This (coupling of Fix NICS with national reciprocity) smells a lot like the FOPA '86 coupled with the Hughes Amendment. Back then, the McClure-Volkmer reforms were a high priority for the NRA, so it went along with the "poison pill" Hughes Amendment. It would have been better if Reagan had vetoed FOPA. We would have eventually gotten the reforms, but would not now be saddled with the Hughes MG prohibition.
Maybe. It's all fuzzy history at this point, and speculation. In the 1980s, without any external pressure making the market go nuts, very few shooters seemed to be all that interested in full-auto stuff. It was easy to get (relatively speaking), was reasonably cheap (just a slight upcharge over semi-auto) and pretty much "nobody" cared. The issues that McClure-Volkmer set out to fix affected a lot of people, not just a few niche militaria collectors and FA enthusiasts. Today we look back on it and can't really picture what the gun scene would be like without the M.V. reforms. Maybe they would have happened eventually. Maybe not. In hindsight -- since the gun world has shifted radically around to concealed carry and military style weapons -- now that trade-off looks horrible to a lot of people. Was it,
really? It's darned hard to say. The answer depends a lot of what aspects of shooting tickle your fancy, and what assumptions you make about how gun legislation would have progressed over the intervening years.
Now, the high priority for the NRA is national reciprocity. Wrongly, in my view.
Let's be very clear. In 1986 there were EIGHT "shall issue" carry states. In 2017, there are FORTY-TWO states which are either shall-issue or "Constitutional carry." AND, while there are some holdout places which are still difficult, there is not one jurisdiction in the nation that doesn't have SOME kind of carry permit process in place -- including the flippin' District of Columbia, and if you'd said THAT would ever happen, even ten years ago, you'd have been laughed right out of the building.
While it is not an easy, uncomplicated issue and there are good arguments from our side both for and against, the absolute incontrovertible final goal of the march to carry rights IS national carry of some sort. We can quibble over the details, and they might actually be important, but to say that it isn't appropriate for this to be very high priority for the NRA is like the guys racing in the 24 hours of Le Mans pulling over at about 23 hours and 55 minutes because "Well, this has been fun, but the point is to have participated. I don't care about the finish line." Just ain't gonna happen.
Kill this bill now, or regret it later.
Yeah. Maybe. I don't like the FixNICS stuff, and I don't think this effort will go through, but something probably will and there might be bones thrown to the antis.
The practical effect of national reciprocity is that you could use a carry permit from a state like Virginia to carry in NYC. The mystery is why you would want to spend time in NYC anyway.
This kind of thing doesn't help anybody. There are VERY cool things to see and do in places like NYC and our other big cities, and plenty of compelling reasons to live and work there. We're working for the rights of everybody to carry wherever they are, or want to be -- RIGHT? Being snide and divisive and militantly country-bumpkinish doesn't help.