Are background checks necessary?

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monotonous_iterancy

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I've been wondering, do you all oppose all gun regulation on principal? I do mostly, but I don't really have a problem with undergoing a background check, so long as it's decentralized.

Basically, my question has two parts.

1. Is there any level of regulation you're okay with?

2. Are 4473s and things necessary?
 
Just saw an ad for some car that can go from 0-60 in 4 seconds or something. No mention of background check to see if you're a repeat
speeding offender, or a check with your CLEO for approval.
Don't recall anything in the Constitution about private transportation, but seems like speeding kills more innocents than firearms yearly.
Following the background check is to save lives argument, shouldn't we be checking on people who want one of these "potentially deadly" cars?
Besides, who, except for police and military need to have such "high-
powered" vehicles?
Just sayin
 
I think background checks are fine, I really don't want criminals and insane people to have an easier time getting weapons. The only people who's rights are infringed by a background check are those groups.

And to be blunt if I had the opportunity to use NICS I wouldn't even sell to another private individual without a background check.
 
If there were an easy way to verify someone was a "good-guy" without hassle, most people would probably use it. Like the custom of flashing a CCW just out of courtesy if you're doing a parkinglot transfer. I have no strong opinion, but I approve of providing people such a way to reassure the other party in a transaction if they so choose.
 
No background check required to become a parent, no background check required for the purchase of alcoholic beverages or large amounts of gasoline or other flammable substances.
 
but I don't really have a problem with undergoing a background check
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Let's look at this from the standpoint of the law.

The requirement is on the FFL holders (dealers) because they are the ones regulated and THEY are the ones required to run a background check to verify that you are not a prohibited person. The regulation of a business.

Individual citizens aren't.

You'd have to create a new law that requires all citizens to have such a check performed before transferring a firearm to another. This is fundamentally different from a regulated business transferring a firearm to an individual.

In addition to a new law regulating the individual you have to create an infrastructure to make complying with the new law possible. Ideally, you'd need to make it not just possible but practical. Now you have to pay for that infrastructure to make it practical for you and me to transfer ownership of a firearm between the two of us. That's another burden on the budget unless you charge the individuals for the check and that's a burden on us.

All that laid out doesn't mean a thing in this case. The firearms used by the madman at Sandy Hook weren't legally transferred. He shot his mom in the head and took them and no law in the world requiring a background check would have made any difference at all. Nothing that has been proposed, other than mental health care at the right time, would or could have stopped Adam Lanza from slaughtering 20 little kids. So what's the point of background checks when this murdering monster wouldn't have been affected by them???
 
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From a prior post on the topic:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showpost....&postcount=229
Another interesting series of data points from the 2005 report on Brady check stats: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/bcft05.txt
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* 1.6% of the 8.3 million applications for firearm transfers or permits in 2005 were rejected by the FBI (66,700 applications)or State and local agencies(65,200 applications).
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* The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearm and Explosive's(ATF) field offices investigated 9,575 National Instant Criminal Background Check System(NICS)denials that were referred by the FBI in 2005.
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* In 2005 U.S. attorney offices accepted for prosecution 135 NICS denial cases investigated by ATF.
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In 2005, 130,000 folks were denied legal access to a firearm, of which sixty seven thousand purchases were blocked by the FBI. Of those sixty seven thousand FBI-blocked transactions, less than ten thousand represented denials worthy of ATFE investigation and only 135 were cases suitable for Federal prosecution. H'okay......

161,000 appeals of denials from 1999 to 2005; 57,000 reversed
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I'm sure that the more than TEN THOUSAND folk who were inappropriately denied the right to purchase a firearm every year didn't mind being inconvenienced; it did result in one hundred and thirty five Bad Guys getting their just rewards.
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No background checks. Redefine what is a prohibited person (it's too broad right now), then deal with them appropriately when found in posession.
 
How would you define prohibited person?
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It would certainly continue to include those adjudicated mentally deffective. It would especially include violent and serious criminals and probably many others. I'm not real concened about the farmer who ran afoul of EPA or Endangered Species Act laws and was charged with a felony. There are many violators of victimless crimes that I don't have a problem with owning guns.... assuming they did their time.
 
I am perfectly ok with background checks and the 4473. However a persons mental status and background are blocked by the ACLU. So the NICS can only check for felonies, not if the person is one missed dose of meds from something horrible. That's the part of the background check tags need to be corrected. But, like every other governmental program, it fails and is basically useless.
 
I think once someone has been determined to be unfit to possess a firearm something should be branded on their forehead. Maybe 666 or something.

That way we wouldn't need to worry about background checks for FTF sales... :)

Seriously, I think private transfers are fine as long as the seller has no reason to doubt the buyer's legality. ID with birth date and state of residence is minimum proof for me.
 
If I believed that the protections written into the law protecting us from using 4473s as a tracking system were serious and bullet proof, I wouldn't have any problem with doing a background check with every transfer.

But I don't. The (ab)use of such a system as being de-facto registration is inevitable.
 
I have no problem being checked. It isn't flawless, but what is? My right is not infringed unless I have something in my past that has caused it. I used to get delayed every time until I got my CCW and was never overly distraught. I have a couple misdemeanors and was born outside the US (military parents), so I figured it was those and let it go. I would get my gun in three days.

However, I don't like the serial number being recorded every time I purchase. No way around it even if only for the dealer to track inventory.
 
I don't have a problem with background checks. Costs me an extra 10 minutes. I've never had one go under further review though. Might change my opinion if I had to wait 3 days before I received what I paid for.
 
Why does the 4473 form list anything at all about the firearm? It's supposed to be the buyer that going through the background check. What they're buying shouldn't have anything to do with it.
 
bushmaster1313 said:
Background checks are a good idea.
Some people should not be allowed guns.
I would support requiring all transfers to go through an FFL and a NICS check.
My $0.02
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I concur with this, but with one proviso (if it's at all possible). It seems that the biggest concern raised with background checks is that it creates a defacto registry. For example, if I buy (as I wish) a nice 1911 and undergo a check, and all sales are required to have a check, then it's pretty clear that I have the 1911 until another transfer is done.

The question is this - can a background check be run such that the individual is checked and approved to buy a given firearm, but the firearm itself isn't attached to the check?

From my review of 4473, the arm is recorded on this form along with the buyer/seller. It seems that who bought the arm shouldn't be recorded, so long as whoever it was passed the background check at the time of purchase.

It seems that a 4473 should be separated between the two parts - one that the buyer passes the check, and two that an arm has been released from somebody to somebody. It seems that there's not a compelling reason to store who actually received the arm so long as this person is the one who passed the check (easily done by checking ID, which is done already). For a person to dispose of an arm, it would have to be either lost/stolen (reported as such and would hence go on a registry as such) or legally transferred (again to somebody who can pass a check).
 
Nothing that has been proposed, other than mental health care at the right time, would or could have stopped Adam Lanza from slaughtering 20 little kids. So what's the point of background checks when this murdering monster wouldn't have been affected by them???
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You are forgetting that a gun in the possession of a tactically trained teacher would have done the trick.

That is the most immediate and useful solution to the problem in the opinion of probably as many people that think mental health care is the complete answer.

A gun in the hands of a teacher is a solution today. Mental health care, although a viable solution, is a much longer term process.
 
We never used to have background checks.

Background checks are ineffective -- they don't stop bad guys from getting guns.

Background checks impose a lot of cost and require the use of resources for very very little ROI -- resources that could be better used elsewhere.

Background checks only inconvenience good guys; the bad guys don't undergo background checks when getting their guns.

Background checks are an imposition on a Constitutionally guaranteed right. They're no more acceptable than would be requiring background checks for journalists before they can journal or for gamers before they can game.

I say no.
 
I have no problem with background checks. Rights of citizenship (including 2A rights) can be lost through due process of law. Having those rights verified through NICS is not an infringement, and it keeps a lot of guns out of the hands of people who do not have the right to own them.

As for private sales, I've never sold a gun, but I wouldn't sell to anyone who couldn't produce some proof of a current background check. In my state that would mean a purchase permit, carry permit, or FFL. I'm not going to take a chance on transferring a gun to a prohibited person.
 
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