Universal background checks.

[44 AMP]

A real problem is that it is extremely difficult to prove a negative. They claim that given their way, this, that, and the other thing won't happen, or will happen less.

No matter what the result is, they are for more and more laws. They claim success without proof, and at the same time, with the same "statistics" claim they need more laws (which is kind of admitting failure, isn't it?).

Too bad there isn't something that they like to do that we could get legislation against, because they like to do it...

 

[ATN082268]

Too bad there isn't something that they like to do that we could get legislation against, because they like to do it...

How about a Constitutional Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting unfunded or underfunded mandates from Federal, State or local governments? No, that wouldn't prevent anti-second amendment assaults but with limited resources and not being able to mandate things without paying for it, politicians would have to very careful about which things to concentrate on.

 

[buckhorn_cortez]

A very real problem in all of this is that everyone has a "better idea" when it comes to security - which is what gun control or concealed carry permits are purporting to provide to those who can be made to believe that idea.

Let me give you an example. I had a DoD security clearance for a US Army project and for a Defense Nuclear Agency project.

Then I started working on a DOE project - and the DOE would not accept my DoD clearance as valid because their people didn't conduct the background investigation. So, I waited for that clearance and then had a DOE clearance.

Both clearances required a full background investigation. All places I had lived for my entire life, schools attended, jobs, personal interview with an investigator, etc.

Then I started working on a project for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing - and I could not obtain a badge from them because I hadn't been investigated by the Virginia State Police. Never mind the DoD clearance and the DOE clearance with full background checks.

The whole point being - when you're being sold a bill of goods on security you end up believing that only YOUR security measures are valid because you setup the criteria that you believe makes the security measure valid.

That's only one of the problems with universal background checks - every state believes that their method of "providing security" is the best.

Finding a way to harmonize every state to the same criteria is a veritable can of worms (or 50 cans of worms).

Equating it to a driver's license is logical but you can justify the universal acceptance of a driver's license through the Interstate Commerce Clause (like forcing everyone to buy health insurance using the ICC as the basis).

I'm not sure how the ICC could be applied to a concealed carry permit...but I'm certainly open to the idea - although, in the end, I personally do not believe that any type of "permit" solves the security problem of ensuring that only the "good guys" have guns and the "bad guys" are denied access to them.

 

[Spats McGee]

. . . .That said, I'd like to hear your definition of "compromise." Please tell me exactly what it is Washington gun owners gained from I-594.

This is a central problem with the gun debate: the other side wants to take things from us, but they offer nothing in return except perhaps the promise they're not going to make it worse. Yowza.

In this way, gun control supporters have always reminded me of mobsters in old movies. "This is a very nice place you have here, Sal. It'd be a shame if something happened to it. You know, old buildings like this, with all the old wiring, they're a fire hazard . . . "

Kind of like: "That's a very nice hunting rifle you have there. It'd sure be a shame if you lost the right to own it. Now let's talk about that semiauto rifle you have in the back. . . "

 

[TimSr]

"Compromise" is one of those feel good words that gets tossed around a lot, and usually incorrectly in politics.

I is supposed to mean both sides give in in order that both sides can benefit.

In politics it means one side makes demands, and the other side only gives them part of what they want.

Over the last 30 years, nearly every "compromise" on the national level concerning gun ownership has resulted in loses for gun owners, and no gains. Worse than that, they just come around a again a few years later and make more demands, and usually get the rest of what they asked for in the first place. Limiting gun grabbers to half steps forward with their agenda with "compromise", is still moving forward. Small incremental losses of our rights is how they play the game. NICS was a"compromise". Wahtever you give them is never enough.

Hamas charter supports the exterminatiom of all Jews. What is the "sensible compromise"?

I've seen a great deal of gun rights retored over the last 30 years, and nearly all of them were at the state level. I have no room to "compromise" away and more of my freedoms with the federal goverment.

 

[Tom Servo]

Kind of like: "That's a very nice hunting rifle you have there. It'd sure be a shame if you lost the right to own it. Now let's talk about that semiauto rifle you have in the back. . . "

Or, "so what if Bill Clinton wants to ban a few machine guns? I've still got my deer rifle. You folks gotta learn to compromise. And stop calling me at dinner time." I got that from the same guys who went into hysterics when they found out they were limited to 10-round pistol magazines a week later.

 

[TimSr]

Tom, that reminds me of another peeve of mine, when they dress it all up with a nice sweet sounding common sense name that has nothing to do with the bill, such as "gun safety" or "crime prevention" or "assault weapons ban" or "armour piercing ammo ban".

I was shocked to learn that according to initial language in the Clinton "assault weapons ban", that my Raven .25 ACP was not only an assault weapon, and that the "defense ammo" I bought for it in the 80's is still considered "armour piercing". I the 70's it was considered a "Saturday night special".


The key is intent, and none of these laws, or background checks are intended to prevent crime or criminal access. The intent is to hinder lawful gun sales by using restrictive means that sound "reasonable" on the surface.

 

[dayman]

I was not giving the WA bill as an example of an acceptable compromise.
Kind of the opposite. I was bemoaning the fact that we're not going to get a reasonable compromise as we've effectively removed ourselves from the discussion.

What I do feel would be an acceptable compromise (between no background checks, and background checks & documentation for every transfer) would be a bill requiring background checks specifically for all *advertised* sales. So selling/giving guns to family and actual friends would be exempt.
While we were at it we could write in a change to the form to remove serial number info.

In addition to addressing most of "our" concerns, it would appease the overwhelming majority of Americans who support expanding background checks (about 80-90% according to politifact).
Also, it would prevent the antis from being able to conveniently prepackage a bunch of insidious fine print with such a popular idea.


The other chunk of my post was in response to a message that's since been either edited or taken down. But basically someone was accused of being a member of a gun control advocacy group because they thought one of the upcoming protests of the WA law was a bad idea.

 

[Tom Servo]

What I do feel would be an acceptable compromise would be a bill requiring background checks specifically for all *advertised* sales. So selling/giving guns to family and actual friends would be exempt.

The problem of verification still exists. How do the authorities know if I got the gun in an advertised sale or not? What constitutes "advertised?" A newspaper ad? A forum post?

As far as a family exemption, I may still be subject to having to prove I got it from my brother rather than a friend.

And how is that done? I see no other workable solution than registration.

In addition to addressing most of "our" concerns, it would appease the overwhelming majority of Americans who support expanding background checks (about 80-90% according to politifact).

Check the numbers, who's doing the survey in question, and how the questions are worded. If we look at Gallup, support for stricter gun laws has gone down since 2013. Only 47% of those surveyed believe our laws should be stricter.

Also, it would prevent the antis from being able to conveniently prepackage a bunch of insidious fine print with such a popular idea.

Quite the opposite. They will do their best to kill anything we ask for. Barring that, they'll do their best to poison it. The history of the Hughes amendment is a good example of that.

We have nothing to gain by appeasing them. Anything we let them have will not be compromise but a foot in the door.

 

[JimPage]

Compromise with gun grabbers is like the following example:

"I demand to sleep with your wife 5 days of each week."
Husband refuses loudly.
"OK, be reasonable. I will be reasonable and just sleep with her three days a week."
Husband refuses.
"Why are you so unreasonable??? You need to learn that compromise is how things work in this world. I will only sleep with her two times a week. That's a reasonable compromise. If you don't compromise, I will enforce my original demand."

 

[Aguila Blanca]

"Lawdog" has a blog that addresses the issue of compromises on firearms laws pretty well:

http://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-repost.html

 

[carguychris]

[WA FFL's] can simply refuse to do the checks at all. I've heard this out of Colorado. Some folks are having to drive hundreds of miles to find a dealer willing to do the transfers. The result is a serious impediment to exercising a right.

This sounds absolutely awful, but one means of fighting the law would be to have all dealers in the state refuse to perform the checks. This will place such a burden on the right as to irreparably damage it.

FWIW after reading the law more closely, I think that WA FFL's may run screaming from private transfers once they understand the potential penalties for seemingly minor record-keeping violations.

I explain my reasoning in the following post in the Big I-594 thread:

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5953234&postcount=109

 

[44 AMP]

Washington State's I-594 is seriously flawed from our perspective. Could at least the worst of those flaws have been avoided if the matter were handled through the legislative rather than the initiative process?

Could things have been handled through the legislative process? Wouldn't we be better off doing it that way?

Yes, absolutely.

WE DID, and WE WERE!!!!!

This issue WAS handled by the legislative process, and was defeated in the legislature. But, they didn't give up, nor go away.

If I recall correctly, we defeated the UBC idea (and all the wonderful things they tacked on to it) once, as an initiative some time ago. Our Legislature defeated the idea again, when it came around as a nationally sponsored idea after the Sandy Hook mass murders.

Apparently the backers of the idea decided that given their money resources, they could fool the underinformed public where they could not fool the legislators.

And, that's what they did. Using the initiative process, they brought UBC back up again (and added some more crap to it in the fine print) and sold it to the people via advertising as something quite different that what it actually was.

The 5 county voting "block" of the metro Puget Sound area (Seattle & etc.) is what passed 594. Their numbers were enough to steamroller over the rest of the state.

Originally Posted by 44 AMP
Too bad there isn't something that they like to do that we could get legislation against, because they like to do it...

How about a Constitutional Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting unfunded or underfunded mandates from Federal, State or local governments?

While I do agree with something like that (its just good government), what I meant was some kind of law restricting/making more expensive something that the lawmakers (and gun control supporters) personally like to do. Something that hits them where they live, in response to, if not equality of effect, the way their laws hit us.

Perhaps if the golfer had to go through a UBC before being able to buy a club? If they got put on a watch list if they bought 3 clubs in a week?

or how about they had to get a check, and pay a fee at a location on the other side of town from the golf course, (and only open regular business hrs) before they could tee up?

Some time back, WA put in "sin taxes", adding to the cost of soda pop and beer (among other things), but NOT COFFEE!!!! (note that Starbucks began in the Seattle area)

All the coffee drinkers were fine with the idea, the rest of us, well we just got to shut up and pay!

I know its a pipe dream, but if there were some way to personally inconvenience the people who pass these laws, it would at least partially appease my sense of fairness.

(the real world drawback to holding lawmakers personally responsible (beyond getting the chance to vote them out the next election cycle) for the laws they pass, is that if we did that, they wouldn't pass anything, for fear of being held accountable.)

 

[kilimanjaro]

44AMP, I know exactly how you feel about getting even, somehow.

Something like an initiative to double the taxes on legal pot would be a start !

 

[Tom Servo]

FWIW after reading the law more closely, I think that WA FFL's may run screaming from private transfers once they understand the potential penalties for seemingly minor record-keeping violations.

When it looked like federal regulation was a possibility, we looked at the implications for my shop. The decision was that we (and most other FFL's) didn't want to be burdened with it. We would simply refuse to do the service.

IIRC, the Colorado law placed a $5 cap on the dealer's fee for this. That's not worth an FFL's time and record-keeping burden. As such, most dealers have opted out there.

The resulting situation is that transfers become very difficult, if not impossible, depending on location. It's a safe bet the same situation will present itself in Washington.

Using the initiative process, they brought UBC back up again (and added some more crap to it in the fine print) and sold it to the people via advertising as something quite different that what it actually was.

This brings up something I'd forgotten to ask: how many signatures does it take in Washington to get an initiative on the ballot?

 

[Aguila Blanca]

(the real world drawback to holding lawmakers personally responsible (beyond getting the chance to vote them out the next election cycle) for the laws they pass, is that if we did that, they wouldn't pass anything, for fear of being held accountable.)

You say that as if it might in some small way be a bad thing ...

 

[44 AMP]

Tempting as the thought is, them not passing anything would be a bad thing. Specifically the operating money for what are considered "essential services".

if that was all they passed, I could live with that, easily. Trouble is they don't even do a good job at that, while wasting our money on non-essential, and often useless cr..stuff.

 

[Bella]

A petition has been filed in Nevada for UBC to be on the ballot in 2016. Most of the signature gatherers were from out of state.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

A petition has been filed in Nevada for UBC to be on the ballot in 2016. Most of the signature gatherers were from out of state.

From MALG*, no doubt.

That should be illegal. Those collecting signatures should be from the jurisdiction just as much as those who sign.










*Moms Against Legal Guns

 

[carguychris]

Tempting as the thought is, them not passing anything would be a bad thing. Specifically the operating money for what are considered "essential services".

if that was all they passed, I could live with that, easily.

On that note, I've previously floated the idea of states passing ballot initiatives or (even better) state constitutional amendments that read something like this:

"Neither the State of {name}, nor any political subdivision thereof, shall be permitted to authorize the expenditure of funds to create or maintain any registry of lawfully owned firearms."

The underlined word "any" is critical- it's intended to forestall efforts to create a backdoor registration scheme under the guise of a UBC requirement. If "MALG" (I like that) or some other group tries to pass UBC's, they will have to risk enforcement efforts being undermined by the no-expenditure clause if/when the courts deem the 4473 forms to be a "registry", OR they will have to show their hand and openly ask for UBC's AND registration at the outset.

IMHO one other big plus of this proposal is that it's likely to sound attractive to fiscally conservative but socially liberal voters who don't own guns- the type who would potentially vote for a UBC requirement.