Well, this topic has made me break my silence on this forum. It was nice just being a lurker.
It is asinine to believe that you could ever get all handguns away from criminals. Murder, rape, robbery, etc. are already crimes. If you honestly believe that someone that is willing to commit these crimes would turn in their weapons because they are now illegal then you simply do not have the ability to understand the criminal mindset.
The notion that guns would wear out over time is laughable at best. I personally own a pistol that was a Marine Corps issued pistol in World War I. It doesn't just sit on a shelf, it finds its way to the range several times each year. But, that is nothing when compared to the firearms that some people use.
There is a "loophole" in the laws that allow antique firearms to be sold with no background check or other impediments. An antique firearm is defined as:
Antique firearms are defined as: any firearm with a frame or receiver manufactured in or before 1898 regardless of ignition system, or any firearm with a matchlock, flintlock, percussion cap, or similar type of ignition system, and any replica of an antique firearm if the replica is not designed or redesigned for using rimfire or conventional centerfire ammunition, or uses fixed ammunition, which is no longer manufactured in the United States and which is not readily available in the ordinary channels or commercial trade, any muzzle loading rifle, muzzle loading shotgun, or muzzle loading pistol, which is designed to use black powder, or a black powder substitute, and which cannot use fixed ammunition.
Those firearms manufactured prior to 1898 still function quite well. Any trip to a Cowboy Action Shooting (SASS) shooting competition will show that many are still being shot, and shot often. They are will over 100 years old and still function fine. Chances are great that they will still be working 100 years from now.
Further, age would never make a firearm quit working. It is a function of rounds fired that will eventually cause a modern firearm to fail. But, the higher quality guns would last several generations of criminal activity. About a year ago I sold a Glock pistol that I had owned for about 5 years. I had personally fired over 15,000 rounds through the pistol without a malfunction. The new owner uses it as I did, as a competition gun. He has also sent several thousand rounds through it without problem.
Criminals will always have guns, period. As such, it only makes sense to allow law abiding citizens to defend themselves. And, the statistics show that it works. Lott and Mustard, two economists at the University of Chicago used the FBI's Uniform Crime Report to track violent crime at the county and statewide level. They found that county level violent crime dropped 4.9% in states that allow concealed carry of firearms. Murder was down 7.75%, rape down 5.27% and aggravated assault was down 7.01%. {"Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns", Lott, John R., and Mustard, David B.
J. of Legal Studies, vol.26, n.1, pp.1-68 (Jan. 1997)}
If we were to not only stop allowing people to carry firearms, but to take them from individuals, the evidence shows that these violent crime rates would climb dramatically. It would cost needless innocent lives, but hey- it would make some people "feel good" because they passed a law saying guns are evil.
To the author of the original post, I apologize for helping to take this further off track. But all it takes is one rude individual to decide to hijack a thread. Sadly, one person in this thread has shown they care more about spreading their anti-gun beliefs than allowing an intelligent conversation to take place.
