turning universal background checks in our favor?

[Mbous]

It won't be long if there are "universal" background checks for some idiot to cause some incident and give the anti's more ammo to say that now there needs to be a national registry of guns and gun owners, federal licenses, ect. Giving in on one issue is going to be a slippery slope and lead to more crap coming out. They can preach about how the records might be private but this the goverment we are talking about. Anything that can be used to further their agenda is going to be "leaked" or granted a FOIA request and some idiot will publish the data. If they want a gun registry, then there needs to be a registry of all cars and any TVs or electronics people have.

 

[ShadeWPI]

From an enformcement point of view, any universal background check law requires a record of transfers in order to determine when a specific firearm left "the system" without passing through a background check so the last legal purchaser of the firearm can be tracked down and charged with failure to run a background check on the person they sold it to. Such a record becomes a defacto gun registry via a legally enforcible record of the last legal owner of any firearm transfered after the implimentation date.

Once the firearms transfer registry exists, it is impossible to remove it from the hands of the government. Passing a universal background check requirement gives every future government immediate access to the identity of every legal, law abiding gun owner. If any future government decides that it is no longer in the government's best intrest for civilians to be armed, such a registry provides them immediate access any law abiding citizen who has purchased a firearm since the passage of the universal background check, allowing government agencies to visit said people. Any person who can not produce a firearm which was last legally transfered to them could then be arrested for suspician of violating universal background checks. Much as was done by the elected government of Germand in 1938 using a 1919 firearms transfer registry to identify potential gun owners.

In a much less sinister possible future, a criminal trafficking organization could obtain a collection of "clean" identities to make gun purchases, purchase as many guns on each identity as will not raise suspicion, then illegally transfer said firearms to the black-market without proper background checks. When such firearms begin to be recovered by law enforcement at crime scenes, the person who's identity was fraudulently used to purchase those firearms will be contacted by police and investigated for possible gun trafficking.

The result will be increased risk and hassel for law abiding citizens, increased identity fraud that will be nearly impossible for an individual to detect until they become the subject of an investigation (will I be able to contact NICS and find out how many NICs checks have been run on my ID?) with zero improvement to public safety.

If you're having a discussion with someone about this, here's some facts to remind them of:

1) The Shooters in Columbine obtained all of their firearms illegally
2) The shooters at Virginia Tech and Aurora, CO obtained their firearms with a valid NICS check
3) The shooter at Newtown, CT was denigned by a NICS check, but all evidence indicates his mother purchased firearms FOR HIM anyway.

"Universal Background Checks" would have had no impact on any of these trageties as all of them either passed the system or illegally circumvented it under current law.

 

[inerlogic]

MA's scheme won't hold up in front of SCOTUS as is. I can't say exactly what they will allow, but even the 9th circuit wouldn't let what we have fly, much less some of the more conservative circuits or justices.

the problem is... for the supremes to overturn what we have in MA, doesn't someone have to get charged with violating the unconstitutional BS... and then go bankrupt fighting their way through appeal after appeal?

we'd need someone who wasn't a dirtbag to have their license revoked for some BS suitability reason... and have them put their foot down, say "fu you're not taking my guns" and then get arrested, etc.... before the SC could ever get involved correct?

 

[ShadeWPI]

the problem is... for the supremes to overturn what we have in MA, doesn't someone have to get charged with violating the unconstitutional BS... and then go bankrupt fighting their way through appeal after appeal?

we'd need someone who wasn't a dirtbag to have their license revoked for some BS suitability reason... and have them put their foot down, say "fu you're not taking my guns" and then get arrested, etc.... before the SC could ever get involved correct?

Yup. That's a huge part of the problem.

There is a very convincing argument to use the First Amendment's "Freedom of Expression" to defend Open-Carry by anyone legally able to carry a firearm in a public location, however in order to have "standing" to make the challenge, you need to demonstrate harm - which means you need to violate the law, then challenge it up through the courts. That means 3 state level appeals and 2 federal level appeals just to get standing to be heard by the Supreme Court. All the while, you're a prohibitted person with a felon conviction under appeal and likely fighting the entire process from behind bars.

Makes you wonder, why can't we allow the citizens of the country to challenge the governments authority without first becoming irreprabily harmed by an unconstitutional abuse of that authority? And why are the violators of that authority not responsible for making restitution of that harm?

Oh yeah, it's because the people who you're trying to hold responsible for their actions are the ones who make the rules to hold people responsible for their actions.

 

[KBCraig]

So I want to premise my rant with this: I don't support this bs, but I got to thinking. If the republicans had to give in to any of the crap that's being flung in their direction this is probably what it's going to be.

That's exactly how we wound up with federal background checks in the first place.

When the Brady Bill first passed, there was a five day waiting period on handgun purchases, so police could conduct background checks. But, the NRA rode to our rescue and had inserted into the bill a national instant check, so no more waiting as soon as the technology and system were in place!

Except... it applies to all gun purchases from dealers. And created a handy-dandy national system that is the only way there could be a federal "universal" background check for all purchases, even private party sales. And, it created a huge consolidation of all criminal and mental health records at federal data centers. And, the agitation over waiting period probably would have led to the end of that nonsense by now.

But no, we "turned it to our advantage" when it looked like it was going to pass. Gee, thanks!