Quote:
Originally Posted by archer51
What happens when they find a legal gun in a house? Do you think they are going to take the owners word that it is legally owned? I doubt it....Oh wait, were talking MA here. If you have a gun it is already registered. So they already know who has guns, how many and what kind!
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You're only somewhat correct here, but have the right idea.
In MA you must have a license to possess firearms/ammo/OC, so IF THEY CHECK (and I doubt they would in this program), they'd know that someone there might legally possess firearms.
MA destroyed ALL old gun registration forms and only computerized the info as follows:
- From 1986 for Dealer transactions,
- From 1998 for private transactions.
So there are a ton of guns out there that MA does not know who owns them or where they are.
However, Boston is extremely stingy when it comes out to giving gun permits, so in the targeted neighborhoods, the likelihood of a licensed resident is only slightly above 0%.
For the sake of argument, knowing Mumbles Menino and his "mission" (to ban/rid all guns from Boston), if BPD stumbles on a legally owned gun, I'd say the odds are 90% that "it's gone" and will never be returned.
Problems with the program:
- I doubt that they will only search little Johnny-Gangbanger's bedroom. Likely they will search the entire apartment.
- The promise of no prosecution is it's own problem. Little Johnny-Gangbanger goes back out on the street and buys another gun! Better to prosecute little Johnny-Gangbanger and take the problem off the street.
- Taking the guns off the street this way is akin to wiping up a puddle under a dripping faucet . . . turn around for a few minutes and there is another puddle. The gangbangers know where to get more guns and removing one doesn't impede them from acquiring more. Taking them off the street would, however . . . but that isn't really Mumbles Menino's goal . . . he just wants to condemn and "imprison" the guns, not the gangbangers.
Better to re-constitute the program from back some 10 years ago where the BPD arrests and courts put away the little gangbangers for a number of years.