Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Addressing gun control

By enforcing the existing laws.

Bryan of Why Now
?

Look, I have a radical proposal, that I have made many times in the past on many different forums, to no avail: instead of passing new laws, why don’t we try actually enforcing the laws that exist? Instead of slapping wrists for violations of current guns laws, why don’t we try kicking some butts?

There are a handful of gun dealers who are tied to hundreds of weapons that show up at crime scenes around the country, and yet they still have their Federal Firearms Licenses. This is not right. This is not just. This cannot be allowed to continue.

Many of these operations have no showrooms or real stores, but they sell huge quantities of weapons. They get fines, and occasional suspensions but they stay in business.

It is time to actually fund the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and to actually enforce the laws. The same thing needs to occur on the state and local level with real enforcement taking place and real penalties handed out. There is no point in passing new laws until we figure if the old laws will work. A law that isn’t enforced is a political press release.

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