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[Montague]

Eh, well no, because I think it's clear that it would cost more money and generate more effort. If you don't understand the way it works now, I don't think you can quite understand why an alternative might be better.

So that is your reasoning, I clearly don't understand the current system, despite the fact that it has just been described, therefore there is no way it can be improved.
Conservative logic at it's worst. It has worked in the past, so don't ever change it to make it better!

Creating a licensing system would be more costly and be less reliable then the system in place.

Umm, no. Having nobody have to make a manual search and getting instant results is less costly and more reliable. Computers make less errors than people as far as data is involved.

You are sort of beating up a strawman here. The US system works because it works. There is no ideological rationale behind that statement. It works to a satisfactory degree, ok? There is no problem that your idea of licensing solves that the current system has not already adressed. Please explain how a licensing system would be superior. Every mention of the sort as been suggesting licensing would be an expensive failure, you have not provided any argument suggesting it would be superior to the current system.

Anyways, computers don't make errors, people do. If people don't update the records on the centralized system, that is the fault of the person, not the system. A licensing scheme is no less prone to this sort of human error then the current system.

[Max White]

Please explain how a licensing system would be superior. Every mention of the sort as been suggesting licensing would be an expensive failure, you have not provided any argument suggesting it would be superior to the current system.

Well it would be cheaper and faster for all involved, thus being nice to people looking to buy a gun, and a much better for business owners. It would also be easier on the tax payers who are paying for people to spend day after day making these background checks, and it would be better as far as privacy rights go because you would be assured to be eligible to buy a gun without anybody having to wade through your personal history.

Safer,less error prone, cheaper... Basically it would do the exact same thing that you have now, but better in every regard.

[Montague]

Please explain how a licensing system would be superior. Every mention of the sort as been suggesting licensing would be an expensive failure, you have not provided any argument suggesting it would be superior to the current system.

Well it would be cheaper and faster for all involved, thus being nice to people looking to buy a gun, and a much better for business owners. It would also be easier on the tax payers who are paying for people to spend day after day making these background checks, and it would be better as far as privacy rights go because you would be assured to be eligible to buy a gun without anybody having to wade through your personal history.

Safer,less error prone, cheaper... Basically it would do the exact same thing that you have now, but better in every regard.

Except it won't. It's really not that big of a deal. The office reponsible for consulting background checks, which are kept anyways, is maybe 3 or 4 people, depending on the state, for a state containing several million people. Florida has 18 million citizens within it. It has perhaps 6 people responsible for vetting the identity, investigating the background and approving the sale of every single legitimate firearms purchase in the state. For approving concealed carry permit licenses, there are about 3 people. There is a 6 month turn around for CCW permits in Florida, while approving a firearms purchase in Florida takes about 10-15 minutes.

Licensing generates a lot of paperwork and asspain for a government. Calling up a number, consulting a government official who has all the facts on the perspective buyer, and completes the decision in less then half an hour is actually more cost-effective.

That's basically it. It works.

[Max White]

So because other, unrelated licensing systems that weren't implemented in the same way I'm proposing have failed, you assume this one will also fail, regardless of its own merits, and choose to just ignore anything to the contrary.

Other licensing systems haven't been as successful because that havn't had the more integral part of the entire thing, a database of all issued licenses.

[Montague]

So because other, unrelated licensing systems that weren't implemented in the same way I'm proposing have failed, you assume this one will also fail, regardless of its own merits, and choose to just ignore anything to the contrary.

Other licensing systems haven't been as successful because that havn't had the more integral part of the entire thing, a database of all issued licenses.

There is no merit to a licensing scheme.

[Reelya]

Well, since Clinton passed the Brady Bill in 1994 handgun deaths have actually dropped a lot, they spiked up after Reagan passed the Firearm Owners Protection Act in 1986. The current level of handgun homicides is no higher than before 1986, so I'd argue the current scheme (post 1994) is actually working fairly effectively at preventing gun-related homicides.

[Max White]

There is no merit to a licensing scheme.

See, making absolute statements without looking at the inner workings of the proposed scheme. You have no idea what I am proposing because you just hear license and bury your head in the sand because your conservative views hate change, rather than trying to evaluate things on their own.

I'm not asking you to agree with me, I am asking for you to find something wrong with the proposed statement beyond blanket statements that you apply to anything you think you don't like.

[Montague]

There is no merit to a licensing scheme.

See, making absolute statements without looking at the inner workings of the proposed scheme. You have no idea what I am proposing because you just hear license and bury your head in the sand because your conservative views hate change, rather than trying to evaluate things on their own.

I'm not asking you to agree with me, I am asking for you to find something wrong with the proposed statement beyond blanket statements that you apply to anything you think you don't like.

Oh boy, yes I am boiling with so much conservative hate 

I've already pointed how why a licensing scheme would just be more expensive for the government and less effective then the current law. I really don't know how else to spell it out. You haven't explained how your idea would differ or would be superior then the system already in place. You are challenging 200+ years of judicial experience in gun laws in a nation absolutely satuated with guns, to suggest some scheme your own nation with a fraction of the population and gun ownership and a different country to boot.

The proof is your burden, dude.

[Max White]

No, you haven't pointed out how, you have just asserted that it would.
I have shown that it would require less effort as nobody would have to do a background check every time you want to buy a gun, but still provide the same or higher levels of public safety, there for it is faster and cheaper. You are trying to claim it would be slower and require more paperwork, but you won't say where and by who, because you can't.

I have shown my point, now show yours.

[Bauglir]

He has explained very clearly why a license system would be more efficient. It's the difference between using a debit card and calling a bank and asking them to mail you a check to pay for your groceries. Constructing the database would be expensive; maintaining it could be done by the six people you've got running Florida's offices, for the entire country. It'd take a few years to pay for itself, yes, but the BATF would love it forever and consumers would find getting a gun to be much more efficient. In fact, that's the biggest issue I can think of, because it could conceivably allow a sufficiently enraged person to buy and use a firearm before calming down, and that's a hell of a corner case. I haven't seen any objections from you, Montague, that made sense; replace instances of the word "gun" with "car" and you should, I think, see what's being got at.

[Max White]

Eh, I don't think there is any point trying to explain. Highly polarised opinions are never, ever a good idea.
That isn't to say strong opinions are always a bad idea, but highly polarised ones where you see no middle ground, or decide that the middle ground itself is intrinsically bad, is a very foolish point of view. Statements like 'Licencing systems are always a failure' are where logic has just lost any meaning.

[NinjaBoot]

The Canadian gun registry is a pointless piece of government overreach. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Firearms_Registry

"In 1995, the Department of Justice reported to Parliament that the system would cost $119 million to implement, and that the income generated from licensing fees would be $117 million. This gives a net cost of $2 million. At the time of the 2002 audit, the revised estimates from the Department of Justice were that the cost of the program would be more than $1 billion by 2004/05 and that the income from licence fees in the same period would be $140 million.[6]"

"The net annual operating cost of the program is reported to be $66.4 million for the 2010-2011 fiscal year.[1]"

So there you have it.  You think the USA will implement it better?  Maybe, since the technology is now better inplace to actually implement a registry much faster and easier.  It is going to cost money, yes, but the question is how much?  Well, since it is government, and government is always off on their cost projections (have they ever been on target?), it is going to cost more than what they state. 

"This was an effort to reduce crime by making every gun traceable."

Has it had a noticeable difference in crime?  Well, not really.  Hard to say since, well..

"The performance report focuses on activities such as issuing licences and registering firearms. The Centre does not show how these activities help minimize risks to public safety with evidence-based outcomes such as reduced deaths, injuries and threats from firearms."

Also,

"Former Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino is opposed to the gun registry, stating in a press release in 2003:

    We have an ongoing gun crisis including firearms-related homicides lately in Toronto, and a law registering firearms has neither deterred these crimes nor helped us solve any of them. None of the guns we know to have been used were registered, although we believe that more than half of them were smuggled into Canada from the United States. The firearms registry is long on philosophy and short on practical results considering the money could be more effectively used for security against terrorism as well as a host of other public safety initiatives."[11]"

[Max White]

Once again, you are mistaking a gun owners registry for a gun registry. What you are describing there is a list of guns and their owners, not a list of people who are registered to purchase a gun. You totally missed the distinction.

[Epithemius]

If it even saves a few lives, it's worth it in my eyes. Maybe instead of Canada buying new jets and corporate tax breaks, we could afford it.

[Max White]

Well I don't see it saving any lives on its own, although who knows. What I do see is it reducing human error is acquiring a gun, while streamlining the process, making it easier if you are legally allowed to have a gun, harder if you are not, and reducing the cost to tax payers.

Unless there is currently no licencing system in place, then yes, it would cause a reduction in gun crime, as evident by somebodies post earlier when it showed a trend in gun crimes before and after the introduction of a licence.