Bartholomew Roberts
Moderator
Onward Allusion said:
You can’t tear down a log cabin and build a skyscraper on the same foundation. The current background check system is trying to make do with a 1968 law that heavily plagiarized 1930s Nazi Germany firearms law. The licensing of firearms dealers, the record keeping, - all of it - is designed using 1960s thinking and 1930s levels of technology. Look at the NFA process - it is literally 1930s in every sense.
It was an ineffective system that was dangerous to civil rights in 1968. Automating parts of it with 21st century technology doesn’t change that.
Well, the existing system isn’t stopping mass shootings. Isn’t that what you are complaining about? Making everyone use the same system that is already not stopping mass shooters is not going to change that when all but one or two of the mass shooters passed NICS anyway. Let’s say that Google comes out with a magical algorithm where NICS identifies prohibited persons with 100% accuracy even when states don’t report it and cops don’t charge domestic violence crimes. Las Vegas still happens. Mass shootings still happen in countries with much stricter firearms laws than the U.S. (Norway, Germany, France). So tell me again how I have no way of knowing this.
The first step of any solution is “Identify the problem.” The solution you are offering is going to fail because it has identified GUNS as the problem that needs to be solved.
In 2013, after Sandy Hook, Sen. Tom Coburn offered a bill that would have required background checks for every purchase but it also would have gutted much of the 1968-era record keeping requirements, allowed sales over state lines, etc. Every single person gets checked. Then Senate Majority Leader Reid, despite a promise that all bills would be heard, never let it get a floor vote.
The bill the Democrats did propose after Sandy Hook exempted CHLs from the background check; because they had already been checked. However, it still required them to transfer through an FFL and fill out a form 4473. In what way does that serve public safety?
The 1968 system is designed first and foremost to register firearms. It is a de-centralized registry in order to mitigate the threat to liberty; but advanced computing power is starting to remove even that thin layer of protection. The 1934 system is just straight-out “We’ll come and get it as soon as it is politically feasible” registration.
At the core, gun owners object to background checks because they don’t want the government knowing who owns what. They might be annoyed at the waste or ineffectiveness of NICS; but that isn’t what makes them call their Congressman by and large. At the same time, there are companies in Silicon Valley promising verified anonymous transactions with high levels of trust; but Congress is still stuck on trying to make this 1968 system work.
The solutions being regurgitated in this thread are just variations of trying to make a firearms registration system more modern. Firearms registration ends the same way whether modern or not. This is the 21st century. The person who can come up with background checks that don’t require registration and minimize recordkeeping will have no trouble building broad public support for it. Whether that person can get Congress to support it remains to be seen.
)