Misdirected Outrage at Wal-Mart?
By Erich Pratt
Gun owners are up in arms, and they've got Wal-Mart in their
crosshairs -- figuratively speaking, of course.
Wal-Mart's leadership joined with anti-gun rights New York
Mayor Michael Bloomberg last week and instituted additional
gun control restrictions on its customers.
In order to appease Bloomberg and his misnamed group, Mayors
Against Illegal Guns, Wal-Mart is prepared to deny firearms
purchases to some of its customers, even though they've never
been investigated or convicted of having committed a crime.
If a gun owner has one of his handguns stolen, and it's later
used in a crime, Wal-Mart may refuse any future sales to that
gun owner.
Or, if a gun owner -- say, with the name of John Smith --
tries to buy a firearm but the FBI discovers that there is a
criminal with a similar name, then Wal-Mart has now announced
they will probably not sell a firearm to the good John Smith.
Wal-Mart customers have fired up the internet blogs with
indignation. One former customer says, "I will never again
buy a gun from Wal-Mart. Ever."
Another one admits, "I don't have anything to hide, but no
more guns for me from Wallyworld."
There's a lot of anger out there, and some of the comments
aimed at Wal-Mart can't be printed in this column. But does
Wal-Mart deserve all the blame?
Unilaterally faltering before Bloomberg and his anti-gun
cronies is truly outrageous, and Wal-Mart does deserve to be
taken to task. But one must also understand that Wal-Mart's
actions have not occurred in a vacuum.
Gun owners need to realize that today we are reaping the
rotten fruit that has stemmed from actions that [Wayne LaPierre]
took in 1993. That's when, supposedly in order to
thwart legislation that would have imposed a waiting period
on handgun purchases, [the NRA staff] pushed for an
FBI-background check on guns sold by dealers.
"Hey, it will just be an instant check," [NRA] argued. "What
harm can possibly come from that?"
Well, 15 years later, we have more than enough documented
examples.
The first abuses were reported by the General Accounting
Office in 1996 when it found that decent Americans were being
illegitimately denied the ability to purchase firearms because
of outstanding traffic tickets or administrative errors.
And not too long after that, the Clinton administration found
a way to effectively shut down gun shows -- as the NICS
computer system would "conveniently" crash over several
weekends, preventing many gun sales from occurring.
Of course, Clinton's crowning anti-gun achievement was to
illegally deny gun purchases -- again, using the instant
background check -- to military veterans suffering from things
like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a practice that
has resulted in almost 150,000 veterans losing their gun
rights.
That practice illegitimately continued for almost a decade
until it was "legalized" earlier this year when President Bush
signed the Veterans Disarmament Act, a bill that passed without
a recorded vote in the House and the Senate!
And, far from satisfying the gun-grabbers, the instant check
system is now being used to call for legislation to permanently
shut down gun shows, which are being characterized as instant
check "loopholes."
Keep in mind, none of the aforementioned infringements -- the
denials based on outstanding traffic tickets, computer crashes
or PTSD -- none of them could have happened without a
background check system.
In the early '90s, compromisers promised us that our gun rights
would not be inconvenienced by the so-called instant check.
Well, tell that to the panicked gentleman who contacted Gun
Owners of America earlier this month. He had recently bought
a shotgun without any problem at all, but when he later
returned to the same store to buy a handgun a week later, the
FBI denied the purchase.
It turns out that another man with the same exact name (and a
similar birthday) was guilty of robbery, and because of that,
the good guy is now in the unenviable position of having to
prove his innocence before he can exercise his Second Amendment
rights. While he has submitted an appeal, officials have
informed him there is no time limit for the FBI to respond to
his appeal.
So much for having an "instant" check.
If you're mad at Wal-Mart, that's fine. But just remember that
members of our own community -- with their support of the instant
check -- gave Wal-Mart the tools it needed to further restrict
our Second Amendment rights.
*********************************************************************
Erich Pratt is the Director of Communications for Gun Owners of America,
a national gun lobby with over 300,000 members. GOA is located at
8001 Forbes Place, Springfield, VA 22151 and at
http://www.gunowners.org on the web.
By Erich Pratt
Gun owners are up in arms, and they've got Wal-Mart in their
crosshairs -- figuratively speaking, of course.
Wal-Mart's leadership joined with anti-gun rights New York
Mayor Michael Bloomberg last week and instituted additional
gun control restrictions on its customers.
In order to appease Bloomberg and his misnamed group, Mayors
Against Illegal Guns, Wal-Mart is prepared to deny firearms
purchases to some of its customers, even though they've never
been investigated or convicted of having committed a crime.
If a gun owner has one of his handguns stolen, and it's later
used in a crime, Wal-Mart may refuse any future sales to that
gun owner.
Or, if a gun owner -- say, with the name of John Smith --
tries to buy a firearm but the FBI discovers that there is a
criminal with a similar name, then Wal-Mart has now announced
they will probably not sell a firearm to the good John Smith.
Wal-Mart customers have fired up the internet blogs with
indignation. One former customer says, "I will never again
buy a gun from Wal-Mart. Ever."
Another one admits, "I don't have anything to hide, but no
more guns for me from Wallyworld."
There's a lot of anger out there, and some of the comments
aimed at Wal-Mart can't be printed in this column. But does
Wal-Mart deserve all the blame?
Unilaterally faltering before Bloomberg and his anti-gun
cronies is truly outrageous, and Wal-Mart does deserve to be
taken to task. But one must also understand that Wal-Mart's
actions have not occurred in a vacuum.
Gun owners need to realize that today we are reaping the
rotten fruit that has stemmed from actions that [Wayne LaPierre]
took in 1993. That's when, supposedly in order to
thwart legislation that would have imposed a waiting period
on handgun purchases, [the NRA staff] pushed for an
FBI-background check on guns sold by dealers.
"Hey, it will just be an instant check," [NRA] argued. "What
harm can possibly come from that?"
Well, 15 years later, we have more than enough documented
examples.
The first abuses were reported by the General Accounting
Office in 1996 when it found that decent Americans were being
illegitimately denied the ability to purchase firearms because
of outstanding traffic tickets or administrative errors.
And not too long after that, the Clinton administration found
a way to effectively shut down gun shows -- as the NICS
computer system would "conveniently" crash over several
weekends, preventing many gun sales from occurring.
Of course, Clinton's crowning anti-gun achievement was to
illegally deny gun purchases -- again, using the instant
background check -- to military veterans suffering from things
like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a practice that
has resulted in almost 150,000 veterans losing their gun
rights.
That practice illegitimately continued for almost a decade
until it was "legalized" earlier this year when President Bush
signed the Veterans Disarmament Act, a bill that passed without
a recorded vote in the House and the Senate!
And, far from satisfying the gun-grabbers, the instant check
system is now being used to call for legislation to permanently
shut down gun shows, which are being characterized as instant
check "loopholes."
Keep in mind, none of the aforementioned infringements -- the
denials based on outstanding traffic tickets, computer crashes
or PTSD -- none of them could have happened without a
background check system.
In the early '90s, compromisers promised us that our gun rights
would not be inconvenienced by the so-called instant check.
Well, tell that to the panicked gentleman who contacted Gun
Owners of America earlier this month. He had recently bought
a shotgun without any problem at all, but when he later
returned to the same store to buy a handgun a week later, the
FBI denied the purchase.
It turns out that another man with the same exact name (and a
similar birthday) was guilty of robbery, and because of that,
the good guy is now in the unenviable position of having to
prove his innocence before he can exercise his Second Amendment
rights. While he has submitted an appeal, officials have
informed him there is no time limit for the FBI to respond to
his appeal.
So much for having an "instant" check.
If you're mad at Wal-Mart, that's fine. But just remember that
members of our own community -- with their support of the instant
check -- gave Wal-Mart the tools it needed to further restrict
our Second Amendment rights.
*********************************************************************
Erich Pratt is the Director of Communications for Gun Owners of America,
a national gun lobby with over 300,000 members. GOA is located at
8001 Forbes Place, Springfield, VA 22151 and at
http://www.gunowners.org on the web.
