It gets better...

Humor me here, please: I'm a conservative, and looking into this bill right now, because I think the media smear against the NRA is appalling and I want to hear their side of the story.

So, and I mean this sincerely, what is the issue with these:

. Requiring an FBI background check for all firearm sales conducted at a gun show.

. Requiring a criminal check for all commercial gun transactions, including listings posted in a newspaper or on the Internet.

. Expands an existing law that only requires background checks for licensed dealers

. Ensures record-keeping by the seller on transactions, akin to those already required on background checks that are mandatory.

I'm being honest-what's the issue here? Where are the problems? This looks really reasonable to me."

Hey Marc - ok.. here is the "humor" for you. this bill was BULLSHIT, and would not have done ANYTHING to prevent the atrocities in Connecticut or Colorado. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. All it does in punish the innocent, law abiding citizen with another hoop to jump through to exercise his natural rights, as listed in the bill of rights of the constitution. Individual rights. Humor Me: what did you Obo do to fix the real problem... the crazy people problem? Conservative my ass.. yeah, and I am a progressive. Stick to your own left wing blogs.

What about the Harkin amendment? Just looking at his name, the list of co-sponsors, and the first section on further codifying mental disbarments it would appear to be very bad when you work out the implications, e.g. codifying the ATF regulation that allows those less than judges to make the determination.

Passed overwhelmingly, only Rand Paul and Lee of Utah voting Nay.

The background checks are a waste of money that encourages confiscation and reduces the number of new gun owners.

The costs for the government end and the dealer end of background checks add up to something like $50 to $100, partly because of the dangers of mistakes to dealer's livelihood and freedom and the complexity of the laws. Washington DC charges $150 for a background check. New York City charges $400. The law specified no limit on the price. If they really wanted background checks instead of expensive deterrents to gun buyers, they could have required the checks to be free from the government and the costs to dealers reimbursed by the government. They wouldn't consider that. Law abiding gun owners shouldn't have to bear the costs caused by criminals especially if they aren't going to give us credit for the crimes that were never attempted because the criminal or tyrant thought he might get stopped by a gun owner. Instead of charging us for background checks, they should be paying us to buy guns.

Also, they required the sales to be registered by gun dealers in their books and that the books be available to the government and eventually turned over. So it was registration in disguise. Registration increases the risk of confiscation by making it more tempting to legislators and more effective. If all they really wanted was background checks and not registration, they could have just had the law require background checks but not require the serial numbers or seller be recorded. That would not consider that.

Furthermore, Obama, Clinton, and even Bush didn't bother to enforce the background checks. Out of millions of criminals who failed the background checks, only a few hundred were prosecuted. It might seem good that those large number of criminals failed to get a gun from the dealer, but probably almost all got guns by other means.

There were also a lot of traps in the laws. For example the restrictions on transfers made you a felon for letting your friends try out your guns under some common circumstances in your presence. And the tricky law prohibited the Attorney General from creating a gun registry, but thereby implicitly authorized other government agencies to do it. They also set no limit on the price of background checks to be set by the Attorney General. Thus he could use the trick introduced in the 1930's for machine guns of setting an extremely high tax to prevent buying.

These problems might be outweighed by lives saved if the background checks actually saved a significant number of lives, but they don't. The vast majority of gun murders are by gangs or criminals who can get their guns as easily as they get drugs, or by stealing them, or by straw buys which can be reported stolen, or by people who have passed the background check. Only a tiny fraction of gun crimes can be prevented by background checks, and one must not forget the crimes that will succeed and the risk to freedom from tyranny because people were deterred from buying guns by the cost of a background check.

Marcanthony,

Those are good questions.

Background checks on transfers of unregistered guns would be basically voluntary and have no measurable effect on crime. They would exist only to intimidate gun owners who want to conduct transactions legally and conveniently.

(Current background checks are only on guns that are logged on the books of licensed dealers' books.)

You will ask, "So what's the harm?"

Gun orgs learned by about 1970 that the core of the gun control movement is prohibitionist and ultimately would like to ban all guns. The gun control adopted an incremental strategy toward that goal.

By the nature of the situation, gun owners can only lose ground in this debate. They are fundamentally on the defensive. They have something (a right) that their opponents attack. For gun orgs there is very little room for an offensive strategy; there's nothing for them to attack. So their strategy is defensive intransigence and they've gotten really good at it.

Most if not all proposed gun laws are designed to drive a wedge between different types of gun owers, e.g. "assault weapon" owners and hunters, to harass gun owners, to intimidate them, and to drive the sport into irrelevance so in a generation or two there will be no viable gun lobby.

The defeated bill, while on its face sensible, was really more of the same and not expected to reduce crime at all.

Gun owners might show some flexibility if the "gun control" movement tried to re-shape gun culture instead of trying to eliminate it. E.g. offered a national concealed carry license in exchange for background checks, or some such.

For us on the gun side, the fact that gun-control proponents never offer to encourage the parts of gun culture they can live with, in exchange for regulating other aspects, only proves that the end game of eliminating guns and the gun lobby takes precedence over reducing crime. So we have no reason to compromise.

Thank you all for answering my questions. Very helpful!

(Incidentally, I am certainly not liberal. I'd go back to my liberal blogs if, you know, I actually knew any. I can recommend a couple of great conservative blogs if you'd like.)

@marcanthony

"We'll take one step at a time, and the first is necessarily – given the political realities – very modest. We'll have to start working again to strengthen the law, and then again to strengthen the next law and again and again. Our ultimate goal, total control of handguns, is going to take time. The first problem is to slow down production and sales. Next is to get registration. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and ammunition (with a few exceptions) totally illegal." -- Pete Shields, then chairman of HCI (which is now the Brady Campaign)
As quoted by Richard Harris, "A Reporter at Large: Handguns," New Yorker, July 26, 1976, 53, 58;

That's one of those questions that's difficult to provide a short, sound-bite answer for, because any answer presupposes a certain viewpoint and knowledge of how this stuff will actually work (as opposed to how proponents claim it will work).

While saying "because it's another incremental step toward prohibition" is technically correct, it is unpersuasive for a lot of people.

I think Jacob Sullum does a good job of answering your questions in "Checking the Logic of Background Checks"

The ATF's handling of NICS referrals reflects two facts commonly ignored by background-check enthusiasts. First, the criteria for stripping people of their Second Amendment rights are absurdly (and unfairly) broad, sweeping pot growers, hubcap thieves, and guys who got into a bar fight 20 years ago together with violent predators. Second, criminals generally do not buy their weapons in gun stores.

and "Checking the Logic of Background Checks"

“universal background checks” are unlikely to stop mass shootings, and enforcing them would require the sort of surveillance that has long been anathema to defenders of the Second Amendment, exposing millions of peaceful people to the threat of gun confiscation and criminal prosecution.

"Second Amendment Penumbras" by Glenn Reynolds (aka Instapundit.com ) is a short paper worth reading.



First Amendment analogies, in fact, suggest another doctrine that might apply: chilling effect. Traditionally, violation of gun laws was treated as mere malum prohibitum, and penalties for violations were generally light. During our nation’s interlude of hostility toward guns in the latter half of the twentieth century, penalties for violations of gun laws, especially in states with generally anti-gun philosophies, became much stiffer. Gun ownership was treated as a suspect (or perhaps “deviant” is a better word) act—one to be engaged in, if at all, at the actor’s peril.



But with gun ownership now recognized as an important constitutional right belonging to all Americans, that deviant characterization cannot be correct. Regulation of firearms cannot now justifiably proceed on an in terrorem approach, in which the underlying goal is to discourage people from having anything to do with firearms at all. Laws treating fairly minor or technical violations as felonies must be regarded with the same sort of suspicion as pre–New York Times v. Sullivan laws on criminal libel: as improper burdens on the exercise of a constitutional right.



Or, as Rachel Maddow said about abortion (July 02, 2009), "Why bother making it illegal if you can just make it impossible to get?" That is exactly what Democrats are trying to do with guns. Would they accept "universal background checks" on abortion? No, because they'd go into a frothing rage about such background checks being a violation of a Woman's Right To Choose ™.





Also read Glenn's "Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything Is A Crime". David Gregory of NBC violated a Washington DC gun control law on national television, in front of millions of people. There is no question about his guilt. Yet DC prosecutors refused to press charges, stating that



"prosecution would not promote public safety...nor serve the best interests of the people"



So what is the point of gun control laws if the government won't enforce them when the perpetrator is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?

MarcAnthony,

In addition to the numerous points made above, and the fact that those promoting this legislation indicated it would not have prevented either the Newtown or Aurora shootings, which are the direct impetus for its proposal, there are other problems relating to constitutionality. Congress is authorized "To regulate Commerce . . . among the several States". This does not authorize Congress to regulate private sales or exchanges or gifts of private property between individuals withing states. The government licenses firearms dealers because they are engaged in commerce involving goods that cross state lines. The vast majority of private sellers are not involved in sales to those in other states, and any that are so involved must already go through licensed dealers. In fact, many private instate sales (consignments) already go through dealers. So, this legislation is an attempt to control all other private sales and transfers unrelated to commerce among the states. It is also an attempt to require government permission to obtain or sell any firearms.

The problem is that the President and supporters in Congress are trying to extend the constitutional jurisdiction beyond commerce among the states (in violation of the Tenth Amendment) without amending the Constitution, which not only requires congressional votes by 2/3 majority in both the Senate and House, but ratification by 3/4 of the state legislatures.

Another problem is that the "shall not be infringed" restrictive language of the Second Amendment means the people's right to keep and bear arms cannot be touched. It is the eqivalent of 'no laws shall be passed' language. This is evident to anyone who looks at the proposals during the Founding Era of First and Second Amendment related rights. The latter were often proposed with restrictive language like that of the former and vice versa. I refer here to proposals of the Minority of the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention, Samuel Adams' proposals in the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, the New Hampshire Ratifying Convention proposals, James Madison's First and Second Amendment related language based on the proposals of the Virginia Ratifying Convention, and related language from the congressional amendments committee. [Search online for "the meaning of shall not be infringed" for documented commentary on this at On Second Opinion Blog.]

The constant claims by long time gun control advocates that none of their current "reasonable" and "common sense" proposals would infringe the Second Amendment are meaningless rhetoric in support of a false narrative. Gun control is about government control.

Third, the country has supposedly been involved in a conversation about violence and guns, which consisted almost exclusively of gun control advocates stating what they want and that no one can question their desires, but was there any discussion by them about the actual purpose of the Second Amendment? It has a purpose that is rarely, if ever, discussed because those advocating gun control, euphmistically called gun safety laws, simply dismiss its purpose. That overall purpose is the very foundation of our free government and constitutional system.

The reason why we have consitutionally protected rights and limited government is because our ancestors were in the enviable position to give powers to governments and limit those powers, a result of their being armed. They passed constitutional protection for these rights and this inherent control of government on to us in the supreme law of the land. Those supporting gun control, whether intentionally or not, are gradually subverting this constitutional arrangement, which distinguishes the United States from virtually every other country. Here, the people control the government, the government does not control the people. Gun control advocates work to reverse this fundamental.

It is astonishing how modern arguments for gun control in support of actions that would undermine the very foundation of our constitutional republic conflict with the views of those who established our form of government. At lest it is astonishing to those who pay attention to the views of the Founders.

That's great-I don't want a soundbite answer. I have an ultra-liberal, NRA hating, Romney hating, pro-life hating (he wouldn't admit that one, though) college professor with a doctorate, and he was going on today about how stupid conservatives are because they fought back this gun control bill.

That's why I want to learn-I'm hearing way too much spin by the media and the liberals, and I want to get educated. I refuse to believe, as liberals love to pretend, that half of the country is just stupid. I want to learn the real story.

If the bill passed (or later passes) and I have to do a background check on someone who desires to buy a handgun from me. What would prevent me from simply submitting names of people whose background I wish to check (babysitters, auto mechanics, etc) to the system?

I see this system could easily be abused by people who merely want to run a check on others.