The leader of a gun control group here in Pennsylvania told a Lancaster, PA outlet that they don’t consider actual prosecutions of crimes to be a relevant factor in pushing gun control laws.
In the more than five years the law’s been on the books, not one person has been prosecuted.
…
“It’s just to lord it over law-abiding people and threaten them with it — which is wrong and immoral,†said Jonathan Goldstein, the NRA’s attorney on the case.
…
Shira Goodman, executive director of CeaseFirePA, agreed that prosecutions aren’t the point of the law.
So, if enforcement isn’t the point of passing gun control laws, then what is the goal? Is it to score a “victory” to use in fundraising for more gun control group salaries? Or is the goal to create a patchwork of such complicated laws that no one wants to bother trying to become a lawful gun owner? These are questions the paper isn’t willing to follow up on, even though it should be a little odd that a gun control group spokesperson is indicating she doesn’t care if there’s any enforcement of the laws she claims are sooooo vital to public safety.
I have wondered from time to time if the antis do have a decent number of folks in their camp who are in it strictly because it has become a source of income for them. What percentage of them are true believers vs. ones trying to drum up donations or boost their PR?
I’m not going to lie and say the NRA doesn’t do this either, but at least it seems their field reps are just like you and me, while Bloomberg’s minions may very well be doing it just because they know he will be their sugar daddy.
Writing words down on paper to ward off evil is witchcraft. Same thing with writing words on a sign and posting it on your front door. Freedom of religion in this country should preclude state-sponsored witchcraft with the weight of law!
The more insidious aspect of the anti groups is that they want to change the gun culture. Bloomberg et al. want to make guns the new millennium’s cigarettes. Getting people arrested is not the point of their endeavor. If you kill the culture, you might have a chance at changing the law a few generations later. Look at the Brits and the Aussies. Not enough people participated, and their rights were stripped away until they were essentially all gone. That’s what they want.
What they are essentially saying is that the point of the laws is to manipulate the law abiding, which is what the pro-gun side has been saying for years.
As has been pointed out above, they want to pass the laws to influence the behavior of the law-abiding. It doesn’t matter if there are no arrests, no prosecutions, and no attempt to do either; if it’s known to be statutorily “illegal”, most people just won’t do it, which is just as effective at strangling the gun culture as if it were strictly enforced.
They just want the threat of enforcement to hang over us like the Sword of Damocles.
Besides which, even if today’s Sheriffs and police chiefs refuse to enforce a bad law, there’s no guarantee that tomorrow’s LEO leadership will have any such scruples. Hard-line enforcement could be just an election away.
So, if enforcement isn’t the point of passing gun control laws, then what is the goal?
Why ask questions to which you already know the answer? And certainly, the answer to your question is, ‘to kill the gun culture.’
I’d say it is more about creating that ‘patchwork’ to the point that one WILL violate sooner or later, and end up with a felony conviction. THAT is, I believe, their long term goal.
Bingo.
I believe that it is all about making the exercise of the 2nd Amendment so financially burdensome and so legally risky that more and more Americans will simply give up. If you can make people willingly choose to relinquish a right…while at the same time indoctrinating their children against it…you don’t have to ban anything.
http://blackmanwithagun.com/infringement
I remember a distinction someone once made that we should stop talking about “law-abiding” gun owners, and discuss “peaceable” ones instead. This is because of the patchwork of laws designed to ensnare the law-abiding–and not just gun laws, mind you–that abound.
I suspect that this is going to be a key element in making sure we can pass on our gun culture. Indeed, do we really need to fear the peaceable citizens who break the law in the normal interactions required for a gun safety or gun training course? Or do we even need to fear the accountant felon, who served time in prison for embezzlement, but nonetheless illegaly owns and carries a gun, because she lives in a rough neighborhood? Or the “felon” who didn’t even know it was illegal to transport a lobster in a plastic sack–the law required a cardboard box–who wishes to own guns now?
Someone who is beligerent, and a danger to self and others–sure, I could understand forbidding a gun in those people, at least, until they demonstrate that they aren’t a danger anymore–but we should keep in mind that we need to be careful, and oppose the trend to ban guns from anyone who’s shown even the slightest hint of mental illness!