CoalTrain49
Member
Having had a FFL prior to the "Clinton-purge", I have a great distrust of the Federal ATFE bureaucracy. However, I would have no problem with a national law that mandated a background check before a firearm sale PROVIDED the agency that provided the background check was OPEN to the General Public, not just FFL dealers. If anyone could access the background check agency for free (or a very small charge)
That sounds like a reasonable proposal on the face of it but one has to understand the underlying reason the ATF and states want full control of this and are not likely to make the check available to the average citizen.
The ATF wants those gun records. So does the state. Many FFL's let the ATF photocopy or scan all of those records annually. If the FBI let everyone have access to the NCIS database they would have no way to capture the metadata that goes with FFL background checks. Most people wouldn't be willing to let you fill out all of the information on a 4473 that is kept by a FFL. Granted, all of that info doesn't go into the NICS check but the dealer keeps it. The dealer has to keep a hard copy database to maintain a legal business.
As was mentioned by Old Fluff the states are in on this registration scheme also. Those are point-of-contact states which OR is one. According to the FBI website there are 20. The NICS data first goes to the state where all of the data is kept. A check of the NCIS database is made by the state but they also run a check with their own database looking for stolen weapons and prohibited people. How do they know a weapon is stolen, well I'll leave you to figure that out.
The fed has laws in place to keep the FBI from building a registry. I don't know if they do or not. I do know that at least 20 states have one though. My state has one. Not only do they check my background, they put my firearm into a registry to keep track of who the owner is.
Because of the registry part of a background check the general public will never be able to run one unless it is set up by the state police and the info is entered in digital format. It would have to be a state run check as the ATF/FBI would never consent to it. A state law that allowed private sales after a check by the state police, and only the state police, would put some FFL dealers out of business. You could expect the dealers to lobby against it. It just isn't in their best interest.
Personally, I would like FFL dealers to be taken out of the business of background checks for private sales. Mostly their fees are too high and they are totally unregulated in that area. Those should all be handled by the state police or any local LE agency for a small fee. UBC's are coming, get it set up correctly. They totally struck out here in WA.
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