Changed my mind on universal background checks.

[Webleymkv]

So, someone please explain to me how it can't work without registration? Even if they kept the data (and they will, there are lawsuits currently pending to force them to purge data that they have already kept, in violation of the statute), all they have is data on you (as recieveing a gun) not what gun. Not the ser# of the gun, linked with your name.

That's just it, without that information, there would be no way to enforce such a law. There are currently hundreds of millions of privately-owned guns in the United States and the vast majority of them will stay in circulation for decades, if not centuries. Were UBC's enacted without registration, all one would have to do to avoid prosecution for buying/selling a gun without a background check is to make sure that the gun was manufactured before UBC's became mandatory and claim that the sale took place before the law was in effect. While this would, of course, be illegal, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prove in most cases.

The only possible way I can see to prevent this would be registration of all privately-owned firearms so that the gov't would know which firearms are owned by whom on a given date. One could not claim that a gun was sold before the UBC law if said gun was already registered to him after that date. Of course, registration could be circumvented by a clever person too, but it wouldn't be so obvious. My fear is that when UBC's fail to significantly reduce violent crime (and we all know that they will) the anti's will blame that failure on the lack of registration rather than the fact that private sales were never a significant problem to begin with.

[Chaz88]

I am against changing any of the laws or making new ones before we make the ones we have work as intended. Enforce the ones we have! Then see if there is something else that is logically required and will effectively reduce crime and increase safety.

The main problem I have with "universal" background checks is when I want to pass my guns on to my kids. It would cost money that they and or/I do not have, and I already paid for them. It is already against the law for me to knowingly transfer a firearm to a prohibited individual. Can I not be reasonably expected to know if my children and family members are prohibited persons?

I do not have much of a problem in closing the so called gun show loophole. In my experience the loophole is exceedingly small anyway.

I do not think private sales are much of a problem, when it comes to crime. If someone is moving a significant number of firearms in violation of existing law they are acting completely outside the system anyway. If they were within it they would soon be flagged for straw purchases.

[mack59]

The president and others pushing legislation they label a "universal background check" have stated they want and need to be able to track and trace every gun to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands.

No, it won't work, criminals will get stolen guns on the black market and there will still be criminals and family/friends of criminals with no arrest or legal history who will still do straw purchases and claim later if it comes to that, that the gun was stolen.

The proposals or information about UBC that I have read about all propose that all sales and transfers will have to go through an FFL with the attendant paperwork and that the information on the individual in possession of the firearm as well as the specifics of the gun possessed will from the laws enactment be kept in a national data-base. Some proposals include a requirement that all gun owners register the guns they currently own in a national data-base also, so any future transfers may be tracked.

I also agree that as a practical matter this won't work either as a majority of gun owners will choose not to register their guns or most of them. Much like Canada's attempted long gun registration this will do nothing to prevent violent crime, make criminals of millions of otherwise lawful gun owners, and set the stage for later piecemeal attempts at confiscation. Estimates are that 70 percent of Canadian gun owners refused to register their long guns.

[spacecoast]

Want to give a gun to your law abiding wife? You're a felon without a UBC. Want to will your collection your son? You're a felon without a UBC. It would make transferring of a legal piece of property between law abiding citizens into a heavily regulated and potentially criminal act.

This is pretty much how I see it too, not to mention it's the first step toward registration in order to make it enforceable, so I say NO WAY. My wife and I have a legal trust, so technically I don't think that "I" own anything, but will definitely want to gift firearms to kids in the future. Being required to run a background check on my own son (currently serving in the US Army in Afghanistan) or my daughters (both God-fearing law abiding citizens) is unreasonable.

[Chaz88]

If it starts to look like any of this insanity will pass I will give all of my current guns to my kids before the law is passed. Then I might just never buy anything else. I might even just go and give them away now.

I honestly never thought I would see the day... but it is looking more likely all the time.

[mrbatchelor]

Originally Posted by mack59

I also agree that as a practical matter this won't work either ...

Even Joe Biden admitted it wouldn't make a difference!

There's a CNN video running around somewhere. CNN no less.

[dajowi]

This is how I explain it.

The universal background check means that a gift from a father to a son or daughter, or a gift from a grandfather to his grandson will only happen with the governments approval.

A sale to a friend is a sale to a fiend without a Universal Background Check.

In the future there may be Universal Background Checks to purchase automobiles, or alcohol or bibles for that matter. All of these are dangerous in the wrong hands.

It basically comes down to a registration scheme whether the feds admit it or not. All the good citizens have their firearms registered with the government.

Some good citizens don't want the feds to know what firearms they possess so they hide them. Since they didn't register their firearms they are now criminals.

It's easy for our government to make criminals out of law abiding citizens.

[BJ3]

Seems that Washington public servants should have no power, gratis. If those servants want something, it should be voted each & every time, ie. one person, one vote. After abt three requests, they'd stop asking. State power & let nat'l servants serve abt 1 yr, then return to the private sector, leaving all money made in office mandatory refunded to, "We the People.".

[manta49]

Already happening here. Background checks you have to have a firearms safe and ballistic tests on handguns. The problem is if you give one thing up then they will want something else.

[carguychris]

Originally Posted by mleake

The only check I could even consider getting behind would be along these lines:

1) The check is to obtain a license that is good for both purchase/transfer and for carry;

2) Licensees get the same benefits as retired LEOs do under LEOSA (IE carry in any state, according to each state's laws for its own licensed carriers);

3) Checks at purchase are only to verify validity of the license, and are not allowed to record actual firearms sold to any database.

Take out any one of those three legs, and I won't consider a proposal.

I suggest adding three more.

1) The licensee database must be totally inaccessible to anyone who does not have a court order. To wit, it must be impossible to use the license validity check process with only a name, address, birthdate, and/or other easily accessible identifying information; only the unique license number or code can be validated.

2) No public or private agency or institution is allowed to ask whether someone has the license unless the purpose relates specifically to the lawful purchase, use, or carrying of a firearm. IOW you can't be required to divulge that you're licensed- or produce the license- in order to enroll in school, enter a public building, receive medical care, board a commercial aircraft, or whatever. (It can work as a gov't issued photo ID, but its use as such must be strictly voluntary.)

3) Little or no licensing fee, and no expiration date.

[mack59]

I don't believe UBC would work, and I think they are useless. I haven't changed my opinion on that.

However, I see the gun control advocates using public ignorance to push for a so called "universal background check" as a Trojan Horse in order to get universal registration.

They are then able to put RKBA advocates in the politically unpopular position of trying to defend against UBC without even having to defend their agenda for universal registration.

To make our argument we have to first assert that the UBC they want will necessarily include registration and then make the further point that registration has and will lead to confiscation. It is a hard argument to make, especially to someone who has no investment in the RKBA or who naturally tends to dislike guns. Doubly hard in the face of the emotional hysteria of New Town and the unrelenting push in the press and media and from gun control advocates and politicians and the money of individuals like Bloomberg, multi-billionaire, for so called reasonable restrictions.

We are behind the curve on the popularity of UBC, we may be able to block it in the House but it will be a tough job with the popularity of the idea in the general public.

My suggestion is to offer a counter UBC proposal without registration, possibly exemptions for family, that will be unacceptable to the gun control advocates and will force them to respond by openly discussing and advocating their agenda for universal registration. Which would change the conversation to a less popular idea with the public and allow us to debate the real issue directly, and force gun control advocates to have to make a case for gun registration. A fight I think we can more easily win and without the risk of losing a fight over a so called UBC that will give us registration.

[lcpiper]

Three, if it did pass, allowing one gun or multiple guns to be transferred with an approved transaction that only notes the seller and the approval of a buyer with no record of the gun or guns involved being transmitted there would be no way to track individual guns or groups of guns. Even if they cheated and kept the information it would only tell them the name of someone who bought/received a gun without telling them what they owned.

Here is the problem I have.

So we give in, hey this sounds ok right?

But after several years the anti-gunners have another supportive President and Congress in place and there is another tragedy. This time they say "Hey, we can't figure out where this guy got his gun from so we don't know if it was legally purchased or not. We need to change the background check system.

The left step leads to the right step, back to the next step. All these steps are going down the wrong road. You can't prevent these things from happening in this way. You can't stop it this way. Mack59 I am sorry man, but nothing good can come of this thinking and you need to stop thinking that you have to give them something to appease them. They will not be appeased, only left hungry for more.

They believe they can make the world a better place and they don't care what they have to do in order to accomplish their goals.

Watch the movie Serenity if you haven't yet.

[mack59]

Don't necessarily disagree with you Icpiper. I don't want to give them anything, I want to take away everything they have.

But we are in a debate over UBC that may be passed today. We are far behind the curve with public support and are relying on uncertain political maneuvers to probably try and block it in the House. I hope we can win that way.

But if it looks like we may lose, then we lose nothing by floating a possible proposal for UBC that does not include registration and exempts family members. Hopefully it wouldn't come to even passing that as it would as configured be so unacceptable to gun control advocates. But it would shift the debate from UBC to registration.

Even if such a useless non-registration UBC law were the result they would still lose registration now and have to come back later to try for it. They can always come back and ask for more win or lose.

If they get UBC with registration the next time if they come back for more they would not be fighting for registration but confiscation. Registration is a line in the sand.

[gaseousclay]

i'm not against enhancing current background checks to weed out potential criminals, but as others have already stated, some of these proposals aren't enforcable. even if they were it would be at tax payer expense. I think having record of a firearm might make straw buyers think twice before buying a gun for someone that shouldn't have one. perhaps the LGS could record the make/model and serial# of the gun and enter it into a database. if that gun is used in a crime then the person who bought the gun would be held liable and face criminal charges.

[lcpiper]

Why? I still do not understand this thinking?

Here is my thought process on it.

First, you can't stop the criminal from getting the gun without going absolutely draconian. If it get's that bad then this is all a moot point as we will be living without freedom.

So given that we will still own guns, criminals will be able to get guns. So you will not stop the criminal this way. But what about the other ones, the guy that was "normal" and goes wacko cause he got fired and now he is going to kill everyone at work? These kinds, how do you stop them this way? Until the day they go off the deep end, they are just like us. So tell me how you can stop any of it this way?

As for straw buyers selling to criminals what does that have to do with anything? Let's reverse engineer a crime. How about a mugging at gun-point in Chicago.

1. Man winds up at wrong place, wrong time.
2. Criminal attempts to rob a man at gun point.
3. Man resists criminal.
4. Criminal kills victim with gun.
5. Cops investigate scene of murder, man was shot, no weapon found.
6. Cops look for criminal based on forensic evidence, but chances are slim.
7. Suspected arrested on another crime, apartment searched, gun found in apartment.
8. Cops trace gun to FFL, gun sold legally to a buyer.
9. Now what? If the cops have a case that the guy who sold the gun did so illegally, then they can already prosecute him. The cops already have reason to investigate if the sale between the buyer and the criminal was legal or not.

10. But that is not the point, the point is how does this prevent the sale and it can not. The reason is because the original buyer, the "straw buyer", he is a criminal too, just hasn't been caught yet. This is the problem. So if the straw buyer is already a criminal, what's stopping him from committing another crime?

Such measures only look logical to those who view the problem as a law abiding citizen would view it. If you look at it from a criminal's point a view, it's just laughable.








Please explain you thinking guys, why do you even say you are for something that can't reasonably be done.

[mack59]

gaseousclay - excluding some specific enhancement of the background check you mention and a government data-base that is essentially what happens now.

If the police choose to run a trace on a firearm the gun manufacturer is contacted and they tell what wholesaler they sold it to, then the wholesaler is contacted and they say what retailer (local FFL or LGS) the FFL then checks his form 4473's and tells them who he sold it to - name and address, make and model and serial number of gun to verify. There are many local jurisdictions and I believe some states that prohibit transfer of firearms to unlicensed let alone prohibited individuals and it is a crime to straw purchase - but I would be surprised if there are more than a handful of prosecutions based on such laws in the whole country in a years time - straw purchasers just say the gun was stolen. Usually it seems they discover it was stolen right after being informed it was used in a crime.

[mack59]

Laws prohibiting straw purchases work as well as laws prohibiting the poor elderly from selling their pain medications for extra money.

[Webleymkv]

But we are in a debate over UBC that may be passed today. We are far behind the curve with public support and are relying on uncertain political maneuvers to probably try and block it in the House. I hope we can win that way.

I'm not so sure that we are "far behind the curve" because I don't particularly trust the polling data. The only recent poll I can find on UBC's is one from Quinnipiac. That poll only sampled three states: two "purple" states which went for the president in both 2008 and 2009 (Pennsylvania and Virginia) and one deep blue state which hasn't gone for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988 (New Jersey).

[Auto426]

To me it's a pretty simple matter. If a gangbanger one the streets breaks 15 laws in the process of obtaining a gun and using it to kill someone, do you honestly believe passing a 16th law is suddenly going to stop him?

So we now have a law that requires background checks on all private sales, do you really think that the family and friends of criminals that buy the guns for them are suddenly going to bring their gangbanger relative/buddy with them to an FFL dealer before they give them the gun?

I think the answer is pretty obvious. These new "common sense" gun reforms are anything but. A person with real common sense would stop and examine the facts to see what the problem is and what can be done about it, not railroad emotionally charged legislation through congress in the name of "protecting the children" without letting any facts get in the way.

[claymore1500]

I know this may be a stretch, but I have not seen it brought up in any debates over the UBC's.

Since we all know how much the govt. loves putting people on any one of a bazillion watch lists with no warranted reason, what is to stop them from saying "You want to acquire a firearm, you must be a terrorist, DENIED."

And you, you are supplying terrorists with firearms, you are now a prohibited person, turn in all of your guns or we are coming to get you.

We have all heard of their "No fly, watch list" Remember when Ted Kennedy found himself on it, don't think it couldn't happen.

[OEF-Vet]

SHE3PDOG

The United States DOJ in a study conducted in 2006 stated that 57% of felons arrested for violent crime had a prior arrest for a felony. 70% of violent felons had a previous arrest record. 67% of murderers had a previous arrest for robbery or assault. The problem we have with violent crime is not one of gun culture, but one of a broken justice system. More background checks won't help keep felons in prison

Source for Stats: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/ascii/vfluc.txt

Well said, I hope you don't mind but I stole this post to share with my friends and family. This is exactly the kind of information people need to hear and understand.

[SHE3PDOG]

Thanks for the kind regard. I don't mind if you guys steal that for your own use; in fact, I encourage it. People need to understand the real cause of violent crime instead of just relying on emotions generated from tragedies to guide them toward the direction our country seems to be headed now. If the government spent the same amount of time, effort, and money trying to keep felons in prison instead of pushing for gun control, we would live in a much safer country.

[DaleA]

44 Amp is one of the few folk that sees what the OP is driving at.

Ok, I understand what the OP wants, and it is not the background check of today, or one that is proposed by anyone, save the OP.

I'm not for it either because I've thought a lot about it and it wouldn't do much good but I think, in a nutshell it might work like this:

Tom wants to sell a gun. Joe wants to buy it. They go to the police or a gun store and check Joe out. Joe is okay and the sale takes place. Tom knows he has NOT sold a gun to a felon. Nobody knows what gun Joe has bought.

The gun is not 'registered'. Joe is just checked out to make sure he is not prohibited from buying a gun.

How would this system prevent sales between folks who don't do the check? It wouldn't.

How much good would it do? Not much like I said before.

[TDL]

The United States DOJ in a study conducted in 2006 stated that 57% of felons arrested for violent crime had a prior arrest for a felony. 70% of violent felons had a previous arrest record. 67% of murderers had a previous arrest for robbery or assault. The problem we have with violent crime is not one of gun culture, but one of a broken justice system. More background checks won't help keep felons in prison

Well said.

The issue with the universal checks is that it plays into the flawed thought process: "why wont the gun owners/NRA compromise."

Because a loss of rights, even a tiny one, when that loss involves targeting an innocent group as part of a diversion form the real problem, is a slippery slope.

I can pass a background check and don't per se object it is that the current government and the anti second amendment lobby are selling this as a solution to a problem that isn't being address.

The problem is when universal background checks turn out to be utterly ineffective, the logical next step is more gun control

[SHE3PDOG]

The issue with the universal checks is that it plays into the flawed thought process: "why wont the gun owners/NRA compromise."

Because a loss of rights, even a tiny one, when that loss involves targeting an innocent group as part of a diversion form the real problem, is a slippery slope.

I can pass a background check and don't per se object it is that the current government and the anti second amendment lobby are selling this as a solution to a problem that isn't being address.

The problem is when universal background checks turn out to be utterly ineffective, the logical next step is more gun control

I could not agree with you more. I'm not worried about passing this kind of background check, but once this is taken off of the table, what will take its place when the next tragedy occurs?