Ballot Intiatives - Bloomberg's New Gambit

44 AMP said:
Much has been made, on our side, about how the UBC system cannot work, as promised, without full and total gun (and owner) registration. The idea of a UBC can work without any gun registration. BUT, we are not being offered that kind of system as an option. The ONLY kind of system their side offers, or accepts is one that would require registration, because THAT is what they want.
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Current background checks are done only at the point of sale, at least with FFLs. If a background check isn't done at the point of sale with a registry to verify it, the only other option I can think of is potentially having a background check done at any time of possession. Bought a gun, papers please. Pulled over for speeding, papers please. Firing at the range, papers please. Etc. Etc. Etc.
 
I don't see how UBCs can be stopped in most states when put to the electorate. In my state there is a very strong gun culture. UBC's would never pass here. In fact they would not even get through the legislature to get on the ballot.
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We thought that as well, and DEFEATED the UBC push TWICE in consecutive legislative sessions. The bulk of our lawmakers were actually on our side!

That's when they took it to the Initiative process, got enough signatures, got it on the ballot, and using millionaire funded deceptive TV ads and controlled soundbytes telling only what they SAID the law would do, and NOT what it actually would do, they convinced enough people in the metro area to pass it, which gave them sufficient numbers state wide, to make it the law.

Again, we see the main drawback to democracy, information control determines to a very large degree what the masses think they want. And then there also the people with actual agendas...

3 wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner is democracy. But its neither fair, nor representative.
 
We don't really have an urban area in our state to speak of. Out of the hundred largest cities in the country we have none. Of the four cities we do have two are rapidly shrinking, Montgomery is one of the fastest shrinking cities in the US.

Until the last decade the state was ruled entirely by democrats for the last 150 years or so. Gun control has been a non-issue for decades and a non-starter. Open carry just reappeared legally removing local restrictions. Heck, like I said they still allow felons to own guns.

I think the only way they could get it to pass down here would be to offer everyone a free AR if they voted in favor of it.

Most states are vulnerable though.
 
Current background checks are done only at the point of sale, at least with FFLs. If a background check isn't done at the point of sale with a registry to verify it, the only other option I can think of is potentially having a background check done at any time of possession. Bought a gun, papers please. Pulled over for speeding, papers please. Firing at the range, papers please. Etc. Etc. Etc.
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As is, UBCs would stop the law abiding citizen from unknowingly transferring to a prohibited person in a FTF. It would probably reduce illegal interstate transfers made in ignorance. A lot of people don't get that they can't sell to a buddy in the next town without an FFL if that happens to be in another state.

What a mess.
 
It is hard to argue against a UBC in principle. The devil is in the details. Few would argue against requiring a nearly instantaneous check for recent convictions for violent felonies, but should a purchase be delayed for months while an understaffed bureaucracy diddles about getting around to acting on an application? My state does its own background checks and arguably for political reasons was taking that much time, even more than a year, to complete checks.
 
I believe there are several valid arguments against UBCs that may reach the masses. For instance, I want to purchase a rifle for my adult son as a gift. Since that would technically be a transfer (but not a straw purchase), and I couldn't wrap it up for his birthday. Oh no, off to the FFL we go to transfer his gift. On top of that, if you want to get technical you could also forget loaning a rifle to friends or family to hunt with.
 
5whiskey said:
I believe there are several valid arguments against UBCs that may reach the masses. For instance, I want to purchase a rifle for my adult son as a gift. Since that would technically be a transfer (but not a straw purchase), and I couldn't wrap it up for his birthday. Oh no, off to the FFL we go to transfer his gift. On top of that, if you want to get technical you could also forget loaning a rifle to friends or family to hunt with.
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Well, those are all issued created by a universal background check requirement, but they hardly tug at the heartstrings. You've described inconveniences -- nothing that is likely to generate enough sympathy to get non-gun owners to vote against a UBC.
 
One has to face the fact that the majority of people don't care about causes that do not affect them, personally and directly.

And they especially hate to have to pay for them, when that is only way they are affected.

The coffee drinkers don't care about a tax on soda or beer, but scream bloody murder if you want to put a tax on "their" coffee.

People who don't own guns, or plan to, simply don't care much, if any, about the right to keep and bear arms. Only a very few who don't have a dog in the fight even bother to watch the fight. They only care when the dog bites them, and then they want all dogs banned.

or so it seems to me..
 
44 AMP said:
One has to face the fact that the majority of people don't care about causes that do not affect them, personally and directly.
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Yes and no. There are things people will care about and things that they won't care about.

Humans can be very charitable at times. People will care and take action when a child needs a bone marrow transplant and must find a compatible donor. People will give time and money to provide Thanksgiving dinners to the homeless and disposed in their communities. Such causes don't necessarily affect them directly and personally, but people are able to empathize.

But a homeless child going to bed hungry on Thanksgiving is different from some guy having to jump through some bureaucratic hoops to buy or sell a gun. The well fed, well housed person can empathize with the former, but the non-gun owner doesn't empathize with the latter.
 
Here is the message:

Universal background checks sound like a way to keep guns out of criminals hands. The country will spend millions to do this, there will be unintended consequences.

Result: We will have the fact reenforced that criminals move guns through criminal actions without regard to laws. So no reduction of guns in criminals hands. Then there is the "desperate persons"(mall shooter, suicide, etc) argument. They too often steal guns from family in the heat of the moment or have a planned approach which allows time/struggle to get their weapon. So no reduction.

Unintended Consequences:
Continued barrier building to prevent Americans from doing something fundamentally American. Are we losing what it means to be American?

Difficulty added by the government to the death and separation of assets.

Ruins Christmas.....Many folk give a first rifle, hunting rifle, etc at Christmas. Who doesn't love Christmas?

ROL vs RWOL creep....The increasing number of laws that we may be unknowledgible of that we can be held accountable for. I maintain that in America, we are a country of laws that we expect to enforce 100% for the betterment of all the people. Many other "not free" countries have laws that everybody violates every day so that through selective enforcement, people can be jailed easily for government control We do not want this foundation laid. This is real. Look at FFL harassment levels depending on who is in office. Think letter from ATF.
 
Here in Maine the most effective arguments against the ballot involve the implications of loaning a gun to a friend or relative. My buddy just borrowed his father's 20 gauge for a bird hunt, if this passes that could cost him $100 in transfer fees next year.

We have plenty of folks who live here in the summer, and head south when the snow flies. Some of them opt to leave their guns with friends or relatives. Others who live here full time do the same when they go on vacation. If this passes they'll all be far more likely to leave them in empty homes, where they'll be more vulnerable.


Plus many of us recognize that if this passes Bloomberg will come after our Big Gulps next.
 
44 AMP said:
The coffee drinkers don't care about a tax on soda or beer, but scream bloody murder if you want to put a tax on "their" coffee.
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I may be an exception but I have been against, in general, additional taxes and expansion of government power, even when it doesn't seem to affect me directly. I hardly drink soda, for example, but I can't see a useful purpose by increasing taxes on it. Even if the politicians claim the new taxes will all go to schools or whatever and it actually does, I'm convinced the politicians will just alter the current funding according to the new taxes :)
 
Seems to me from the discussion, that a mandated NICS at the gun show would be hard to oppose. Private sales if portrayed as major infringements of passing on family firearms would be easier to oppose. Exempting inheritance then woud remove this objection. Exempting short term loans at a range or in the field would get rid of some objections.

The Maine problem of long term storage by friends - that's harder but since that is mainly for long guns, the public might seem an exemption for them.

The problem is for the initiative folks would be if overreach led enough gun owners to oppose in numbers. The gun show NICS is the tougher proposition as I said before. We will see what happens in gun friendly states. CA is a lost cause, unfortunately.
 
If you remove all of the common exchanges (family, inheritance, temporary loans, etc) and limit it to sale transactions between non-family members then it becomes difficult politically to oppose.

One of the problems of course being that we have always had illegal gun traders in these country... since before it was a country. Since demand creates supply the government will create a large market in illegal gun trade the minute it becomes law.
 
People don't like out of state billionaires paying for laws they don't want. And that's what the ballot initiatives are.
 
The tens of millions goes into advertising to convince people that they want something that they don't actually want. And to line the campaign coffers of the elected to grease the wheels.
 
People don't like out of state billionaires paying for laws they don't want. And that's what the ballot initiatives are.
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And yet such ballot initiatives pass in states where the liberal urban population outnumbers the rural and small town population. More and more states are becoming like that.
 
My biggest problems with "universal" background checks, beyond the fact that the checks cannot and will not do as much as their proponents claim they will, is the "universal" part, and the mandatory part.

Current laws allow the seller to exercise their own personal judgment. The proposed (and in some places passed) UBC law does NOT allow that.

There is nothing stopping anyone, under current law from doing a transfer through an FFL and having a check run. What bugs me is the requirement I do it that way, no matter what.

Some of the UBC laws have exemptions, for certain "transfers" some don't, and even those that do, don't exempt transfers to non-immediate family members, or people who are not family, no matter how well, or for how long you have known them.

I see no sense, and nothing even remotely furthering the stated goal of keeping guns out of the hands of people who should not have them, in requiring me to go to an FFL dealer and have a check run on a friend of over 20 years (who is not family) and who owns more guns than I do, in order to LOAN him a gun to check out.

Yet that is one of the things NOT excepted in the UBC law.

(my stumble fingers keep wanting to type UBS instead of UBC. I think it may be my subconscious trying to tell me that UBC laws are Universal BS..;)

I don't have a real problem with the concept, only the draconian form of it that they want to force us into.

Also, I rather resent the government attitude that considers my judgment valid when it comes to voting, but irrelevant on everything else...
 
Seems to me from the discussion, that a mandated NICS at the gun show would be hard to oppose.
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What is the legal definition of a gun show? Is a trap shoot with 50 shooters where two guns are sold traded a gun show? I'm sure some would write it that way.
I think the best defense is to say we have to fix the problems with the system now before we try to expand it to cover more things. For instance, UBCs do no good if every felon in the country knows NICS processors are swarmed on black Friday and they can likely get an automatic transfer after 3 days. Then be certain no one will investigate after the fact.
 
FWIW I wouldn't kick and scream over a UBC requirement so long as provisions could be made for gifting or loaning firearms. But... I see the law not serving the stated purpose of preventing prohibited persons from acquiring a firearm if this is the case. So I couldn't be for it for that reason, but I can't be for it if I have to take my child to an FFL to give them a gift. So I just can't be for it. Why don't people who commit murder go to prison for life, and convicted felons in possession of firearms for many years? Enforcing current laws with teeth would prevent a good bit of violence.
 
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