This whole background check thing is a massive joke. I don't discount the need to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals, but the absurdity of this legislation and reasoning astonishes me.
The fiasco I just went through to renew my FL concealed carry permit is a great case in point. It ended up being a red-flag from a mistaken identity charge in WA State...however NICS or even the NCIC FBI personnel couldn't see it at the federal level, but FL could see the issue in WA???
Anyways, during that whole mess, WA state does have an interesting system called WATCH; some acronym for seeing if you have any criminal charges on somebody...or in my case, myself. The printout says it's valid for a year for proof or your "innocence"
You run the full name and birth date, of course for a stupid fee. The result is a printout that matches your name and birth date to any known arrests, warrants, etc. If people truly believe the "40% of gun transactions (mostly at gun shows) don't have a criminal background check"...(which I believe was from statistics pre-NICS); why not a system like WATCH?
I really don't mind paying a few dollars to show a seller I'm "not a criminal" so as to avoid keeping records. This would be a very sound way to make private sellers more comfortable...the problem is it doesn't meet the intent of tracking sales and registration which is the ultimate goal of some politicians.
Having been the victim of somebody using my SSN on a firearms transaction (causing me to submit to another background check, fingerprints, etc. in the Voluntary Appeal File); and this recent "identity mistake" in a small town arrest (oh yeah, it occurred when I was deployed???)...I'm not a big fan of background checks that won't be simple and easy to run without costing more than a cup of coffee, good for no less than a year and private enough to run without worry. I think it's too tall of an order for a government that can't balance a budget or it has an ideological purpose behind their proposed legislations...
ROCK6