Friday, December 28, 2012

Learning about guns in the U.S.

How many registered guns in the U.S. ?

It was pretty easy. I just asked the question "How many registered guns in the U.S.?"

The answer in the above article I found was surprising on a whole bunch of levels. First, I found that Only pistols that are bought new are registered at all. And that most weapons are not registered because they are older than a year old and not newly bought.

So, the majority of firearms are not registered and never will be registered. As I thought about this it began to make perfect sense. Think of family heirlooms, for example, many many people have 6 guns and rifles out of the old west from their relatives, or they are collectors who search around for antique guns. There is no sense to register something like this because probably half might even kill the person who fired the weapon now because the weapon might not have been even cleaned for 50 or 100 years and so might be fatal to the user or the caliber of bullet is no longer made so it can't even be bought anymore.

So, the way the government deals with all this is to only register pistols that are newly made and bought that might be used as concealed weapons. This is important because what if someone is carrying a concealed gun and you get into an argument with them not knowing they are "Carrying".
This could be an unexpected fatal experience for you. So, registering newly bought firearms that could be hidden from you makes sense.

However, unless you are wearing a trenchcoat with a rope or wire over your shoulder like in "Terminator": The Movie, you wouldn't see someone carrying a sawed off shotgun or something like that in 99% of all armed situations.

So, the only things regulated by registering are new pistols that could be worn concealed unexpectedly who might create problems for law abiding citizens who wouldn't know that someone was carrying a loaded weapon.

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