Tucson FFL Gun Dealer Arrested

[mikeb302000]

http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/072811_gesty_machine_guns/tucson-gun-dealer-indicted-machine-gun-charges/">The Tucson Sentinal reports

A federally licensed firearms dealer was indicted Wednesday on nine counts relating to making fully automatic weapons and straw purchases, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

The indictment mentioned another thing besides the making of machine guns and the allowing of straw purchases by "losing" the paperwork. Mr. Gesty also made a false statement on his FFL licence application that he does not use marijuana. It turns out he's an habitual user, at least according to the police.

Now, even though I fully support the legalization of marijuana, and strongly oppose the incarceration of pot users, I believe smoking dope should be a disqualifier to gun ownership and even more so to obtaining a Federal Firearms License.

I feel the same way about habitual alcohol use, even moderate daily drinking.

What's your opinion? Is it possible for people to enjoy mood-altering substances and still be responsible gun owners? Is anything wrong with requiring folks who claim to be responsible gun owners to maintain total abstinence from drugs including alcohol?

If we did that, do you think there's be fewer gun mishaps?

http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/">(cross posted at Mikeb302000)

Please leave a comment.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

1. Oh good grief.

[Blown330]

2. My opinion....

...is you are still blog flogging and I still have you on my auto-unrec list.

[RSillsbee]

3. Unrec due to blogsppppammmmm

Is anything wrong with requiring folks who claim to be responsible gun owners to maintain total abstinence from drugs including alcohol?

I don't drink at all and I think it's ridiculous. Some people have a glass of beer after work daily so what?

I would even go so far as to say a drink w/ dinner while armed wouldn't be out of line

[LAGC]

4. I'm glad your policies will never become law here in America.

Oh, and auto-Unrec for blogspam.

[petronius]

5. No, I don't think marijuana use should be a disqualifier from firearms ownership,

in part because I fully support the legalization of marijuana.

As I mentioned in another thread, I'd be willing to entertain a 'shooting while intoxicated' law, depending on how it was constructed.

[mikeb302000]

6. I think many places already have that

What I'd like to see is a complete abstinence law for gun owners. Often we hear how responsible they are, but as soon as you start talking about sobriety they balk. How many beer drinkers do you know that have one after work? How many have a half-a-glass of wine with dinner? The fact is most overdo it and that's dangerous.

Same goes for pot. Who could possibly want a gun owner to be stoned on pot?

[beevul]

7. You'd surely support the same thing - total abstainance...

You'd surely support the same thing - total abstainance - as a voting requirement, right?

[Hoyt]

9. Punching that hole ain't gonna kill someone directly -- drunk/high, or not.

The more I read gunners' posts, the surer I am that guns and public places aren't a good mix.

[beevul]

11. I'm sure several million...

I'm sure several million dead iraqis feel much better about that distinction without a difference.


You were saying...?

[Euromutt]

13. Hoyt *did* say "directly"

Not that it makes a whole lot of difference to the dead in question that voting for Bush didn't get them killed directly...

[Euromutt]

12. How about driver's licenses and ownership of motor vehicles?

After all, if voodoo pharmacology dictates that being inebriated or stoned might cause you to do stupid things with firearms, the same should apply to motor vehicles. So maybe we should prohibit everyone with a driver's license and/or owns a motor vehicle from consuming any intoxicating substance, ever, on pain of lifetime prohibition from possessing a driver's license or motor vehicle.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

17. Their are adequate restrictions already in place

The more anti posts I read the more concerned I get about so called progressives supporting classist and racist repressive laws.

[mikeb302000]

21. we're talking abou guns not voting. n/t

[petronius]

8. How about airline pilots? Nuke-plant controllers? Drill-rig operators?

Surgeons? Pyrotechnicians? Fork-lift drivers? People who drive cars? :shrug:

I'm perfectly happy with laws restricting inebriation while performing activities that could be unsafe if done in an impaired state, but there's no rational justification for laws requiring sobriety while not performing such an activity...

[Euromutt]

10. Bingo

I remember reading a personal website of some academic who argued against legalizing marijuana on some unstated premise that legalizing it meant that there would be no impediment to surgeons and air traffic controllers showing up for work stoned, blithely forgetting that that same fear should apply to alcohol.

But let's be honest, what Mike here really wants is to make the criteria for gun ownership so stringent that practically nobody will qualify for it. What would be an interesting test of his convictions is whether he's willing to apply it to agents of the state as well. After all, we've seen McCarthy, Feinstein, Schumer, Lautenberg et al. proclaim that there is no legitimate reason whatsoever to possess a particular type of firearm or firearm part of accessory or type of ammunition when arguing for some piece of legislation banning such items, even while the legislation contains an exemption for law enforcement. If, to cite the most obvious example, so-called "assault weapons" and "large-capacity magazines" are good for nothing other than "mowing down" large numbers of people in a short amount of time, what justification is there to let police have them? Unless (and this is a scary thought) you genuinely think law enforcement in America needs to be able to "mow down" large numbers of people in a short amount of time.

The actual answer is, of course, more mundane, namely that there are perfectly legitimate reasons to possess these items, and they apply to law enforcement agencies and private citizens alike. The prohibitionists in Congress know that perfectly well, which is why they aren't willing to take on the law enforcement lobby over it, and not only accept exemptions for law enforcement, but write them in before anyone even demands it.

Well, I say, let Mike stand up for his convictions, and insist upon such legislation without an exemption for law enforcement, even in the knowledge that this will almost certainly lead to the legislation getting nowhere, because getting cops to not drink... pffff, good luck. But that would be the litmus test of whether he honestly believes in what he advocates, or whether it's just a pretext.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

16. Yes he stands up for his convictions but...

They are inherently racist and classist in their impact. Repressive at best.

[mikeb302000]

22. everything I say about guns

applies to cops as well as civilian gun onwers. But I made a little alteration in the sobriety statute.

http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2011/07/tucson-ffl-gun-dealer-arrested.html?showComment=1312095825434#c8032898311321657501

What do you think about that Best Practices idea?

[SteveM]

23. "criteria for gun ownership so stringent" Yep. Jim Crow-style subterfuge.

[mikeb302000]

25. the amazing mind reader Euromutt as spoken

"what Mike here really wants is to make the criteria for gun ownership so stringent that practically nobody will qualify for it."

What I really want is exactly what I say. Extremely strick requirements and screening for gun ownership. I'd like to see the worst half of you guys, the ones by the way. responsible for most of the problems including gun flow into the criminal world, disarmed. That would be HALF. I can fully understand why you sqwalk so loudly about that because you're afraid it would apply to you.

[gejohnston]

27. you may not realize it, but

you are saying pretty close to that.

[ileus]

14. Let's make it a rule for all workers all drugs....that'll gather up gun owners also.

And make it easier for people like me to find great jobs anywhere...not to mention great deals on confiscated/turned in firearms.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

15. Unrec for blog spaming

[gejohnston]

18. By your logic, or lack of

What's your opinion? Is it possible for people to enjoy mood-altering substances and still be responsible gun owners? Is anything wrong with requiring folks who claim to be responsible gun owners to maintain total abstinence from drugs including alcohol?

If we did that, do you think there's be fewer gun mishaps?

Yes and no.
Yes to the first question. Let's expand your second question, since drunk and buzzed drivers can and do maim and kill several people at once, sometimes after multiple DUI convictions, and these deaths out number "gun deaths" in the US, it would be more appropriate to apply it to car owners.

[rrneck]

19. Oh look

Our obtuse expat has another installment of hyperbolic bigotry.

Really, if you feel compelled to proselytize these absurdities you might at least try to make sense. But that's not the point is it? The more outrageous the statement, the more effective the blogspam.

Unrec.

[oneshooter]

20. Un-Rec More blog crap from Italy. n/t

[S_B_Jackson]

24. My opinion is that this is yet more of your attempts to spam and direct traffic to your blog

[mikeb302000]

26. did you have an opinion on the issue?

http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2011/04/nras-new-spokesman.html">How about this guy, what do you think?

[AtheistCrusader]

28. Post it here. Forget your blog. I'm not paying you to read your drivel.