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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Enforcement is always selective and voluntary. Police officer sees someone doing a "rolling stop" at a stop sign, what he does next depends on a variety of factors. What you can't claim in this scenario, however, is that we don't have enough laws against running stop signs. Similarly, if an act of gun violence could have been prevented if the authorities took action on laws already on the books using information they already have access to, you can't argue that what we need is more gun control laws to prevent such crimes.
[/quote]
So you're saying the federal government, and every state and county government, should strictly and mercilessly enforce every gun law on the books to the maximum extent?  If so, I'm all in favor of that too.

The gun registry is just a simple law enforcement tool that makes it easier for authorities to enforce the existing laws efficiently.  Instead of guessing which convicted criminals might have guns, they will know.[/quote]
[u]
Yes, absolutely, we charge our legal system with the burden of enforcing our laws. If existing laws are not enforced vigorously, then they are impotent and useless, in which case enacting more of them into place is an irrational exercise in futility. [/u]

A gun registry will let law enforcement know which law abiding citizens have guns - that's the only certainty it offers. It does not let officers know which criminals might have guns because criminals lie, and they do not follow the law.

As much as I hate stop light cameras due to observed abuse of powers, what I do support is the fact that when correctly implemented, it enforces an existing law in a well defined, ceaseless and and impartial manner.[/quote]

Good!  After all this, we've found something we can agree on.  Let's see if we can continue the agreement.  Below are two specific examples from past summers ...

1. 8/4/15 An aide to Republican Representative Duncan Hunter was caught bringing an illegal gun onto Capitol grounds.  http://wtkr.com/2015/08/04/congressional-aide-arrested-for-bringing-loaded-gun-to-capitol/  This aide plead guilty in DC Superior Court, but the case got put into diversion and community service.  It's not clear to me whether he even got a conviction put on his record, since it looks like the prosecutor agreed to dismiss the charges (but I'm not sure about that).

2. 7/20/14 A staffer for Republican Representative Tom Marino was caught bringing an illegal gun onto Capitol grounds.  http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140721_PA_congressional_aide_arrested_on_gun_charge.html  This staffer plead guilty to a felony charge, and got a 30-day suspended sentence, so he spent zero time in jail and paid no penalty other than having to hire a lawyer and show up for his guilty plea.

Details for both cases are available at the DC Court docket (https://www.dccourts.gov/cco/maincase.jsf).

Do we agree that the prosecutors should have refused to bargain those cases, and they should have argued for the judges to impose maximum fines and jail time?

Some might say these congressional aides are not bad guys, and so why are we wasting time and resources prosecuting them, but it sounds like you think we cannot enact new laws unless we're enforcing the existing ones fully, right?  So I suppose that means we need to be prepared to fund our law enforcement system a little better too, to handle the cost of these new gun cases we both want brought.  Agree on all that too?[/quote]

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