Another of my long opinions relating to some of the gun control arguments. This is the continuation of a previous exchange, found here: facebook.com/notes/opinion-issues-with-senator-feinsteins-assault-weapons-ban-of-2013-s150/ [FB link intentionally broken here.]
FRIEND:
You are so much better at explaining these things than I typically see. I'm pretty sure any of these laws will have to apply to new sales. otherwise the government would need to pay for any weapons they want under the 'no taking without just compensation' clause. There aren't even 10 round magazines available for these rifles? If that is true then this is a silly discussion with no chance of having an impact. What do you think about the background check part of this? My wife works in mental health and I know constant cutting of their budgets does not help the problem.
ME:
[Friend], thanks for your response. Sometimes I worry that I'm alienating you or others with my verbose opinions and commentary. Until the present debate, I've mostly kept FB for personal stuff and not been outspoken about politics or world affairs. But, as you can see, I've become pretty passionate about these issues. And FB is where my friends are, on both sides of the issues, who I would gladly discuss these things with in person if that were possible.
The mental health part is so complex I don't think I'm even qualified to ask the right questions. My overarching concern is that the solution should be practical and supportable, financially and otherwise. And I have little confidence in Congress to craft adequate solutions, unfortunately.
I go back and forth on the background checks. You and I had a brief exchange about this earlier. Are background checks bad? No. Can they be abused? Absolutely!
If background checks result in a national firearms registry then it will be fought against vigorously forever and it should be. There are just too many issues with that related to the potential for future use and abuse against law abiding citizens. We've recently seen the abuse in New York when concealed carry permit holders personal data was published on a county map on the Internet.
Background checks are currently required for all transactions from a federally licensed arms dealer. The so called "gun show loophole" is not what it's being made out to be by gun control advocates and the 40% number of firearms 'sales' without background checks is hogwash. I've read several articles disputing that number that explain in detail why it's bogus. Using the exact same, single 20-year old study, the number is arguably in the ~18-22% range with an error rate of +/- 6%. But the very low survey sample size, lack of distribution and time frame of the study all make even that range very suspect. In reality, no one knows what the number is. It'd be interesting for a new, legitimate study to be conducted so we could all speak from real data but some of our politicians and others are too concerned with "we must do something" (now / quickly) to consider waiting for real data to support or dispute their claims. There is an interesting counter-argument that surveys criminals who have used guns in crime about their sources. Those surveys show a predominance of illegal acquisition. I don't know how scientific the data is though. I recently wrote more about the 40% number here: facebook.com/notes/violent-crime-firearms-background-checks/ [FB link intentionally broken here.]
Getting back to the gun shows, the licensed dealers who sell guns at gun shows are already required to perform those background checks. The sales that are unchecked, that happen at gun shows and everywhere else, are between private sellers. So let’s get away from “gun show” loophole. And let’s get away from “loophole” too because it’s not a loophole. As I understand it, the background check law was specifically written to exclude private sales. I don’t know the historical reasoning but I can make some guesses because some undoubtedly still applies today. And even the current law has some language in it about the seller not having any reason to believe the buyer is restricted from owning or possessing a firearm. Granted, that leaves things pretty wide open, especially between strangers.
I think my resistance to or concerns about “universal” background checks can be summed up in a few points.
- Gun registry
- Cost
- Accessibility
- Applicability
- Response Time
- Privacy
- Ammunition sales
- Unintended Consequences
1. Gun Registry: As mentioned briefly, I’m opposed to a gun registry at any level of government. Law abiding citizens become vulnerable to future use or abuse of them. Criminals with illegal guns won’t be captured anyway. Otherwise law abiding citizens will become criminals by not registering their firearms – as I know will be rampant. I have a friend in a jurisdiction that already restricts “assault weapons”. He did the law abiding thing and registered his, as required. His associates who were POLICE OFFICERS with privately owned “assault weapons” and are in the same jurisdiction did NOT register theirs.
2. Cost: A bureaucratic system that probably needs a technology facelift won’t be developed or maintained for free. The cost will almost certainly be passed on to consumers in one form or another. I think $5 is reasonable. I think $40 is not. I’d even have my doubts at $20. A background check at a gun store probably equates to a sale so there shouldn’t be a lot of wasted background checks other than a banned person who is rejected, which arguably isn’t waste. This may not be the case in private sales though. As a responsible gun owner considering selling my firearm to someone I don’t know, I might want to run a background check if I could. I wouldn’t want to be charged money for doing so if that buyer changes their mind or is rejected. Arguably the cost could be the responsibility of the buyer, so this is open for discussion – as long as the costs are free or reasonable and affordable. Incidentally, affordability is under attack elsewhere. I’ve heard a suggestion of a 50% tax on ammunition sales. Really, a 50% tax for me to take my kids to a shooting range and shoot holes in paper targets? This appears to be an attempt to make firearms usage too expensive to be financially viable – a roundabout attempt at gun control.
3. Accessibility: For private sales, a background check should be ‘easily’ accessible. In an urban area this probably isn’t a problem. Theoretically, you can go to the local sporting goods store or police department, use their infrastructure and maybe conduct the sales transaction there. This is vulnerable to the policies of private business, however, unless governed by law. And there’s the related cost issue from above. The same is not true in rural areas or even in urban or suburban areas that simply don’t have gun stores nearby. A private seller shouldn’t have to drive 30+ miles to a background check terminal. Give me a web app. Give me an iPhone and Android app. That’s more reasonably accessible. Incidentally, I heard or read, probably back in December 2012, that there have been past proposals to provide for background check kiosks at gun shows for use by private sellers and that the resistance to that did NOT come from the NRA. I can’t recall where the resistance came from, however, and I haven’t seen any other reports of it. Perhaps resistance was from the hosts of gun shows with a concern for cost.
4. Applicability: I’m not convinced of the necessity for “universal” background checks. I completely understand the desire for background checks for firearms transfers from licensed dealers and for private transactions among strangers. I’m much less convinced for transfers among adult family members or others that are reasonably well known. I have many friends, colleagues and family members that I’d have no reservation about transferring a gun to. Yes, there’s opportunity for negligence and abuse here when applied broadly.
5. Response Time: Background check results should be immediate. I think the technology is already there. People in many places have zero waiting periods for rifles and shotguns and I think the waiting periods for pistols is to combat spontaneous intentions to commit crime or suicide. Don’t burden the private seller with having to submit a background check and wait more than a few minutes for a result. This may not be a problem but needs to be tied to the accessibility issue, above.
6. Privacy: How do we enable private sellers to comply with background checks and still protect potential buyers’ privacy? I don’t know how to solve this. Show me a solution and I can probably find a problem with it.
7. Ammunition Sales: Background checks should not be required for ammunition sales. The proposals I’ve heard hover around sales of ~1000 rounds of ammunition but extend all the way down to ‘all’ ammunition sales. That 1000 number seems to fit the mass murderer ammunition supplies. It also fits the normal buying habits of large numbers of firearms enthusiasts. People buy ammunition in bulk for a few reasons I’m aware of. Like many consumer products, it’s cheaper and is often conveniently packaged that way – a single ‘ammo can’ instead of many separate, smaller cardboard boxes. Many people will shoot 1000 rounds in a single outing. I recently took 2 of my kids and my nephew to a range. In less than 2 hours, we probably fired ~700+ rounds. Someone intending to shoot at an outdoor range or in a national forest won’t have the opportunity to resupply at the indoor gun range, so they’ll bring an ample supply of ammunition to prevent running out and prematurely stopping an enjoyable activity. And underneath it all, ammunition sales limits can easily be circumvented. Criminals will continue to get their ammunition supplies in smaller increments, through a black market, or through others who can purchase ammunition legally. Spontaneous people (emotionally driven crime, suicide or other desires) only need 1 box of ammunition. They won’t be stopped. Mass murderers aren’t spontaneous. They plan their events for weeks or months. They can build up their ammunition supplies over time as they continue their planning and preparation unless prevented by their mental health status, in which case they have friends and sometimes other means too. The people who will be highlighted to law enforcement will be overwhelmingly law abiding people with innocent intentions. There will be more work, effort, resources and cost associated with monitoring the data and looking for something actionable or investigation worthy; or , in overburdened departments or agencies the data will be simply be ignored, making the whole thing wasteful. This one’s not completely off the table. There could exist a negotiated, supportable solution in there somewhere.
8. Unintended Consequences: Our federal government is not often described in positive terms for its efficiency, thoroughness, understanding of the unintended consequences of legislation, or for the accuracy of its records. The negatives also apply to big business in the areas of privacy, identity theft and other important issues. We’ve all heard the nightmare stories of people trying to recover their identities, credit ratings, and even the rare story of resurrecting their lives when Social Security thinks they’re dead. More recently and on point is the gross mismanagement by the TSA and Homeland Security of the no-fly lists. Granted, I don’t hear a lot about his today, but I don’t know if that’s because it’s all been ‘fixed’ or if mainstream media has become bored with the topic. We were all aware of the issues as the government developed and enforced heavy restrictions on airport security after 911. People with similar names found themselves unable to fly commercially and it took them months or years to get their flying privileges restored. Airports have had to clear entire terminals because TSA agents negligently didn’t realize that their metal detectors had become unplugged. I was personally audited by the IRS a few years ago. I made a mistake and neglected to include a sheet with some financial transaction detail on it even though the overall numbers were accurate. My mistake. I responded with the missing data. Then for the same audit, an IRS agent used the wrong column of data to recalculate my return and still found me ‘at fault’. It took me ~$200 with a tax attorney to figure out the mistake the IRS made so I could then explain it to them in writing to get it corrected. My fault for the first mistake, absolutely. My financial and time burden to correct their mistake too. In New York, Governor Cuomo and his democrat controlled Assembly were so intent on "doing something now" that they violated their own policies about waiting periods to allow for public comment and deeper consideration by Assemblymen, slammed in a vote at the midnight hour, and neglected go give even law enforcement and the National Guard exemptions to the 7-round magazine limitation. So considering all this, what confidence can we possibly have that the government will get this right? I think little to none is a reasonable answer. How does someone mentally challenged who is determined cannot possess a firearm able to get those rights reinstated once ‘cured’? (Like getting off the no-fly blacklists.) Are all felonies created equal, especially if some of the proposed legislation results in felony charges – like transferring a 30-round magazine to a friend? Should someone lose their 2nd Amendment rights for transferring a magazine or for not registering their firearm or for transferring their firearm to their adult family member or close personal friend?
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Several hours after I wrote and posted this, I read this article on an NRA webpage. It mentions several of the same issues I had just written about.
Anti-Gunners' Trinity: Private Gun Sale Bans, Gun Bans, Magazine Bans
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