What would it help do?An improved background check system is the only proposal that I agree with in all of this craziness.
You can't deny that this would help.
Old Fuff,
I can believe that but, as of right now, do you have solid documentation that this is true of is it just conjecture?
Currently, in a private sale, how would you determine if the buyer was a felon or mentally unfit to own a firearm?What would it help do?
bri said:Currently, in a private sale, how would you determine if the buyer was a felon or mentally unfit to own a firearm?
Why can't they make the NICS system available to the public for free? And why can't they attach a law that NICS records must be destroyed after a certain period? It would be a negligible inconvenience and let's face it, it would prevent some ineligible individuals from buying. I don't think there would be vigilante government employees secretly keeping the records against the law. It would be to no one's benefit.
Background checks do not equate with gun registration, if no records are kept of the guns being transferred. This would especially be true if the checks did not involve FFL's. As a seller, you should be able to call a toll-free number (or go to a Web site), enter the identifying information of the buyer, and get an instant "yes" or "no" answer. If the answer is no, then the seller and buyer can go to an FFL (or a local police agency) and get a more extensive check done.
I frankly don't understand the paranoia that a simple idea like this seems to engender. When I've sold guns, I've either been an FFL, or gone through FFL's. Accessing NICS as a private individual would be a big convenience for me.
That may be the most likely path to "universal background checks," but it doesn't have to be that way. As an alternative, the NICS could be opened to private individuals, who, after entering the identifying information of the buyer (no identifying information on the gun) would get a "proceed" or "don't proceed" indication. (The buyer would fill out a Form 4473, which would be kept by the seller.) Heck, this could even be made voluntary. The incentive to participate would be immunity from civil liability if the gun was later misused.
If anything in Obama's plan is passed, this "universal check" would be it. We need to be thinking of counterproposals if it looks like this thing is making headway.
The problem is that you are arguing against a method for ensuring the government can do a job legally required of it by the constitution.
The constitution provides for the removal of rights through due process of law. If someone has been stripped of these rights, it is the responsibility of government to enforce the punishment handed down by the court or jury.
I don't think there would be vigilante government employees secretly keeping the records against the law. It would be to no one's benefit.
The government has no Constitutional basis for pre-empting illegal behavior of its citizens by restricting their enumerated rights. The Constitution only requires that illegal behavior be prosecuted according to laws applied equally to all citizens, and if found deserving of punishment, penalizing them, removing them from society, or curtailing their rights.The problem is that you are arguing against a method for ensuring the government can do a job legally required of it by the constitution.
Lets see how background checks would have stopped either of the last two mass shootings:
1. The man involved in the Aurora theater shooting was not a criminal (prior to the shooting) and therefore background checks wouldn't have stopped him from getting a weapon. Even if the gun he wanted was illegal, he would have simply accomplished his goal through other means. He booby trapped his house with 30+ explosive devices so something tells me that if he hadn't gotten a rifle, he would've just used a backpack full of explosives instead.
2. The Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. This was done by a man who killed his own mother by shooting her four times in the head and then taking her firearms. There's no way a background check would have changed the outcome of this because the guns were never actually passed to his hands by anyone.
I'm sorry but background checks won't be obeyed by people who are passing guns around under the radar anyways. Magically saying that everyone must now do a background check isn't going to make it actually happen, especially with people who want to do things like the two horrible events that I listed previously.