Yesterday’s confirmation hearing for Senator Jeff Sessions was something of a circus. Somewhere between the various outbursts from protesters and accusations of racism there was time for a handful of actual policy questions. Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, a made member of the Congressional Civilian Disarmament Caucus, pressed Sessions on his opinions on gun control, specifically asking about his opinion of background checks.
Session’s response: yep, I do. Mostly.
“I believe in background check laws and many of them are appropriate, but in every instance? There are some instances when it’s not practical,” Sessions said, like when a family member inherits a firearm.
As our own Bruce Krafft has pointed out the problem with “universal background checks” isn’t so much their existence as their implementation. The latest incarnation of a universal background check proposal, introduced by newly minted Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, would make felons out of firearms owning couples and those wanting to shoot with some friends on private property (among other things).
There are few who would object to performing a background check before they sell a firearm to another individual, but when the proposed legislation makes felons out of otherwise law-abiding Americans trying to enjoy their constitutionally protected rights, we start to have a problem.
I give Senator Sessions half credit for his studied response. He correctly identified an instance where “universal background checks” would be problematic and gave himself room to oppose them in the future. But he missed the bigger issues. What about those who live hours away from the closest gun dealer who want to sell their gun? Or friends loaning their guns to each other for hunting season?
There are endless scenarios where “universal background checks” would severely restrict the ability of citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights. But perhaps Sessions said what he felt he had to in order to deprive his opponents of any more ammunition against him. Let’s go with that for now.
Well, as the story goes, Sessions is a true believer in enforcing the laws as written, and it’s not the AG’s job to decide what laws are worth having.
I’d rather see equal enforcement of everything than see a racist like Holder sue states for verifying eligibility of voters, or sue states for enforcing federal immigration laws.
You don’t like Background Checks?
Then quit electing legislators who do.
That said, prior restraint on Constitutional Rights is always unconstitutional.
And it’s disgusting that Senator Sessions doesn’t understand that. But what did you expect, he’s a Republican.
Apparently Holder is like a bad virus that you just can’t seem to shake. The state of Kalifornia has hired him to “fight Trump and his new policies”.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/04/california-draws-a-very-big-gun-to-stand-up-to-trump-eric-holder/
If by “virus” you mean a STD then Yes Holder is an STD.
Not to mention the proposed CA Atty Gen is rabidly anti-gun, or that CA will soon require anyone who purchases ammo to go through a check.
Any alteration of enumerated rights belongs in the hands of the whole population, not a bunch of politicians. So said the Founders as a means of prohibiting the politicians from limiting or eliminating any right of the People. Therefore, they created the amendment process to include the whole of the people where their rights are concerned, AND as a means of slowing changes to the Constitution.
As was brought out during the Sessions confirmation hearing yesterday, even the legislators recognize that the three branches of government have gone far afield from their charters, taking powers which do not belong to them. That many of those powers belong to the states and/or the People.
But he says he believes in them. That’s different from “Just doing my job”.
I’m one who opposes mandating background checks for private sales.
Ditto.
I oppose them all of the time. The system is but a slice of life made up of only information that is shoddily submitted. There are many false positives and a handful of prosecutions of real violations.
Please tell me why the NICS system is worth th trouble and tax dollars.
But, predictably, you won’t get anywhere near the AG’s office.
I don’t support them at all. We’ve all seen by now more than enough evidence that they just don’t work. And no current model of background check respects the rights of the people enough to be acceptable.
“I’m one who opposes mandating background checks for private sales.”
Really? I’m one who opposes mandating background checks.
They have cost much and accomplished nothing. The suggested solution is to require more of them at even higher cost? WHY? The correct response to total failure at the intended purpose is to drop the requirement and save the money.
I had a BGC on Christmas eve. Got a proceed. I had a BGC tonight. Got a delay. The system is a joke and needs to be done away with. Three out of the last 6, every other time, has resulted in a delay. I don’t “need” that lower right now, but I might. This sh!t is ridiculous.
I’ve had an instant pass every single time (a couple dozen now) except the one time that it was near closing time, I was six hours from home (but still in-state), and I was leaving at oh-dark-thirty the next morning. I had to pass on that solid deal because the National “Instant” Check System wasn’t, and I couldn’t stick around to wait until it unstuck itself.
Sessions gave a single example in a confirmation hearing. He wasn’t there testify against Universal Background Checks, where having a list would be appropriate.
I recall a couple of years ago Senator Coburn from Oklahoma proposed a background check system that would allow citizens to access the NICS system for private sales. Needless to say, there was no interest from the gun control lobby. I suspect it’s because of the “not invented here” syndrome.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/04/27/do-it-yourself-background-checks/2088479/
They aren’t interested in it because it doesn’t create a paper trail that will allow them to more easily confiscate guns later.
Thats a BINGO!
What I want is public access to the INS N-400 citizenship applications. THERE is some fraud and abuse that needs to see daylight. I’d bet a detailed examination of applications, under the law, would find that 1/2 to be invalid and need to be deported.
A background check to buy and sell a gun privately is unconstitutional. It doesn’t matter if you live too many miles away from a gun shop or right next-door. What good is a protected right to bear arms if the government gets to give you the thumbs up or thumbs down? What good is a protected right to bear arms if you become a felon simply for not submitting to the government first? This is where a lot of gun owners fail.
“What good is a protected right to bear arms if the government gets to give you the thumbs up or thumbs down?”
Therein lies the problem. If the government gets to decide who can exercise a right and who can’t, then it’s not a right.
The British Bill of Rights of 1689 included a provision for the right to keep and bear arms, because the king had previously decided that Roman Catholics could have guns for their own defence, but not Protestants.
The Second Amendment was designed to prevent just that sort of inequity.
“If the government gets to decide who can exercise a right and who can’t, then it’s not a right.”
Take the implication a bit further. The government that is supposed to be defended against through the agency of citizens bearing arms decides which weapons you can use in that defense. The logic is that government has a compelling interest in protecting the public safety. Government has a compelling interest in seeing to it that “the wrong people” are not allowed to have guns, as a means of protecting the public safety. Government has a compelling interest in securing the safety of government from attack. Government is permitted to regulate the means of overthrowing the government.
Government is permitted to regulate the means of overthrowing the government.
Perhaps is a euro democracy but NOT in our Constitutional Republic. It’s takes it’s chances and lives with the outcome of it’s actions.
“Perhaps is a euro democracy but NOT in our Constitutional Republic.”
Afraid you might be just a bit late to the table. Government already regulates the means of overthrowing a tyrannical government. You are not permitted to have napalm, nuclear weapons, tanks, machine guns, RPGs, and a host of other weapons of way UNLESS YOU OBTAIN PERMISSION FROM THE GOVERNMENT (for some things). Essentially, government permits you to have small arms, but even those are regulated.
There will never be sufficient political power in the hands of gun owners to reverse the entirety of every court ruling, and every piece of regulatory legislation/ordinances that place restrictions on guns in the hands of the people.
“If the government gets to decide who can exercise a right and who can’t, then it’s not a right.”
It’s still a right it’s just one that’s denied.
” Government has a compelling interest in securing the safety of government from attack.”
Not from the citizens, it does not.
The very *point* of the 2A is that it to pointedly remind the government that it governs by the consent of the people.
With a strong 2A, the people will always have the ability to forcibly abolish the government if necessary and replace it with one more in line with the people’s wishes. Without a strong 2A, there is *zero* incentive for the government to respect the citizens…
Please re-read my comment. The point was to explain the logic of government controlling the means with which citizens are allowed to control a tyrannical government. As it sits, the government that might need reminding of who is the sovereign power is allowed (by law) to regulate the means with which the public may remind and discipline a tyrannical government. The argument is circular: government needs to ensure the public cannot overthrow the government so that the public safety is served by not permitting successful armed revolt. The people are best served by ensuring they are safe from violence and revolution. That is the logic for what exists today; government control of private firearms and weapons.
A background check to buy and sell a gun period is unconstitutional.
“A background check to buy and sell a gun period is unconstitutional.”
Sez who? The courts ruled otherwise. Now what? Time and again we rail about something being unconstitutional, but that changes nothing. The representatives of the people created the laws we don’t like. The courts affirmed them. Who now has authority to nullify Congress and the Courts? Who now has the means? Who now is refusing to comply with any law they decide is unconstitutional? Are you refusing to comply with all of the “unconstitutional” laws, or only the ones that are inconvenient in the moment?
Try this one on: a law is declared by someone to be unconstitutional. Enough someones get the House and Senate to pass a law declaring a prior law unconstitutional. If the first law was unconstitutional, what is the effect of passing a different law that says “null is null”?
I still have a hard time explaining why BGC’s should be abolished. I don’t agree with them, but my belief that they should be struck from the books has not quite solidified.
Simple question: what purpose do BGCs serve? (Be prepared to support your answer with readily available data.)
Question for all opposed to background checks, entirely: is it the check, or the failure to prosecute violators? If the checks were properly administered, and and illegal sales prosecuted, would the checks serve a useful purpose?
Please don’t go all “RTKBA”, that boat done left the dock.
NO the progtards were allowed to steal the boat and take it the Cuba. The adults need to hit them over the head with a very large club and take the damn boat back. NOT go to Havana in order to rearrange the deck chairs.
Implementing background checks didn’t reduce crime rates. They don’t reduce crime, they are just security theater.
“Implementing background checks didn’t reduce crime rates.”
Crime rate reduction is very complicated to analyze and assess. How can one know background checks did not/ do not reduce crime rates. There is no accepted data that shows the massive increase in gun sales directly effected the overall crime rate over the last 20 years.
Is there a minimum number of accurate gun purchase denials and prosecutions that would make the checks useful and acceptable?
Thank you for demonstrating that there is no evidence that BGCs – an inherent violation of the right to keep and bear arms – are in any way related to – much less, that they have furthered – a (legitimate) important (much less, compelling) government interest.
The burden of proof does not lie with the law-abiding people having their constitutionally protected rights infringed; the burden of proof lies with the state, who have implemented policies that violate constitutionally protected rights.
I think what I “demonstrated” is that we don’t yet have sufficient information to determine if there is or is not a deterrent factor. Given that, should we simply decide there is none? Based on what evidence?
Still think we are demanding absolutes, when none are possible.
You’re still asking the question from the wrong direction. The default position is that law-abiding people have the freedom, unfettered by the state, to exercise their constitutionally protected rights.
Even allowing for a state needs-based strict (or even intermediate) scrutiny of a state policy that inherently infringes upon the ability of law-abiding people freely to exercise constitutionally protected rights, the burden of proof is on the state to demonstrate that they meet said scrutiny, not on law-abiding people to prove that the state fails to demonstrate said scrutiny.
Where no evidence exists, natural rights and the Rule of Law (i.e. the Constitution) side with the freedom of law-abiding people.
I recognize your position on constitutional rights. Fact is, none are absolute, infringements exist. Question should be whether the infringements are effective to the point of being equitable trade. To continually reach back to an academic (now) theory about whether infringements should exist doesn’t get us anywhere. Thus, if the background check represents an infringement (arguably, it does), do background checks provide society (the nation) a benefit worth the infringement? If not, why not? If the problem with the infringement is inartful execution, does such require overturning the infringement, or perfecting it such that there is a reasonable trade.
There are no effective absolutes in governance, politics, or personal interactions. Let’s move beyond that to working out how to best organize the society to function more smoothly. The mindset that just because something is flawed it must be discarded in not grounded in current reality. We may be able to prevent more infringement via the political process, but we will never end them entirely, through the political process.
It is the former. The latter merely underscores the futility of the former.
BGCs are, by definition, an infringement upon the lawful acquisition of arms, and therefore, inherently in violation of the second amendment. BGCs impose a monetary fee (i.e. a poll tax) and a time delay (even more egregiously, with false-positive denials). They violate the right to privacy (the government has no business knowing what firearms a private citizen acquires). They violate the right of due process (by forcing the law-abiding citizen to demonstrate innocence, rather than forcing the government to prove guilt).
And when all of that is said and done: they don’t stop bad guys from acquiring firearms. 80%+ of bad guys got their firearms from non-LGS/FFL sources before BGCs, and 80%+ of bad guys still get their firearms from non-LGS/FFL sources with BGCs implemented. (Those sources? Theft, and private transfers.) And even then, the few bad guys who actually try to get past BGCs in order to acquire firearms from LGS/FLL sources aren’t prosecuted.
So, I do maintain that the plain meaning of the second amendment is clear, and not subject to needs-based scrutiny. However, even allowing for such a test, BGCs do not meet strict (compelling government interest, narrowly tailored to achieve that interest, least restrictive means) or even moderate (important government interest, substantially related to that interest) scrutiny.
BGCs fail on all three criteria.
1) General reduction of firearm-involved crime by bad guys is at best an important – but certainly not a compelling – government interest.
2) As mentioned already: bad guys already don’t get their firearms from sources that would undergo BGCs as part of the transfer, so BGCs are not substantially related to – much less, narrowly tailored to achieve – the interest of preventing bad guys from getting firearms.
3) Further, keeping known bad guys behind bars would be much more effective at achieving the interest of keeping bad guys from getting firearms – while also being much less restrictive to law-abiding people.
Understand your position.
Since we must live with “infringements” on our rights (barring a complete overthrow of government), would it not be good to improve the background system so as to better identify and stop “illegal” sales we can? Is it prudent to position ourselves such that we are declaring we would rather an unknown number of criminals purchase guns in gun stores, than have even a single gun owner reviewed for criminal background? Are we endorsing a proposition where the deterrent factor of checks is both unknown and unknowable, but not worth the effort? Would we only know when we see crime statistics detailing a noticeable rise in the number of felons who bought guns through legal outlets? Would that be more acceptable to gun owners and the public at large? Are we letting perfect be the enemy of better?
The deterrent factor is knowable. Data are available. There are FBI data and prison survey data from before and after the implementation of BGCs that demonstrate that BGCs had no meaningful impact on the behavior of criminals in their methods of acquiring firearms.
Felons can’t buy guns through legal outlets, because there is no legal outlet for a felon to buy a gun. That was true before BGCs, and it remains true now. Further, as mentioned above and elsewhere: criminals have not changed their firearm-acquisition behaviors. More than 80% acquire their firearms through theft and private transfers (all of which are not subject to BGCs, and all of which, the state has no way to compel the parties to perform a BGC as part of the transfer).
I think you’re asking the wrong questions. Are there fewer bad guys with guns now, than there were before BGCs? Are there fewer bad guys who want firearms who are able to acquire them now, than there were before BGCs?
Given that BGCs are utterly unrelated to bad guys acquiring firearms, under no circumstances would BGCs constitute “perfect”. However, there is certainly “better”: keep violent felons behind bars, where they are rendered unable to act violently against the law-abiding, with a firearm or otherwise.
“I think you’re asking the wrong questions. Are there fewer bad guys with guns now, than there were before BGCs? Are there fewer bad guys who want firearms who are able to acquire them now, than there were before BGCs?”
I like those questions. Polls, surveys and interviews are all suspect. People tell you what they want to tell you, not what is provably true. My dad was a prison minister at a large state facility. In short time he learned that a minuscule number of inmates are honest at any given time; everyone looking for an angle, looking for a chance to con someone else.
Sam I Am – how do you go from “there is no data” to “we can’t trust the data”? Seems like you are now backtracking to support your position. The questions have been asked and the data presented. An anecdotal reference to some experiences your father had doesn’t seem to stand up to decades of statistics.
I do not have a position. Trying to understand if there is objection to the mere existence of background checks, or objection because the process is badly managed. The checks exist. I do not believe the ruling party has the nerve to remove them entirely (at a national level; states are another matter). If the checks are not eliminated, would we be better satisfied if the checks were to be properly administered (and people prosecuted)?
Politics is the art of the possible. We can get run over, or we can try to influence the best of a bad situation. Holding our breath and turning blue because politicians do not understand background checks are an “infringement” will not get us any closer to repealing all gun restrictions.
The fact that I hold a FFL C&R license should be enough that I shouldn’t have to go through these checks, and just as anyone who has gone through the check process should not have to do it for every gun he decides to buy. He already has one gun, he can only fire one at a time, so why does he need to go through it over and over again? The real reason is that the government wants to tie down each individual firearm so they know where it is when they want to come get it.
If I(or anyone else) was able to have a few that they did not know about, then when they came for them, we might have one, or more, hidden away – and that would not be good.
Can you smell the sarcasm?
Sarcasm wasted. You present a good idea about once having a CCW. Thought about that. Seems something to consider as an improvement. There are some details that need exploring, something I have wondered about since looking into the rules for CCW here.
A background check is rather like a system check of an electrical matrix. If the test is successful, all one knows is the system was functioning THAT TIME. From there, we have agreed that we can trust the electrics until it fails (or until the next scheduled system test). Is this not the same with CCW permits (and gun purchases)? When the background check is successfully cleared, we know the buyer has done nothing to prohibit purchase AT THAT TIME. We know nothing about what the buyer did after the purchase. Thus, the next purchase (and the CCW renewal) is the “next system check”.
The idea that presenting a current CCW permit removes the need for a background check is appealing. Would POTG accept that as making the checks more effecient? Is the idea something the gun lobby should uniformly endorse?
Sam, I am
The point I was making here is that my C&R license goes through a check every time I have to renew it. It is somewhat obvious that I have a couple of firearms, so what could a BC do if I want to purchase another(even a new type firearm, not a C&R)? If I become bad, like someone has put me on a list(that states I should not have a firearm), what is to stop the enforcement of that “order” and come and try to take my property from me?
The reason for the “background checks” is not to check out the potencial buyer, but to know where the firearm is. Maybe, in a few cases, the buyer is kept from a gun, but I am pretty sure he knew he shouldn’t have it. The fact that I hold a license issued by the BATF states I am an FFL 03 licensee should be enough to allow me to purchase any legal firearm in my state without all the BC bs.
It also should be enough that I can buy any C&R firearm in any state without a background check(that I have to pay for). The check becomes redundant quickly, not to mention expensive. If I order from out of state, the firearm has to go through an FFL in my state and I get to pay for the privilege(about $100 in most places) to the FFL for his paperwork, plus having to pay for the California check and even having to purchase a new lock(no, an old one is not good enough, that was for a different weapon). At least, I don’t have to go through the handgun safety certificate. But Ca wants me to have a certificate of eligability, thists plenty, but it allows me to buy more than one gun in 30 days, it allows me to get long guns C&R directly from out of state and to buy ammo through the mail from out of state. In state transfers still have to go through an FFL 01.
This is just crazy. I can’t buy an old gun at an estate sale or garage sale or even get one for free because someone wants it out of the house and with a responsable person. We have to go to an FFL, do the purchase with a lot of paperwork and then I have to wait 10 days – 7×24 hours, to pick the gun up. No matter that I may have to drive 200 miles all over again to pick it up.
I will say it again. It is about the authorities knowing the location of each gun, even when they did not even know about it before. It is not about a person’s background.
The potential for consolidating a federal register is the sticking point?
Is there a serious threat the government will ever have the manpower to do SWAT raids on 100 million gun owners? I read about how those raids are just around the corner everyday, but you can never find a cop when you need one.
Of course not. The only reason felons now apply for a NICS check is there is no downside, if refused they can still buy as many as they like on the street. If we finally began prosecuting people who are violating the law, they would simply not go to a legal dealer in the first place. And you missed even *mentioning* my actual objection to the current farce, and to expanding it to a more unconstitutional registration scheme at the same time; *IT COSTS MONEY*! It accomplishes nothing, if it costs 50 cents a year, that is too much. A useless, feel-good deception that somebody is “doing something”, the background check needs to simply disappear.
And Sam I Am, perhaps you have missed the “fact” that while firearm supplies in the US are expanding, ownership is contracting at such a rate that in just a few years, we can assume that all firearms are owned by just 3 or 4 people, making those SWAT raids much more practical, no?
If we lived in a vacuum, deleting background checks could be evaluated in an honest arena of cost and benefit. We live in the most politically charged time in over 100 years. Given the realities, background checks serve too convenient a purpose for politicians on both sides. So the question is not “To be, or not to be.”, but can the charade be made more useful in limiting sources of guns for bad guns? More useful in getting bad guys off the street? Can we use an effective background check and enforcement as a bargaining chip with gun grabbers?
Perhaps because the federal government has no Constitutional authority to regulate commerce conducted within a state. The purchase of a product in the same state in which it is used or consumed is beyond the written purview of the powers granted to the federal government under our Constitution. The Federal government has a habit of extorting the states to comply with such laws by threatening to withhold federal grants and funds. Which by definition is a crime.
“Perhaps because the federal government has no Constitutional authority to regulate commerce conducted within a state.”
Actually….the federal government does have that right. The entire Civil Rights law rests squarely in the commerce clause of the constitution. The Supreme Court ruled that because a segregated restaurant in Atlanta had items in use and for sale that were transported across state lines, the government could regulate behavior under the commerce clause. Since it is virtually impossible for any business or manufacturer to create everything to make a gun without something being transported via interstate commerce, the federal government can regulate those activities.
“An’ dat’s de name of dat tune.”
Yes the progtards have been allowed to “rewrite” the Constitution. In particular, the commerce clause and they have been allowed to discover all manner of things in the Constitution which their betters of 1787 specifically discussed and rejected.
Either stop trolling or reread our Constitution.
Re-read the constitution to what effect? Knowing what is written does not overturn reality, at least the reality most people recognize.
Please keep in mind that observations and explanations do not constitute trolling. Or are you proposing we act like the anti-gun crowd who cannot withstand any inconvenience?
It presumes us guilty until proven innocent, and provides a means for denial of a Constitutionally protected right without due process of law, in direct violation of the Constitution. Every time I buy a gun, I wonder if the NICS check will be denied because someone else with a similar name did something stupid. False denials happen more often than valid denials.
Imagine the bureaucratic nightmare you would need to endure to overcome such a problem.
Perhaps this is because you are trying to answer the wrong question. In fact, every background check is simply one more entry into the grand, but illegal, gun registration database. How do we know this? Every check requires you to provide the identifying attributes of the firearm. If it were truly and honestly “just” a background check, the firearm data would not be collected.
It is literally impossible to impose a universal background check scheme, where every gun in possession of a citizen must have been transferred only after a successful background check at that time, without also imposing a universal registration system.
Background checks and gun registration are one and the same.
While I largely agree, you must realize that such data collection is currently *illegal*, which means the government would have a difficult time using it for much of anything. UBC would, of necessity, REQUIRE creating a database addressing the current location of every gun on the planet if they can manage it, which would shortly involve (for “safety”) an inspection from time to time, without notice, normally in the middle of the night, and if the registered owner is not home at the time, the agents would be required to break down the door and dynamite the safe, and on and on. UBC is very close to the grabbers’ end game, that glorious moment when every gunowner is suddenly a felon.
“UBC is very close to the grabbers’ end game, that glorious moment when every gunowner is suddenly a felon.”
Californication is already there, and there is no national UBC. All a legislature has to do is declare certain things no longer legal; instant felon. UBC might just be a distraction, a shiny object to divert our attention.
There are endless scenarios where “universal background checks” would severely restrict the ability of citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
Nick, I have to make two corrections to your post based on this one sentence alone:
1. There are no such things as “Second Amendment Rights”. There are only natural, civil and the Second Amendment PROTECTED right to keep and bear arms.
2. Based on a clear reading of the Second Amendment ALL background checks, universal or otherwise, conducted by any government agency, are unconstitutional as they are clear violations of “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Jeff Sessions is a good ole boy establishment Republican from fudville Alabama… this should surprise no one.
The sole purpose for background checks is to assign blame after a crime is committed and hopefully deter stupid criminals from purchasing a firearm from a gun store.
Modularization of the AR platform allows anyone the ability to build a rifle or pistol without registering it.
Background checks serve no legitimate purpose, and advance no public good, whatsoever.
BGCs don’t affect the behavior of criminals in acquiring firearms, and BGCs don’t lead to convictions for attempting to purchase firearms unlawfully.
Everyone calm down. Sessions has to get confirmed, which means he can’t say anything too “radical” that the libs and the press will latch onto and put on a 24/7 news cycle. Nothing to see here.
Over the course of some years as I’ve become more familiar with the difference between malum se and malum prohibitum, I’ve become somewhat pragmatic regarding background checks, felon-in-possession laws, and such. Basically, it matters less that a felon or some legally proscribed person possesses a firearm in and of itself to me than what said person does with it. This isn’t a very difficult concept to grasp at all. While it’s somewhat disappointing to hear Mr. Sessions supports BGC’s, I agree that equal enforcement and treatment under the law would be a VAST improvement over the last two scuzzballs we’ve had in the AG’s office.
Tom
malum prohibitum laws should NEVER be applied to rights. And the only enumerated right which is restricted from the free exercise thereof is the 2nd. All law regarding the free exercise of the right to keep and bear arms, of all types, are unconstitutional and must be abolished.
“There are few who would object to performing a background check before they sell a firearm to another individual”
FEW? Like Chip states above, background checks serve no legitimate purpose. They are nothing but an infringement upon our rights and are unconstitutional. We seemed to get along just fine for over 200 years without them. In my humble opinion we shouldn’t be using background checks to “stop” criminals from buying guns. We should be asking if we trust this person with a gun before we let them back out on the streets with the rest of us. Because if the answer is NO, then keep them locked up, period. If a criminal wants a gun they will get one.
The Few. The Proud. The Last US Citizens Capable of Rational Thought Process.
I guess that’s us, Gman.
I an be more succinct:
Shut down the ATF. Shut down the NICS. Carry on.
Return the ATF to their original function – collecting excise taxes on alcohol, tobacco, and firearms manufacturers.
With all the technology in use today, why is there a need for ATF to collect taxes, of any kind?
Which brings us back to:
Shut down the ATF. Shut down the NICS. Carry on.
When you’re right, you’re right, even if you are a bit grey.
The only utility checks have is to make morons feel better with virtual hugs.
Not one background check ever has prevented a criminal act and there are no guarantees that anyone who passes a background check will not commit a crime post check.
Wasteful, pointless, redundant when paired with “permits” and “licenses” and potentially harmful when factoring in false positives.
That should be more enough to justify ending the practice.
You struck the nail squarely on the head. The operative term is “Feel”. The left wants to “Feel” good and safe and secure in their dementia. To them it has nothing to do with reality as long as they “Feel” good it must be good for all of us.
No fan of old Jeff. I suppose he’s better than Low-retta and the “cretin that shall not be named”…but not much. We have universal BGC in Illinoisistan-and it sucks big time. Good to see Ted Cruz excoriating dumbocrat azzholes.
Don’t be melodramatic or hyperventilate. Sessions is exponentially better that those twits and would likely be the most conservative since Ashcroft (who was something of a disappointment). Appointing any Senator as Attorney General not great.
Need a guy from Alabama make it Roy Moore. Cause libtards to have a stroke.
I hold a C&R license. The license should be good enough to give me a pass. The costs in Ca, buying a forearm from another state, unless it is in person, is prohibitive. Many of us collect weapons that are not actually scarce, but are older and fun to shoot. These are not weapons anyone is going to choose to shoot up a school, they are not modern enough.
I understand some people buy and sell illegally, but I don’t sell mine. Others might buy a case of mosins to get a few choice guns and then sell off the rest to recover some cost, but that is what collectors do in any type collecting. As long as I buy from a FFL (01 or 03), why should it matter?
In most states having the CC license does give you a “free pass” In Texas if you have it the process is like 5-10 min. Without a good 20-25 minutes cause they have to send your info off to the FBI. What state do you live in?
I live in California. Handguns have to be sent to an FFL, first, unless you personally go out of state, then they have to be DROSed within 7 days of bringing them into the state. Getting one from out of state can cost you $150 in fees and new lock, between the state and FFL.
Now, rifles have to go through a similar process if you order them from out of state.
The C&R does have its advantages, but I still have to register my firearms
Of all Trumps picks so far, Sessions is the only one I’m not happy with. I spent years in the panhandle / southern Alabama running a gunshop and he reminds me so much of those stuck up know it all holier than thou rednecks who still think that all Yankees are liberal scum, and that marijuana makes negros rape white women. I can’t tell you how many times one of them would walk into the shop and I’d greet them warmly only to have the first question to be ” where you from?” And after informing them from where I would inevitably be told ” that’s ok, we won’t hold it against you..” or some such nonsense. He’s a voluntarily ignorant elderly southerner who is completely full of crap. Watch him answer some questions, he sucks at lying. Why don’t we have an Attorney General who has actually had a badge and made some actual arrests in their career? There are plenty of LEOs who have a law degree.
As a southerner living in the north, I assure you I got the same kind of responses when I first settled in, but I tried to not let it bother me.
I do agree with you on Sessions take about the marijuana legalization. I think a whole lot of problems would be solved if politicians would finally figure out that Prohibition has never worked and never will.
“a whole lot of problems would be solved if politicians would finally figure out that Prohibition has never worked and never will.”
I’m with you. Prohibition of murder, theft, assault, fraud, slander, drunken driving has done nothing to prevent those actions. Someone will always act in ways defined as “crimes”. Why bother with the whole silly cost of administering any of these laws. Good people will act right most of the time without laws. Bad people will act wrong most of the time, regardless of laws.
cute.
So you draw no distinction between actions that are intrinsically crimes because of the harm they do to others, and actions that are crimes because they don’t fit the model of some statist’s vision of society. So I suppose you’re ok with gun bans as long as a government says they are legal.
Please re-read my comment….slowly.
But if it were a serious response, my position would be laws are laws. If law cannot prevent criminal activity, there is no need for the massive overhead that creates and enforces law. Law is law, regardless of the activity targeted. Criminal acts exist because society sets standards of behavior for which violation is punishment. One intent of law is to deter/prevent unlawful activity. You may think murder is criminal, I may think it expedient. You win because more people think like you, and thereby establish laws making murder illegal. Fact is, laws against murder are no more effective a deterrent/preventative, than laws against drug use, or prostitution, or whatever.
The law is actually only a system for negative rewards for violating the norms of the society (tribe). “If you do this (thing), you will be punished”. Should I care what the tribe thinks, I may “obey” the law. If I think the reward for violations is greater than the risk of punishment, I may commit the violation; regardless of the “severity” of the violation.
We like laws we like, and don’t like others. Law becomes ineffective when sufficient numbers of people decide the risk of punishment is lower than the reward of the prohibited activity. There is no moral imperative, only what people can impose on others.
Don’t get me wrong, I found for the most part the people were ok. It was just the snide old man pompous Foghorn Leghorn “…Now,look here Boy…” types REALLY pissed me off with everything they’re CONVINCED they know…when they’re so far behind the times its not funny. Sessions really strikes me as a Foghorn Leghorn.
I have to go with saying that if Background checks are not effective in some cases, they are not effective in any case. The logic of trying to parse “…shall not be infringed.” into greater and lesser violations of the Second Amendment’s protection is much like trying to excuse drawing a swastika with a vile anti Jewish slur on the front of a synagogue with a micro stamp and saying it’s not a hate crime because it cannot be seen with the naked eye.
your analogy makes no sense at all.
There cant be people on here dumb enough to feel that NO BACKROUND CHECKS for purchasing firearms should be implemented…..can there?
Im gonna tell you guys a little story…
A couple of years ago i was in a local Academy here in San Antonio were i live. Like i always do anytime i go into Academy my wife went to the clothes section and i of course went over to the guns to see if there was anything new out on the market. I also went to buy some ammo.
While I was in the store there was a group of 3 younger African Americans who lets just say, how can i put this nicely with being tagged a racist, were absolutely of questionable character and morals. There that doesnt sound too bad.
During the time they were looking at the guns, multiple times they were talking about peeling caps, talking about breaking into homes, cursing non stop, using the N word every third word, stunk of weed, all had their pants sagging to their asses.
One of the guys told the guy behind the counter he “wanted that mother fuckin gat right there”, which I remember was a Glock. So the Academy employee proceeded to get out the firearms form and ask the gentleman for his license. Which he provided.
Of course i hung around cause i had to see if this guy could legitimately buy a firearm. I thought in my head “no way” this guy could. Or to be honest based on the things i heard “should” be in possession of a firearm. They were all to be blunt thug ass POS who you knew were all punks.
After about 10 min the Academy employee told the gentleman that his form had been denied due to falsafying information on the form and them finding he was a felon.
The dude then begins to curse and act like a complete thug to the employee telling him “nah nigga you wrong mother fucka, that shit aint right. Give me my mutha fuckin gun nigga”.
At this point the manager is called and he goes into the same expletive laced rant on him. After about 5 minutes of this a police officer comes and asks him to leave. He refused. He gets slammed on his face right there in the store. I watch. While they are frisking him they find a little shitty, what looks like a Jennings or real cheap small 32 or 380, on his person. The incident goes on for several more minutes in front of the whole store and they finally get him out.
Turns out this dude had several priors. Had spent time in jail. And even was pending a trial for aggravated battery.
And he was trying to buy a gun, in a national chain store.
So dont give me your bullshit about not having any backround checks. Its horseshit. The very backround check that was performed at that Academy is what prevented this guy, who was a criminal, from buying a gun. If there is no check to disallow criminals from buying guns just like the other law abiding citizens you think they will still buy them from the black market. No. Why do that when you can just walk into a store and buy one like everyone else?
You guys who feel there should be no checks at all when buying firearms are exactly what the liberals use as fuel to show how irresponsible gun owners are and how we think. We all dont thou
Some of us are ok with having our backround checked because we are not criminals. And on the other end knowing that others will have the same thing done to them and it could prevent a criminal from buying one also. I for one would find it to be a slap in the face if ive lived my whole life clean and crime free and another person didnt and was allowed to have the same freedom to purchase and bear firearms as i had. Thats not very fair is it. And the only way to prevent it is by having some sort of backround check process when buying firearms.
Im sorry. IM as pro gun and conservative as they come. But in no way, shape or form, should not performing at least a basic backround check to prevent criminals from buying a gun from a gun store or shop EVER be done away with. In fact go ask almost anyone that owns or works in these gun stores. And they will tell you the same thing. That although the system might be flawed, there should always be a backround check. They can all tell you numorous stories of without it being there, a POS criminal would have walked out of the store with a gun.
Your entire story falls apart when the cops find a gun on him. Dude, HE ALREADY HAD A GUN!!! Do you not see the irony??? Background checks are nothing but security theater!
He was attempting to buy a gun, in a national store. And the backround check prevented him from doing this. The fact he also bought a gun illegally is a separate conversation all together.
Fact is simple. IN this case, the backround check worked and did was it was intended to do. If it wasnt not there….he would have walked out buying a gun just like you or me do.
Actually, no: the fact that he also bought a gun illegally is evidence that the mere existence of BGCs did absolutely nothing to further the government interest of ensuring that bad guys don’t get guns. The bad guy still had a gun..
And, you forgot the rest of the story, where he was released without being charged, although from your description he was a slam dunk for 10 years in a federal lockup, without possibility of parole, and had obtained another gun (if he hadn’t had his returned) before sunset. Absolutely useless theater. Until the gavel came down, and the prison door was locked for 10+ years, he was definitely NOT prevented from buying a gun, much less from stealing one.
Background checks do not make you 0.000001% safer, they are absolutely and totally useless.
EDIT!!! ‘scuse me, I forgot lying on 4473, make that 15 years, instead of 10.
“The fact he also bought a gun illegally is a separate conversation all together.”
No it’s not.
I saw something quite similar in Cabelas in Hammond,IN. Only it was 4 homies. Only they sold one a gun. Clean urine…Gay Poseur I see you’re still full of shite. He wanted better than a POS potmetal junker.
Fww/jwm (same guy), I see you are still posting with the same writing style of a race-obsessed, gay-obsessed 14 yo little boy.
Run away loser. You’ve posted how much of a coward you are. And I see you’re a little miss bitch to lots of others now…
@ Grey Poseur
@FWW
Yep. POTG as the Taliban. You don’t believe the way I do….Infidel ! Death to Infidels !
We are a fine example of knuckle-dragging, redneck, illiterate Neanderthals.
No wonder we can’t persuade another 25% of the population we can be trusted with guns.
So who asked you sam? Gay poseur took his very trollish nom de plume from me. Do you really think you’re convincing anyone of anything in this echo chamber? Ever read serge or Joe R.? I’m pretty mild in comparison…
Did you notice I addressed both of you?
Merely pointing out that these internal fist fights throw shade on all of us. Yes, I read pretty much every post and the majority of commentary. Disagreeing is one thing, but how do we convince the fence sitters, when we act like six year olds with guns?
It was a simple reminder that others are watching; not an attempt to join the dispute.
But you joined in anyway. Now I’m watching YOU.
“But you joined in anyway. Now I’m watching YOU.”
OK; sounds good.
They NEVER tell you the reason someone was denied, period. You get the disposition and the transaction number. LIES…ALL LIES!
“There cant be people on here dumb enough to feel that NO BACKROUND CHECKS for purchasing firearms should be implemented…..can there?”
Why yes, there can. I’m one of them. And I don’t think I’m dumb. If a criminal wants a gun no background check will stop them. As I posted earlier, if you don’t trust a criminal with a gun don’t let them out among the rest of us. Either you are a trusted citizen or you are not.
“The very back(g)round check that was performed at that Academy is what prevented this guy, who was a criminal, from buying a gun.”
No it didn’t. It stopped him from buying that gun, not a gun, since he already had one. And that’s the point.
The background check did not stop him from getting a gun, no do they stop anyone determined to do so.
The plural of anecdote is not data.
Cool story, though.
“The plural of anecdote is not data.”
Very nice. I will try to remember that one.
Think Obumas shadow is on the streets RIGHT NOW (unless room temp) AND has a Gluck?
Again, background checks are for law abiding citizens only. They are there to chill the right and convert the right to a privilege.
The question was a Trap. Confirmation hearings are not about changing hearts and minds. They are about keeping your head down and avoiding saying anything disqualifying.
There are endless scenarios where “universal background checks” would severely restrict the ability of citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
Exactly. And all this “universal background check” bullshit is just that – bullshit. In the end, they want LAW ABIDING AMERICAN’S disarmed. That’s it, plain and simple.
“Well, as the story goes, Sessions is a true believer in enforcing the laws as written, and it’s not the AG’s job to decide what laws are worth having.”
This.
We need to be smart about addressing the BC issue under the Trump administration. Session’s testimony evidences his need for an education.
His inheritance example is foolishness. That particular case isn’t where the problem is. When grandpa dies and his heir wants to take possession of the gun there wouldn’t be a problem serious enough to object to. The far worse scenarios occur when gun owners lend one-another guns. But, even these cases are not the primary point to argue.
The primary point we should be arguing is that BCs are intrinsically “security theater”. They don’t stop burglars from selling guns to criminals. They don’t stop straw-buyers from selling guns to criminals. They don’t stop straw-buyers who patronize FFLs for USED guns. The EXISTING BC system for FFLs doesn’t work for USED guns.
UBC can’t be made to work. First, something like a National Registry would be necessary to track-down the last FFL who officiated in the last sale of a used gun (whether from inventory on on a private transfer). No National Registry would ever be passed nor would it be obeyed.
Even if a National Registry were effectively implemented, traffickers would grind-off the serial numbers on the guns they sold to criminals. If possession of a gun with a defaced serial number were vigorously enforced then trafficked guns would be “laundered” by swapping out the registered receiver/frame with one counterfeited by an illegal manufacturer.
What we need to do is undermine the fantasy that the existing FFL BC works to “at least some extent” in “keeping guns out of the hands” of “those that shouldn’t have them”. Once the public understands that the existing FFL BC is nothing more than security theater then their blind faith will be undermined. They will no longer accept claims by their politicians that the existing law is worth the taxes that are spent on it.
Once the voters understand that neither the existing FFL BC system, nor the miracle of UBC, could ever be made to work, then popular support for UBC will begin to drain away.
We need to be careful. We shouldn’t advocate abolishing the FFL BC; merely point out that it doesn’t work. We should only point out that neither the FFL BC nor UBC could ever be made to work. The whole thing is a fool’s errand. Our rhetoric should be that the taxpayers may choose to pay for NICS as long as they enjoy the security theater. We are merely here to tell them that what they see on the silver screen is an illusion. Our ostensible goal is to spare them the futile expense of UBC which would cause us far more trouble than the FFL BC.
IF we succeed in this undertaking, the time will come when the voters are ready for a critical discussion of the FFL BC. We need to lay the groundwork first.
All good ideas, but….
How exactly is Sessions supposed to act? Like Holder? Like Lynch? Do we expect Sessions to pick and choose which laws to enforce? Do we expect that “educating” Sessions will convince House and Senate to enact the laws we want?
The only answer Sessions should give is, “Given sufficient resources, I will enforce the laws as written. My opinions and feelings are not law. Law is for legislators to make, not the Attorney General.”
I’m not complaining about Session’s testimony. I’m prepared to assume that he is an intelligent guy who has a more nuanced understanding than he lets on. Or, at worst, that he is educable.
What I’m calling for here is that we, the PotG, get strategy-smart about exploiting the policy-making opportunity available to us under a Trump administration. We have 4 years – maybe 8 – during which we will be granted an audience. What would make the most strategic sense for us to do with this opportunity.
Often, the answer is to be found in identifying the “soft underbelly” of our opponent. Sessions identified “grandpa’s gun”. (I’m not complaining about Sessions’ tactics before the committee). Most of the commentary on TTAGs leans toward abolishing FFL NICS BC on the grounds that it’s an “infringement”. Is the FFL BC the soft underbelly? Or is there a better choice? It certainly isn’t grandpa’s gun.
We PotG need to wake-up to the fact that the voters who advocate for UBC couldn’t care less about Constitutional Rights. The 2A ranks below the 3A in their priorities. They don’t care whether waiting 13 minutes or 3 days at an FFL constitutes an “infringement” or not. If our search is for the soft underbelly, it will not be found in an appeal to a fundamentalist approach to constitutional interpretation.
How about: “It can’t work. It can’t be made to work. It’s security theater; nothing more. You are wasting money and attention which would better be directed elsewhere.” Do we PotG think that this line of reasoning with our fellow voters might work?
Have read recently about a couple of cases where courts held that certain laws were moot because they could not be enforced. One case dealt with an enforcement delegated to an agency that did not exist. Another dealt with an instance where the public was guilty of a crime if they either complied, or failed to comply. Maybe unenforceability, is the soft underbelly. On second thought, most all the gun restrictions can be enforced.
One thing that puzzles me (actually not, because I worked for a non-profit, once), is the lack of coordination or combination of the many “gun rights” organizations. The pro-gun movement seems to be fractured, and lacks a formidable, unrelenting, irresistible force. The fractured attack on anti-gun laws is entirely reactive. The anti-gun crowd (indeed, all leftists), attempt to attack all along the line, all the time. The pro-gun forces seem to use an icepick approach, responding to this infraction, or that, each with a different working agenda designed to keep the organization alive, more than being effective representatives. Which all leads to only those who are hyper-sensitive to “gun rights” flying in all directions, simultaneously. Sad truth is that the assumed 100 million gun owners are overwhelmingly passive or disinterested because their particular gun or hobby is not yet constrained.
I’m reminded by this discussion of a dealer I’ve know for a number of years, who, when I asked him how he dealt with the issue of dubious behavior/character shown by prospective gun purchasers simply said “if I don’t like their looks, or how they smell, or how they talk, I tell em, hit the road – no sale. I own this place and I will initiate a BGC – or not – on whomever I choose. Don’t like it? Fuck off.” Scumbags avoid his shop. No surprise there.
I will be fully against any background check and prohibited persons laws until the government decides to fund the process to get firearms rights back after being convicted of a felony.
Sorry, I just have a problem with the government removing intent from crimes (making them malum prohibium) and punishing them as felonies.
This comes as no surprise, Sessions has a long history of opposing natural rights and not understanding the constitution. He believes in civil asset forfeiture, gun laws, federal government demolishing states rights, and expanding the drug war. Sessions opposing liberty is as much breaking news as the sky being blue in hawaii today… NO $#!+
Maybe you’re right! AG can be fired. Let’s get the show on the road, quitcha bitchin until there is something to bitch about other than your imagination.
“There are few who would object to performing a background check before they sell a firearm to another individual, but when the proposed legislation makes felons out of otherwise law-abiding Americans trying to enjoy their constitutionally protected rights, we start to have a problem.”
Well, I, for one, would object. This is an infringement of one’s 2A right to bear arms. If one is out and about, a free person, there is no legal basis to do a background because they might do something illegal in the future. If someone is to criminal or nuts to own a firearm, then they are to criminal or nuts to be out on the street without one. Such a person should be incarcerated, rehabilitated, deported or terminated.
It is pointless anyway as criminals and crazies can get a gun if they want to with little effort and not get a check. You are only infringing on the honest sane people in the country with these laws. They are illegal in any form including any form of background check or restriction on silencers or automatics.
Get rid of ALL infringement!
Ever notice background checks don’t catch the mass shooters? Over the last few years the guns used in mass shootings were bought legally by people that pasted background chcks.
There’s a government study of the NICS background checks. In 2010 there were over 6,000,000 background checks. About 75,000 (1.2%) were denied. It gets worse. Over 90% of the denials were found to be mistakes or just not pursued. In the end the government got 13 guilty pleas.
In Washington State, 2014 saw the established shment of “universal” background checks. Two years later, police have brought charges in one (1) case. A slight problem. They can’t find the suspect and the gun has disappeared. Actuall it was a murder case and several people have been convicted. The suspect had nothing to do with the murder but police wabt a clean sweep.
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/grants/239272.pdf
So they’ve charged one? A step up from this article I read. In the first fourteen months fifty felons tried to but a gun in a private sale and stopped with a background check.
But none of the fifty were prosecuted.
http://www.king5.com/mb/news/local/investigations/background-check-law-blocks-50-gun-purchases/102563695
Only slaves ask the government permission to bear arms.
First, serial numbers can be gotten back with special acid and other techniques. If the serial number is ground down enough, usually the firearm is rendered dangerous for the operator.
Second point here is that although someone is a felon, he may just need protection from someone who wants to do him harm. The fact that the gentleman in question had a little gun in his possesion and wanted something better tells me that he was scared, not that he planned to do a robbery. While we should try to keep people that are likely to misuse firearms from doing so, a firearm used for protection should be his right.
Universal back ground checks are long overdue. Only a Moron would disagree. The bulk of illegal guns getting into the hands of juveniles, criminals and psychopaths come from legally purchased guns that have changed hands with no background checks. States with lack laws are funneling thousands of guns into States with strict background check laws. The mass carnage in Chicago is a prime example with deaths now equaling some Nations that are actually at war. Failure to stem this tide of legal guns into the wrong hands will result in permanent bans of most handguns if the universal background check does not become Federal law and soon. History in other countries has proven this.
How does the governmemt compel criminals to undergo a background check for a private transfer?
Only a moron would think that a felon selling stolen guns out of his trunk is going to run a BGC on the felon he’s selling to, merely because a law says that he must.
Ok ” Chips in the head” since you do not have enough grey matter upstairs I will make it simple enough so that even a two year old could understand it. Once the original owner of the gun dumps it he is under no obligation to make sure that the person he is selling it too is legally allowed to even own it. Now if that is not insane I do not know what would be. We are talking deadly weapons here. Once the next guy gets the gun many, many of them are then sold to criminals, juvenile’s and psycho’s or the guns go across State lines to big cities like Chicago with high crime rates. By passing a law that tracks the gun through every person that buys it by going through a back ground check it would keep tens of thousands of once legal guns out of the hands of people who are not legally allowed to own them.
When tracking guns used in crimes over and over again they are traced originally to have been legal, not stolen, but after passing from the original owner who went through a back ground check the gun then gets into the wrong hands. Yes there always will be stolen guns but to lie to people saying the bulk of guns used in crimes are stolen has proven not to be true at all. And before you Morons start screaming this is not true I suggest you use a secret device unknown to most people, its called a TV Set or Computer and the next time some sensational crime is committed they always trace the gun and guess what most of the time the gun was originally legally purchased. And this brings us to the next law that should be passed and that most other civilized nations already have had for years and that is that guns must be locked up in safes and in some nations you even have to have burglar alarms as well.
Now all you Hillbillies cannot argue that a criminal would pass a back ground check and if he invaded a home a strong safe and a burglar alarm that would get the police there in short order would cut down dramatically on the ability of criminals to get guns to commit crimes. In other Nations that have done this its worked just as intended. I have been to foreign countries that have such laws and getting an illegal gun is light years more difficult than here in the U.S. were you can get a gun within minutes out on the street even in states with tough gun laws because there is no Federal law that would make all states track gun purchases.
Now to argue that since the laws are not perfect that we should do nothing is about as stupid as saying since a person occasionally gets away with murder we should have no laws making it illegal to kill someone. No law is perfect but having no law at all is way beyond stupid, its just plain Hillbilly. We need universal background checks, mandatory safe locked up storage of guns and mandatory bugler systems as well. Other European Nations like Germany have shooting clubs and yes they own many types of guns but they have sane gun laws as well.
Failure to control mass carnage and too many guns in the hands of people who should not have them leads to outright bans on them altogether but the average Hill Jack knows nothing of history and believes that there should be no control over deadly weapons at all. Sorry this is the 21st Century not the 18th Century when all we had was 3 million people in this country as we now have 300 million and climbing every day and more people means more crime, more psycho’s and all the more need for tracking guns when sold and keeping them from being stolen when they are in the home.
You failed to answer the question. Try again.
Under restricted circumstance, what he proposes could reduce (by an unknowable amount) gun getting into wrong hands, subsequent to a personal sale. If the original, or intermediate, gun owner wants to remain lawful, that owner would transfer the gun through an FFL. If the next owner wanted to remain lawful, that owner would use an FFL, and so on. If a subsequent gun owner decided to not remain lawful, and would sell the gun to a known or unknown prohibited person, at least that lawful gun owner would be culpable. However….
The law would not prevent a lawful gun owner from selling to a prohibited person. Thus one “legal” gun would be in “illegal” hands. In this case, the law would not stop a criminal from obtaining a gun. The law would provide for punishment of the formerly “lawful” gun owner.
The basis for success (of any rate) seems predicated on the premise that there are relatively few instances of a “lawful” gun owner transferring guns to “unlawful” owners. And the “illegal” buyer would, in large number, be deterred from buying from and “lawful” gun owner, knowing that a background check would ensue. A secondary premise is that a prohibited person could not be overlooked in the background check system.
Bottom line seems to be it is better to improve the security of gun sales by greater than by a factor greater than zero (some errors will continue), rather than “leave the door wide open”.
Well, that’s what I make of it.
I’ll just cut to the chase with the underlying point of my question.
The purported purpose of background checks – commercial, private, or otherwise – is to keep firearms out of the hands of bad guys, in order to ensure that bad guys cannot use said firearms to do bad things. That is the sole basis, the sole “government interest” rationalizing the alleged constitutionality of background checks.
So, for the sake of discussion, let’s set aside that there are means outside of commercial/private transfers to acquire firearms (and therefore, outside the statutory purview of background checks), and only focus on commercial/private transfers of firearms.
The mere existence of background check laws does not prevent bad guys from acquiring firearms. The mere existence of background check laws does not compel anyone to conduct (or to undergo) a background check in order to transfer a firearm. Most importantly: the mere existence of background check laws does not prevent bad guys from doing bad things with firearms – even firearms acquired through transfers that could be legally subjected to background checks.
The only way that the government can enforce background check laws as-related to the commission of a crime is after such a crime has been committed, and after the firearm used in commission of that crime has already been identified. All the state can do with background check laws is trace the (partial) source of a firearm.
So, even if a firearm gets traced back to a lawful owner: a) there is no evidence how that firearm got from the lawful owner to the bad guy, and b) the bad things purported to be prevented by background check laws have already taken place.
And at that point, the actual bad guy who did the actual bad thing, and the firearm used, have already been identified, and both likely already seized. The solution at that point is to put the actual bad guy behind bars for good, so he can’t do more bad things.
Going after the lawful, original owner of the tool used by the actual bad guy accomplishes absolutely nothing at that point.
I think you chronically reject the reality that there is some sort of deterrent effect in play, whatever the law being discussed. Problem is, we cannot know the magnitude of that deterrence. So, we would be left with, “If even one….”
In my response, I was attempting to explain the thinking behind the idea that if a lawful gun owner wanted to remain “lawful”, the background check might prevent an original owner from selling to a stranger about whom the gun owner knows nothing….for fear the purchaser might be a prohibited person (thus the legal gun owner could be later charged with a crime). First deterrent. That particular gun is most likely to not get into the hands of a prohibited person. The person buying the gun legally now faces the same potential deterrent, should owner number two decide to sell. Owner number two is not deterred from later committing murder, robbery, or assault with the legally purchased gun. Deterrent number 2 is the same as the deterrent for the original owner. There is no background deterrent to legal owner number two committing a crime with the gun.
I did not read the original response as making any claim that background checks would deter/prevent crimes committed by a gun owner who had successfully passed a BC in the purchase of a gun. Will checks prevent lawful owners from selling to “unlawful” owners? Yes; insofar st the check has sufficient information to accurately identify a prohibited person. Will the checks be 100% accurate? Will the checks prevent all sales to prohibited persons? No, period. But the checks will not fail 100% of the time, either. To propose that if checks are not 100% deterrent, no check should be attempted seems unreasonable. To propose that the background checks, even if 100% accurate, background checks are intrusive, inconvenient, or unconstitutional is legitimate. However, checks are here, they are here to stay, we should have an interest in making them more accurate, less intrusive, less inconvenient…until the checks are overturned in law. Background checks are not constitutional clauses or amendments; they stem from regulatory interpretation, federal regulation, federal law. None of which requires the effort of a constitutional amendment to overturn.
Don’t like background checks? You can ignore and evade them, endure them, perfect them, or work for new legislation to abolish them. Just saying ‘No’ over and again does nothing to prevent the process from getting even worse.
And you chronically ignore that that’s not how natural rights work: especially said rights that enjoy explicit constitutional protection against government infringement. You won’t even acknowledge that the burden of proof lies with the state to prove the efficacy of a given infringement in achieving a demonstrably important government interest, not on the people who would have their rights infringed by the state.
You keep saying that “we don’t have evidence” (even though I’ve referenced evidence – that you then merely claimed was not reliable), as if that were somehow justification for the state’s continued, unconstitutional infringement of our rights. If, after almost a quarter-decade of background checks, the state cannot definitively demonstrate their efficacy in preventing bad guys from doing bad things with firearms, then the policy should be discontinued, on the basis that it fails even intermediate scrutiny (much less, the strict scrutiny that all other constitutionally protected rights enjoy).
I know exactly how natural law works. It is always constrained by man, else natural law is merely the law of the jungle. Let us suppose there are no governments, no law. How do you enforce violations of your natural rights?
So, the “natural law” rubric is merely a dodge. Nature has only the most rude, crude and brutal means for enforcing “natural rights”. Once the people agree to submit to the law of others (societal norms), “natural rights” are abridged.
Government already proved the efficacy of any law passed, because the people elected representatives to make law. When the people no longer want those representatives to make law, the people can create a new set of lawmakers. So, when the representatives of the people (the majority voting) decide that doing nothing to stop one behavior or another is fruitless, the people can instruct (through votes, or acquiescence) their representatives to “do something”. That is all the efficacy needed.
It seems you are of the position that simply complaining will alter the condition. Your objection is quite well understood, but it contributes nothing to the reality. We have laws that constrain all our “natural rights”; it is fact. As I said, ignore reality, accept reality, or try to improve on it. While I can agree, in theory, with you, that train ain’t coming to the station.
What you are describing is democracy. We are not a democracy; we are a federal, constitutional republic. The will of the people is constrained by the Rule of Law, as codified in the constitution.
Did government rightly prove the efficacy (or moral justification) of slavery, merely because, at the time, slavery laws existed?
Which, of course, explains why prohibition of abortion (and the requirement of marriage being between one man and one woman) are still the law of the land.
Laws are not self-justifying. That a law was passed does not prove that the law is inherently right, moral, justified, or constitutional. Unjust laws can be repealed or altered by the legislature, or abolished by the courts.
I’m arguing for laws to be repealed. I’m unsure how you are interpreting that as merely “complaining”.
Precisely how are laws made in a republic? Majority of those (whoever they are) voting. Electing representatives is pure democracy. (so are ballot initiatives)
Elected representatives decide a matter need regulation. How is that regulation established? Democratic voting of the representatives. I.E. the majority of those voting, at whatever level. Once that regulation is signed into law, the efficacy is established.
Morality is also subject to democracy. Look at what was immoral in 1776, and what is immoral today. How did that happen?
In a constitutional republic, laws and ballot ballot measures are still subject to a test of constitutionality, and can be overturned through judicial review regarding constitutionality.
A democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. A constitutional republic is an armed sheep contesting the vote.
Yes. What is your disagreement? Courts? What is representative about courts? Courts may theoretically be a check on constitutionality, but when it comes to gun controls, courts routinely determine that controls are constitutional. Where’s the check? Should the courts offend the legislature, the matter can be corrected by legislation that places the matter outside the jurisdiction of judicial review; democracy, via representatives.
If you understand “courts”, they can rule that a successfully passed and implemented constitutional amendment is unconstitutional. If you think not, consider what the courts would do with a constitutional amend to abolish all but the Supreme Court.
Point being, representative government is implemented via majority of those voting; the democratic process. Even courts are subject to majority rule.
I’m kinda lost on one part of your comment; gun safes. What possible self-defense use is a gun in the home if it is locked in a safe (who gets to set the standard for the safe?)?
Because of many postings here, I walked, then rushed the distance from my door to every room in my house. The times are remarkably short. So, I imagined being in one room, and a gun in another (in a safe). Also imagined the loud noise and chaos of a home invasion. Then the drill was to run to the room with the gun, and deploy it. The time-to-gun (imaginary pistol) was surprising (gave myself 3 seconds to open the imagined safe). Haven’t bothered to time the response from a dead sleep.
Quote—————-Which, of course, explains why prohibition of abortion (and the requirement of marriage being between one man and one woman) are still the law of the land.——————
Chips in the head since you are
living in a cave somewhere. Here is a link to the Supreme Court Ruling legalizing same sex marriages. And I might also add women get abortions every day in the U.S. It will be interesting to see how you try and save face on this one.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/26/politics/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage-ruling/
[Insert Picard and Riker double facepalm image here]
It is as if your eyes see the words, your optic nerve sends the words to your brain, and then your brain utterly fails to process them correctly. I do appreciate the ironic humor your response provided, though.
That same-sex marriages take place in all 50 states (contrary to duly enacted state laws, and the failure of every single voter referendum on the issue), and that abortions take place in all 50 states (contrary to duly enacted state laws), proves my point that the legitimacy of laws is not inherent merely because those laws are in place, and that in a constitutional republic, all such laws are subject to a test of constitutionality.
Perhaps if you spent less time regurgitating your tiresome and boring ad hominem, and more time practicing reading comprehension, you would be able to understand what is being said, and thus be able to carry on an intelligent discussion.
Chip, I am puzzled here. Both abortion and same sex marriage have been ruled constitutional. Regardless of any specific issue, when the SC rules an activity protected by the constitution, how does lack of popular (or state) input make such laws illegitimate?.
To use a popular puck, suppose every state had established slavery as legal and appropriate? The constitution states that all rights of the states and citizens that are not specifically delegate to the federal government are retained by the people/states? The constitution did not specifically state that slavery was illegal, and abolition was enforceable by the federal government. Given universal slavery, which way should the courts rule in a dispute between citizens or states, over return of runaways? What would be the legitimacy of a ruling that no one could return a slave because slavery violated natural civil rights? Could the courts even reach such a determination?
If one depends on some “moral code” must underpin a law or court, the sticking point remains the same….”morality” is imposed on a society by majority vote. Whatever your moral code, others will reject it. What are their rights? Can they not gather enough votes to overturn your version of morality (which already happens)?
With both abortion and same-sex marriage, the “law of the land” is “law” only because the courts determined that laws stipulating the opposite were unconstitutional. At the time of both Roe and Obergefell, the democratically instituted “law of the land” was just the opposite: laws stipulated that abortion was prohibited, and that the state only recognized marriages between one man and one woman.
The “will of the people” did not matter. Duly, legitimately enacted state laws did not matter. The Rule of Law, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, overruled both.
The examples demonstrate the fallacy of your prior claim, that laws are constitutional, merely because they are enacted through democratic processes.
“The examples demonstrate the fallacy of your prior claim, that laws are constitutional, merely because they are enacted through democratic processes.”
Not actually. My position was that in a representative system, whatever the majority of votes determined was law, was law. I do not consider the courts to be part of a representative system. Nor do I consider courts have a legitimate function to overrule in a pure democracy. Indeed, in our own history, it was established that the conduct of the state was subject to judicial rule. Indeed, the representatives were to establish law, and the courts only interpret whether one side or the other was within the law. It was a non-representative usurpation by the Chief Justice of the US that established jurisdiction of all law in the nation, including determining what is and is not constitutional.
Thus, any appeal to courts to establish constitutionality lacks efficacy. I have no alternative to judicial review, but that is not the question. In a republic, it is the people, through representatives, who determine what is and is not law. Whichever element of that republic that can muster the most votes writes the laws. AND those laws are legitimate until another element can muster the votes to overturn the standing laws. Courts are not the moral arbiters of society. If the people are corrupt, so be it. If the people are “moral” so be it. Courts are not God.
The people, not the courts, determined that abortion was illegal. The people, not the courts, determined that same-sex marriage was not recognized by the state.
And yet, abortion and same-sex marriage are legal in all 50 states, despite the determination of the people to the contrary.
See above. You keep saying that, which is why I keep coming back to abortion and same-sex marriage. Both are currently the “law of the land”, and both were enacted explicitly in contradiction to the democratically expressed “will of the people”.
I agree, but that’s not really what is at issue here. I believe that the courts erred in their decisions both in Roe and in Obergefell (by inventing out of whole cloth “rights” not enumerated in the Constitution, and assuming federal authority where the Constitution specifies power reserved to the states and/or to the people), but even so, the courts had the authority to make a determination of constitutionality.
To bring this discussion back around to the topic at hand: the mere existence of laws requiring background checks is not evidence that such laws pass constitutional muster. (Having said that, I’m not saying that we should rely on the courts to overturn such laws. I believe that we should use the legislature to repeal background check laws, on the basis that they have proven to be utterly ineffective in accomplishing their intended purpose.)
Two items:
– Because we do have courts that invent law, and lawmakers too timid to discipline the courts, we do not have either a democracy or a republic. We have a system of “by guess and by golly”. The people propose, the courts rule. What form of government is that?
– We agree current background checks are neither effective, nor efficient in meeting the alleged goal. We disagree over whether the checks should be improved, along with increased enforcement, or the checks should be ended, with nothing in place. The bad execution of a good ideas does not mean the idea is stupid, or unworkable. I believe we the people can come up with a mechanism that will make checks “work”, but we cannot come up with a better situation by implementing nothing.
(It is interesting to contemplate our government without courts that have the power to invent law).
We agree with respect to the out-of-control, activist, legislating-from-the-bench judiciary. I’ve mostly avoided that angle, though, because it is mostly irrelevant to the matter at hand (the constitutionality and/or propriety of background checks). As for what form of government such a judiciary constitutes: I consider them to be black-robed tyrants, ruling by fiat.
Yes.
I will further assume that the desired goal (i.e. the “important government interest”) is keeping bad guys from doing bad things involving firearms. If you see the goal as something else, such that it changes my assessment, please say so.
Yes, that is our point of disagreement.
I assume, based on your prior comments, that you want to improve the background check system, to reduce false-denials and false-approvals, to ensure more information is in the system such to generate more legitimate denials, etc. – and that you want to see more prosecutions/convictions resulting both from those denials, from lying on Form 4473, and from straw purchases?
By contrast, I contend that such efforts still would not meaningfully alter the number of bad guys doing bad things involving firearms.
I agree, in principle.
The problem is that background checks are not substantially related to preventing bad guys from doing bad things involving firearms. Even a perfect background check system would have minimal impact on that goal. Bad guys simply aren’t acquiring their firearms through private transfers from good guys.
The supply of bad guy firearms comes, first and foremost, through theft. Background checks will not prevent, constrain, or regulate illegal “transfers” of firearms via theft. According to this summary of 2009 FBI UCR data:
So, from the very beginning (at least, assuming that the subset of crime guns recovered from arrested/charged criminals is representative of the population of crime guns as a whole), even perfectly effective background checks would only impact 16% of all potential “crime gun” transfers.
But wait. Looking at the same 2009 FBI UCR data (ibid), of the remaining 16%:
We’re now down to a whopping 6% of “crime gun” transfers that could potentially have been from legitimate transfers, potentially impacted by background checks.
So, let’s talk about those 6% of potential crime gun transfers. I would hazard a guess that the primary source of crime guns in that group involves bad guys who are not “prohibited persons” and therefore lawfully permitted to purchase firearms, who do so with the intent of transferring them unlawfully to known “prohibited person” bad guys (either via straw purchases, or knowingly unlawful private transfers). Background checks can not prevent either of those types of transfers.
Background check laws can’t even help hold such bad guys responsible unless a) the bad guy who uses the firearm to do bad things is caught, and b) the firearm used to do said bad things is recovered. In reality, only a tiny fraction of crime guns are actually recovered:
An improved/expanded background check system will not result in an improvement in the percentage of crime guns that get recovered during investigations. With no gun recovered, there is no way to track the gun through its chain of custody, even if that chain of custody is required as a result of background check laws.
The problem with background checks as a policy measure to advance the goal of bad guys not doing bad things with guns is that even a perfect background system/implementation cannot possibly advance the stated goal.
“The problem with background checks as a policy measure to advance the goal of bad guys not doing bad things with guns is that even a perfect background system/implementation cannot possibly advance the stated goal.”
What if the goal was/is simply to prevent the 2% (or whichever) of bad guys from obtaining guns from legal outlets (or private persons)? Criminals are uniformly not the smartest sample of the populace. And the amount of ignorance of what is going on outside the gang, or “the hood” is just jaw-dropping…even with YouTube available.
Some number of prohibited persons attempt to get guns from FFLs. Evidence is frequently reported here. Indeed, we see often stats on the number of legitimate denials not prosecuted. They number thousands per year. Would identifying and prosecuting all of those not be worthwhile? What would be the minimum number of failures that must be punished in order to make checks meaningful?
Sorry for brevity; I’m on mobile.
One: clearly, preventing bad guys from getting guns through legal sources doesn’t prevent bad guys from getting guns. So, such a goal is essentially moot.
Two: even if such a goal were feasible, it does not justify infringing upon the rights of millions of law-abiding people. Keeping firearms out of the hands of 6% (at best) of bad guys is not an important government interest – much less, a compelling government interest for which BGCs are the least-restrictive means to accomplish.
“If it saves just one…” is not an argument that passes constitutuonal muster for infringing upon rights.
“One: clearly, preventing bad guys from getting guns through legal sources doesn’t prevent bad guys from getting guns. So, such a goal is essentially moot.”
Premise is that the goal is to prevent however many bad guys from obtaining guns through legal outlets. What is the acceptable number of bad guys prevented through legal outlets?
“Two: even if such a goal were feasible, it does not justify infringing upon the rights of millions of law-abiding people…..Keeping firearms out of the hands of 6% (at best) of bad guys is not an important government interest…”
Apparently it does, and it is. Courts have not ruled the checks unconstitutional. Surely the checks have been challenged through the federal courts since Brady was instigated.
Quote———————That same-sex marriages take place in all 50 states (contrary to duly enacted state laws, and the failure of every single voter referendum on the issue), and that abortions take place in all 50 states (contrary to duly enacted state laws), proves my point that the legitimacy of laws is not inherent merely because those laws are in place, and that in a constitutional republic, all such laws are subject to a test of constitutionality.——————
Besides Sam’s well put reply to your ranting’s I would add you have lost touch with reality. Those State laws were ruled unconstitutional both in regards to abortion and same sex marriage. You can rant all you want but that is reality. Those former State laws were not written by some higher power just because you happen to agree with the former laws.
So now, you’re repeating my point, and acting like you’re refuting the very point I’m making.
Dude, you’re out of your depth. Give it up.
Quote————————-So now, you’re repeating my point, and acting like you’re refuting the very point you’re making.————–Quote.
NO you fail to comprehend your own twisted point and that is simply that the former laws against abortion and same sex marriage were ruled unconstitutional and you can rant all you want about them being violated according to State Law which according to your twisted view should trump the rulings of the Court. If we adhered to your twisted view of Government we would have no Federal Government but rather a divided country of independent states and the United States would cease to exist. Now what part of this do you no understand. I think it is you who are way out of your league and not because you are not an intelligent person rather because you are “not all there mentally” that is obvious.
You should spend more time reading what I’ve actually written, and less time making things up in your head.
The entire point that I was making was that both abortion and same-sex marriage are – duly, legitimately – de facto “law of the land”, despite never having been enacted as law in any of the states, and despite existing laws that stated exactly the opposite. The point was that such outcome is appropriate and expected in a federal, constitutional republic, because, unlike in a democracy, the will of the people is subject to the rule of law.
My comments had nothing at all to do with my personal agreement or disagreement with abortion or same-sex marriage, so I have no idea what you’re babbling about. When your ranting becomes so utterly incoherent and off-topic, it’s actually kind of sad.
Quote————–The entire point that I was making was that both abortion and same-sex marriage are – duly, legitimately – de facto “law of the land”, despite never having been enacted as law in any of the states, and despite existing laws that stated exactly the opposite.————–Quote—————-
Your point is totally pointless as I have already stated.
The court ruled they were both unconstitutional that is why we have a court system and a Federal Government too. Like it or not the Feds rule over the States even when the Constitution says otherwise. That’s is reality like it or not and the Courts back of the Feds almost every time including the provision that the States are supposed to make laws regulated weapons not the Feds. But the Feds ignore that law and the courts back up the Feds. When the courts do not back up the Feds the Feds use the “power of the purse” to force the States into line as many would go bankrupt without Federal tax money, something you hair brained Conservatives are constantly ranting and raving against i.e. the value of tax money to run the Nation.
Perhaps, to you. Perhaps because you butted your way into a discussion between Sam I Am and I, that you obviously don’t understand.
Quote—————–Perhaps, to you. Perhaps because you butted your way into a discussion between Sam I Am and I, that you obviously don’t understand.——————Quote
I understand I am dealing with a guy who is not playing with a full deck of cards that’s for sure. Again your point was totally pointless. Non sequitur
Ad hominem, ad hominem, ad hominem: the last refuge of those without a logical, coherent argument. You keep demonstrating your own ineptitude with every post. Keep it up.
Quote——So now, you’re repeating my point, and acting like you’re refuting the very point you’re making.—————Quote.
I think you fail to realize that the Courts ruling trumps State Law. If this were not so then we would not be a united nation but we would consist of individual warring states. Both the abortion laws and the same sex marriage laws were ruled unconstitutional. What part of this do you not understand. Your blather about States rights ignores the very foundation of democracy and constitutionality that this nation was founded on. In your twisted view the States would not be subject to the rulings of the courts in regards to the interpretation of the Constitution nor the laws passed by the Federal Government which often trump State law and are affirmed by the courts.
So now, you’re (still) repeating my point, and acting like you’re refuting the very point I’m making.
Go back. Read the words, more slowly. Maybe that will help. Otherwise, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re simply inferring from my comments exactly the opposite of what I’m saying. (Of course, that tends to happen, when your sole purpose for commenting is to throw ad hominem around.)
Quote——————-An improved/expanded background check system will not result in an improvement in the percentage of crime guns that get recovered during investigations. With no gun recovered, there is no way to track the gun through its chain of custody, even if that chain of custody is required as a result of background check laws.
The problem with background checks as a policy measure to advance the goal of bad guys not doing bad things with guns is that even a perfect background system/implementation cannot possibly advance the stated goal.—————-Quote————–
Once again you try to mislead everyone on background checks. Background checks prevent the wrong people from getting guns in the first place so your illogical rant about guns not recovered makes sense only to a lunatic ranting in a padded cell.
And of course you had no answer to my example of the student from Ohio that proved in that case background checks did prevent tragedy.
According to your twisted mind since the current background system is not perfect (because of people like you) that we should not extend or improve it but scrape it altogether because you in your paranoia believe the extension of the Brady Bill will result in your guns being confiscated and or that you do not like being inconvenienced by going through a licensed dealer that would perform a background check which hurts absolutely no one except the person that should be prohibited from owning a gun.
The Brady Bills history has already proven you wrong on that point which of course your twisted mind can never acknowledge. Nor are you willing to acknowledge the lives it has already saved and the many people that were prevented from buying guns that were new and untitled. This is all fact to any sane person. Now we have to extend the law to keep second hand guns out of the hands of people who should not have them.
In less time than people even realize the vast pool of unregistered guns being sold to anyone that wants one would dry up dramatically reducing the pool of unregistered guns for sale to people who should not have them. History has proven this without a doubt in other nations that have already implemented such laws. Even our own countries history dating to the 1920’s showed that once machine guns and silencers were registered and regulated the open gangland war fare with full auto weapons practically disappeared. Criminals simply switched over to guns that were not registered and regulated such as semi-auto weapons etc. You cannot lie your way out of this History as it is fact.
How do background checks prevent bad guys from stealing firearms? How do background checks prevent the bad guys selling firearms out of his trunk from selling to another bad guy? How do background checks prevent a bad guy from borrowing a gun from a friend or family member? How do background checks prevent a bad guy from getting a gun from a fellow gang member?
Background checks don’t stop bad guys from acquiring firearms. FULLSTOP
The plural of anecdote is not data.
Nice try, but I’ve never transferred a firearm to anyone.
And despite your specious claims, bad guys simply do not get any appreciable number of their firearms through otherwise-legitimate private transfers from “people like me”. They get the vast majority of their firearms through theft, and then from private transfers from other (non-“prohibited person” bad guys, who disregard laws that make such transfers unlawful.
Please cite and quote where I’ve said any such thing.
Every firearm I’ve ever acquired has been purchased through an FFL. You pretty much suck at making assumptions about me. You really should stop trying.
I’ll type this a little more slowly, and maybe you’ll be able to understand: it has nothing to do with being “inconvenienced”, per se. Rather, it is that asking the government’s permission to purchase a firearm, is, by definition, an infringement upon the right to keep and bear arms. Being forced to pay a fee in order to purchase a firearm is equivalent to a poll tax and is, by definition, an infringement upon the right to keep and bear arms.
Now, for the sake of argument, I’ll accept that the Supreme Court has devised a standard by which to determine if a government infringement of a constitutionally protected right is constitutional.
All constitutionally enumerated rights (except the right to keep and bear arms) is subjected to a strict scrutiny test, by which the infringement must be justified by a compelling government interest, it must be narrowly tailored to achieve that interest, and it must represent the least restrictive means to achieve that interest. Background checks fail on all three counts.
For reasons never articulated by the courts, the most explicitly constitutionally protected right – the right to keep and bear arms – has instead been subjected to a lower-tier, intermediate scrutiny test, by which an infringement upon that right must be justified by furthering an important government interest, by means that are substantially related to that interest. Again, background checks fail. Even if keeping bad guys from doing bad things with firearms rises to the level of an important government interest, background checks are not substantially related to that interest. The data are conclusive, even if one fails to accept the simple logic that background checks don’t prevent anything, when people who disregard laws fail to conduct them prior to engaging in transfers of firearms.
Before the Brady Bill, 80% of bad guys acquired their firearms through theft and “street” transfers. After the Brady Bill, 80% of bad guys acquired their firearms through theft and “street” transfers.
Before the Brady Bill, 10-15% of bad guys acquired their firearms through FFLs/from gun stores. After the Brady Bill, 10-15% of bad guys acquired their firearms through FFLs/from gun stores.
(Ref: national prisoner surveys.)
The Brady Bill did not change the firearm-acquisition behavior of bad guys one iota.
Surely you can cite data to back up such a claim? No? I didn’t think so.
Specious assertions do not constitute “fact”.
You still can’t explain how expanding background checks to private transfers will keep bad guys from stealing guns, or from acquiring them in private transfers from other bad guys.
WAIT! Now, you don’t just want to extend background checks to private transfers, but you also want to register firearms? You realize that firearms registries are explicitly unlawful, don’t you?
The Jews in 1930s Germany would agree with you, but most of them never made it to the 1950s.
It couldn’t have had anything to do with catching the gangsters and putting them in prison (or in the ground). Nah, couldn’t be that…
“Fact”: you keep saying that. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Once again you dodge the saving of the students lives in Ohio precisely because of the Brady Bill. Now lets look at a survey that reported on how effective the Brady Bill really is. This really cuts through your rants about it not working or that it prevents no one from getting a gun that wants one. The report below proves that of the 2 million plus denials for gun purchases 1 million (get that) 1 million felons were denied purchases.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 28, 2014 Jennifer Fuson 202-370-8128 [email protected]
Washington, D.C. – The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence today released a report chronicling the impact of the Brady law and revealed that felons, domestic abusers, and fugitives are the top categories of prohibited purchasers who have been denied gun purchases since the law went into effect 20 years ago.
Since February 28, 1994, the Brady law has blocked more than 2.1 million gun purchases, according to data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. That is 343 purchases blocked every day. More than one million of those attempted purchases were by felons. Another 291,000 denials were to domestic abusers. And, 118,000 gun sales to fugitives were blocked thanks to background checks.
“It is clear Brady background checks work. Lives have been saved by the Brady law as we have seen the undeniable evidence showing gun homicides have decreased since the law took effect 20 years ago,” said Dan Gross, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “We need Congress to expand Brady background checks to make it harder for criminals and other dangerous people to get guns online, in classified advertisements or at gun shows.”
Joined by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Brady Campaign Chair Sarah Brady, Representative Mike Thompson (D-CA), Chair of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, Congressional leaders, and families of shooting victims, Gross released the report, 20 Years of Brady Background Checks: The Case for Finishing the Job to Keep America Safer, Friday at a Capitol Hill press conference.
“This report reflects the challenges we faced in passing the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act 20 years ago and the results prove our efforts were worth it,” said Sarah Brady. Her husband, Jim, was the inspiration for the Brady law after he was shot and severely injured during an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.
Among the report’s findings:
•Convicted felons, fugitives from justice, and domestic abusers made up nearly 70% of firearm purchase applications denied from 1994 to 2010, according to the most recent data available.
•On average, felons are blocked 171 times a day.
•On average, domestic abusers are blocked 48 times a day.
•On average, fugitives are blocked 19 times a day.
Currently, roughly 40 percent of gun purchases are not subject to a Brady background check. This includes guns sold online and at gun shows when sold through unlicensed sellers. Nine in ten Americans support expanding background checks to online and gun shows sales, but despite public support, Congress failed to pass meaningful legislation to expand background checks last year. However, states still acted; 21 states passed new gun laws to curb gun violence, including eight states that passed major gun reforms in 2013. Four of those states – Colorado, Connecticut, New York, and Delaware – passed new laws expanding background checks on all gun sales.
“For 20 years, Brady background checks have prevented violence, protected communities, and saved lives. But we must do more,” Leader Pelosi said. “It’s long past time to expand and strengthen the background checks with the bipartisan King-Thompson bill — and we’ve come together today with a clear, simple, and firm message: let’s finish the job to protect and defend the American people.”
“For 20 years, the Brady Act has helped prevent guns from falling into dangerous hands. Now it is time to finish the job by passing my bipartisan bill that makes sure people can’t bypass a background check by simply going online or to a gun show,” said Rep. Mike Thompson. “We know background checks work. They keep guns away from criminals, terrorists, domestic abusers and the dangerously mentally ill, and they respect people’s Second Amendment Rights. People on both sides of the aisle came together 20 years ago and passed the original Brady Act. In two decades it has saved countless lives. It’s time to come together again and finish the job.”
As you can see my Right Wing Fanatic that you are on the losing side. Even gun owners themselves support back ground checks on all gun sales. I myself belong to a gun club that has over 1,000 members, (are you paying attention Chips), and most support the universal background check completely. And since they and I all own numerous weapons you can hardly call us against the Second Amendment or against gun ownership as you keep persistently doing,
Prior laws i.e. the registry and control of machine guns and silencers also proved that controls do indeed keep guns out of the hands of people who should not own then.
Quote—————————–
WAIT! Now, you don’t just want to extend background checks to private transfers, but you also want to register firearms? You realize that firearms registries are explicitly unlawful, don’t you?————-Quote———–
Now about your ignorant rant that its against the law to register guns. Sorry my mentally challenged Nemesis but the 1968 gun control act has been registering new weapons for decades. How do you think they trace guns used in crimes back to their original owner. Really can you be that dumb? As I have told you before the Feds do what they want law or no law because they make the law up as they go along. The 1968 Gun Law was registration pure and simple you cannot call it by any other name period. The only thing left now is registration of all gun sales not just new ones and its long overdue.
Quote————————Before the Brady Bill, 80% of bad guys acquired their firearms through theft and “street” transfers. After the Brady Bill, 80% of bad guys acquired their firearms through theft and “street” transfers.—————————Quote
Well you really fell into your own excrement on that one. Isn’t that what I have been saying to you over and over again. You just agreed with me but were to dumb to realize what you were posting. The word is “street transfers”, are you turning green around the gills now, you should be, you just admitted you were wrong. This is precisely what the Universal Background Check is designed to do cut down on the vast sea of second hand weapons changing hands on the street because they flow by the tens of thousands right from legal gun owners to the underworld. When legal gun owners can no longer dump guns out on to the street which end up in “street transfers” the supply of tens of thousands of guns will dry up very quickly just as the machine guns and silencers did in the 1920’s after they were registered and regulated. Those are facts you cannot lie your way around.
Lets face facts any gun runner can buy all the second hand guns he wants and sell them right to the criminals, juveniles and nut case 365 days a year. Classified adds, private transfers, free wheeling internet sales via gun forums with no paper work and gun shows are a criminals “dealer heaven”. The only thing that limits him is the amount of cash in his pocket on any certain day of the year.
I’d just like to call out one thing:
On average, felons are blocked 171 times a day.
And yet somehow, fewer than that have been prosecuted for attempting to buy a gun in the last decade.
Quote—————–And yet somehow, fewer than that have been prosecuted for attempting to buy a gun in the last decade.—————–Quote
That does not refute the fact that they were stopped from buying a gun which indeed did save countless lives. The major reason for having the law in the first place.
Prosecution is another subject which should indeed be swift, thorough and draconian in the extreme to those that are felons or domestic abusers. Again any law can be improved and because it needs improving you do not throw the baby out with the bath water, rather you improve it both in regards to prosecution and expand it to cover all gun sales.
You still don’t have any clue what “fact” means. The only fact is that said individuals were preventing from acquiring a specific firearm at a specific moment in time.
It is not fact that said individuals failed to get any firearm at any moment in time. it is not fact that said individuals failed to do bad things – including taking lives – using firearms acquired subsequent to a BGC denial.
You keep claiming those things as fact, when they are anything but. And in fact, crime statistics would seem to refute that they are anything even close to being fact. Violent crime and murder rates were falling sharply in the ten years prior to the Brady Bill, and the rate of that decline dropped sharply after the Brady Bill. Violent crime and murder rates declined more slowly after the Brady Bill than they were declining for the decade before the Brady Bill.
(Source: FBI UCR data)
How many of those 1 million denials resulted in prosecutions for unlawfully attempting to purchase a firearm?
How many of those 1 million denials merely shifted the means of acquisition of a firearm to an illegitimate source? That is: how many of those 1 million people eventually acquired a firearm anyway?
Background checks will have zero impact on street transfers because the bad guys who engage in street transfers won’t conduct them. Background checks will have zero impact on thefts, because the bad guys who commit that theft won’t conduct them as part of their theft.
Please cite evidence supporting your claim that legal gun owners “dump guns out on to the street”.
Your entire argument is based on an utterly false premise. Legal gun owners (i.e. law-abiding citizens) aren’t dumping guns out on to the street. It is simply not happening.
You seem to be ignoring both the vast majority of firearms that end up on the street through theft, and the class of people who are not “prohibited persons” but who are still criminals, who would be the primary source of lawfully purchased firearms finding their way onto the street through private transfers.
You still have shown no evidence of understanding the definition of “fact”.
Let’s face facts: laws mandating background checks for private transfers will have no meaningful impact on any of those activities, because the people engaging in those activities are already criminals, who by definition don’t obey laws. Background check laws are powerless to compel them to obey the law.
quote—————-Let’s face facts: laws mandating background checks for private transfers will have no meaningful impact on any of those activities, because the people engaging in those activities are already criminals, who by definition don’t obey laws. Background check laws are powerless to compel them to obey the law.————–Quote
You can outright lie and dodge the truth all you want but the whole idea of the law is to stop criminals by not only preventing them from purchasing guns but dry up the supply of tens of thousands of legal guns going into their hands on a daily basis. Now no amount of lying on your part is going to fool anyone.
Quote————How many of those 1 million denials merely shifted the means of acquisition of a firearm to an illegitimate source? That is: how many of those 1 million people eventually acquired a firearm anyway?———-quote
That is precisely my point right from the beginning. With a Universal Back Ground Check the supply of legal guns out on the street for sale to anyone would dry up very quickly just as happened with the machine gun and silencer registration many decades ago. History has proved you wrong. Give up your making an absolute fool of yourself.
“Tens of thousands of legal guns” are not getting into the hands from law-abiding citizens. That’s the point that you simply refuse to acknowledge. Your specious assertions simply cannot be supported by evidence.
Guns get from law-abiding citizens to lawbreakers primarily through theft, not private transfers. The existing private transfers to bad guys already originate with lawbreakers.
You cannot explain how the government mandating background checks for private transfers would have any impact whatsoever on existing thefts, or on private transfers between criminals. You can’t explain, because they can’t have any impact. Criminals aren’t going to participate in background checks.
No, it wouldn’t. That supply originates from a) theft, and b) non-prohibited-person criminals passing existing BGCs to purchase firearms. Mandating background checks for private transfers would have zero impact.
Few law-abiding people were purchasing NFA firearms to begin with. Few criminals were committing crimes with them, before or after NFA. Arresting/killing the gangsters primarily responsible for NFA firearms used in crimes is the primary contributor to NFA firearms no longer being used in crimes.
What do you have against suppressors?
History supports me completely. And we haven’t even started talking about the impact of gun control in other countries, and what happens when the government takes firearms out of the hands of law-abiding people (see, e.g. England).
Cool story, bro.
Quote————-Guns get from law-abiding citizens to lawbreakers primarily through theft, not private transfers. The existing private transfers to bad guys already originate with lawbreakers.————–Quote
That is an outright lie and you know it. Try turning on your TV so you can understand your making an absolute fool of yourself. Again I tell you time after time when the News Media has reported that Law Enforcement traced the gun to be legal and then sold to another without any back ground check. There is not enough stolen guns out there to come anywhere near filling the demand for illegal guns in big cities. In short for that to happen gangs would have to invade neighborhoods and ship stolen guns by the tractor trailer load into the big cities. This is pure nonsense and you know it.
So if I concede the point that this is happening, again, how does a UBC fix it? This is someone selling a gun to someone without a bgc, but if we’re talking about bad actors obtaining guns, you don’t think the person selling it is in most cases aware that the person they’re selling it to can’t legally own or possess it? The seller does know that, and they don’t care. So how does telling them they have to get a bgc change that? They’re already ignoring the law that says this guy shouldn’t have the gun, what’s the difference if they ignore the law that says they should get a bgc?
See, the law-abiding gun owners I know and associate with, they do care who gets their gun, to a point. Many of them will not engage in a private sale (gunbroker, etc) without the buyer showing some sort of ID, preferably a concealed weapons permit. Most of them fill out some sort of bill of sale for the firearm, that they keep for their own records, as well. They don’t run it past the state, and they don’t file anything with the state, because it’s none of the state’s business. But they do show some level of concern.
So what does a UBC make any different in that? How do you prove you got a bgc done in order to possess the gun that you have? You have to have a paper trail. That means registration. Person X obtained Firearm Y from Person Z on such-and-such a date, and here’s a stamp to prove it. The government keeps a copy (because of course they keep a copy), and now you have a gun registry, which is prohibited by law.
Again Sorry Matt law or no law the 4473 form is registry on new guns and if the UBC is expanded you can bet they will either change the law by changing the expanded background language or the Feds will just ignore the law as they have for 50 years with the 4473 form.
I’m going to be on both sides of your comment.
Last, first: gun registry already exists. incomplete, distributed, not located in a single database.
First, last: there are two things mandatory BGCs might accomplish. A lawful gun owner can gain peace of mind that they are not selling/transferring to a person who, at that moment in time, is likely not a prohibited person. If the lawful gun owner discovers, through the BGC, that the buyer is prohibited, more peace of mind. There are gaps in the timeliness of the data, but a better chance to avoid selling to a bad guy (a status unknown to you).
Another achievement is the unknowable deterrent effect on prohibited persons. Knowing that a lawful gun owner will require a BGC will discourage some number of prohibited persons from attempting the purchase. The number cannot be captured, but will be greater than zero. Actually punishing prohibited persons who fail the BGC would reinforce the deterrent effect. Apparently, if 2 million bad guys were denied a legal purchase, and convicted for trying, the deterrence would be worth the cost.
The same peace of mind can be accomplished by opening up NICS checks to the public-at-large, without mandating that background checks be performed.
Most people I know who privately transfer firearms generally ask for the buyer to produce a carry license, as a sanity check. But, assuming that isn’t an option, I could still sell (or buy) a firearm from an unknown person, simply by running a NICS check, and getting a “GO” (with ref. number).
I could also buy, sell, trade, or give a firearm to a family member, without a mandated background check.
With the fraction-of-a-percent conviction rate for attempted firearm transfers by prohibited persons, I doubt there will be any deterrent factor at all.
On this point, we agree. If we must have background checks, then they absolutely must result in investigation and prosecution of prohibited persons attempting to purchase firearms unlawfully.
But there aren’t 2 million. Let’s use the percentages cited above:
Total denials: 2 million
Successful appeals: 5% (100,000)
Referred to ATF: 95%. (1,900,000)
The remaining were either successfully appealed (5%) or determined not to meet referral criteria. (We don’t know what those criteria are. They could be more false-positives, or crimes too old to warrant further action, etc.)
Total ATF reviews: 1,900,000
Overturned (false-positive): 4% (76,000)
Not referred to field office: 90% (1,710,000)
Referred to ATF field office: 6% (114,000)
So, now after FBI and ATF reviews, we’re left with only 114,000 of the total denials that are deemed even to meet eligibility requirements to be investigated/prosecuted.
But wait: it gets better! We’re still not done yet with the false-positives:
ATF Office Referrals: 114,000
False-positive: 25% (28,500) – “Not a prohibited person, unfounded, closed by supervisor”
Not referred: 73.5% (83,790) – “No prosecutorial merit, federal/state guidelines not met”
Referred for prosecution: 1.5% (1,710)
Conviction rate for prosecuted cases: 21% (359)
So, all told, from that original 2,000,000:
Referred for Prosecution: 1,710
Convictions: 359
False Positives (Known): 204,500
ATF Not Pursued: 1,710,000
ATF Field Office Not Pursued: 83,790
Total Not Pursued: 1,793,790 (90%)
What we don’t know is how many of those 90% not pursued were additional false-positives, and how many were simply denials that did not warrant prosecution or for which the denial itself was insufficient evidence to pursue prosecution. (And other data show that many of these are simply delayed.)
While the prosecution rate is abysmal, there’s really no evidence to say how many more potentially could (or should) have been prosecuted.
As to prosecutions, I would be fairly draconian. Eliminate the known false positives from the “denied” category. Prosecution of the remainder should be mandatory. The entire issue at large should be “did said person violate the law, or not”, no mitigating circumstances. If background checks reviews are based on objective criteria (big assumption), then failing the criterion is a de facto conviction. There should be no category titled “No Prosecution: guidelines not met”.
Failure to properly implement an idea does not make the idea wrong.
I’m guessing that part of that category are the denials where the state can’t prove that the would-be purchaser knowingly attempted to purchase a firearm as a prohibited person – i.e. the state can’t prove that the person knew he was a prohibited person at the time of the attempted purchase.
The problem is, there is a huge swath of gray area between the false-positives and the denials referred for prosecution. Some of those data aren’t publicly available, so it’s rather difficult to know what’s really going on.
I was working from the idea that a prohibited person would know they were prohibited.
I suppose it depends on what determinations are made at the various levels, from FBI, to ATF, to the ATF field office, to the local prosecutor’s office, but I don’t think that would be a valid assumption – or, at least, it wouldn’t necessarily be a vaild assumption that the state could prove that the prohibited person knew they were prohibited at the time of the denial.
I can see a few categories of denials:
1. People who are not on the list (false-positives)
2. People are on the list, but are on the list incorrectly, for various reasons (false-positives)
3. People are on the list legitimately, but sincerely don’t know they’re on the list
4. People are on the list legitimately, and know that they are on the list, but the state lacks evidence that the person was knowingly a prohibited person
5. People are on the list legitimately, and know that they are on the list, but some other regulatory/statutory/evidentiary hurdle can’t be met
6. People are on the list legitimately, and know that they are on the list, and the state has evidence to prosecute
Are there other categories that I might be missing?
Now, the problem is: we simply don’t know what percentage of denials are comprised of #4, #5, and #6. It is mostly impossible to analyze the rigor or efficacy of pursuit of prosecution, absent some other information to which I’m not privy, or at least that I’ve not found yet.
for 4 and 5 (6 is self-evident), perhaps a summons to appear before a federal magistrate to be issued a notification of being on the list. That might be fair, as the next attempt (if not deterred from trying to buy through an FFL, would be automatic arrest and conviction (kinda thinking that if you violate a notice delivered in court, there is no defense possible for a second attempt).
I think that you believe that all criminals are “prohibited persons”. It is the only possible way that your thought process could even approach making some sort of sense.
And if the person to whom that firearm was transferred privately was not a “prohibited person”: now what? How does the background check prevent anything?
Now, you’re just making things up. From 2005 through 2010, there were 1.4 million firearms reported stolen, which equates to to about 230K firearms stolen per year (source: Bureau of Justice Statistics). In 2011, there were fewer than 470K reported victims of crimes committed using firearms (source: National Crime Victimization Survey).
That’s one new firearm for every two crimes committed using a firearm per year – in other words, especially given the abysmal crime-gun recovery rate, more than enough to maintain the flow of crime guns.
Let me know when you figure out the definition of “fact”, and wish to discuss reality.
Quote—————And if the person to whom that firearm was transferred privately was not a “prohibited person”: now what? How does the background check prevent anything?————Quote
Your posts are becoming so bizarre and devoid of logic I wonder if you even realize what you just said. I suggest you go back and read your own post I quoted it above. I think you have become tired. Go to bed and then contemplate what you just wrote tomorrow morning. Hint for tomorrow, “we are speaking of background check no matter how many times the gun is resold”. I think you will understand this in the morning.
I’ll go ahead and repeat myself: And if the person to whom that firearm was transferred privately was not a “prohibited person”: now what? How does the background check prevent anything?
It appears that you need me to do some hand-holding. So be it.
1. Law-abiding citizen (i.e. Good Guy) lawfully purchases a firearm from an FFL, with a BGC
2. Good Guy lawfully sells that firearm to Bad Guy A (a criminal, but not a “prohibited person”) through a private transfer, with a BGC
3. Bad Guy A transfers that firearm unlawfully to Bad Guy B (a criminal, and a “prohibited person”) through a private transfer, without a BGC
In this scenario, what did the private-transfer BGC law prevent? Absolutely nothing, because not all criminals are “prohibited persons”. Either they have not been caught/convicted for their crimes, or they have only been convicted for low-level crimes that do not cause them to become “prohibited persons”.
Let’s look at another scenario, in which BGCs for private transfers are mandated by law:
1. Law-abiding citizen (i.e. Good Guy) lawfully purchases a firearm from an FFL, with a BGC
2. Good Guy unlawfully sells that firearm to Bad Guy A (a criminal, and a “prohibited person”) through a private transfer, without a BGC
Here, Good Guy clearly screwed up, and unlawfully transferred his firearm without a BGC as required by law. So, what did the BGC law prevent? Absolutely nothing, because laws cannot compel the behavior of those who fail to follow the law.
This appears to be the scenario that you believe will be rectified by legally mandating private-transfer BGCs. But that belief is unrealistic. In order for Good Guy to be held accountable by the state for that unlawful transfer:
a) Bad Guy – or someone to whom he transfers the firearm – must use that firearm to commit a crime
b) That crime must be cleared by the police, with a conviction of whichever Bad Guy used the firearm
c) The police must recover the firearm used to commit the crime
d) The police must be able to trace the firearm to the point of transfer
e) The police must be able to prove that the firearm was transferred unlawfully
The probability of meeting all of those criteria is extremely low. As I’ve mentioned before, crime gun recovery rates are abysmal. Of approximately 470K victimization crimes (source linked previously, National Crime Victimization Survey), in 2014 approximately 31K guns were recovered related to such victimization crimes (source: ATF firearms trace data)
That’s fewer than 10% of guns used in such crimes that were actually recovered.
(Interesting notes on firearm recovery, based on 2014 ATF trace data. Of the 246K firearms traced, only 180K were crime-related. The rest were seized for non-crime reasons, including “found firearm”, “firearm under investigation”, and “health-safety”. Of those 180K firearms, as noted above, only about 31K were involved in victimization crimes. The remaining 149K were involved in “victimless” crimes, such as felon in possession, or being in possession of a firearm while committing a crime without using the firearm. And perhaps the most interesting note: the average age of traced firearms was approximately 10 years)
But back to the topic at hand: the data show fewer than 10% of “crime guns” (i.e. guns used in victimization crimes) being recovered. And that doesn’t even get into the clearance rates of such crimes – especially in bigger cities, where most such crimes take place.
So, with no crime solved, and no firearm recovered, how would private-transfer background checks make any difference whatsoever?
But let’s look at those instances where the police have cleared the crime, and recovered the firearm. We’ll even assume that the firearm can be traced to the erstwhile Good Guy who transferred the firearm privately without conducting a background check.
Now: how are the police going to prove the the firearm was transferred unlawfully? If Good Guy claims that the firearm was lost or stolen, what evidence do the police have to refute? If Good Guy claims that the firearm was transferred before the private-transfer background check law went into effect (especially given the average age of traced firearms), what evidence do the police have to refute?
So, even in this scenario, laws mandating private-transfer background checks have accomplished nothing, have prevented nothing, and result in no one being held legally accountable for a firearm moving from the legal supply chain to the illegal supply chain.
Nicely done.
Do “optics” play a role here? A role in our favor?
Given the high level of emotional content regarding perceptions the public maintains regarding guns, do we not receive some benefit from publicly (and financially) supporting BGCs? Are we not physically demonstrating our trustworthiness by enduring the checks? Is that not something we can bring to the fight, as a positive factor among the arguments over the negative factors (such as “shall not be infringed”)?
Optics certainly do play a role in our favor.
But taken as a whole – the due process violations imposed on law-abiding firearm purchasers (upending the presumption of innocence), the lack of efficacy of BGCs in accomplishing their stated purpose (preventing bad guys from doing bad things with guns), the lack of prosecution of legitimate denials of prohibited persons (a fraction of a percent), the high percentage of false-positive denials (>10% of all denials, minimum), the record-keeping burden imposed on FFLs (and the “de facto” quasi-registration thereby created), the due process violations imposed on FFLs (i.e. ATF inspections), etc. – I think the negative factors far outweigh the benefits of those optics.
Cisco, I have been trying to keep up here. One theme that seems to drive your thinking is that there is a significant flow of guns moving from legal hands to illegal hands via transfers that are not subject to background checks. What I cannot find is a source for the idea that a river of guns is actually moving as you report. So, two questions arise: where is the documentation for your claim about the “flow”; how many unchecked guns constitute a “flow”?
Respectfully this is old hat, old news. Studies the News Media has reported on not once but multitudes of times quotes law enforcement reports that guns they confiscate (not even used in crimes) plus guns that are used in crimes come from States that have lax gun laws and the guns were legal then dumped on anyone who wanted to purchase them and the gun runners were only too willing to buy them and ship them to big cities where the profits were often double what they paid for them in states where they were legal. This is not new news. Its decades old and relevant right up to the present.
Individual reports do not constitute a flow. Again, how many are a flow? One?
As mentioned to Chip, a denied sale does not translate into a “stop” of illegal gun purchases. As Chip noted, stopped at that moment, in that location does not translate into any known (or projectable) “lives saved”. Your position relies on failure of a background check to end the prohibited persons quest to obtain a gun. There is no evidence presented to make that causal relationship. Chip contends that unless the background check failure results in the prohibited person being jailed, the check does not, even most times, stop any illegal purchase. Is there any evidence of a failed check preventing the prohibited person from obtaining a gun illegally elsewhere? Any reports of a criminal saying that because the purchase of a gun was denied due to a failed background, said criminal abandoned plans to obtain a gun elsewhere? Abandoned plans to use a gun in commission of a crime? Not sure how universal checks dry up a source of illegal guns, since a person legally buying a gun with intent to sell illegally (who will force all prohibited persons and gangers to go through background checks?) will do that anyway. Until a gun sold illegally can be captured at the scene of a crime (how long, and how many crimes in between?), the trace of ownership cannot begin. How many crimes and homicides have been accomplished through use of a gun, yet the gun was never recovered? Seems to be a large number of “gun crimes” that are never traced back to the last (or first) legal buyer. Also, seem to remember that when surveyed, law enforcement admitted that tracing a particular gun to a particular person has very little to do with solving a crime.
[I edited out the header info you copypasta’d that contained your email address. Might want to be careful about that. You’re welcome.- Matt in FL]
Quote————-Chip contends that unless the background check failure results in the prohibited person being jailed, the check does not, even most times, stop any illegal purchase. Is there any evidence of a failed check preventing the prohibited person from obtaining a gun illegally elsewhere?———————
Precisely the 2 points I have been trying to make. I am even quoting you on some of this response. First we do not throw out the Brady Bill Because Law Enforcement is not jailing people. That can be corrected through public pressure or strengthening of the already existing law. Second, in regards to stopping someone from buying a gun on the street when denied at the gun store. Precisely my point for expanding checks to all gun sales.
Quote————Also, seem to remember that when surveyed, law enforcement admitted that tracing a particular gun to a particular person has very little to do with solving a crime————Quote
This is not my personal experience with law enforcement or even the reporting by the News Media on sensational crimes. Yes Law Enforcement does indeed solve many crimes by tracing the gun back to the original owner. The San Bernardino killings proved that the original owner sold the two assault rifles to the nut cases that committed mass murder. True the owner of the gun did confess to selling them but the paper worked proved he was indeed telling the truth. If the killers had escaped that day the Cops would indeed have known who to arrest and my point being that too many times people sell guns second hand to people that should not have them but would not if they had to transfer through a back ground check because they know that if they do not they will be held accountable and in violation of the law and the law does indeed come down hard in sensational cases.
As far as my own experience . Just one of many cases involved a burglary. The Cops found a dropped gun at the scene of a burglary and traced the gun back to the original owner and by “putting the Squeeze” on the original owner traced the gun through 3 different people right back to the Burglar which resulted in a conviction. More proof on how fast a gun dumped on the street second hand finds its way to the criminal and no this gun was never stolen.
Another personal case that was told to me by a now dead friend,. Once in a bar he was offered a gun when visiting a different state. He told the drunk he did not need another gun as he had even just sold one because he needed money. Still the drunk persisted. When the friend of mine finally agree to look at it out in the parking lot (remember he is in another state) much to his horror it was his own gun he had sold only days ago back in his home state. He realized that the gun could be traced back to him and needless to say he bought his own gun back for double the price he sold it for. That is how fast gun runners transfer guns to other states and double their money.
Although “Chips in the head” keeps ranting on percentages most of which are bogus for sure even if we take his figures at face value is it moral to say we should not be inconvenienced by a back ground check if the body count does not reach a certain horrendous figure. I think not,especially if the victims happen to be members of your own family then the outlook on back ground checks forces the dim light bulb to come on in anyone’s head when it happens to you personally,
Again I refer you to the recent Ohio case which stopped a nut case cold when he did not even attempt to buy a gun at a gun store because he knew he would be denied. Something Chip keeps dogging and hiding under his bed with.
No law is perfect and sometimes laws take time to show effects. But instituting a mandatory background check on all gun purchase would indeed dry up legal second hand gun sales to people who should not have them.
Once again: the plural of anecdote is not data. I have already cited an impartial source regarding the recovery rate of crime guns. Your personal experiences do not trump actual data. Whatever the news media choose to report on does not trump actual data.
Your go-to ad hominem is actually kind of quaint (probably because I heard better in elementary school).
Unlike you, I actually cite and link my sources. You are welcome to try to refute them, or to present opposing data, but thus far you have failed to do so. (No, your anecdotes do not constitute “opposing data”.)
That’s a rather pretzel-logic sort of straw man you’ve erected, that I’m guessing you’ve created out of my argument that there is no evidence that background checks have had any impact on bad guys doing bad things with firearms. If you have evidence to refute that argument, please present it. I’ve already presented (and cited) evidence that correlate the implementation of background checks with a reduced rate of decrease in violent crime. Do you have any evidence to cite – anything at all?
(Filed under: logical fallacy, appeal to emotion.)
One more time, and a bit louder (and more slowly) for those in the back: the plural of anecdote is not data.
Perhaps you don’t know the meaning of that statement? It means that one-off examples are not a representative sample of the entire population of incidents, and what happens in one-off events is not inherently indicative of what happens in all such incidents.
Two decades aren’t enough time to show effects?
Repeatedly saying it doesn’t make it true, and you have no evidence whatsoever to support what is otherwise a specious assertion.
Quote:————————-Two decades aren’t enough time to show effects?————————
Just the effects of stopping felons from buying new guns did indeed have an effect and it would be even way more dramatic if all guns went through a back ground check. No one in the right mind would deny this. Again read the following on how even the BB bill in its current form showed it worked.
Brady Campaign releases a report analyzing 20 years of effective background checks
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 28, 2014 Jennifer Fuson 202-370-8128 [email protected]
Washington, D.C. – The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence today released a report chronicling the impact of the Brady law and revealed that felons, domestic abusers, and fugitives are the top categories of prohibited purchasers who have been denied gun purchases since the law went into effect 20 years ago.
Since February 28, 1994, the Brady law has blocked more than 2.1 million gun purchases, according to data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. That is 343 purchases blocked every day. More than one million of those attempted purchases were by felons. Another 291,000 denials were to domestic abusers. And, 118,000 gun sales to fugitives were blocked thanks to background checks.
“It is clear Brady background checks work. Lives have been saved by the Brady law as we have seen the undeniable evidence showing gun homicides have decreased since the law took effect 20 years ago,” said Dan Gross, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “We need Congress to expand Brady background checks to make it harder for criminals and other dangerous people to get guns online, in classified advertisements or at gun shows.”
Joined by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Brady Campaign Chair Sarah Brady, Representative Mike Thompson (D-CA), Chair of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, Congressional leaders, and families of shooting victims, Gross released the report, 20 Years of Brady Background Checks: The Case for Finishing the Job to Keep America Safer, Friday at a Capitol Hill press conference.
“This report reflects the challenges we faced in passing the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act 20 years ago and the results prove our efforts were worth it,” said Sarah Brady. Her husband, Jim, was the inspiration for the Brady law after he was shot and severely injured during an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.
Among the report’s findings:
•Convicted felons, fugitives from justice, and domestic abusers made up nearly 70% of firearm purchase applications denied from 1994 to 2010, according to the most recent data available.
•On average, felons are blocked 171 times a day.
•On average, domestic abusers are blocked 48 times a day.
•On average, fugitives are blocked 19 times a day.
Currently, roughly 40 percent of gun purchases are not subject to a Brady background check. This includes guns sold online and at gun shows when sold through unlicensed sellers. Nine in ten Americans support expanding background checks to online and gun shows sales, but despite public support, Congress failed to pass meaningful legislation to expand background checks last year. However, states still acted; 21 states passed new gun laws to curb gun violence, including eight states that passed major gun reforms in 2013. Four of those states – Colorado, Connecticut, New York, and Delaware – passed new laws expanding background checks on all gun sales.
“For 20 years, Brady background checks have prevented violence, protected communities, and saved lives. But we must do more,” Leader Pelosi said. “It’s long past time to expand and strengthen the background checks with the bipartisan King-Thompson bill — and we’ve come together today with a clear, simple, and firm message: let’s finish the job to protect and defend the American people.”
“For 20 years, the Brady Act has helped prevent guns from falling into dangerous hands. Now it is time to finish the job by passing my bipartisan bill that makes sure people can’t bypass a background check by simply going online or to a gun show,” said Rep. Mike Thompson. “We know background checks work. They keep guns away from criminals, terrorists, domestic abusers and the dangerously mentally ill, and they respect people’s Second Amendment Rights. People on both sides of the aisle came together 20 years ago and passed the original Brady Act. In two decades it has saved countless lives. It’s time to come together again and finish the job.”
“Jim and I are optimistic about the future,” said Sarah Brady. “It took six years and seven votes to pass the Brady bill, but we stayed the course until we passed the legislation. We are not going away and we’ll continue the fight until we finish the job and get expand background checks to all gun sales.”
To read the report in its entirety visit: http://www.bradycampaign.org/programs/finish-the-job/20th-anniversary-re…
# # #
The mission of the Brady organization is to create a safer America for all of us that will lead to the dramatic reduction in gun deaths and injuries that we all seek. For more insight on gun violence prevention, follow our Facebook Page and Twitter Account.
Chip, what he seems to believe is that the Brady Bunch believe that once a felon is “stopped” via BGC, that felon never attempts to obtain a gun through illegal sources. The BGC thus needs no justice system enforcement, it is a self-licking ice cream cone.
No matter how many times you copy-and-paste that press release, you still haven’t proven anything more than a specific “prohibited person” was prevented, at a singular, specific point in time, from purchasing a specific firearm.
You haven’t proven that the same “prohibited person” didn’t acquire a different firearm at a different (later) time, or that said “prohibited person” didn’t, subsequent to that NICS denial, commit a crime using a firearm acquired elsewhere.
“Again I refer you to the recent Ohio case which stopped a nut case cold…”
Forever? The “nut case” abandoned all attempts to acquire a gun through other sources? Do you have a citation to that effect? Is such bizarre behavior (refusing to attempt a gun purchase through illegal sources) widespread? Do you have documentation.
Point is, unless the denied purchaser is jailed (long term, or forever), the “stopped cold” is for that day, at that time, at that location. You are putting stilts under the notion that there is a finite number of guns available to the criminal, that 200,000 thefts a year cannot fill the criminal demand for guns, that criminals buy a gun to keep for their entire career – not selling “a piece” to another criminal after the first decides the gun is no longer necessary. Don’t think you can find actual evidence for those assumptions.
How do you figure? How does a UBC prevent Thug A from giving or selling a gun to Thug B? There were never that many fully automatic machine guns in circulation prior to the Hughes amendment, nor silencers. Thousands, sure. But hundreds of millions, like there are firearms? Not even close. And the registration of machine guns didn’t stop their transfer between criminals, not directly anyway. What stopped their transfer between criminals is the same thing that stopped their transfer between non-criminals, which is that the closing of the registry caused the existing registered ones to skyrocket in value. The same cannot be foreseen for conventional firearms, there are just too many of them.
Cisco may be inadvertently conflating “stops” with “saving”. I will concede that 2 million felons (no time to confirm the number)were dumb enough to try to buy guns from FFLs (no time to confirm the number). I will concede that those 2 million did not obtain a gun, that day, at that time, at that location as a result of the denials. However, there is no way to associate a “stop” (denial) with any number of lives “saved”, because the “stopped” person was not arrested and jailed on the spot. Nor were those denied tried and sentenced to confinement. It is the latter that pretty well dilutes any usefulness of BGCs. (not to mention that some of those tried might be pleaded-out to lesser offenses, and set free). As with any law, enforcement is what makes the law meaningful. Cisco doesn’t seem to have thought through the negation of benefit of checks, due to lack of enforcement. That day, that minute, that location leaves too much opportunity for the prohibited person to accomplish their goal.
quote—————It couldn’t have had anything to do with catching the gangsters and putting them in prison (or in the ground). Nah, couldn’t be that…—————Quote
Again you trip yourself up without even realizing it. When gangsters are caught the guns are confiscated and when they cannot get more because of registration such as happened with the machine gun law the violence with them became almost non-existent as they were forced to get semi-auto guns that were not registered and controlled. Precisely my point on the Universal Back Ground Checks, its simply a mild extension of the machine gun ban without the long wait or paper work.
Give up you keep digging yourself in deeper and looking more ridiculous. Its as laughable as when you said registration is against the law. Ever heard of the 1968 gun control bill. Obviously your way out of your league.
quote——————Few law-abiding people were purchasing NFA firearms to begin with. Few criminals were committing crimes with them, before or after NFA. Arresting/killing the gangsters primarily responsible for NFA firearms used in crimes is the primary contributor to NFA firearms no longer being used in crimes.—————–Quote
How little you know about how machine guns and silencers were once sold. The were available right over the counter and were very popular with ordinary people. Even people you would not think would have wanted them did indeed buy them. I remember reading old gun magazines from that era that showed , of all people Farmers proudly holding up their Thompsons they had bought at the local hardware store way out in Podunc Junction in the middle of nowhere with only one hardware store that was the only one around for many miles. When the registration law was passed the law abiding people did indeed register them which dried up the supply for sale to gangsters. They could not buy them legally over the counter nor could they get them from citizens second hand. Precisely my point on expanding the Brady Bill. History proving it worked in the past and will still work today. Dry up the supply by registering them and second hand guns along with new ones become very hard to get on the street and it takes far less time than one might think.
Just so we’re clear, you’ve now gone completely and clearly from advocating for universal background checks to advocating for a gun registry. While it’s true the first begets the second, it was left unsaid until now. You want a list of every gun owned by every person in the country, law-abiding or no. Get bent.
Just want to make that clear to everyone involved in the conversation.
Quote—————Just so we’re clear, you’ve now gone completely and clearly from advocating for universal background checks to advocating for a gun registry. While it’s true the first begets the second, it was left unsaid until now. You want a list of every gun owned by every person in the country, law-abiding or no. Get bent.
Just want to make that clear to everyone involved in the conversation.————–Quote
I am afraid Matt I have bad news for you. New guns have been registered to the original owner since the 1968 Gun Control Act. Chip made a fool out of himself when he claimed registration is illegal. Not so with new guns for a half a century. And remember guns have been traced by law enforcement many times even though they passed through several hands. If they did indeed outlaw certain guns at the Federal Level having an unregistered gun does you no good. You would never even be able to take it to the range to fire it as you would risk being caught with one and even if you used one in self defense in your own home again the cops would confiscate it and indict you not to mention jail time and horrendous fines. Example there is a 200,000 dollar fine on having an illegal machine gun. As you can see the paranoia on registering your gun because you think you can keep it if they outlaw it is a fantasy for all but people who are criminals on the run or nut cases not caring if they are caught.
Go ahead and read 28 C.F.R. § 25.9(b)(3), and get back to me, mmkay? Here, I’ll even link it for you:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/28/25.9
Quote————Go ahead and read 28 C.F.R. § 25.9(b)(3), and get back to me, mmkay?———–Quote
Still playing the absolute fool by refusing to admit to reality. You may have signed for guns as you say but if you had opened up your eyes and read the whole form you would have seen that there is indeed a line for the make, model and serial number of the gun filled out by the F.F.L. Holder. This is registration pure and simple. The only thing the law never permitted (which I am told was not followed but that is another long story) was that the records could not be put on computer when the F.F. L. holder went out of business and by law had to turn in his records. Even the NRA admitted the Feds may also have violated that as well. How in the world do think law enforcement traces guns back to their owners. Really you cannot be that naïve as to how things really work in the real world. This 4473 form even has had a nick name for 50 years its called “Defacto Registration”. What part of this do you not understand?
Reading is fundamental. I’m still waiting for you to read the CFR reference linked.
FFL records are not a “de facto” registration. Assuming that record retention laws are followed, all that is retained past the time period specified by law is, essentially, firearm serial number and ID of the person to whom that firearm was transferred. Sure, police can trace a firearm, but that trace starts with the firearm itself, and tracing its serial number to the manufacturer. The manufacturer can then identify the distributor, who can then identify the FFL. The FFL can then identify the purchaser.
What exists is a chain-of-custody record that can be accessed via subpoena (I assume law enforcement have to subpoena information from the manufacturers, but I’m not certain on that point). Does that chain-of-custody somewhat resemble a firearms registry? Sure, in some ways. But the information is distributed, not centralized; and the state must follow the custody chain in order to piece together all of the information.
You conveniently ignored the most important part to save face. Sorry your still an absolute fool because when the F.F.L. Holder goes out of business or is shut down by the A.T.F. guess what the A.T.F. get all the records. This really shuts down your foolish tirade that there is not a centralized registry of firearms. Do you think the A.T.F. just throws those records away or that they cannot at any moment inspect books by current F.F.L. Holders. It has been heavily rumored that turned over records have been computerized by the A.T.F. as well. This again proves what a naïve fool you are when it comes the Government and what it can and often does do.
I’m under no delusions regarding the government.
Of the two of us, I’m not the one who wants to give the government more power over and intrusuon into the lives of law-abiding people. I’m not the one who wants to transform a decentralized, quasi-registry (that still isn’t a registry) into an actual, centralized, government-controlled registry.
Government agencies, as a whole, are mandated to convert to digitized records. Each year, money is budgeted for the effort. We are talking not only about electronic forms for recent or current activities, but entire repositories. There are numerous contracts with private companies to do all the historical records. The pile of paper documents is getting smaller each year. Those digitized records are required, by contract, to result in a searchable media. Not just being able to do a word search on a CD/DVD, but tables and flat files with query capability. Even though a central firearms registry is prohibited, the facsimile constituted by all the now digitized records will be argued as not an actual registry, but merely a collection of digital records, with no prohibition against sophisticated search and collation capability. Once the bulk of paper records are digitized, it will be only a matter of inter-agency search capability, and you have an electronic data warehouse (which is not, classic definition, a “registry”). Also, ATF is trying to reduce the number on non-storefront FFLs, and requiring more and more companies to use only electronic records of sales.
Keep an eye on the term “registry”.
Oh, we’re all on the same page with respect to what ATF is doing, and what they have. I’m no more happy about it than the next person.
Where I take issue is using that as justification for a real, full-blown, government registry of privately owned firearms. Such a registry is against federal law (even though what ATF has very much skirts the line of legality), and such a registry would be an obvious violation of the second amendment.
Cisco Kid has said (multiple times now) that such a registry would be required in order for legally mandated, private-transfer background checks to have even a modicum of efficacy in keeping bad guys from acquiring firearms. He has also said (also multiple times) that mandatory safe-storage laws would be required. (I can’t remember if he’s said so, but I’m guessing that he would also say that mandatory reporting of lost or stolen firearms would be required.)
These are important points, because they point out just how much the government must infringe upon the rights of the law-abiding, in order to have even a modicum of efficacy in keeping bad guys from acquiring firearms.
(Wash, rinse, and repeat, for just about every gun control measure.)
Fearing a centralized, single location firearm registry is where the oppo would like us focused, while they quietly go about constructing a data warehouse that serves the same purpose, without violating current federal law. Word games are the breeding grounds of liberal, leftist, Demoncrat politics. They are really good at it because they revel in “tricking” those they believe are just dumb hicks. I went to college with these people. Bill Clinton, “It depends on what ‘is’ is.” Was not an oral goof. They are Borg.
As usual your acting Trumpism proves you cannot acknowledge you lost the argument. There is a registry, it is centralized when records are turned in to the A.T.F and police use it and also use F.F.L. Holders records every day to trace guns. You can deny the real facts to the moon and back but your denials do not make it true.
Your harping on “centralized registry” is irrelevant and absurd as the proof is in the pudding and the ability to trace guns back to their original owners is due to registry no matter where the registry happens to be located. Just because you are full blown paranoid over the reality of registry for the last 50 years does not change the fact that it exists. Again its just another form of registration so the NRA could claim they defeated traditional registry of guns which earned them points toward a largely ignorant group of gun owners as to how the system actually works in reality.
Of course not all gun owners fall to your propaganda and outright lies either. Many gun owners are well aware that new guns are registered and if anyone has attended even one gun show in his entire life he will hear the same question being asked over and over again when people are engaged in a gun sale and what is that question? They ask this question before the price even comes up on the weapon “Does the gun have any paperwork with it” meaning is the gun to be registered? F.F.L. holders selling used guns must also register them through their paperwork and gun buyers also know this only all to well. That is exactly why they do not want Gun Shows to paperwork all gun sales.
So most gun owners reading your absurd rant that gun registration does not exist are rolling off their chairs with laughter right now and obliviously saying to themselves, I sure would not want this lawyer representing me even if I got caught spitting on the sidewalk.
OK, we’ve tried to treat you with respect. You’ve earned shunning, all by yourself.
“If they did indeed outlaw certain guns at the Federal Level having an unregistered gun does you no good. You would never even be able to take it to the range to fire it as you would risk being caught with one and even if you used one in self defense in your own home again the cops would confiscate it and indict you not to mention jail time and horrendous fines.”
Did you essentially copy that from 2Asux. Always instructing us on the ways guns will be made useless without government resorting to door-to-door assaults.
Your hope is fatally flawed. It is premised on the idea that all the guns in existence will be identified. The millions held prior to BGCs remain available.The records for those sales/purchases are never to be found (if they existed in the first place). If a river of guns is flowing from lawful owners to illegal owners, how do you propose to force the owners of heretofore unregistered (FFL transfers) into FFLs? Those tens of millions of guns, and millions of gun owners for whom no record of sale exists (or can be recovered) will continue to feed the flow. There were a limited number of machine guns and whatever that fueled the mob era. Drying up the legal gun supply is so impossible as to be a fools errand.
quote——————–The mere existence of background check laws does not prevent bad guys from acquiring firearms.————————–Quote.
You really live in a fantasy world all of your own.
Ok Genius here is some real life facts you cannot lie your way out of.
Just recently a student at Ohio State did not even try to get a gun at a gun store because he knew he would not pass the background check so he attempted to commit a crime with a knife which resulted in all the students he stabbed surviving. Try and tell the parents of the children that survived that your bizarre ranting’s about background checks not preventing nut cases from getting weapons should be repealed. No, they do not work all the time but to throw out back ground checks altogether makes sense only to a person that lives in a fantasy world like yourself.
The News Media has had countless other stories and statistics proving of thousands of denials that take place all the time (are you comprehending any of this chips in the head) Of course you will deny all of this or that any of the well reported News Media Accounts never existed but 300 million Americans who watch the news all have seen the crimes or attempted crimes and would shake their heads in disbelief at your nonsensical ranting’s.
Even the NRA which ranted and predicted the end of gun ownership way back in the day when the Brady Bill was passed now “has seen the light” and agrees with the Brady Bill, at least with the purchase of new guns. As in the past if they extend the background check for all gun sales the result will be tens of thousands of more sales denied to lunatics and criminals and juveniles on the sale of second hand guns. Right now they can and do buy second hand guns every hour of the day across the U,S. and you rant that this “is a good thing” because it might inconvenience me if I had to sell a gun through a licensed dealer and I could not care less how much blood flows in the streets when juvenile gangs buy guns with complete abandon every day of the year.
You mean states that don’t honor the US Bill of Rights…Such as Massachusetts, New York, NJ, MD., CA., CT., DC., etc…To name a few… Where every US citizens Constitutional right is INFRINGED upon daily… Where such is a “Government issued ” Privilege by the State, or by draconian controls set up through your unfriendly Local/State Police departments…No , No compromise !!! “Shall NOT BE INFRINGED !!!” Nevermind SBR’s, Silencers, NDA, etc…We need to re enforce the 2nd amendment and make it a “Capital crime” nationwide for any state, Politician, Police, judge, Government agency, Private landlords, Private Organizations, Feds, etc…With compensatory damages of not less than 250k for each event of infringement. As well as fines, prison, and other legal liabilities…Nor should any US citizen be forced to waive any of their other Constitutional rights to exercise another !!! There is NO such thing as “Pre crime !” And murder is a crime…It is already against the law !!!
Quote: —————–The law would not prevent a lawful gun owner from selling to a prohibited person. Thus one “legal” gun would be in “illegal” hands——————–quote.
Sam your really out of touch with reality on that statement. Now if you were not, then people who sign for registered machine guns and silencers would have then been selling them to anyone they wished for many years. Reality check my boy. Very few machineguns and silencers that were registered ever ended up in the hands of criminals unless they were stolen or the original owner went insane and then committed a crime with them. The same would be true if it were illegal for law abiding gun purchasers to not go through a licensed dealer when they get rid of their registered guns as they know much sooner than later they would go to prison no appeals, no excuses. The majority of sane people would never take such a chance as has been proven in the past from the owners of registered machine guns and silencers.
The facts remain the bulk of guns used in crimes prove over and over again that they often are not stolen at all but were originally legally purchased and no, the original owners and subsequent owners were under no obligation except in some States just to check and see if the purchaser was from his own State. The result is that huge numbers of formerly legal guns are purchased by gun runners with fake i.d.s and the guns go right into the hands of the street punks, juveniles and psycho’s all out looking to purchase such guns in state or out of state. The bulk of guns being sold on the streets of Chicago come right from States with lax gun laws. This is a proven fact and as I said before even without quoting studies the evening news proves this with just about every sensational shooting because when the check is made the original purchaser was legal but when the gun changes hands again and again sooner than later it goes right into the wrong hands. Gun Shows get the blame but private sales also account for thousands of guns going into the wrong hands every single day in America. Its disgraceful, outrageous and totally insane.
Owning a firearm should carry a great responsibility and failing to transfer the gun to a legal person, failing to keep them from being stolen out of the home and failing to protect children in the home from being shot should result in jail time and a permanent ban on the person ever being legally allowed to own a firearm ever again. We do not need such Morons being even allowed to own dangerous weapons.
What an utterly depraved position to take: to take away the rights of the victims of a crime, merely because they were victimized.
Do you even try to pretend that you actually support the right to keep and bear arms?
If you have the right to keep and bear arms, but you cannot be trusted to keep them (as evidenced by the fact the arms were stolen), should you not be held accountable for failure to keep?
An interesting exercise would be to consider just how much effort a person must expend to keep arms from being stolen. What would be the limit to the responsibility?
Did you forget to log into your 2ASux account? This response is basically cisco kid, without the sophmoric ad hominem.
Being the victim of a crime is not evidence of irresponsibility of the victim. It is only evidence of the criminality of the thief.
Should a car theft victim be denied the ability to own a car? Should someone who is mugged be barred from earning money? Maybe a rape victim should be prohibited from wearing skirts?
How about, instead, we hold thieves responsible for the criminal act of theft, and leave law-abiding people who are victims of said crime of theft alone?
Let me put this in context. I do not own a gun. I have been conflicted about owning a gun, because of the personal and moral responsibility. I am not expert enough about guns to simply go out and get one. I look to TTAG (and sometime other blogs) for information, advice, and a bunch of different opinions.
I try-out a number of ideas. Sometimes I follow the line of gun grabbers, or others here who question everything about guns, just to test my understanding. Sometimes I pose something because I want to know how the anti-gun crowd would/could twist things. I recognize that we live in the world as it is. I want to explore the implications of how to work within the current system as it stands. To use Jeremy Bentham as an example, I bang things with a stick and ask, “What’s it good for? Why is it here?”; pragmatist.
Bottom line, I accept the second amendment as valid, useful, and near-absolute (still trying to determine how near “near” is). Maybe a habit of questioning my own thinking is troublesome to others.
The only person who is depraved is you that’s for sure. When innocent people get killed because you as an irresponsible adult did not keep guns locked up so children ended up being accidentally killed or a crook just walked in and picked one off the coffee table and then killed an innocent family during a robbery you had better believe you should be held responsible as well as the crook. As I have said before none of this is new in civilized countries. In many countries you keep the guns locked up because you are responsible for them not ending up causing needleless deaths or crimes.
Are you even aware that in some States leaving a car running unattended with the engine running is against the law and people have huge fines leveled at them. Its the same exact principle as guns. An unattended running car can be accessed by children causing death and injury as well as accessed by a crook who could also cause death or injury to innocent people which many times ends up being the case.
Just because you own a gun or an automobile does not give you carte blanch to do as you please with either when it involves causing death or injury to innocent people.
We don’t disagree. My attempted explanation was that laws requiring background checks for private transfers may have a deterrent effect on lawful owners selling legal guns to prohibited persons. There the few lawful gun owners want to willingly sell guns to prohibited persons. Those who do might be deterred if a check is required. There is zero possibility that no one would be deterred. The deterrent factor is that should a lawful owner be identified as selling without a background check, all sorts of punishments might be incurred. Unfortunately, we can never know how many owners decided against bypassing the background check, yet that number cannot be zero. Nothing about the background check will deter a lawful gun owner from committing a crime after the original purchase of the gun. Same for any subsequent lawful purchaser. But such deterrent is not the intent. The purpose is to reduce the number of prohibited persons who would be able to buy through private sales. How? Because the lawful owner decides the sale is not worth the risk.
Nothing about an improved, efficient, accurate background check makes the situation worse than it is today.
I would agree with you that any system can always be improved but I stand by my assertion that mandatory background checks would cut by thousands the guns now available to any nut case or crook that wants one.
If background checks are intended to stop bad guys from getting a gun anywhere, ever, the goal is bogus. If background checks can stop the what we hear as thousands denied already (stopped by virtue of being prosecuted and jailed), it seems something worth improving.
Same sex marriage and abortion were not done because of a “defacto law of the land”, but because of the society’s rules(which were much different for those that were in “your group”)usually one church or another. There were many people that books are not written about that were the “middle class” or “lower middle class” that did not marry, but lived together in sin. The begat children and those children lived the same lives of thier parents.
In Victorian England, these people lived crappy lives, many women were prostitutes just to help feed her children. What is written in books was written that way so that the class that could read and buy(or even borrow books from a library) were shown the good of staying in thier class. The Penny Dreadfuls(cheap books about the US wild West) left out the realities of the time for the average person.
The “norm” was much grittier than many want to believe. Women got abortions, there were no laws against it at first because that class of people were not important. Marriage was not so much, either. If the couple was on the move, they just did what they could. If a couple shacked up, there could be a wedding come spring when the traveling minister came around(or not).
These were not “defacto laws”, they were codes of behavior that were honored by those that were land holders or shopkeepers. The other people did not matter, so they were not represented, even by the church.
Guns were very expensive and just that kept them out of most people’s hands.
It was after the war between the states that guns saw regulation. These laws were to keep guns out of the hands of ex slaves and others that were of a lower class, since some of the firearms of the war found their way into their hands. Also to keep guns fron Indians; if these laws were not truely racist, they were classist.
Many people today still think that way, but the gun made all men equal, as it should. All should be able to protect themselves, thier families and use firearms as they see fit, as long as they do no harm to others.
First, you talk about “street transfers”. If these are illegal, than all potential gun owners must go through a check. The fact that I have been through this check over and over(I hold a C&R license) doesn’t matter, they want me to do this every time. I am buying guns that are older and collectable, not exactly the guns the gangbangers want. They run me every 3 years – don’t you think that should be enough to check my character? The whole reason is they want to know about specific guns – which is gun registration, by calling it a background check, they may think they are fooling someone, but we all know better.
The state of Calif is much worse. While they can not take my license, they add further restrictions and require a “Certificate of Eligibility”, which means I have to pay to get fingerprinted and then again for the license, just to keep the same standards that other states allow thier residents.
Why do I have to go through this if it isn’t gun registration? Because the state requires it, limit of one a month, a 10 day wait(that could turn into a 30 day wait) and I still pay full costs – except the safety certificate.
Remember I am buying older guns, ones that would not sell well on the street(I don’t sell my guns), even if I did, it would not be profitable. I am a collector, why can’t I swap and buy and sell othe C&R guns without this “background check”?
Call it what it is and make sure that used guns do not have to go through this process, or make the process of selling a used firearm cost nothing and allow it to be done at the police station, no checking the serial number of the firearm, just check out the buyer.
This will never happen because it is a registry
I salute the New Attorney General. It is a great way to think. This may not deter all of the bad guys but yes for sure some bad guys will think twice about purchasing a weapon. Peeps! Come on, you need heavy scrutiny for someone to buy a gun. You can KILL someone with it. I work as a hiring manager and I conduct TWO background checks on candidates my company is interested in. The first one is always through a cheap online service such as http://www.backgroundreport.com – once this is done and as the candidate receives his/her offer, we always do a thorough background check with a more well-known (expensive) company.
So as far as weapons go, a detailed background check is warranted for. Look at the situation this country is in. Guns need to be controlled, Period!
Hi Anna. This discussion always come down to the same question, how effective is the superficial stopping of one gun sale, at one moment in time, at one location?
If a person passes a background check (presuming for the moment there are no false approvals), what level of comfort does that provide, and at what price? So, let us stipulate that there is some sort of overall satisfaction for the public, that a gun sale is legal, and legitimate. Next we must consider the end result of someone failing a check. Now what? As reported here, some 2 million people have been denied permission to buy a gun. What happened to those 2 million? Did they give up on ever buying a gun? Were they free to go to an illegal source and buy a gun? Were they prosecuted for violating federal law prohibiting felons from buying a gun? Were they convicted, and removed from general population? Apparently only about 1300 of those 2 million denials were put into the judicial system, and only a handful convicted. What happened to those not jailed?
After we deal with the fallout from a failed background check, we must then find a way to validate that there is some sort of deterrent effect at work, and an unknown number of people decided not to attempt to go through an FFL. Did those people just give up? How can we produce a believable statistic to approximate those who were deterred from ever buying a gun?
Lastly, how effective are background checks at reducing the traffic in illegal guns. While I agree it is attractive to propose that if only XYZ number of people are denied one gun purchase then background checks are effective enough, it is really only another episode of “feels good”. Without swift law enforcement and judicial action against every denial (that is determined legitimate), we are financially supporting a system that can only tell us, at that place, at that moment, it appears those not denied are not felons, or other “prohibited person”.
Kinda rickety, isn’t it?
Another point I would like to make here is the gun show loophole. Criminals travel from cities and states where guns are all background checked and then just go into a gun bazzar and come out with the latest and greatest.(yeah, right!)
First, look at the sellers. Many of these guys are so suspicious that they would worry about thier own mother turning them in for something that the government trumped up on them. I can guarentee you that these old white men that cling to thier religion and their guns will not even consider selling one to someone of color, or even someone with long hair and beard or a tattoo that wasn’t obviously a platoon type. The old white guys that are collectors, like myself occasionally buy a firearm that was never put into a regerstry, since it was in someone’s hands long before these registeries were started.
I can’t do that since I live in Ca, which makes me send in all the info if I bought out of state. Many other people who live in a freer state than I are able to transfer used weapons without background check to another state resident.
I don’t know about you, but I know these guys well, and they are suspicious as hell. They all feel like there is a target on thier back, as well they should. Just look at some of the cases that the ATF have had, where they get someone to sell a weapon to them by badgering and doing anything to try to make a case.
The chances that these guys will play ball with an illegal straw purchaser are nill.
If these guys sell to someone, the might sell a collectable firearm(one that is outdated in technology) to someone he has seen around for years, or someone who is vetted by a couple of friends.
The penalities are too high to do this. Taking a chance on 10 or 20 years in federal prison(which has a couple of weeks a year of “good time”) is too much for freedom loving Americans. This loophole might get some old, pre BC guns in the hands of likeminded people, but they are not going to the street.
Just the fact that bolt action and small semiauto handguns made before WWII have to be background checked shows this is registery. Just like antique guns(most of which are black powder or use old cartridges that are expensive and not as effective as newer types) are not used in crimes anymore shows that the BG checks on these is not really needed and does not work.
I judge you are about 85% on target. However….
The so-called “gun show loophole” is a mythical thing, made-up by gun grabbers. If a law specifically states that people may transfer guns among themselves, so long as both people are residents of the state where the transfer takes place, there is no “loophole”.
If the law only required all new retail purchases undergo background checks, then the lack of attention in the to non-retail sales among citizens might popularly qualify as a loophole. When the law intentionally states a requirement, but some people believe the law is inadequate, such a condition might, maybe be “a loophole”. If we want to talk about a “loophole” we should always include quote marks, and a phrase like ‘so-called’. We don’t want to lend credence to the myth.
On a related note, the reason why the so-called “gun show loophole” rings up so much fear is because the silly people (and their corrupt sponsors) truly believe that all gun owners are criminal, or near criminal, and are always panting to take advantage of the “loophole” to sell a gun to whoever is willing to pay the price, no matter who the buyer is.
Sam, you are 100% right about me no putting gun show loophole in quotes. The sarcasm was implied. My bad.
Yes, there was a time when straw puchasers were buying guns for gangs and gangbangers. That was a time after the CIA brought rock cocaine to the inner city to finace Contra Freedom Fighters. Someone really did thier homework on the effect smoked cocaine has on some people. They got 2 generations hooked and ruined the communities, because no one’s property was safe, everything of value was taken and sold so people could get high. The battle is still being fought.
Note: most wars have been fought with drug money. Herion addiction was almost eradicated in London and most of England, with the policies of thier medical supplied herion to people that stayed out of trouble. The population that used was mostly over 50. Maggie Thatcher declared that medical herion was immoral and the war in Lebanon was starting. The 3 main factions had pipelines of herion direct into England financing thier war and getting a whole new generation of punks without jobs hooked. Thanks Maggie and Ronnie.
Yes, the huge profits these gangs made were able to get them weapons, many that were fully auto. In LA at night you could hear the full auto weapons being fired(hopefully away from people). We had full auto fire at some of the imprompto ranges in the desert during the day 30 years ago in SoCal. This turned many off from guns, including myself. I was appalled at the irresponsable use of guns and still am. The gun community has cleaned that up and I am happy because of it.
There is still money in rock cocaine, but it has found a bottom level. Gangs don’t fight for turf in LA like they once did, drug fuelled driveby shootings. It still happens, but not like it did. There was a lot of money there, I don’t think it is like it was. They are still there, I imagine that guns are there also, but what is left is kept hidden away.
That gun pipeline might still be there in Chicago, I don’t know. The police don’t seem to be finding the fully auto AKs(choppers) that they used to. I doubt that they are finding Mac 10s or even ARs in ‘da hood like they did.
In Ca, they took gun rights away, got tough on sentencing and on gun possesion laws and now it is aimed at the responsable user. The police have become militarized(with weapons and equiptment, even thier cars, that the public can’t have), and we might as well be under martial law. The new laws just enacted against guns have rendered the law abiding citizens almost helpless.
It is not working here, Dear God, I hope there is a safe place to go, when my wife finally agrees to leave Ca.
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