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Five children escaped the sandy hook tragedy while the maniac changed magazines, if he had to do that more often, it seems logical that more lives would have been spared.
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I'm sorry, but is that what happened or what people say
might have happened? There's a big difference.
We do know from after-action reports that most of the dropped magazines were half full or more. At no point did Lanza fire a full magazine before reloading.
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It seems to me that if you're a responsible, law abiding, non-criminal, you would be in favor of universal background checks. It just seems logical to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of felons, the mentally ill, and, frankly, people who owe taxes or are in default of federal loans.
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Skipping past the troubling clause at the end, let's examine how folks think such a thing would work versus how it actually
does work.
First off, criminals don't obey laws. That's the very definition of "criminal." The black market will be unaffected by such a law. Criminals will continue to get guns from family members or bypass the system through straw purchases. It's in a criminal's best interest to avoid contact with a system that conducts background checks. That much should be obvious.
So, who does this affect? Folks who are already law-abiding. We're not the problem, but we're the ones being punished.
Second, the background-check system is simply broken as it is. We hear numbers quoted for "criminals denied firearms purchases" and such. Phooey. Those numbers are
denials, which can happen for any number of reasons and most of which (as in 92%) are
false positives for some reason.
The current system suffers from a lack of data coordination and from woefully incomplete records on mental incompetence. It is poorly managed, and the rare denial with merit is almost never prosecuted. Why? Because such cases
"lack jury appeal."
The third problem lies with the enforcement of such a law. There is simply no way to enforce a universal background check system without a registry of all privately-owned firearms. None. How does law-enforcement know I had a background check done on a given gun? I could tell them I got it from my buddy before the law passed. They have no way of checking. The only way is to have a database of guns.
Aside from the historical precedents Glenn mentioned, there are huge logistical problems with enacting a registry. Guns are classified by make, model, action, caliber, and serial number. If any of that information gets jumbled, things get hairy. If you think law enforcement gets this stuff right, let me disabuse you of that notion right away.
I've seen police reports for Glock model 9mm revolvers. I've been asked to trace Springfield Smith & Wesson pistols, serial number .40SW. I've sat in court and heard a prosecutor refer to a model Bersa forty manufactured by Thunder. I've had to explain the difference between assembly numbers and serial numbers to ATF agents.
Now, imagine you have to register a gun, and your data gets jumbled like that when they enter it. Congratulations! The gun in your possession doesn't match the one registered to you. I know of no jurisdiction requiring registration in which you would not be charged with a crime. Meanwhile, the gun Torgo holds to the back of your head while you're fumbling for your wallet remains blissfully unregistered.
Neither of these proposals would have stopped the horror at Sandy Hook. The politicians pushing for these laws know this. They've admitted it. The simple math is this: something horrible happened, and they are using it as an opportunity to harass gun owners because it's politically expedient to lampoon and villainize us.
So yeah, you can imagine why we're not only opposed, but more than a little resentful of such proposals.