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Feds allow for drive-up gun sales to ease dealers', buyers' coronavirus worries
The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, in new guidance to federally licensed firearm retailers, said Friday that dealers can provide drive-up or walk-up service to reduce health risks posed by the coronavirus.
[...] Licensees "may carry out the requested activities through a drive-up or walk-up window or doorway where the customer is on the licensee's property, on the exterior of the brick-and-mortar structure at the address listed on the license," the ATF said in a Friday bulletin.
Transactions may not be carried from "a nearby space" that is not part of the dealers' property unless they are participating in qualified gun shows.
Larry Keane, general counsel for the firearms industry trade group National Shooting Sports Foundation, said Friday that the organization raised the issue with the ATF more than two weeks ago as dealers sought to navigate various government orders limiting business activity.
[...] Except in the states of Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York and Washington, gun dealers have been open for business during the pandemic.
Keane said the new ATF guidance in no way alters the requirements for background checks.
Show of hands: who could ever have expected THIS?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday April 14 2020, @05:29PM (3 children)
I'm not against second amendment rights.
I just don't want crazy people to have guns.
Fact: all school shootings and other mass shootings are done by crazy people with guns.
How do we fix this. (I don't think it is by making everyone have a gun, because "everyone" includes crazy people. So nothing was solved.)
If we can identify the people who should not have guns, then why are we unable to prevent them from getting guns? (Can't cite specific . . .) some shootings were done by person who was not supposed to have a gun.
Guns are not like children's toys. They shouldn't be casually lying around for anyone to use. And I think responsible gun owners already know this.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday April 15 2020, @02:17PM (2 children)
Okay, I want you to consider this question seriously. It's not a joke. How do you propose going about that?
Yearly, mandatory psychological screenings for everyone in the household if any of them want to own a gun? For starters that'd bump what is a constitutionally guaranteed right down to a privilege. It also would put determination of who gets that privilege in the unelected, unaccountable hands of people who have spent around a decade in the progressive indoctrination camps we call universities. The same people who not too long ago decided that gender dysphoria was no longer to be called a mental illness (even though it is most certainly a mental abnormality that causes suffering), because it's not PC and might hurt their feelings to say it like that.
Sorry, you're just not going to get me to stand for that. Not ever.
As for how responsible gun ownership and such? Dude, we used to have shooting taught in public schools. Know how many school shootings we had when that was the case? When I was in school, we still had half the cars with a shotgun and rifle in the gun rack, ammo in the glovebox or under the seat, and nearly every student carried a knife. Still no school shootings. Know when I first saw or even heard of a gun safe or trigger lock? The late 90s. So it's kind of blindingly obvious that even unfettered access to firearms ain't what's causing the problem.
And, yeah, everyone being armed absolutely would solve mass shootings. Without question. A couple dozen armed and educated people shooting back would at the very least remove the "mass" from mass shootings. It's just so foreign to your thinking that you can't accept it. But I'm not interested in telling folks who don't want to own a gun that they have to, authoritarianism ain't my bag.
Now, out of a nation of 325 million or so people, how many were killed in mass shootings over the past ten years? See, that's why I'm not willing to sign on to even the mildest of restrictions on the entire population. It's not a position being held because of logic and reality, it's rooted entirely in fear. One has to in fact ignore logic and reality to make it anything even remotely worth worrying about.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 15 2020, @03:51PM (1 child)
I perceive a problem with everyone being armed. Not everyone has good self control. You live in the same world I do. You must have seen people who have shockingly bad self control. One thing that I can easily see happening with a hundred million people being armed, is that arguments or conflicts escalate, and escalate, and the next thing you know, someone pulls a gun. Because it's there. And raging emotions. And lack of self control.
I believe that would make the problem worse, not better.
I would not be willing to attempt to use my own weapon, unless I also had witnesses and solid video evidence -- because: police / prosecutors. No good deed goes unpunished. Especially involving use of a firearm.
You brought up yearly psychological screenings. I did not. But I did bring up that there are already identifiable people who already are not supposed to get guns. Yet somehow, they get them. And I don't think responsible gun owners or sellers are just handing them out.
Attempting to deny that there is, in fact, an actual problem does not just magically make it go away. (Trump will disagree.) If you live in a sparsely populated area, then I understand your view. (been there, done that) If you don't live in a city, then you may not understand the differences. You are far more likely to run into individuals that no sane person, including yourself, would think should have a weapon of any kind.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday April 15 2020, @04:09PM
We already have that. And we don't see it on anything approaching a noteworthy scale.
Right, and I explained that giving the authority over who can buy a gun to completely unaccountable people who don't just judge people's suitability to exercise their constitutional rights, but also write the standards that suitability is judged by is clown shoes absurd. At least I thought I did.
I'm not denying it. I am saying that if you look at the numbers, it's much less of a problem than lightning strikes. It may not feel that way to those intimately affected but it's indisputably a statistically trivial risk. And one that's not correctable without severely infringing the rights of every citizen.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.