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Old January 12, 2013, 11:52 AM   #26
Frank Ettin
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As mentioned, in California (and, I believe, some other States) pretty much all transfers must go through an FFL. I'm sure that there are illegal, fully private transfers, but I'm not sure that anyone knows how many.

I suspect that the level of voluntary compliance is quite high. It's not all that inconvenient, and most folks want to avoid the potential complications of participating in an illegal, felonious act. It will take two people willing to accept the risk to do an illegal transfer.

How to catch people is law enforcement's problem. But I bet a few get caught by bragging about it on the Internet or to their buddies at the LGS or range (perhaps withing earshot of an LEO).
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Old January 12, 2013, 12:10 PM   #27
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Biden's focus

Seems that Joe Biden is going to suggest universal backgound checks for all firearm sales. I'd like to know how this is supposed to work. Most private sales are between friends and familly. The only way this law could have any teeth is if all guns are registered first. That's pretty much a no starter for most folks.
The other focus is on high cap mags. I don't know if this will be a ban on new sales or an out right ban on their use.

Last edited by dlb435; January 12, 2013 at 12:17 PM.
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Old January 12, 2013, 12:20 PM   #28
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If universal BG checks are the only thing...

...I could live with it. There are ways of implementing a program like this that could work, maybe. Where I draw the line is banning anything that a sane, law abiding citizen wants to own. Even this could be tweaked around the edges by requiring a BG check for purchasing magazines with a capacity of over 10 rounds, just don't ban high capacity magazines.
While we do need to keep firearms out of the hands of lunatics and criminals, what we don't need is an idiotic AWB like the previous one. Write your senators and representatives as well as the White House and do it now. I have done and doubled down on the White House by not only writing but calling. Of course I only talked to a volunteer but I let my views be known. I had to wait less than 4 minutes to talk to a real person. Please be polite and respectful and don't threaten an armed insurrection!
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Old January 12, 2013, 01:08 PM   #29
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Rather than living with it, why don't you write your representatives, and donate to NRA-ILA, SAF, GOA, or your choice of RKBA groups?

I am appalled at the number of, "Well, I could live with..." threads and posts, lately.
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Old January 12, 2013, 01:34 PM   #30
Glenn E. Meyer
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Here's my bet - worth what you paid for it.

Biden:

1. Will not recommend an EBR ban. He will say that one is needed but it can't be done at this time.
2. Ban hicaps - knowing that that probably won't happen. Suggest that states do this. So NY can demand any that exist there (if they do) get mandatory turn in. Don't know the laws there but some states have grandfathered mags - so turn them in.
3. Tighten up mental health reporting on NICS. Some states screw this up. VA did for Cho, it is argued. Better funding would get support from all. Will go through.
4. NICS for all private sales - won't happen but recommended. NICS for private sales at gun shows - may happen.
5. Antiroyalty provisions in the Constitution will be waved and King Piers coronated at the Inauguration.

We will see.
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Old January 12, 2013, 01:36 PM   #31
Bartholomew Roberts
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Yeah, personally, there is zero chance I am going to "live with" or support the same people who just announced that they can and should confiscate my lawfully owned firearms having an exact list of what I own in that regard.
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Old January 12, 2013, 02:07 PM   #32
sigcurious
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Quote:
Most private sales are between friends and familly. The only way this law could have any teeth is if all guns are registered first.
While I certainly do not condone required NICS for all transfers, the idea that registration is needed to make people comply with the law is flawed. It is unlikely that after all this many people would be ignorant of the fact that such a law has passed. A transfer then requires two people willing to break the law or ignorant of the law to occur. This flies in the face of much of the we are law abiding citizens arguments that are made, if all these law abiding citizens are now breaking the law.

It would work because a majority of people are law abiding. This is not to say there wouldn't be people who, out of ignorance or misguided principle, would not obey the law, but they would be in the minority.


An interesting consideration; If some sort of universal background check legislation were to pass, would it address and revise the current exemption for certain states' ccw permit(or similar such as the case of NE's purchase permit), create a legislative conflict(such as the legislation explicitly says all transfers, but doesn't create changes in the previous Brady language), or just leave it be. If left with the exemption, for permit holders...then presumably private sales could continue "unchecked" between permit holders as they are exempted.
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Old January 12, 2013, 02:25 PM   #33
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I wonder how much apoplexy I could cause some of these folks by asking two questions:

1. Thoreau - conscientious objector, or tax evader?

2. Harriet Tubman - human rights hero, or smuggler?

I strongly suspect that some of the antis who would tell us that if a law passes, then of course we must follow it, would not have applied the same rationales to war or slavery protestors.
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Old January 12, 2013, 02:32 PM   #34
Al Norris
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Threads merged that are talking about essentially the same thing: Gun Control via closing the "loophole."
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Old January 12, 2013, 02:52 PM   #35
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While I understand what you're getting at Mleake. In the case of Thoreau, I think most would point out he did accept and understand the consequences of his decision to not pay taxes(going to jail). Also that his situation was not remedied by his objections being recognized as just, but by someone paying his taxes for him.

I'm not so sure that many of those who might object to universal background checks would be quite as willing to accept the consequences of their actions and be preferential that no remedy be rendered until their actions were determined just. Coincidentally, I also don't think they'd have volumes of well written prose describing their personal philosophies and reasoning for their conscientious objection.
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Old January 12, 2013, 05:13 PM   #36
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I doubt that, too, but my point was about the hypocrisy of those who assume that if they like a law, it should apply, but thumbing one's nose at other laws is romantically heroic.

(FWIW, I approve of Harriet Tubman breaking the law, but I think Thoreau was a bit of a windbag.)
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Old January 12, 2013, 05:40 PM   #37
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If private sales were required to go through a dealer it would be up to the government to prove that you sold or purchased a gun in violation of the law.

You do not have to prove that you complied with the law.
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Old January 12, 2013, 06:10 PM   #38
sigcurious
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If private sales were required to go through a dealer it would be up to the government to prove that you sold or purchased a gun in violation of the law
True, but in many cases this would not be all that difficult to prove, particularly as time goes on beyond the enactment date. One example, those that wish to flout the law could never safely transfer to/from a fellow scofflaw a firearm made after the enactment of such a law.

Regardless of this, a law being difficult to enforce has never stopped the government from passing it anyway.
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Old January 12, 2013, 06:30 PM   #39
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Or like happened in Canada...you hold out, they extend the deadline, you hold out, they extend the deadline..then you finally get organized enough to elect someone (PM Harper) that campaigns on "ending the long gun registration as a waste of money".

If they actually try for a gun registraion program, you can point to Canada, it was originally supposed to cost $30 million...after several years of an ineffective registration program, when it had cost $3 Billion...it was finally canceled
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Old January 12, 2013, 10:21 PM   #40
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I am appalled at the number of, "Well, I could live with..." threads and posts, lately.
Hear, hear! Fatalism and sullen acceptance seem to be preferable to taking even the simples of actions in opposition lately.
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Old January 12, 2013, 10:39 PM   #41
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I could live with it.
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Old January 14, 2013, 01:44 PM   #42
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Like pretty much every law, closing the so-called "gun show loophole" would depend on the cooperation of law-abiding citizens; don't see the Crips and Bloods dropping into an FFL to swap nines around ... short of registration of all guns, again dependant on citizens to comply, the only way 5-0 would know you got a gun without properly transferring it would be if you committed a crime with it and then got caught ... there aren't enough cells in the world to hold all the folks who would be in violation ...

And hoping Glenn is right ...
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Old January 14, 2013, 02:46 PM   #43
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Spent the morning listening to the Bloomberg academic get-together with them talking about studies on Brady Bill etc. Wasn't around if/when they got to AWB. They pointed out that the study showed no effect whatsoever; but this meant more gun control was needed.

The terminology they used was the "private sale loophole".
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Old January 14, 2013, 03:11 PM   #44
Glenn E. Meyer
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That was the conclusion from the now classic Koper and Roth study that showed no effect of the AWB.

The reasons it failed:

1. The ban only affected cosmetics and equally efficacious guns were continued to be produced - so the ban is stupid or tighten it up to whack all semis.

2. The existence stocks could supply any current level of criminality - so confiscate all guns and mags.

Heard it at the conference where they presented it for the DOJ.

Concluding we don't know if bans work as we really didn't ban and confiscate.
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Old January 14, 2013, 03:29 PM   #45
johnwilliamson062
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There was a year or two where I did a considerable amount of face to face trading. Buy a gun, shoot it for a while, see something I liked on a message board, trade.
Over and over again.
I was able to familiarize myself with many guns and came out about even when it was all over with if you don't count cost of travel and search time.
If I had to pay a transfer fee every time I traded I never would have been able to afford it. $30 a transfer around me now. Would have cost me hundreds of dollars more. Not to mention I would have had to get the person to meet me at an FFL during business hours, etc. What happens if they get a delay? Leave it with FFL? COme back in three days? What a nightmare.
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Old January 14, 2013, 03:32 PM   #46
D.W. Drang
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MLeake said
Quote:
I am appalled at the number of, "Well, I could live with..." threads and posts, lately.
Since returning to TFL after a several year hiatus, I have noticed a whole helluva lot of posts that can be summarized as "I'm OK with statist thugs walking all over the Constitutional Rights of other people, even if it does mean I have to jump through higher and narrower hoops."
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Old January 14, 2013, 04:20 PM   #47
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Newly manufactured firearms get a paper trail attached at birth almost just like people. But in most states the trail ends shortly after sale to a authorized buyer. The FFL is required to make a check to verify that the buyer isn't a prohibited possessor and then the deal is done.

The only way to see that individuals follow the same requirements as FFL holders is to maintain the paper trail similar to a property deed or a vehicle title. But along with this you would have to retroactively require the registration of all firearms and we know what that fight will be like.

In the end it's an empty gesture that will do nothing to "prevent" anyone from doing anything. As has been said, the criminal will break all the laws that stand in the way of getting what he wants. These laws prevent nothing more then masking the real causes of the problem and preventing rational people from taking positive steps to mitigate these causes.

I am leaning toward the simple concept that our brains only function properly when the chemicals are right and balanced. The medical institutions of our country know this but are so proud and idealistic, or simply greedy, that they will not admit it and instead point ineffectual fingers at violent games and movies and of course, the Devil's tools.

That's how I see it from my point of view.
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Old January 14, 2013, 04:25 PM   #48
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Full trail is a downpayment on registration (closing the sale loophole) which is downpayment on fees and confiscation in future. The FFL thing itself was a initially a big reach, now guns not sold through these federally licensed dealers is a "loophole".

The incremental nature of gun control in the US can be measured in terms of the effect of the late-game steps, not the meaningless controls it takes on the way there.
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Old January 14, 2013, 08:34 PM   #49
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The kicker in the Feinstein proposal is requiring all existing "assault weapons" must be registered under the NFA.

What I see happening is that the vast majority of applicants will be found to be not eligible for some reason. At that time the weapon will be forfeited. It is a back door method of confiscating the grandfathered weapons.

As a retired Army Officer whose duties involved threat assessments of terrorist, I wrote papers which detailed a variety of potential actions. These assignments make me a threat per DHS.

Does this disqualify me from owning a grandfathered rifle?
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Old January 14, 2013, 10:16 PM   #50
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As a retired Army Officer whose duties involved threat assessments of terrorist, I wrote papers which detailed a variety of potential actions. These assignments make me a threat per DHS.
Really? I'd really like to see that. If you don't want to post it feel free to PM me.
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