Background checks - controversy

[Kochman]

Which of those other amendments involve deadly weaponry?
And, there are limits to the 1A, for example...
particularly when it comes down to the Preamble of the Constitution...

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

[Salmoneye]

Which of those other amendments involve deadly weaponry?

Yelling "FIRE" in a crowded theater may be more deadly than Aurora...

[JimDandy]

Does that statistic remove straw man purchases as well as transfers of stolen guns or guns transferred from one criminal to another? Because no UBC will prevent any of those types of sales. I'm talking about honest to goodness, good conscience, I have no reason to believe this other person is a prohibited person transactions. And if there are no metrics on that, then this entire conversation is moot and all of this is nothing but a big time-waster.

Straw Men and Street Buys have their own statistic. But that's still 40% of Crime Gun sales in the Friends and Family Plan.

Let's turn this around.. if you absolutely have no reason, in good conscience to think your neighbor who you've known for 20 years isn't a prohibited person, is that any reason he shouldn't be if he is? If 25 years ago he became prohibited, and hasn't gone through the rights restoration process...

[Spats McGee]

Originally Posted by Kochman

Which of those other amendments involve deadly weaponry?

Does it matter? You're suggesting adding more limits to a fundamental, invididual right. Exercise of many of the rights under the First Amendment lead to terrible things like Revolution. Would you suggest that we make anyone who wants to exercise those rights subject themselves to a voluntary background check first?

I'm familiar with the Preamble, but I have never seen it evaluated in dealing with questions of constitutional rights. SCOTUS has said that the RKBA is an individual right, not a collective one. Might I suggest a peek at a Federal Constitutional Primer?

[JimDandy]

Which of those other amendments involve deadly weaponry?

Jonestown, Waco, Heaven't Gate for the first amendment. One could argue Speech, Religion, or Association, but it's all 1A.

[MLeake]

Kochman, who said anything about walking around? I said DUI, which refers to driving.

Do you not think cars are deadly implements? Have you ever compared road fatalities with gun shot fatalities? Have you ever looked at the numbers killed or maimed by drunk drivers?

Yet you feel that roadblocks are an invasion of privacy, and should be illegal... but you think NICS is reasonable and necessary.

FWIW, Kochman, medical malpractice kills more people in a given year than do firearms in the US. Firearms are deadly, but so are many other things. Those other things either don't draw media attention, or are backed by serious money.

You can claim apples and oranges all you like, but that only shows that with regard to lethal effect, you haven't actually checked your numbers; and with regard to the Bill of Rights, you don't understand the concepts of Strict Scrutiny (which the courts tend to apply to ALL other Constitutional protections), Intermediate Scrutiny, and Rational Basis (which the antis keep trying to apply solely to the Second Amendment).

[JimDandy]

Would you endorse random roadblocks,

Road blocks, or check points? Closing the road is not equivalent to a slowdown for a BG Check. Closing all but one lane, and checking the ID of every driver is closer

[csmsss]

Straw Men and Street Buys have their own statistic. But that's still 40% of Crime Gun sales in the Friends and Family Plan.

Oh my goodness. I just now looked at your "study" - which happens to be a survey of federal and state inmates. Did you not consider that the "friends and family" of inmates are highly likely to also be criminals likely to be transferring stolen firearms? I can't believe you are seriously suggesting a DoJ survey of convicted felons to be a reliable index to use when assessing the likelihood of a firearm transferred in a good conscience FTF transfer to be used in a violent crime. Seriously.

Let's turn this around.. if you absolutely have no reason, in good conscience to think your neighbor who you've known for 20 years isn't a prohibited person, is that any reason he shouldn't be if he is? If 25 years ago he became prohibited, and hasn't gone through the rights restoration process...

I have no idea what you're asking me here, but let me put this simply. I refuse to accept the notion that I am required by government dictate to invoke the intercession of a third party to dispose of my personal property. It's really that simple.

[MLeake]

JimDandy, fine, call it a DUI checkpoint. Those are legal, but only if run in certain manners; but even though they are legal, if police departments started running then on a daily basis, the citizens would tire of it rather quickly, and the powers-that-be would stop the practice.

[JimDandy]

A couple more tidbits from that survey...

Among prisoners who carried a firearm
during the offense for which they were
serving time in 1997, 14% had bought
or traded for the gun from a store,
pawnshop, flea market, or gun show.
The 1997 percentage who had
acquired their firearm at a retail outlet
represented a significant drop from
21% in 1991.

91 would, of course, be Pre-Brady-

The percentage of
inmates receiving their gun from family
or friends rose from 34% in 1991 to
40% in 1997.

So a third of criminals got their guns from friends and family before Brady, post Brady background checks, the 7% that didn't get them from retail locations appear to have gone to friends and family.

Again, this survey is admittedly old. and I don't know that I trust a single survey to prove anything. But it's certainly suggestive of the fact that background checks influence where crime guns come from.

[csmsss]

Road blocks, or check points? Closing the road is not equivalent to a slowdown for a BG Check. Closing all but one lane, and checking the ID of every driver is closer

It's unclear to me what distinction you are drawing here. Check points/road blocks, everywhere I've seen them, are basically the same thing. Police officers identify a section of road, then stop every driver who comes along (though this is frequently only drivers going in one particular direction - in other words, they might stop all southbound drivers but allow all northbound traffic through). Whether you call it a road block or a check point, the driver is still stopped and the police officer free to question you at his leisure.

[csmsss]

Jim, you haven't responded to my primary objection, which is the source data of this study - it's self-reported behavior to the DOJ from convicted felons! What part of that screams "trustworthy" to you?

[JimDandy]

Did you not consider that the "friends and family" of inmates are highly likely to also be criminals

No I can't say that I did. Aside from not visiting the crimes of the father on th son, and vice versa, that could/would be a street buy- one of the options.

And the question I asked you that you didn't understand was- If the guy you're selling your firearm to, that you have no reason to believe is a prohibited person, actually turns out to be one- does he suddenly deserve to have that firearm?

[csmsss]

No I can't say that I did. Aside from not visiting the crimes of the father on th son, and vice versa, that could/would be a street buy- one of the options.

Well, then you're being naive - though whether intentionally or not, I do not know. You do know, do you not, that a vast amount of crime is committed by gang members, right? Vast amounts of it - and where do you think those gang members obtain their guns? From their gang member buddies, of course. I can't seriously believe you didn't consider that criminals would likely associate with other criminals.

And you STILL haven't addressed how you can think a study based on self-reported felon behavior is trustworthy.

And the question I asked you that you didn't understand was- If the guy you're selling your firearm to, that you have no reason to believe is a prohibited person, actually turns out to be one- does he suddenly deserve to have that firearm?

No, of course that's illogical. But it does NOT make a convincing case for intruding upon my property rights nor does it make a convincing case for treating every potential transferee as a likely criminal.

[JimDandy]

And you STILL haven't addressed how you can think a study based on self-reported felon behavior is trustworthy.

Well I started with the fact they probably didn't have anything to lose by participating.

Then I followed that up with the idea that when one talks about crime guns, one pretty much has to, by definition, get the information from criminals.

And I finished with the decision that this was suggestive but not enough to be proof positive.

[csmsss]

Well I started with the fact they probably didn't have anything to lose by participating.

Convicts spend their days dreaming up ways to mess with "the man" - they also have no reason to care whether they tell you the truth or not. Is that really a trustworthy subject in an environment conducive to truth-telling?

Then I followed that up with the idea that when one talks about crime guns, one pretty much has to, by definition, get the information from criminals.

Actually, that's the worst way to approach it in my opinion. If you want to know about guns used in a crime, you do it the same way LEO's and ATF do - you start at the manufacturer, go to the FFL, and then go down the chain to the last 4473. If that isn't the person who committed the crime, then you find out what happened to the last 4473'r. And so on, until you either learn the ultimate disposition of the firearm. But that requires legwork and no one wants to do that.

And I finished with the decision that this was suggestive but not enough to be proof positive.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but MY opinion is that the methodology and assumptions of this study are so flawed and untrustworthy that it should not be used to draw any conclusions other than a PhD probably made a ton of money from the DoJ.

[fshfindr]

I had put in a reply that said I agree with Kochman. Spats wanted to hear more from me so here it goes. I live in NJ. If you know what that means then you know that I have a problem whenever I purchase a hand gun. Right now I'm waiting for a purchase permit for about 6 weeks and I'm not happy. But I'm sure that it will come through since, like you, I am a law abiding citizen. For guns in NJ you must have a Firearms Purchaser Card. So that is what I live with, I don't like it but I can't change it, so I live with it. We all live with things we don't like. I really don't mind the background check but I do mind even with the card, and still must go through another check and that it takes so long. I guess my point is that I would not fight against background checks, in fact I think that it is a necessary evil. But I want it done efficiently. And I particularly do not want persons who fail it, to get a gun.

Richard L.

[JimDandy]

You're certainly entitled to your opinion,

Which also had me using the ridiculously miniscule numbers for gun show and flea market purchases when talking to non-gun people about the issue. That the Gun Show "loophole" is a product of hype, not problems.

[Spats McGee]

Originally Posted by fshfindr

I had put in a reply that said I agree with Kochman. Spats wanted to hear more from me so here it goes.

Yes, I did, and thanks for joining in the fun!

Originally Posted by fshfindr

. . . . I live in NJ. . . . . For guns in NJ you must have a Firearms Purchaser Card. So that is what I live with, I don't like it but I can't change it, so I live with it. We all live with things we don't like. I really don't mind the background check but I do mind even with the card, and still must go through another check and that it takes so long. I guess my point is that I would not fight against background checks, in fact I think that it is a necessary evil. But I want it done efficiently. And I particularly do not want persons who fail it, to get a gun.

While I understand that you must deal with the Firearms Purchaser Card, and I understand that you don't like it, I don't see that as a reason to extend NJ's procedures (or NY's, or CA's or IL's . . . ) to the rest of the country.

I don't think any responsible gun owner wants firearms to fall into the hands of violent felons or the mentally ill. However, this whole universal background check idea just seems to be more hassle for folks that weren't going to be problems to begin with, without any appreciable benefit.

[JimDandy]

There is a right to travel, and a right to travel abroad. You still have to wait in line at customs when you re-enter the country. And show a photo-ID passport.

[MLeake]

But you do NOT have to show an ID to travel within the US, JimDandy, so what is your point?

Why do people refuse to grasp that every new regulation we create, every new license we require, every new hurdle to the exercise of a right that we allow to be placed, brings us that much closer to a police state way of life?

This country was founded on the principle of keeping Big Brother in check, not on the principle of justifying his methodology.

A lot of people like to quote Benjamin Franklin about those who sacrifice liberty for security. Personally, I like an older source, one who predates the US by millenia, but who exemplifies what used to be the Western standard of enlightened individualism: Aesop.

Check out the Aesop's fable about the dog who invites the wolf to the farmhouse. Seems like we have members here who think the wolf foolish for refusing the collar...

[2ndsojourn]

From MLeake:
"As Biden said, they just don't have time to prosecute that paperwork stuff."

Before any new laws are enacted, they need to make the time and enforce the current laws instead of creating more "paperwork stuff" that can't be enforced. The anti's have made perfectly clear what their ultimate intentions are. Registration when the new law(s) don't work, then confiscation. And when that doesn't reduce violent crime, what's their next step?

[JimDandy]

The point is those are rights, and an ID check is required. You have a right to re-entry into the United States, and that passport is your "background check" Showing a passport does not infringe your right to travel, even though it does add a delay.

[Kochman]

From MLeake:
"As Biden said, they just don't have time to prosecute that paperwork stuff."

Before any new laws are enacted, they need to make the time and enforce the current laws instead of creating more "paperwork stuff" that can't be enforced. The anti's have made perfectly clear what their ultimate intentions are. Registration when the new law(s) don't work, then confiscation. And when that doesn't reduce violent crime, what's their next step?

Ok, but listen...
Until we do, why not have a system in place to stop them from getting the guns while we work on how to get around to prosecuting them better?
The 4473 stopped 120k in two years, who knows how many now, but likely many more.
Some of them were not stopped permanently, some were though... something is better than nothing, isn't it?

[Spats McGee]

Originally Posted by Kochman

Ok, but listen...
Until we do, why not have a system in place to stop them from getting the guns while we work on how to get around to prosecuting them better?
The 4473 stopped 120k in two years, who knows how many now, but likely many more.
Some of them were not stopped permanently, some were though... something is better than nothing, isn't it?

Umm, how 'bout no?

How about we start prosecuting the laws on the books, rather than just setting up unnecessary and ineffective hurdles in an attempt to discourage lawful gun ownership?