Background check fail

Actually President Obama has made criminal justice reform an agenda item for his last years in office. While I haven’t seen any specifics I doubt “ending the war on crime” means they plan to lock up more bad guys. To me it seems kind of strange that he wants to go easier on actual criminals while increasing restrictions on law abiding citizens.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/13/politics/obama-commutes-sentences-drug-offenders/index.html
 
Last edited:
44 AMP said:
Or, possibly, how about not allowing someone charged with a crime that would make them a prohibited person to walk about loose???
Click to expand...
I hope you'll reconsider that proposal.

Remember, under our constitution a person is considered innocent until he/she is convicted of having committed a crime. Not everyone who is arrested is guilty (in fact, not everyone who is convicted is guilty, but that's another story for another day), and not all cases go to trial quickly. What you are proposing is that nobody who is charged can be eligible for bail. That's going to affect a LOT of innocent people.
 
There are many possible "proposals", and not all are acceptable. Some are not practical, and some not even possible, but they get proposed anyway.

Sorry, for not being more clear, but "how about..." is not the same as "I think we should..."
 
In California, where the CDOJ screens gun purchases the state has 10, not just 3, to deny a purchase and if during those first 10 days the examiner sees anything indicating that the buyer may be a prohibited person the CDOJ notifies the dealer that decision will be delayed. It then has 30 days from the date the sale was reported for it to deny. If it does nothing in those 30 days, it does not approve or disapprove anything and it is up to the dealer if it wants to deliver a firearm to you. Many will not and they usually retain a substantial restocking fee from the purchase price.

Expect to see something like the California system proposed.
 
Expect to see something like the California system proposed.
Click to expand...
That's what worries me. I had a few customers who got the whole 3-day delay every time they bought a gun. Each time, they had to wait for it to time out. In some cases, it would be a month or more before I got a final result. Sometimes, it never came.

Under a system that "fixes" the "3-day default release" period, their purchases could be put on hold indefinitely.
 
As I see it, the underlying problem with the "on hold until we make up our minds" concept is that it reverses the intent of the original law. Govt had a limited time to prove you were "guilty" (a prohibited person) and deny the sale. We accepted this, and its reversal of the general "innocent until proven guilty" standard as a compromise. And note that when the Fed "instant check" system came online, the fed 3 day wait went away. That was the deal.

How is it that 30+ years ago, with the tech at the time, 3 days was enough but today in the information age of computers, 3 days isn't enough anymore????

On one side, there is the "you have the right, unless the govt can give a valid reason to stop you (and a time limit for that)", and on the other side is "you don't have the right, until the govt approves you". (and the implied, wait cheerfully and silently and be grateful when we finally grant you this boon...)
 
It was worse in CA. Until recently the state DOJ sometimes took nearly two years to approve a sale. CalGuns foundation sued it and the suit was quickly mooted when CA changed it law so that it can only put a delivery on delay for 30 days, after which it won't comment as to whether or not a dealer may deliver. By doing so many dealers refuse to complete the sale out of concern they may endanger there license.

This happened to me recently, but I was fortunate to have bought from a dealer that delivers. It made no difference that I had bought two long guns in the previous three years. To add insult to injury, CA DOJ won't talk with you while you are delayed and even after I received my handgun it wouldn't say why I was delayed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top