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Judiciary Committee hearings
The House Judiciary Committee's Subcomm. on Crime, Terrorism & Homeland Security will be holding hearings Wednesday on HR 1384, the Firearms Commerce Modernization Act, and HR 1415, the NICS Improvement Act.
HR 1384 basically would allow sale of all firearms (not just the present rifles and shotguns) by a dealer to a nonresident if the transaction conformed to the laws of both states.
HR 1415 is fairly complicated, but a quick read suggests it is meant to pressure states into putting more NICS data (particularly mental hospitalizations and misdemeanor DV convictions) into the NICS system.
UPDATE: My own thoughts on this are straightforward: felony convictions are public records, and ought to be in some manner of system. Prior to all this, many if not most police depts kept records only of arrests, figuring conviction was a court's business, not theirs. I suppose misdemeanor DV is the same (altho I disagree with making that a disqualifier, esp. for people who before Lautenberg may have pled guilty just because the fine was less than a legal fee. The rest of the stuff -- well, I don't like big government databases. The liberal-left which is showing concerns that the Patriot Act lets the government look at who checked books out of a library should awaken to the fact that the biggest database of them all was created with their generally enthusiastic support, on the claim it was aiding a gun law.
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James, I also would be interested in David's take on the database. On the face of it, it is not clear to me how it's possible for laws which use the "commerce power" [in quotes because I believe the Feds are way out of line on what the commerce clause means] to restrict sales of arms to be consistent with the Second Amendment. I recognize that constitutional rights are not absolute, but subject to varying degrees of regulation (in this case I consider "strict scrutiny" to be the appropriate level of regulation). We started out this country with laws requiring every male citizen to own a military rifle (see the Militia Act of 1792). Now we are at a state of affairs where the normal hand-held weapons (clearly within a conservative reading of the definition of "arms") are illegal in many states. This was certainly NOT what the founders intended. If you can't "buy" you certainly can't "keep" can you? This whole business sounds to me like a "devil's bargain."
If commonsense had not disappeared from governmental administrative decisionmaking, I'd be all for getting as much information on the record as possible. Unfortunately, commonsense decisionmaking has been replaced by policy formulas, the worst example of which is "zero tolerance." Such policies enable our functionaries to avoid the responsibility for nonsensical or even insane outcomes. Were it on a record that John Doe had consulted a psychiatrist for any reason whatever, I would bet he'd have an uphill battle to legally acquire a gun. No administrator would want to take the responsibiity for deeming it insignificant to gun ownership.
As for domestic violence, I feel toward that as I feel toward "hate crimes" and "hate speech." When you legislate additional punishment for crimes against special groups, relationships or icons, you are punishing bad attitude, thought crime, and creating political prisoners.
The government hasn't done all that well in accommodating civil rights. I think it is probably futile to attempt improving government performance by giving it more data--that's on a par with giving my yellow lab an encyclopedia to stop his chewing up books.
...a quick read suggests it is meant to pressure states into putting more NICS data (particularly mental hospitalizations and misdemeanor DV convictions) into the NICS system.
I'm interested in whether you think that is a good idea. I used to work in law enforcement, so I'm an easy sell on expanding a database as long as it doesn't violate any Constitutional rights.
James