Registration helps solve crimes?

[JellyJar]

One of the supposed reasons to require firearm registration is so that a gun used in a crime can be traced back to the owner and thus solve the crime. ( Yea, Right! ) So, does anyone here know how often, if ever, gun registration helps the police solve crimes?

 

[BADUNAME37]

With all the selling and trading most people do with any guns they have had, or do have, I don't see how that system could work really at all!

The only way it would work is if they started from scratch and had everyone register every gun they own, then make it mandatory that for any trade or sale, everything has to be documented.

One slight problem.
Think how many guns there are that were made BEFORE serial number recording was mandatory and think how many people WOULD NOT report every gun they have (in a lot of cases, many people wouldn't report ANY gun they might have)!

Oh, not to mention all the people who are felons, or for some other reason are OUTLAWED from owning or even BEING AROUND GUNS! OUTLAWS WILL ALWAYS HAVE GUNS - it doesn't matter how strict the punishment - simply because some people really have nothing in life to lose should they get caught. Heck, most prisons are better than a lot of poor people's homes and apartments!

 

[DoubleTapDrew]

From what I've heard, the millions of dollars spent on "ballistic fingerprinting" has never solved a crime, unlike what they show on CSI type shows.
As far as registration I don't think it would help with even the sloppiest murder.

 

[oneounceload]

Ask the folks in Canada about their billion-dollar boondoogle that cost WAY over budget and served ZERO purpose to achieving its goal.

How would registration solve crimes when most guns used in crimes are stolen?

 

[CoRoMo]

ounce beat me to it. Canada tried as they could, but firearm registration did nothing at all, other than to cost money. IIRC, not a single solitary crime of violence that involved a gun has been solved with their database. Simply put, those who would use a gun in an act of violence, are not the type to willingly register it, or acquire it legally. I remember Sean Hannity talking with Candice Hoeppner, the Member of the Canadian Parliament who is pushing their C-391 bill to repeal the long gun registry. Though, I don't think it is all said and done yet.

 

[azyogi]

Sounds like a bunch of boating accidents in the making.

 

[Roswell_Kid]

Here not only is every [legal] weapon registered, but the owners are registered too. Prints, tests, photos, psych exams, the works, just to own a firearm. A CCW (if you can get it) binds the holder to an individual fweapon. Carrying a pistol other than that identified on the permit is a crime.

There is another form of gun control here, too. Import taxes are purposefully high. Considering that the average salary here for most jobs is a fraction of that in the US, think of paying $1500 for a SIG P-239.

Regardless, gun crime here is worse than the US and every house is encased in bars and/or razor wire. Too bad Daley and his ilk won´t come on down for a visit to see what sort of utopia their registration and restriction schemes will actually yield.

 

[JellyJar]

How would registration stop criminals from getting guns. See below...

http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100709/NEWS/100709871/0/ELECTION04

Florence police

A .38-caliber pistol and a gun holster were taken from a vehicle parked in the 100 block of Turner Street

I have known of police officers who have had their guns stolen from them. Registration does no good there except make it possible to return the weapon should the police ever recover it.

I would like to hear from either an active LEO or retired one who has worked in a jurisdiction that required gun registration about his/her experience with registration, good or bad.

 

[Art Eatman]

Registration can discover the original purchaser of a firearm, if the firearm were left at the scene of a crime. That does not prove that the original purchaser was the perpetrator of the crime.

Let's say you find a suspect, in possession of a firearm registered to him. You think he's the one whodunnit. So? Big deal. Forensics and ballistics tests are used in proving hedunnit. Possession is what's important, not title. The exact same situation held long before the GCA '68 came upon us.

Registration paperwork just wastes tax dollars of payrolls and kills trees.

 

[A and O]

And it will 100% of the time lead to confiscation. This must be resisted with force.

 

[JoeSlomo]

Sounds like a bunch of boating accidents in the making

The seas was angry that day my friends...

 

[Zoogster]

There is probably some cases of it, just as there is certainly cases of bad people being convicted more successfully in China because the accused have no real rights.


Generally though most of the homicides in the US are committed by the gang subculture. Or criminal on criminal. Most of these people cannot legally have firearms, and so would certainly not have them registered where required.


Furthermore consider what the implications would be for it to generate leads.
Crime is committed, lets say a homicide. The recovered casings and bullet appear to have come from X caliber from Y type gun.
They then look up every legal owner who has legally registered such a gun in a given area. They are all now unofficial suspects.
If any of those poor registered saps actually just happen to have a connection to the victim, or otherwise crossed paths with them, they are now an even stronger suspect even if totally innocent.
All while the most likely murderer in reality has a stolen firearm.

Reality is that innocent people do get convicted, especially on circumstantial evidence (or if they don't have a squeaky clean past.) If the investigators are drawn to some random person with one of the registered guns because they are one of several with a matching type of registered gun, and then they find the person suspicious (let us say he is some "gun nut" preparing for the SHTF, with a private "arsenal".)
Or even if they don't find him suspicious, just having a remote connection to the victim, or working in the area, or passing through the area, or other thing in common with thousands of other people in the area (who don't have such a registered gun.) Anything in addition to the registered gun.
They get a warrant, raid his place, discover additional parts of the "arsenal" unregistered as required by law, and now have several things to lock him away for, whether or not he was at all connected to the murder.
All while he was completely innocent, and just so happened to have the type of gun that brought him into the scope of the investigation.
(Such things happen sporadically in California and make the news. Some guy with no record just happens to have police in his home for some unrelated reason (like a fire, burglary, or other investigation) and they discover illegal "assault weapons" that were legal when purchased, and then required mandatory registration by Dec 31, 2000.)





While the actual criminal with a stolen gun is just "chilling with the homies" and may not even have the firearm anymore.




The 2nd Amendment was also meant to deter tyranny.
A database of where the legal arms are, and who has them, makes that much less effective.
A tyrannical government for example could have a mandatory "gun buy back" like in Australia, and where the vast majority would probably comply with the law when facing prison time if they don't turn in what they are documented as having.
The whole "boating accident" people talk about is impractical, and if someone just happens to "lose" firearms at the time of confiscation a warrant is likely to follow.
If they are ever found with a gun they claimed to have lost they can also be charged with a host of crimes, from filing a false police report, lying to officials (a felony in some cases just ask Martha Stewart), and of course the weapon charges themselves for having an illegally possessed firearm.

The minority who do not show up to voluntarily turn in their guns they are documented in a database as having can then be targeted with the resources of the government. Or even just have warrants put out for them, so they will be arrested the next time they have any contact with law enforcement or show up at a courthouse etc.

The image of them going to every gun owner's home is unlikely, but issuing warrants for the minority or going to the small percentage who don't turn in arms which are outlawed and they are documented as having is much more practical and within the resources of government.

Outlawed guns also don't have to be everything at once. They can target one type, then another, then another, and finally once they have removed most of the effective arms they can wrap up it up.
History shows a lot of people will comply with a gun ban on gun A if they are allowed to keep gun B and C.
Then turn in gun B if allowed to keep gun C.
If not backed into a corner of all or nothing they put up far less resistance.
Then the rules for legal possession of gun C, the least capable of arms and least feared by government can be increased until it is impractical for most of society. Those that still have gun type C will then be a minority of sportsmen.
Then you have the scenario that has been done and exists in several parts of the world.

 

[gbran]

One of the supposed reasons to require firearm registration is so that a gun used in a crime can be traced back to the owner and thus solve the crime.

Actually, the primary reasons for registration is people control and creating a data base for future confiscation. We've seen that here in CA with supposed AW's.

 

[wishin]

The very people who are more inclined to commit gun related crimes would not be registering them anyway.

 

[unspellable]

The only cases I've ever heard of where registration tied a gun to the person who dunnit would have been open and shut cases any way, such as hubby shoots wife or vice versa, calls the cops and waits for them to show up.

 

[Gungnir]

The very people who are more inclined to commit gun related crimes would not be registering them anyway.

Actually the very people statistically most likely to commit crimes (felons) would be constitutionally protected against registration by the 5th Amendment (see Hayes vs. US).

So registration could only be achieved by requiring the person selling to register the sale and who the transferee was.

 

[wishin]

I was not aware that jurisdictions requiring weapons registration exempt a class of criminals!

 

[Gungnir]

I was not aware that jurisdictions requiring weapons registration exempt a class of criminals!

LOL...

Sure how would a felon register a firearm without self-incrimination? It's illegal for him to own a firearm in the first place, so any penalty that could theoretically be levied to ensure registration could not be applied to a felon for owning an "unregistered" firearm.

Sorry misquoted the case it was Haynes vs. US. This introduced the requirement in NFA (after 1968 where felons became prohibited persons) transfers that the transferor had to register the transfer over the transferee, to circumvent 5th Amendment protections.

 

[Phil Lee]

No! Registration does not solve crime in proportion to the cost.

I'll post some informed articles. First from Canada:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/PO0502/S00074.htm
Why Gun Registration Fails
Tuesday, 8 February 2005, 3:09 pm
Press Release: Libertarianz Party

8 February 2005
Why Gun Registration Fails

"With Gary Mauser attending the ANZSOC conference in Wellington this week, politicians, justice officials and police will be able to receive first-hand information as to why gun registration is the ultimate in political folly," claims Peter Linton, Libertarianz spokesman for Firearm Deregulation.

Gary Mauser, Professor of the Institute for Canadian Urban Studies at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, has published papers on Criminology & Political Science and on firearms & crime.

"It is not often that New Zealanders in the Justice & Police departments get to hear a speaker with such valid credentials. They should listen carefully to his advice," says Linton.

Mauser has studied the fiasco of the clumsy attempt to register firearms in Canada, the evidence showing it is a financial calamity threatening to engulf the current Canadian Government:

Costs have escalated from a projected $2 Million to a current $2 Billion, and no evidence can be found to show that the Gun Registry has accomplished anything of value.

Violent crime & suicide rates remain constant in Canada, even though they are falling in the US. The homicide rate is falling faster in the US than in Canada.

"The only thing Gun Registration has achieved in Canada is to squander valuable Police resources and $2 Billion of taxpayers hard-earned money," claims Linton.. yes2wind.co.nz - Greenpeace Linton further states that the results of the Canadian experience with gun control mirror those of our western neighbour, Australia, where violent crime has increased 45% since the Australian government imposed "draconian gun laws by decree."

New Zealand Police should be applauded for the decision they made in 1982 to abandon Gun Registration which was a blight on their resources, and had a 40% error rate.

Linton concludes that "gun control is not crime control. In fact, it is the reverse."

ENDS

 

[Phil Lee]

From New Zealand:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3138863a11,00.html
Gun registration off the agenda - Hawkins
24 December 2004
The Government has finally abandoned the idea of registering firearms.

Police Minister George Hawkins confirmed today that registration will not be in a bill he is preparing to tighten border control of illicit arms trading.

The legislation will bring New Zealand into line with international protocols on the control of weapons, parts and ammunition.

The registration of all the guns in the country was recommended seven years ago in a government-commissioned review of gun laws carried out by Sir Thomas Thorpe.

Neither the previous nor the present government acted on the recommendation, and Mr Hawkins said today it was off the agenda.

"Police told the Government it wouldn't make very much difference, and they recommended that we did not register every firearm," he said on National Radio.
"Police advice was that most of the times guns are used illegally, they are illegal guns and they don't know about them anyway."

The chairman of the Council of licensed Firearms Owners, John Howat, agreed with the decision.

"There's no evidence, anywhere in the world, that registration systems assist police in generally controlling firearms," he said.

"It is incredibly costly. We don't want to go down that track, it's a waste of money."

The Progressive Party's justice spokesman, Matt Robson, has advocated registration in the past and he did not agree.

"Without a firearms registration authority, without the proper registration of every gun in New Zealand, we leave ourselves very vulnerable," he said.

Mr Hawkins will put his bill into Parliament early next year.

He said it would give increased powers to customs officials to search for and seize illicit weapons and ammunition.

It would allow New Zealand to sign the United Nations protocol on the control of trans-national organised crime.

"Illegal arms getting into the Pacific isn't something we want to see, and we're playing our part as a responsible member of the Pacific group of nations," he said.

"We're very conscious that we have a lot of ports, a lot of yachts come to them, and we have to be ever vigilant."

There are four different classes of firearms licence in New Zealand. The A category entitles holders to own and use rifles and shotguns. Other categories enable people to own and use handguns and military-style semi-automatic firearms under strict conditions.

 

[Phil Lee]

From the Australian report: No. 151
The Licensing and Registration Status of Firearms Used in Homicide
Jenny Mouzos
AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF CRIMINOLOGY
May 2000

This report finds that since 1997 licensed firearms owners were not responsible for over 90 per cent of firearm-related homicides. Most (over 90%) firearms used to commit homicides were not registered and their owners not licensed.

 

[Tony50ae]

Roswell Kid,

Your situation just goes to show you, gun control is not the answer. I really hope that one day your country will realize it's folly and turn it around.

 

[Phil Lee]

Testimony to British parliament on gun licencing and control

This testimony is clear and logical. I only present parts -- go to links for the rest.

Memorandum submitted by Mr Colin Greenwood

EFFECTIVENESS OF LICENSING SYSTEMS


8. In 1991, Professor Brandon Centrewall studied handgun availability and homicide in the jurisdictions on each side of the US/Canada border where demographic differences could be factored out. He found that, though restrictions were few in the US States and the number of legally held handguns exceeded those on the Canadian side by a factor of 10, rates of homicide were virtually identical ((1991) American Journal of Epidemiology V134 pp 1245-65).


USE OF LICENSED FIREARMS

23. A large number of studies show that those involved in armed robbery almost invariably have previous convictions that would bar them from being licensed to possess any firearm and would also amount to a prohibition on the possession of firearms or ammunition of any type. It follows that the firearms used in robbery are almost exclusively illegally held and that the system of controls has not prevented a growing number of criminals from acquiring pistols which no law abiding citizen may possess for legitimate purposes.


CONCLUSION

27. There is nothing in the statistics for England and Wales to suggest that either the stricter controls on handguns prior to 1997 or the ban imposed since have controlled access to such firearms by criminals. Nor is there anything to show that the apparently more lax controls on shotguns has caused criminals to favour them against the supposedly much more difficult to acquire pistol.

Mr. Greenwood was questioned:

Examination of Witness (Questions 1 - 19)

WEDNESDAY 17 JULY 2002

MR COLIN GREENWOOD

10. You used the word "logic", but in the Northern Ireland situation would you agree that it would be completely illogical to remove legally-held personal protection weapons from folk who were under threat, while those who were threatening them had availability of weapons?
(Mr Greenwood) This is really the point I was trying to make. I attended a conference in Australia about ten years ago, and there were all the leading anti-gun academics at the conference. I had prepared an address, which I actually tore up having listened to the first two speakers. I asked if someone could give me one example anywhere in the world at any point in time when introducing further legislative controls on firearms had reduced crime—and terrorism is crime. Nobody could do so. I have continued to research it since, and I can find no example. When Britain introduced controls on shotguns the use of shotguns in robbery increased. Each further step of legislation has not caused an increase in crime—it is an irrelevance. It is necessary to look at what can be achieved by legislation, because strange as it may seem, criminals do not obey the law! It is therefore necessary to examine what firearms control can do, and to accept that your ability to influence things is not absolute. You can make a law, but whether or not people comply with it is quite a different matter.

11. The Great Britain 1997 firearms control legislation did not follow fully from the Cullen report because the Cullen report suggested that for target shooting what should occur is that the small arms should be dismantled? I know that that would be rather difficult in Northern Ireland because there would have to be two categories, those for defence and those for target shooting. Might it be that if Cullen's recommendations had been followed in Great Britain, the problems you were referring to of illegally-held arms might have been able to contain them in the circumstances, and that some solution that involved the dismantling for the purpose of target shooting might be a possibility in Northern Ireland?
(Mr Greenwood) I think not. I have a very poor view of Cullen's report. It certainly lacks logic. The idea that I am a member of a club and a committee member or office-holder, and I leave one bit of the pistol in the club and take one bit home, and I want to go and shoot somebody and I cannot find a way of putting the whole thing back together again, does not seem to me to be logical at all. Cullen's proposal in that regard was, I think, just looking for another proposition. I do not think it was practical and it would not have worked; and I do not think it would work in Northern Ireland. I think in any event none of them will have any influence on crime. I have the Chief Constable's statement that legally-held firearms are not used in crime in Northern Ireland, and that includes the 11-12,000 personal protection weapons, which one assumes are kept and carried loaded. It knits in perfectly with a monumental study in the States, because there, 33 of the states have got what they call "mandatory concealed carry permits". If you are able to prove that you are a respectable person, with no connections with crime or drugs or drinking and so on, you are entitled to a permit to carry a gun. To everybody's amazement, in every state where it has been enacted, homicide has gone down significantly; rape has gone down significantly; and burglary has gone down significantly. On the burglary score, the interesting thing is that we have 43 per cent of what we call "hot" burglary where the householder is at home, and the United States has 9 per cent. Burglars do not break into houses in those states when the people are there. There is a benefit to the personal protection weapons, which is not apparent in the first instance, but can be seen in the victimisation studies. I think that disassembly of firearms is impractical, and one of those fudging-the-issue suggestions.

14. So legislation had a clear effect on the number of shotgun certificates.
(Mr Greenwood) Yes, but it did not have a clear effect on crime. The use of shotguns in crime doubled.

 

[JellyJar]

This is really great response from everyone. I just wish we could see some debate like this on one of the major network news magazines.

 

[The Lone Haranguer]

So, does anyone here know how often, if ever, gun registration helps the police solve crimes?

I don't think there is any way to gauge this. Very seldom/almost never would be my guess.

(I did see it work on an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation once. However, there is a grain of truth in this, as Clark County, NV, where Las Vegas is located, does have handgun registration. I doubt if they could pull it up in a few seconds on a computer, though.)