Background checks - controversy

Spats, I could believe those were DOJ numbers. I have, after all, seen DOJ numbers where around 80,000 sales were blocked by NICS, but only 77 cases were referred for prosecution...

As Biden said, they just don't have time to prosecute that paperwork stuff.

Either that, or over 99% of the blocked transactions were not legitimate.
 
@Spats,
How do we know who is law abiding without a background check?

Source for 120k was provided when I first mentioned it, it's hyperlinked... just scroll back up.


@Mleake,
Less than 1% of those 120k were prosecuted (conviction rate was 100% I think, it's all in the link). That's a failure clearly. However, at least it wasn't 120k jerks with guns that shouldn't have them... ideally we'd follow up better, and that's part of what this gun bill does, allegedly.
The numbers for false negatives are already there in the link I believe, it wasn't a high number. You can also have a false negative trying to board a plane... that's just how systems that have 300 million people are...
The fact that the 4473 wasn't used properly in 2002-2003 doesn't mean it can't be used properly in the future, surely you agree.
 
Another point; CBI-Colorado...

The recent Denver Post item about the CBI(CO Bureau of Investigation) & the back-log of background checks/new firearm buyers shows how complex & error-filled these new gun laws(background requirements) are.
To take 7 days for a new gun purchase/state check is way out of line. :mad:

These new laws & standards will need 100s of new staff, offices, supplies, etc.

CF
 
Kochman, the fact that a Universal Background Check system could be used by an anti-gun government to confiscate guns isn't something you deny, just because it hasn't happened yet, don't you agree?

How many false positives do you think are worth it, to prevent gun purchases that were not worth prosecuting?

Would you endorse random roadblocks, every day of the week, at the entrance of your neighborhood in order to screen for potential DUI drivers? Surely the hassle and inconvenience to the vast majority would be worth it, to save the lives of those the drunk drivers might kill, no?

(BTW, I have had family members SEVERELY injured by drunk drivers, to include facial reconstruction and neck repair surgery, and yet I don't endorse unending roadblocks.)
 
The ATF traces recovered crime guns. I personally think it's a fantastic system of enforcement for UBCs, because it focuses on the guns that actually found their way into criminal hands.
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It also (likely) focuses on firearms that won't have private party transfer UBC's, because so many firearms used in crimes are stolen or purchased through strawmen.
 
MLeake,
I don't deny that certain systems of UBC could lead to registry, confiscation. 4473s, no.

Re: false positives vs prosections... completely unrelated, they should be prosecuting more frequently was part and parcel of what I'm saying... and there are provisions for that in the current bill (this doesn't guarantee enforcement, obviously). It does beg the question, what are current prosecution rates 10 years later under O'bama?

Regarding check points... no, because you walking around isn't the same as you wanting to buy a lethal weapon. If you won't acknowledge that guns are lethal weaponry, which we have the right to own, then it's kind of hard to debate... in other words, that's apples and oranges.

I think the roadblocks for DUI are illegal, personally... invasion of privacy.
 
I don't deny that certain systems of UBC could lead to registry, confiscation. 4473s, no.
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Can you tell me with any certainty that when an FFL goes out of business and surrenders their paper 4473's to BATF, that BATF does not digitize these records?

Can you confirm that they go through and yearly destroy the bound book that is 20 years old?
 
Kochman said:
@Spats,
How do we know who is law abiding without a background check?
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So nobody gets to exercise the RKBA without demonstrating to gov't satisfaction that they are entitled to it? Would you propose the same for the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments?

Kochman said:
Source for 120k was provided when I first mentioned it, it's hyperlinked... just scroll back up.
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Ah, got it. Thanks.
 
Unless I missed something, DOJ seems to think that we shouldn't be required to present ID to vote, .
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Different topic, though a salient point- I've seen enough news stories of voter fraud, I'm for checking ID at the polls too.
 
Which of those other amendments involve deadly weaponry?
And, there are limits to the 1A, for example...
particularly when it comes down to the Preamble of the Constitution...

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
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Does that statistic remove straw man purchases as well as transfers of stolen guns or guns transferred from one criminal to another? Because no UBC will prevent any of those types of sales. I'm talking about honest to goodness, good conscience, I have no reason to believe this other person is a prohibited person transactions. And if there are no metrics on that, then this entire conversation is moot and all of this is nothing but a big time-waster.
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Straw Men and Street Buys have their own statistic. But that's still 40% of Crime Gun sales in the Friends and Family Plan.

Let's turn this around.. if you absolutely have no reason, in good conscience to think your neighbor who you've known for 20 years isn't a prohibited person, is that any reason he shouldn't be if he is? If 25 years ago he became prohibited, and hasn't gone through the rights restoration process...
 
Kochman said:
Which of those other amendments involve deadly weaponry?
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Does it matter? You're suggesting adding more limits to a fundamental, invididual right. Exercise of many of the rights under the First Amendment lead to terrible things like Revolution. Would you suggest that we make anyone who wants to exercise those rights subject themselves to a voluntary background check first?

I'm familiar with the Preamble, but I have never seen it evaluated in dealing with questions of constitutional rights. SCOTUS has said that the RKBA is an individual right, not a collective one. Might I suggest a peek at a Federal Constitutional Primer?
 
Kochman, who said anything about walking around? I said DUI, which refers to driving.

Do you not think cars are deadly implements? Have you ever compared road fatalities with gun shot fatalities? Have you ever looked at the numbers killed or maimed by drunk drivers?

Yet you feel that roadblocks are an invasion of privacy, and should be illegal... but you think NICS is reasonable and necessary.

FWIW, Kochman, medical malpractice kills more people in a given year than do firearms in the US. Firearms are deadly, but so are many other things. Those other things either don't draw media attention, or are backed by serious money.

You can claim apples and oranges all you like, but that only shows that with regard to lethal effect, you haven't actually checked your numbers; and with regard to the Bill of Rights, you don't understand the concepts of Strict Scrutiny (which the courts tend to apply to ALL other Constitutional protections), Intermediate Scrutiny, and Rational Basis (which the antis keep trying to apply solely to the Second Amendment).
 
Would you endorse random roadblocks,
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Road blocks, or check points? Closing the road is not equivalent to a slowdown for a BG Check. Closing all but one lane, and checking the ID of every driver is closer
 
Straw Men and Street Buys have their own statistic. But that's still 40% of Crime Gun sales in the Friends and Family Plan.
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Oh my goodness. I just now looked at your "study" - which happens to be a survey of federal and state inmates. Did you not consider that the "friends and family" of inmates are highly likely to also be criminals likely to be transferring stolen firearms? I can't believe you are seriously suggesting a DoJ survey of convicted felons to be a reliable index to use when assessing the likelihood of a firearm transferred in a good conscience FTF transfer to be used in a violent crime. Seriously.

Let's turn this around.. if you absolutely have no reason, in good conscience to think your neighbor who you've known for 20 years isn't a prohibited person, is that any reason he shouldn't be if he is? If 25 years ago he became prohibited, and hasn't gone through the rights restoration process...
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I have no idea what you're asking me here, but let me put this simply. I refuse to accept the notion that I am required by government dictate to invoke the intercession of a third party to dispose of my personal property. It's really that simple.
 
JimDandy, fine, call it a DUI checkpoint. Those are legal, but only if run in certain manners; but even though they are legal, if police departments started running then on a daily basis, the citizens would tire of it rather quickly, and the powers-that-be would stop the practice.
 
A couple more tidbits from that survey...

Among prisoners who carried a firearm
during the offense for which they were
serving time in 1997, 14% had bought
or traded for the gun from a store,
pawnshop, flea market, or gun show.
The 1997 percentage who had
acquired their firearm at a retail outlet
represented a significant drop from
21% in 1991.
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91 would, of course, be Pre-Brady-

The percentage of
inmates receiving their gun from family
or friends rose from 34% in 1991 to
40% in 1997.
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So a third of criminals got their guns from friends and family before Brady, post Brady background checks, the 7% that didn't get them from retail locations appear to have gone to friends and family.

Again, this survey is admittedly old. and I don't know that I trust a single survey to prove anything. But it's certainly suggestive of the fact that background checks influence where crime guns come from.
 
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