The Giant NICS Improvement Act Thread Myth v. Reality

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mrrick

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Here is a copy of the letter I sent to the NRA, please do the same. Let them know where we stand.



I have been an NRA member for many years.

I am appalled that the NRA is supporting HR 2640, the Veterans Disarmament Act, and that's what it is and more dispite what it is written by Larry Scott. The NRA should know better than any organization that once the thin edge of the wedge is in, there will be no stopping the likes of Schumer et. al. in finding new and creative ways to deprive us of our 2nd amendment rights.

How can you possibly justify allying yourself with that ilk. The liberal media will have a a field day over the alliance formed by the NRA and the anti-gun members of congress.

With upcoming presendential election, and the slim chances of a pro, or even neutral executive, do you think it is really a good time to give in to the anti-gun crowd.

If the NRA continues to support this amendment (HR 2640), than you can count on losing a large number of you members, including me. In the past, I have resisted joining smaller pro gun groups (GOA, JPFO), because I believe that in unity and numbers, there is strength. When the premier pro 2nd A. organization starts cozying up with the premier anti-gun members of congress, it's time for a change. ALL of my friends, NRA members and not, agree with me on this issue. Mark my words, this will be a severe blow to the NRA.

Most NRA members are probably too busy these days to follow these issues, but as someone who has a lot of time to follow important issues that affect all of my rights, you can be sure that I have researched this issue in depth.

Back away from you support of HR2640 unless you want to cause upheaval in the rank and file membership.

Best regards,
 
+ 1000

The idea that NRA leadership would be in aggreement with anything that
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY, Bafoon) supports and in this case introduced should be a huge red flag for NRA members. If Carolyn McCarthy supports it, it's bad for America and freedom, that's all you need to know.
 
You know, there are about a half dozen other threads exactly like this one floating around in different sections on these forums, and ALL of them have come to the conclusion that the GOA is out of their gourds, and are completely misrepresenting the bill in question.

IBTL.
 
You know, there are about a half dozen other threads exactly like this one floating around in different sections on these forums, and ALL of them have come to the conclusion that the GOA is out of their gourds, and are completely misrepresenting the bill in question.
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Not sure what you mean by that. Are you saying that Carolyn McCarthy actually introduced legislation that is beneficial to gun owners and the RKBA?

I find that about as likely as Ted Kennedy and Chuck Shumer introducing bills to cut taxes.
 
Regolith

I just read the thread with the Chris Cox interview. He was pretty convincing about this bill being a positive thing for gun owners and he may be right. I remain very skeptical. The NRA has been fooled before and they might be wrong on this bill. My instinct says anything that comes from the leftist degenerates of the Democrat party should be opposed. If you simply oppose any gun related bill from McCarthy without any other knowledge of its nature you will be on the right side of the RKBA 99.999 percent of the time. IMO the legislation as written is not the danger but rather what the law will be perverted into that scares me. This proposed bill is an expansion of scope and power of the Nics registry. In time, it will be used against us.
 
precision....actually, it fixes many of the problems that occurred with the NICS system, mainly out of date information and a lack of a legal recourse if a person were put on the list in error.

I don't like the NICS system any more than you do. But we don't yet have the political clout to remove it. So we must live with it. And if we have to live with it, we might as well make sure that the information kept within the NICS database is correct, up to date, and most importantly that we have a legal recourse if we were mistakingly placed on the list (30,000 or so people have been mistakingly placed on the list, and at this time there is very little in the way of legal recourse for them to change their status).

What the NRA is doing is some very subtle political maneuvering. So subtle that many gun owners fail to appreciate it. By compromising on this bill, they are able to accomplish two things that are in our favor:

1) they can fix the NICS system so that people aren't mistakingly placed on it, and make sure there is a way to legally get removed from it, and

2) They forestall more restrictive bills. The VT shootings proved to be a catalyst for both sides, and there was a major push from the left wing to "fix" the problem. By offering a "fix" that might have actually worked, and in a manner that doesn't actually restrict anyone's rights that wouldn't have already been restricted anyway, they prevented calls for legislation that WOULD have restricted more people's rights.

As for the GOA's claims about the bill: They are claiming that this will put "thousands of veterens with PTSD" into the NICS registry. This will not do any such thing. It does NOT change the standard for which a person can be labeled a "mental defective." A person STILL has to be ruled to be a danger to himself or others or be committed to a mental institution. This is the key, because most PTSD sufferers are neither committed to a mental institution OR judged to be a "danger to themselves or others." The GOA simply lied through their teeth.
 
As for the GOA's claims about the bill: They are claiming that this will put "thousands of veterens with PTSD" into the NICS registry. This will not do any such thing. It does NOT change the standard for which a person can be labeled a "mental defective." A person STILL has to be ruled to be a danger to himself or others or be committed to a mental institution. This is the key, because most PTSD sufferers are neither committed to a mental institution OR judged to be a "danger to themselves or others." The GOA simply lied through their teeth.
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We will see.:scrutiny: All it takes is one ambiguous line in a bill and it will hose us. Think back to 1986.
 
I sent to the NRA, please do the same. Let them know where we stand.
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Maybe before sending letters to the NRA we should read the bill and find out for ourselves what this bill stands for, rather than reading into GOA's hysteria.
 
"Think back to 1986."

I was a gun owner in 1986. I recall that the forces aligned against us came very close to getting a variety of our guns. If you think the 1986 law was bad, you should take a good hard look at what almost came to be.

It was worse in 1968 after the 5-year run-up that began with JFK's murder, but trying to hold back any kind of tidal wave of support is hard work and often you can't save everything.

John
Member www.vcdl.org
NRA Patron
 
Stop reading the GOA's solicitations for money. They'll just freak you out, and cause you to oppose the only group that actually accomplishes anything at the Federal level, based on a load of BS.
 
Reading and understanding that bill for me is like reading the tax code, long and confusing, but I got the gist of it, I bet you they will 1986 it and stick some last minute thing in there.
 
Reading and understanding that bill for me is like reading the tax code, long and confusing, but I got the gist of it, I bet you they will 1986 it and stick some last minute thing in there.
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The NRA has already said they will try and kill the bill if this happens.
 

Found this. You decide.

An Open Letter To The Pro-gun Community
Gun Owners of America
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102
Springfield, VA 22151
(703)321-8585


Thursday, October 4, 2007



It may be a cliche, but it is true: This letter is written not in anger, but in sorrow and concern. It is written to our friends about NRA staff who, tragically, have taken a course which, we believe, would be disastrous for the Second Amendment and the pro-gun movement.
Two of us are Life Members of the NRA -- one of whom was an NRA board member for over ten years. And our legislative counsel was a paid consultant for the NRA.

So we certainly have no animus against the NRA staff, much less our wonderful friends who are NRA members.

In fact, over the last thirty years, GOA and its staff have worked with NRA to facilitate most of our pro-gun victories -- from McClure-Volkmer to the death of post-Columbine gun control to a gun liability bill free of anti-gun "killer amendments."

But those who staff the NRA, without consulting the membership, have now made a series of strange and dangerous alliances with the likes of Chuck Schumer, Carolyn McCarthy, and Pat Leahy. And we believe that, if allowed to continue, this will produce anti-gun policies which the NRA staff will bitterly regret.

Christ said, in the Sermon on the Mount, that "by their fruits, ye shall know them." And, frankly, these fruits are not likely to produce much pro-gun legislation.

Substantively, the Leahy/McCarthy/Schumer bill, which NRA's staff has vigorously supported without consulting with its membership, would rubber-stamp the illegal and non-statutory BATFE regulations which have already been used to strip gun rights from 110,000 veterans. It would also allow an anti-gun administration to turn over Americans' most private medical records to the federal instant check system without a court order.

But perhaps even worse, the bill was hatched in secret, without hearings or testimony, and passed out of the House without even a roll call. And now, the sponsors are trying to do the same thing in the Senate -- in an effort to ram the bill through without votes or floor debate, led by anti-gun Senator Chuck Schumer. If it is good legislation, as its proponents claim, why such fears of a roll call vote or debate in committee?

Indeed, in the face of horrific dissent from the NRA's own membership, its staff has tragically ignored arguments and dug in its heels -- in an almost "because-we-say-so" attitude.

Understand this:

* Passage of McCarthy/Leahy/Schumer will not quell the calls for gun control. To the contrary, it will embolden our enemies to push for the abolition of even more of our Second Amendment rights. Already, the Brady Campaign has indicated its intent to follow up this "victory" with a push for an effective ban on gun shows.

* Passage of McCarthy/Leahy/Schumer will not be viewed as an "NRA victory." To the contrary, once the liberal media has used the NRA staff for its purposes, it will throw them away like a used Kleenex. Already, an over-confident press is crowing that this is the "first major gun control measure in over a decade."

* Taking the BATFE's horrifically expansive unlawful regulations dealing with veterans' loss of gun rights and making them unchangeable congressionally-endorsed statutory law is NOT "maintaining the status quo."

* We are told that the McCarthy/Leahy/Schumer bill should be passed because it contains special provisions to allow persons prohibited from owning guns to get their rights restored. But there is already such a provision in the law; it is 18 U.S.C. 925(c). And the reason why no one has been able to get their rights restored under CURRENT LAW is that funds for the system have been blocked by Chuck Schumer. It is no favor to gun owners for Chuck Schumer -- the man who has blocked funding for McClure-Volkmer's "relief from disability" provisions for 15 years -- to now offer to give us back a tepid version of the provisions of current law which he has tried so hard to destroy.

Finally, there is the cost, which ranges from $1 billion in the cheapest draft to $5 billion -- to one bill which places no limits whatsoever on spending. Thus, we would be drastically increasing funding for gun control -- at a time when BATFE, which has done so much damage to the Second Amendment, should be punished, rather than rewarded.

We would now respectfully ask the NRA staff to step back from a battle with its membership -- and to join with us in opposing McCarthy/Leahy/Schumer gun control, rather than supporting it.

And, to our friends and NRA members, we would ask that you take this letter and pass it onto your friends and colleagues.

Sincerely,




Senator H.L. "Bill" Richardson (ret.)
Founder and Chairman

Larry Pratt
Executive Director

Michael E. Hammond
Legislative Counsel
 
Reading and understanding that bill for me is like reading the tax code, long and confusing, but I got the gist of it, I bet you they will 1986 it and stick some last minute thing in there.
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I know that legalese is a pain in the nether regions, and please accept that I do not say this in any way as an affront to anyones intelligence or literacy, if you do not take the time and effort to muster through that schlock, you will be dependent on someone else to form an opinion on it for you, and that can be a dangerous way of thinking, and voting.
 
* We are told that the McCarthy/Leahy/Schumer bill should be passed because it contains special provisions to allow persons prohibited from owning guns to get their rights restored. But there is already such a provision in the law; it is 18 U.S.C. 925(c). And the reason why no one has been able to get their rights restored under CURRENT LAW is that funds for the system have been blocked by Chuck Schumer. It is no favor to gun owners for Chuck Schumer -- the man who has blocked funding for McClure-Volkmer's "relief from disability" provisions for 15 years -- to now offer to give us back a tepid version of the provisions of current law which he has tried so hard to destroy.
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18 U.S.C. 925(c) allows you to petition the US Attorney General to have your rights restored. The proposed law requires that:

Each department or agency of the United States that makes any adjudication or determination related to the mental health of a person or imposes any commitment to a mental institution, as described in subsection (d)(4) and (g)(4) of section 922 of title 18, United States Code, shall establish a program that permits such a person to apply for relief from the disabilities imposed by such subsections.
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While not a huge difference, I would say that I would have an easier time petitioning my local probate court (in the case of an involuntary commitment), rather then the AG of the US. I figure they might be more accessible. Not a major improvement, but an improvement.
 
Geez, these threads are like cockroaches. You squish one and five more pop up.

<-----Veteran


A couple of hints:

1. Use the Search Function before posting "news"
2. Do some reasearch (like reading the actual bill) before regurgitating a press release that *ahem* "misrepresents" what the actual bill does.

Or as the mods like to say "Think twice, post once."

You will find that the bill cannot even remotely do what the GOA claims. It also provides a way for those currently on the "List" a means of restoring their rights. Something that has not been previously possible. Third you can't be put on the list, like the way the Clinton administration did with ~88,000 people: "VA, this is Bill, send NICS the names of everyone you've treated for mental issues." Under this bill you have to be adjuicated (meaning due process and judge has to sign off) as a danger to yourself or others. Oh, and if you get treatment and get better/cured, you can have your rights restored. As it stands now, if you're on the list, you're on the list forever.

Learn the facts, make a informed decision, then post.

Geez........
 
Understand also that the NRA has a legal staff.

For all their imperfections real or imagined, they're not just Dale Gribble in a basement making stuff up.

Some other people, though...
 
OK, let's say most of you are right. The NRA is right. The GOA is wrong on this one. There is still one paragraph in that email GOA sent out that sets off alarm bells to me.

But perhaps even worse, the bill was hatched in secret, without hearings or testimony, and passed out of the House without even a roll call. And now, the sponsors are trying to do the same thing in the Senate -- in an effort to ram the bill through without votes or floor debate, led by anti-gun Senator Chuck Schumer. If it is good legislation, as its proponents claim, why such fears of a roll call vote or debate in committee?
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Is it true? If so, ***? Gun control bills should have actual roll call votes. Ten years from now we are going to want to see who was in favor and who was in opposition. Until Sen Coburn refused to go along with this, the same thing was going to happen in the Senate.

In the first place, legislation tends to be chock full of fun legal phrases. Until a committee sits down and goes over it page by page, you just can't be sure what is really buried in there. I've got a Masters degree in PolSc but reading most proposed bills is tedious to me. Don't forget that most bills are written by staff members. The Congresscritter sets out his/her general notions and then their staff whips up a bill. Most of the time they are voting on something they haven't read themselves.

And finally, a debate in a committee is necessary so that future enforcement can follow "the intent of Congress." Every law is open to interpretation. The appropriate agency reads a new law when it is passed. And then they read the committee reports and debates. Their enforcement of that law is then based on both the written law and what they perceive was the intent of the lawmakers. Any questions about the law.... go see what was said in committee. How can they do that if there were no committee hearings?

Gregg
 
Is it true? If so, ***?
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Good Lord. I have never on one issue seen so many lies, half-truths, made up statistics, and complete BS as this one here.

To start a thread on this topic when there are DOZENS already going or already locked is just asking for trouble.

Enough of this garbage already OK?
 
* Passage of McCarthy/Leahy/Schumer will not quell the calls for gun control.
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I don't think anyone has made the argument that it will and I don't think any of us believe that is the case; but this is true.

* Passage of McCarthy/Leahy/Schumer will not be viewed as an "NRA victory."
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Personally, I would consider allowing veterans who have been wrongfully stripped of their rights a chance to regain those rights a small victory.

* Taking the BATFE's horrifically expansive unlawful regulations dealing with veterans' loss of gun rights and making them unchangeable congressionally-endorsed statutory law is NOT "maintaining the status quo."
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If the regulations are illegal (as well as unlawful and non-statutory according to GOA), then it should be an easy enough matter to challenge them in court. These regulations were put into place almost a decade ago and nobody seems to have done that. Why is that?

* We are told that the McCarthy/Leahy/Schumer bill should be passed because it contains special provisions to allow persons prohibited from owning guns to get their rights restored. But there is already such a provision in the law; it is 18 U.S.C. 925(c).
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As others have already noted, 18 U.S.C. 925(c) is a federal provision and has been stripped of funds by Congress for many years now. However, the new provision moves the process for relief from disability to the state level where it cannot be so easily defunded by Congress. So the comparison isn't a direct analog.
 
The Nics Improvement Bill: Myth And Reality

NRA-ILA Grassroots Alert Vol. 14, No. 40

THE NICS IMPROVEMENT BILL: MYTH AND REALITY

Some opponents of the "NICS Improvement Amendments Act" (H.R. 2640) have spent the last several months painting a picture of the bill that would rightly terrify gun owners-if it was true.

The opponents' motive seems to be a totally unrealistic hope of undercutting or repealing the
National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) by ensuring that its records are inaccurate and incomplete. But make no mistake-an inaccurate and incomplete system only serves to delay and burden lawful gun buyers, while failing to screen those who are prohibited from possessing firearms under existing law.

Nonetheless, opponents of H.R. 2640 continue to spread misconceptions about the bill. The following are some of the common myths.

MYTH: "Millions of Americans will awake one day and find that they are suddenly barred from buying guns based upon decades old convictions of 'misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence,' or mental health adjudications that were later rescinded or expired."

FACT: H.R. 2640 does not create any new classes of "prohibited persons." The NRA does not, and will not, support the creation of new classes of prohibited persons. H.R. 2640 only requires reporting of available records on people who are prohibited from possessing firearms under existing law.

Also, H.R. 2640-for the first time-specifies that mental health adjudications may not be reported if they've been expunged, or if the person has received relief from the adjudication under the procedures required by the bill. In those cases, the mental adjudication or commitment "shall be deemed not to have occurred," and therefore would not prohibit the person from possessing firearms.

MYTH: "As many as a quarter to a third of returning Iraq veterans could be prohibited from owning firearms-based solely on a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder."

FACT: The only veterans who would be reported to NICS under this bill due to mental health issues are-as with civilians-those who are adjudicated as incompetent or involuntarily committed to a mental institution.

A diagnosis alone is never enough; the person must be "adjudicated as a mental defective," which is a legal term that implies a fair hearing process. The Veterans' Administration has regulations that provide veterans with an opportunity for a hearing on those decisions, and an opportunity for multiple appeals-just as a civilian does in state court. Any records that don't meet this standard could not be reported to NICS, and any deficient records that have already been provided would have to be removed.

Veteran and journalist Larry Scott (operator of the website www.vawatchdog.org) calls the allegation about veterans a "huge campaign of misinformation and scare tactics." Scott points out that thousands of veterans who receive mental health care through the VA-but have not been found incompetent or involuntarily committed-are not currently reported to NICS, and wouldn't be reported under H.R. 2640. (Scott's analysis is available online at http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,151321_1,00.html?wh=wh.)

Last, but not least, H.R. 2640 also provides veterans and others their first opportunity in 15 years to seek "relief from disabilities" through either state or federal programs. Currently, no matter how successfully a person responds to treatment, there is no way for a person "adjudicated" incompetent or involuntarily committed to an institution to seek restoration of the right to possess a firearm.

MYTH: A child who has been diagnosed with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder "can be banned for life from ever owning a gun as an adult." "Your ailing grandfather could have his entire gun collection seized, based only on a diagnosis of Alzheimer's (and there goes the family inheritance)."

FACT: Again, a psychiatric or medical diagnosis alone is not an "adjudication" or "commitment."

Critics base their concern on BATFE regulations that define an "adjudication" to include a decision by a "court, board, commission, or other lawful authority." They claim any doctor could potentially be a "lawful authority."

They are wrong. Not even the Clinton Administration took such an extreme position. In fact, the term "lawful authority" was apparently intended to cover various types of government panels that are similar to "courts, boards, or commissions." Basic principles of legal interpretation require reading it that way. The term also doesn't override the basic constitutional protections that come into play in decisions about a person's mental health.

Finally, records of voluntary treatment also would not be available under federal and state health privacy laws, which H.R. 2640 also does not override.

MYTH: People who get voluntary drug or alcohol treatment would be prohibited from possessing guns.

FACT: Again, current BATFE regulations make clear that voluntary commitments do not affect a person's right to arms. NRA (and, surely, the medical community) would vehemently oppose any proposal that would punish or deter a person getting needed voluntary treatment.

MYTH: A Pennsylvania man lost his right to possess firearms due to an "offhanded, tongue-in-cheek remark."

FACT: This case does not hold up to close investigation. The person made comments on a college campus that were interpreted as threatening in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy; he was then briefly sent to a mental institution.

Opponents, however, have failed to mention that the man had been the subject of chronic complaints from his neighbors. (The "filth, mold, [and] mildew" in his apartment were so bad that the town declared it unfit for human habitation.) After his brief hospital stay, he was arrested for previously pointing a gun at his landlord and wiretapping his neighbors.

Despite these facts, it also appears he was only committed for a brief period of observation. Current BATFE regulations say that the term "committed to a mental institution" "does not include a person in a mental institution for observation." Therefore, even in this extreme case, the person may not ultimately be prohibited from possessing firearms. Second Amendment scholar Clayton Cramer describes this case in a recent Shotgun News column (available online at http://www.claytoncramer.com/PopularMagazines/HR 2640.htm) and reaches the same conclusion.

MYTH: "Relief from disability" provisions would require gun owners to spend a fortune in legal fees to win restoration of rights.

FACT: Relief programs are not that complicated. When BATFE (then just BATF) operated the relief from disabilities program, the application was a simple two-page form that a person could submit on his own behalf. The bureau approved about 60% of valid applications from 1981-91.

Pro-gun attorney Evan Nappen points out that the most extreme anti-gun groups now oppose H.R. 2640 simply because of the relief provisions. Nappen includes a sampling of their comments in his article on the bill ("Enough NRA Bashing"), available online at http://www.pgnh.org/enough_nra_bashing.
MYTH: The bill's "relief from disability" provisions are useless because Congress has defunded the "relief" program.

FACT: The current ban on processing relief applications wouldn't affect this bill. The appropriations rider (promoted in 1992 by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.)) only restricts expenditures by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. H.R. 2640 requires relief programs to be set up and operated by agencies that make adjudications or commitments related to people's mental health. BATFE doesn't do that, but other agencies-especially the Veterans' Administration-do. Naturally, NRA would strongly oppose any effort to remove funding from new "relief" programs set up under this widely supported bill.

MYTH: The bill must be anti-gun, because it was co-sponsored by anti-gun Members of Congress.

FACT: By this unreasonable standard, any bill with broad support in Congress must be a bad idea. NRA believes in working with legislators of all political persuasions if the end result will benefit lawful gun owners. Anti-gun Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) supported arming airline pilots against terrorists, but that program was (and is) a good idea nonetheless.

MYTH: The bill "was hatched in secret .and passed out of the House without even a roll call."

FACT: No one asked for a roll call vote. This is not unusual. The House voted on H.R. 2640 under "suspension of the rules," which allows passing widely supported bills by a two-thirds vote. (This procedure also helps prevent amendments-which in this case helped prevent anti-gun legislators from turning the bill into a "Christmas tree" for their agenda.)

After a debate in which only one House member opposed the bill, the House passed the bill by a voice vote. There is never a recorded vote in the House without a request from a House member. No one asked for one on H.R. 2640, again showing the widespread support for the bill.
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