you claim even after being given documented facts. Why do you insist on this particular LIE? Is it because you are not counting the mere “Trespassers.”

      https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capitol-pro-trump-riot-arrests-charges-names-2021-1

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

Leave a comment