Anyone here know the legal process to obtain a gun

Post Reply New Topic

Those are actually some good reasons for some people to *not* have guns. If you intend to just try to scare someone, go get a ball bat. If someone with a gun is planning to rob you or whatever, s/he will shoot *immediately* just as soon as your gun becomes visible and is possibly more proficient in accuracy.

I have a Wa State CPL and the application process is a bit different than you describe, perhaps you've got some old info. Basically you fill out some paperwork and produce ID, pay $60 and get fingerprinted, then wait 30 days while they do a background check; if they don't find a felony, an involuntary commitment, a DV conviction or a dishonorable discharge they have to give it to you. The permit lasts 5 years and is good for anywhere in the state, local municipalities are not allowed to restrict it though you can't carry into bars, post offices or federal buildings. I got mine from the Seattle Police when I lived there, otherwise it's usually the sheriff's office that handles the applications.

Also, the open carry thing is also state wide, local governments are NOT allowed to make up their own restrictions. If you do open carry, it is recommended that you carry a print out of the RCW since many people don't know that open carry is legal and will call the cops if they see you carrying.

"American children are more at risk from firearms than the children of any other industrialized nation. In one year, firearms killed no children in Japan, 19 in Great Britain, 57 in Germany, 109 in France, 153 in Canada, and 5,285 in the United States. (Centers for Disease Control)" http://www.neahin.org/programs/schoolsa ... istics.htm

Plus there are about 50,000 deliberate and 25,000 accidental firearm injuries per year in the USA.

And gun owners are far more likely to die by homicide, often shot with their own weapon because they have inadequate training and attackers are more prepared to use it.

I agree with the bat. Alot easier to pull it out from under your matress without shooting yourself in the gut.

A misleading statistic. In most other industrialized nations, guns are practically banned.

What could possibly be labelled "misleading" in that quotation, from the US Centers for Disease Control? American children (and adults) die and are injured because guns are widely available, whereas firearm death and injury are very much rarer in other industrialized countries.

Fewer children in the USA are injured in running of the bulls related accidents though. I assume that children who live in countries that are almost all desert are less likely to be injured in snow skying accidents too.

I can come up with more similes to illustrate the point if needed.

to buy a gun: go to a gun show, or a friend of a friend, give them money and presto, they give you a gun.
yes it's that simple and legal. what's known as a loophole in the law.

learn about the laws in your state.

do not carry a gun concealed without a license to do so unless you think going to prison will be 'fun'.

follow the gun laws particular to your state or...the prison thing.

there are over 200,000,000 privately owned guns in the usa. i know that sounds insane, but we are dealing with humans here. too late for gun laws. no way to keep guns from criminals or off the street.

target shooting is actually quite fun.

^^ Negative on the gun shows.

There is no "loophole", except perhaps in a few states. In my state, one needs to be a member of a firearms club in order to sell and buy guns at a gun show. And to become a member one needs to pass a (drumroll) background check. Basically the buyer becomes pre-approved by the feds so no need to pass a background check for each purchase. That's the benefit of gun shows.

As for the friend thing, that's illegal. Firearms must be transferred at a licensed FFL. (Or we are back to crooks buying guns from other crooks illegaly thing.)

You live in WA state too? If not, that's exactly how things are voluntarily run at our gun shows, no legal coercion was necessary.

Buying a gun from a friend is pretty weird from a legal perspective since someone can sell you a gun that they own no problem, they just can't go out and buy one from a licensed dealer for you. That's "private transfer", which is what anti gun people mean when they say "gun show loophole", just the right to sell your own property without getting the government involved.

How about the overall premise being patently untrue?

For one, the CDC is notoriously anti gun and would like nothing better than to define guns as a "public health" issue so that they would fall under their purview, but that's a whole other thread and a lot of documentation for me to dig out.

Swimming pools are actually more dangerous to children by several orders of magnitude, economist Steven Levitt has written rather extensively on the subject in his popular Freakonomics series of books and blogs. Gun ownership also does not positively track with violence, Finland, Switzerland, Canada and Israel are first world countries with high rates of gun ownership and little criminal violence while countries like Mexico and Columbia have virtually no legal civilian gun ownership but sky high violence. Poverty correlates with violence, social safety nets correlate negatively with it, guns alone do not correlate either way.

Try these sites for some reputable information on guns and RKBA politics and facts:

http://volokh.com/
http://www.davekopel.com/2dAmendment.htm
http://reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/

Last edited by Dox47 on 09 Sep 2010, 9:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah, let's blame the guns instead of the people possessing em. Irresponsibility isn't an isolated incident, it's a pattern of behaviour. If someone's irresponsible with guns, that person is also irresponsible with a bunch of other things in life. If irresponsibility is widespread enough to call for a gun ban, then we should ban cars and heavy machinery as well.

Gun bans are justified under the assumption that we're all fallible to being irresponsible. It's a pattern of behaviour, not a temptation we all have to constantly fight to resist.

Anyways, excuse the long post. I didn't wanna say something simple like "Guns don't kill people; people do". Because that's a pretty smart ass thing to say, and I don't intend on mocking you. Plus, that statement is pretty f*****g obvious and not everyone is gonna get the assumption behind it (such as all the stuff I said in the post).

Here is a link that shows what a background check form looks like:

http://www.ocshooters.com/Gen/Form-4473/ATF-Form-4473.htm

"Mentally defective" or "admitted to a mental institution" only applies if you were held longer than a 3 day evaluation period. Depending on what state you are in 3 day involuntary or in Illinois even voluntary (including rehab) may temporarily prohibit you from owning a gun or going shooting. If you have ever been the subject of guardianship or conservatorship, that would prohibit you too. I suggest you put on your best [non-AS] normal act and talk to the local gun store. If you are interested in a handgun, I would highly recommend a 1911 or a polymer semiauto from one of the major manufacturers. If you are left handed, go with a Springfield XD (they are also easy to clean). If you want a rifle, I suggest starting out with an SKS. They are simple, don't kick very hard, Soviet pesant conscript proof when it comes to cleaning and I believe they are legal in all states (except the Yugo made ones in CA). If you want a shotgun, go with a Remington 870 or Mossberg 500 or 535. I have a left handed Remington 870 and love it. My only criticism is that it's hard to re-assemble after cleaning.

For a comparison of statistics on various causes of death compared to firearm homicides (as opposed to suicides which the gun control groups lump in with homicides to double their statistics), check out

http://calnra.com/lifeclock

Just stare at it for a while and then let it run in a separate window and look at it again sometime later. The stark contrast in results even surprised me.

Yep, it's actually a bit more insidious even, suicides are closer to 60%+ of gun related deaths, and they (Brady Campaign, VPC, CDC etc) also lump police shootings and legal self defense shooting in with the homicides to further pump their stats. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised, they're selling a hollow ideology that collapses under even moderate scrutiny, so of course they need to juke the stats and invent scary sounding words like "assault weapon" or "cop killer bullets" (my personal favorite) in order to get people all emotional and blind to reason.

That's cool, but neither do bats ever hit heads.

As has been pointed out well here: "Choose your weapon" is *not* the issue.

Choose your friends well ... then be a defender in the presence of an offender.

Just please don't expect this to work in any kind of automatic action. I sometimes do this. I expect action A to lead to result B in some kind of automatic fashion, and am pissed off or think that it's an injustice if it doesn't. When, in fact, action A only sometimes lead to B, it's a probablistic thing, and us human beings are just too complex for anything to entirely predict.

Then it's feel and texture and immediate read of the situation.

Best case scenario: You're still awake and you hear someone start to noisily break in. You grab your shotgun, take cover behind a door jam, and watch as the person continues the process of breaking in. At the same time, you are listening, are there other sounds of possibly other people breaking in (probably not, but listen anyway). And look, can you see other persons immediately behind this person or even further out in the yard? In both cases, let's assume no, it's just this one person. And as this person begins to come in, you pump the shotgun and the person hauls ass out of there. You see the person run across the yard. You call 911, 'Someone tried to break into my home, they ran off. They ran off because I pumped my shotgun. I saw them run across the yard. No, I don't think the officer particularly needs to hurry, but I would like to file a report.' So, you file a police report, and that night you'd probably want to stay in a (safe) hotel or with a friend, you'll sleep better. And the next day, you're want to come back and well secure that window, and make sure that the doors have deadbolts with keys that only you have access to (I think apartments often have a second deadbolt that only the person inside turns, and I guess that's good enough). You'll want to walk around the perimeter of your home, just looking, are there any obvious openings? You might also want to hire a professional to supplement this, but you'll definitely want to also do this yourself. And this shows that it kind of all dovetails together and that a gun (however you make your decision regarding this) is just one part of your safety and security.