Gun Debate and Proposals

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CookeMonster

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I have been debating for weeks on another forum that is not gun or politics related. I have been able to gain some ground with guys that have been pro-Feinstein and gun ban and magazine restrictions and database registration. Along with a few others, after 1000s of posts back and forth, we have gotten them to come around to the idea that banning guns for cosmetic reasons is asinine, and have proven that semi-auto vs revolver is a non-issue and right along side that magazine restrictions are also a non issue. The issue that has been the most elusive is illegal private sales. We have come up with some ideas, and wanted your take on it.

Copied and pasted from other forum: (I'm in red)
I'll take a stab at the private sale problem and everyone can poke holes in it and point out where I'm misinformed. I think the solution is to require a background check for private sales by having any sale go through an FFL. This won't stop anyone from obtaining a gun illegally, just like any law won't stop someone from breaking the law. But it does allow a private citizen to obtain a background check on a purchaser and I'd think most would gladly follow the law, if only for the comfort of knowing their gun wasn't bought for criminal use. Just like with new gun purchases, you wouldn't stop the flow of illegal gun sales, but you would reduce them and make it harder for the wrong person to obtain a gun.

The way I understand it to be now, any new gun sales must go through an FFL and receive a background check. In addition, at least here in VA, I believe the FFLs are required to keep a record of the sale for 2 years. By having any private sales go through an FFL, the buyer, seller, and FFL would all have records of the sale. This seems like it would provide a system where you could trace an illegally used gun without having a national (or state) database. There isn't any reason why you couldn't push the record keeping requirement for all parties to 10 years. I think the number of background checks last year was around 17 million, which would include some private sales. Even if you push that to 30 million to account for the additional sales, that's only about 500 per FFL.

So, while you will never eliminate all instances of criminals acquiring guns, you would at least likely make it harder and more expensive to obtain them illegally. With national registration, you won't get the criminals and many of the non-criminals to comply. With this type of law, you would at least get the majority of non-criminals to comply.
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I don't know that it could be possible without a registration database. Without a database of gun owners, how do you get back to original owners to follow the trail? I can guarantee that a huge number of gun owners will be unwilling to be listed in a database for fear of the potential for future confiscation.
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There would be no central database. The manufacturer would have a record to which FFL the gun was sold. The FFL would keep the record to whom they sold the gun to and also any transfer records between individuals. Any access to those records would require a subpoena. It would be no different than your health records. Your FFL won't give up your info any easier than your doctor would.
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Agreed. I wasn't necessarily talking about a central database, but all-inclusive records kept. Preferably by manufacturer because that would keep it broken into many separate parts and more difficult to assemble. Also, gun manufacturers would be more likely to respect/support privacy and gun rights, seeing that their target demographic is gun buyers/owners that would quickly and easily take their business elsewhere if those rights to privacy were violated without proper procedure. I'm liking this a lot.


There is also no way to prevent somebody from selling a gun to anybody they want without going through an FFL. The only way to accomplish this idea of limiting private gun sales without background checks I can see is requiring total registration, and that is completely off the table for me and for about 80 million guns in the hands of about 10 million gun owners in my estimation. Those 10 million probably donate quite a bit of money to the NRA-ILA for legal defense of their rights and political voice. Gonna be tough.
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Agree. Even with registration, you would need total compliance, even from the criminals. That's not going to happen but it shouldn't stop us from trying to prevent some of the guns from getting there. Non-criminals would likely comply with going through an FFL and that would make it harder for the criminal.
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Every private seller could keep a reciept/B.O.S. approved by an FFL for a period of time as a trail to follow if a gun was found to be possessed illegally. It would incur a cost of about $25 per transaction, and many will squawk about that, but I would be happy to "purchase" insurance of each sale of my guns for $25 in the case that it ended up in the hands of a felon or used in a crime. A FFL transaction record to say, "I don't have it anymore. I sold it to John Doe. See, here is the record." I would prefer it be in the $10-15 range to keep it affordable, but I don't know the cost for the FFLs to process the background check. Here in California it's $25.
I think we agree here.

But again, how do you get back to the original owner in order to follow the trail without registration? If there were a way to keep track of the original owner that was forever off-limits for the authorities/politicians/military to get ahold of blanket list, but only single inquiries on a gun's serial # in possession of police for the investigation of a crime, I might be OK with it. Maybe the gun manufacturer keeps the record of original sale or something? I wouldn't know where to start with this policy for the 300 million + guns already in circulation. You could start by the registration already on file with individual states being turned over to manufacturers, I guess. The important part of establishing any kind of registration is to keep the master list out of the government's hands. The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is protection of our free states from government (foreign or domestic). You don't hand a potential enemy the blueprints to you vault, or the programming to your network security. Until you can trust all of the people in power, and you just can't because they are almost all from legal/lawyer backgrounds - insert lawyer joke here-, you can't trust those people with your defense of freedoms.
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Yes, I think. The police would have to start with the manufacturer. That would lead to the original FFL, which would lead to the 1st owner, and so on. Each request would be separate. There is no way to take care of the 300 million already out there, but nothing being suggested takes care of that, not even registration (because nobody will comply). This at least takes care of any transfers going forward.
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Many states already have a database (California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois of the top of my head - I may be wrong on those). Turn those over to gun manufacturers, and you would take care of probably 50-100 million guns right there. From that point, go with every new sale and every private sale that was willing to comply with the registration. It would probably take some time, but would eventually get to the point of at least 1/2 to 2/3rds of the guns in the U.S. being accounted for. Time would take care of 90% of the rest and of course there would still be imported illegal arms and Alex Jones burying his in PVC packed with preservative somewhere in the woods, but this could make a huge difference in limiting private illegal sales.
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I think we have acceptance from both you and Tim.

We can put my name on the bill.:)
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I'm on board with this as well.
Seems very reasonable that should make both sides happy :thumbup:
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Limiting sales to people that would be in violation of the law to possess firearms. The private sale / gunshow loophole is the one issue we can't seem to gain any ground in. This was a proposal to keep registration out of the hands of the government and keep private sales from going to the wrong people. I am against registration too because of government abuse, but if we can keep it out of legislator's hands and still provide a paper trail via subpoena to track illegal sales, why not be on board? I recommended gun manufacturers keeping the record of original sale because I figured they would most likely protect our privacy because they would lose a ton of business if they violated that trust.

Say a gun is found on a criminal by police. The gun was not reported stolen. They check (via subpoena) the original owner from manufacturer. Original owner provides FFL approved bill of sale to John Doe. John Doe provides FFL bill of sale to Joe Public. Joe Public does not have a bill of sale to his friend who illegally possessed gun. Joe Public is charged with illegal sale to prohibited person. Would make anti-gunners feel better about a "pipeline" to criminals via straw purchase. Would provide the means for enforcement of illegal sales as a deterrent to sellers. FFL transaction provides safety to seller. It would be a small cost to us as buyer or seller would have to cough up the $25 for the FFL transaction, but if it were to facilitate dropping the magazine restriction and cosmetic bans, would it be worth it? I don't see an infringement here, if the only records were kept by a 3rd party.
 
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I mean, the ones that people are most worked up about, the guys always get caught, often kill themselves. so what does registering the guns of all the law abiding owners do?

I have no problem with mandatory background check for all purchases, as long as it is a simple yes/no, and can be performed on the internet or by private parties, for little or no money per transaction. Some here argue that because a few criminals will squeak through without a background check regardless of what we do, that we shouldn't do anything that would "infringe" on our rights as law abiding citizens in the name of preventing some criminals from getting guns by posing as law abiding citizens to private sellers. But I don't see what a registry would do, except add to the already bloated and immoral surveillance and security state, and of course make confiscation that much easier if someone foolishly tried to go that route.
 
anchorman said:
I mean, the ones that people are most worked up about, the guys always get caught, often kill themselves. so what does registering the guns of all the law abiding owners do?

I have no problem with mandatory background check for all purchases, as long as it is a simple yes/no, and can be performed on the internet or by private parties, for little or no money per transaction. Some here argue that because a few criminals will squeak through without a background check regardless of what we do, that we shouldn't do anything that would "infringe" on our rights as law abiding citizens in the name of preventing some criminals from getting guns by posing as law abiding citizens to private sellers. But I don't see what a registry would do, except add to the already bloated and immoral surveillance and security state, and of course make confiscation that much easier if someone foolishly tried to go that route.
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1) I'm not talking about Sandy Hook. People want to do something. There is no prevention for tragedies like that. If not a gun, it'll be fire, or a bomb, or an axe, or a car...

2) Read it a little closer. We are not talking about putting registration in the hands of the government. 3rd party. No police state. No confiscation. It is purposely kept out of their hands and held by a 3rd party that has to support our privacy and rights or they go out of business. If I sell anybody a gun, and there is no way to enforce a penalty for illegal sale, there is no incentive for me to be sure he's legal except for my own morals and ethics.

3) If you suggest that we can do a quick internet check to see if somebody can buy a gun, how in the world can that be enforced without a registry? I tried to think of ways. I haven't heard a useful realistic suggestion yet.
 
The problem with requiring background checks is that it still doesn't prevent me from selling a gun to someone else without a background check and then claiming it was stolen if it shows up at a crime scene a week later. It will inconvenience the law-abiding while not preventing criminals from getting access to guns.

Want to know how to keep guns out of the hands of prohibited people? By keeping prohibited people out of society. Seriously. You trust them around people, including women, children, and the elderly. You trust them with cars. You trust them with kitchen knives, power tools, tire irons, baseball bats, hammers, and piano wire. But God forbid we give them a gun! Then they might hurt someone!

If they're so violent we can't trust them with a gun, we can't trust them around people. Put them in prison and keep them in prison. Prisons are overcrowded? Well, fix that! Get rid of victimless crimes and you'll have a lot less people in prison. Take the money spent on policing and incarcerating people for Prohibition 2.0 and put it towards keeping violent offenders locked away.

Do that, it still won't fix the issue, but a lot of violent crime will go away because we lock it away. People will still shoot up public places, but at least the majority of violent offenders will not be able to offend. Then, when all "prohibited persons" are prohibited from the public, we can say "all the people you're worried about are in prison, so why not let us purchase what we want?"

Gun rights up is good for our side. Violent crime down is good for both.
 
CookeMonster said:
I recommended gun manufacturers keeping the record of original sale because I figured they would most likely protect our privacy because they would lose a ton of business if they violated that trust.
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I think this is already required. All FFL's need to keep a "bound book" with the guns that come into and leave their possession. I don't know of a manufacturer that doesn't keep records of their sales, but maybe they don't require this? I'm pretty sure they already do this for warrantee purposes, regardless. Maybe someone who is an FFL and/or manufacturer can chime in on this?
 
anchorman said:
I think this is already required. All FFL's need to keep a "bound book" with the guns that come into and leave their possession. I don't know of a manufacturer that doesn't keep records of their sales, but maybe they don't require this? I'm pretty sure they already do this for warrantee purposes, regardless. Maybe someone who is an FFL and/or manufacturer can chime in on this?
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Makes the process even faster, cheaper and simpler then?
 
Here in WA State the Washington Arms Collectors (WAC) used to be the biggest and best gun collector's club on the west coast. You could find all kinds of collectable firearms that you rarely saw at an FFL dealer's table. But, recently, the WAC was hijacked by the club's President and his FFL cronies who resented the fact that the private sellers were eating into the FFL dealers' profits. It's a story that's too long to go into, but this has been much to the detriment of those of us who enjoyed buying the kind of stuff that you don't often see at a dealer's table or his shop location. So, what the heck, as far as I'm concerned, we might as well give up private sales. I would prefer, of course, that we didn't, but it seems like it's a losing battle anyway.
 
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Limiting sales to people that would be in violation of the law to possess firearms. The private sale / gunshow loophole is the one issue we can't seem to gain any ground in.
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First off, that only limits law-abiding sales by law-abiding people, and we all know how well that line of law works in practice. Black market springs up (obviously) and unsavory characters begin competing for a slice of the action.

Unless you want the ATF combing through the "bound book" of every citizen with regularity, such a ban on unrecorded personal transfers to keep guns from illegal persons will be no more effective than the existing ban on personal transfers to illegal persons. All you've accomplished is giving the owner of the database (doesn't really matter who it is) the locations or all guns for future use, and the police a tool for harassing innocent citizens (how many innocent, uninvolved people did you have getting investigated by the BATFE in your example, 3? For every illegally-possessed gun that turns up?:rolleyes:)

Basically, registration is a violation of the 4th Amendment against searches/siezures (if you are legally forced to list your possessions, that constitutes a "search" in my opinion) and possibly the 5th Amendment against self-incrimination. It also serves, as you stated yourself, only to keep arms out of the hands of those deemed "dangerous" by whoever's in charge, with little chance for appeal (no one's gonna write the law so you get to keep your guns while your case snails its way through the beauracracy ;)). The legal-limbo is bad enough when someone finds an old WWII bring back machinegun or grenade the Grandad never registered, or if a faulty firearm "doubles" due to malfunction; the legal blackhole for generic "unregistered guns" will be treacherous indeed if implemented. Hell, ranchers find old lost guns on their land all the time (and lose some themselves, no doubt :D). Should that suddenly make them a felon once the amnesty expires? Don't forget that firearm registries have had a history of closing as well-- a defacto ban and confiscation through the hand of time.

TCB
 
Though I don't love the idea, I like it a lot more than a lot of other suggested forms of gun control. I didn't see this mentioned, but one major concern of mine is that this wonderfully complex and well-thought out form of protecting gun-owners rights as much as is possible might get "dumbed down" by legislators into making every transfer have to go through an FFL. Ignoring all the other issues (bound books, BATFE monitoring, ect.) one thing that gets ignored a lot is the prohibition of anyone under 21 to buy handguns from an FFL. As it is, I can't even buy a handgun from a private party in another state, as it has to go through a registered dealer, and I'm not 21 yet. Making transfer through an FFL necessary would effectively put a ban on anyone under 21 from owning a handgun unless they owned it pre-background check bill implementation.

Another thing I'm concerned about is the 3rd party storing of information. Yes, this is preferable to the BATFE having control of that information, but that dosen't mean I'm comfortable with anyone else having that info, either. Compounding on that is the fact that the BATFE already has access to the bound books (to a degree), and this would create a form of de-facto registration, unless I'm mistaken.

On the topic of the $25 fee for transfer, yeah, YOU may not have an issue with paying for that, and I wouldn't have an issue for that level of insurance either, but it still makes the gun that much more expensive, and therefore out of people's reach.

My ideal system would be one in which a private party has the full ability to do a background check, but are still not required to do so. The requirement to do so implies that there would be a way to monitor which guns went through the background check for which person, which sounds a lot like registration to me.
 
My position is simple. No change in present law. No compromise.
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That's not a good starting point in what is, basically, a process of negotiation. If you want to end up with the status quo, you have to propose a rollback of some of the existing laws. The antigun side is actually at something of a disadvantage in the negotiation, since they have already revealed their maximalist demands. That means we can go in and make a credible counteroffer. How about repealing the NFA, for starters? Then we can "settle" for removing the Hughes Amendment and opening the registry.

The dynamic, up to now, is that the pro-gun side is always on the defensive, and the antigunners are always on the offensive. That's a recipe for slow erosion of gun rights, at best. (Yes, I know -- concealed carry has been making headway. That's not relevant to the basic right of ownership. And the Heller decision is not as big a victory as it seems.)
 
How about we go back to a system where you walk into Walmart, pay your money and walk out with a gun? Then if someone does something in public that is illegal--like murder someone--everyone else in the crowd shoot them dead with THEIR guns. Or give people who commit murder a fast track for trial (bumping them ahead of all other cases) and have capitol punishment as a speedy result if convicted.

Any thing else just smacks of "Do you think they'll be satisfied if we just give up *this* much of our right?" I'll answer that now. No.
 
Baron_Null said:
My ideal system would be one in which a private party has the full ability to do a background check, but are still not required to do so. The requirement to do so implies that there would be a way to monitor which guns went through the background check for which person, which sounds a lot like registration to me.
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why would any background check NEED to have anything more than the type of gun listed (handgun/long gun)?
 
AlexanderA said:
That's not a good starting point in what is, basically, a process of negotiation. If you want to end up with the status quo, you have to propose a rollback of some of the existing laws. The antigun side is actually at something of a disadvantage in the negotiation, since they have already revealed their maximalist demands. That means we can go in and make a credible counteroffer. How about repealing the NFA, for starters? Then we can "settle" for removing the Hughes Amendment and opening the registry.

The dynamic, up to now, is that the pro-gun side is always on the defensive, and the antigunners are always on the offensive. That's a recipe for slow erosion of gun rights, at best. (Yes, I know -- concealed carry has been making headway. That's not relevant to the basic right of ownership. And the Heller decision is not as big a victory as it seems.)
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How about asking for repeal of the NFA and settling for reopening the registry and removal of SBR's, SBS's and suppressors from it in exchange for a ban on the new manufacture of magazines with a capacity of over 90 rounds?

If they start big (ban of semi's, standard capacity mag limits) we gotta start big, too.
 
^Amen. Too often we hear "don't compromise on anything! Every little bit they chip away is a victory :eek:" from gunowners. I rarely hear people demanding the repeal of federal legislation that's been proven to be worse than useless (maybe for the AWB; but that was before my time). I for one suggest that if the NRA insists on being present at the "table" they demand that NFA restrictions/dispostions on silencers, SBRs, and the standard shotgun gauges be stricken from the law. Completely unrelated to "saving the children," but so is the AWB the Statists are pushing for. That would give the "negotiation" at least a shred of good faith, if the Statists have some of their territory in the game for once.

TCB
 
I'm all for true compromise... not the kind of compromise we've been getting for 100 years. I'd be very willing to help curb the traffic of guns into criminal hands in exchange for something back. Maybe as big as the NFA, or something as small as restrictions on short-barrel rifles and shotguns being stricken and/or silencers. While we would never be able to keep all firearms out of criminal hands, nor prevent gun owners from turning into criminals at some point, if that number could be reduced by even 50% it would help to tame the gun deaths in the high-concentration inner-cities that produce so much of the FBI statistics that look very scary when taken out of context. In essence, taking 50% of the Brady Bunch's political scare tactic ammo.

My proposal was that we have a way to backtrack to the illegal seller. I was adamant about keeping the feds (including BATFE) OUT of the loop. They would not have "bound book" privilege. Subpoena only and only when in possession of law enforcement for investigation of a crime. The paper trail is up to us. We keep our own record of sale to cover our six. It shouldn't be anybody else's responsibility to track who owns what, but only that we have a bill of sale, embossed by an FFL to ensure that the background check on the buyer was performed and approved. Sure, it's an additional step and an extra $25 bucks on us, but you can't tell me that you can afford the $400 Glock, and not the additional $25 to make sure it's a legal sale. I just believe that the antis won't be satisfied until they get their registry. This is a way we can give them what they want without giving them what they really want and that is a road map to who owns what. It would be a roadblock to eventual confiscation. A slight of hand and a double edged sword for them for a change.
 
No Compromise

I did not vote for my Rep & Sentor to compromise.

Ben Franklin said "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
 
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