S.649: Reid's Base Gun Control Bill

Spats, Tom, Al et. al?

Given Al's reading of possessory interest, and the fifth amendment's taking clause, and the exemptions list does it all get enhanced by Pennsylvania Coal Co v Mahon 260 US 393 (1922)

It's legalese to me, being a case from the 20's. Looking at the layman's translation on Wikipedia, the court ruled the difference between a regulation, and a taking, is a fine line shaped by the dimunition of value of the property being regulated. How reduced in value is a 22LR you can't take out to a forest and plink with your kid?
 
Really, besides a means of keeping score on who is voting for what why does this matter? It'll never make it passed the House, and stands a good chance of not getting the 60 votes it would need in the senate.
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While your view may very well be accurate I’ll bet you there were folks in Colorado saying similar things just a year ago. It is important that we stay vigilant and engaged or we’ll allow just a little more freedom to slip away.
 
None of those guns are registered and even if a law enforcement agency tracked the serial number through the system back to the dealer or individual that sold them to me they would then have to prove I did not transfer the firearm prior to the date a UBC law was enacted.
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That's my concern. I would need to carry around some sort of receipt or paperwork to prove I'd transferred the gun legally, turning ownership into something that requires an affirmative defense.

Let's say I'm approached by someone about a gun I have in my possession.

"Where'd you get that?"

"This? Man...I bought it from a friend of mine back around...1991 or so."

"So you've had it for awhile?"

"Yep. Got it in college. Shoots like a..."

"But you have no proof of that?"

"No, why would I?"

"Well, without proof of lawful transfer, it's illegal."

"But..."

"I'll need you to turn around and put your hands behind your back, sir."

The burden of proving compliance now falls to the defendant.

Furthermore, what sort of "proof" will be considered acceptable? A handwritten bill of sale? Something on the letterhead of a gun shop (that might not even be in business)? A standardized government form?
 
JimDandy said:
How reduced in value is a 22LR you can't take out to a forest and plink with your kid?
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How reduced in value is a 22LR you can't take out in the back yard of your property within city limits and plink with your kid? I am not confident that the takings clause will rescue us from police power regulations.
 
Tom Servo said:
That's my concern. I would need to carry around some sort of receipt or paperwork to prove I'd transferred the gun legally, turning ownership into something that requires an affirmative defense.

Let's say I'm approached by someone about a gun I have in my possession.

"Where'd you get that?"

"This? Man...I bought it from a friend of mine back around...1991 or so."

"So you've had it for awhile?"

"Yep. Got it in college. Shoots like a..."

"But you have no proof of that?"

"No, why would I?"

"Well, without proof of lawful transfer, it's illegal."

"But..."

"I'll need you to turn around and put your hands behind your back, sir."

The burden of proving compliance now falls to the defendant.

Furthermore, what sort of "proof" will be considered acceptable? A handwritten bill of sale? Something on the letterhead of a gun shop (that might not even be in business)? A standardized government form?
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I wondered about that. I would like to think if I am arrested for something like this and keep my mouth shut that the state would be required to actually prove I did something wrong. Having to prove my innocence sort of turns our justice system over on it's ear, doesn't it? The state going into this assuming a citizen is guilty of a crime without any evidence scares the crap out of me. The IRS does this and look at what a tyrannical mess of regulations and nonsense people have to go through with them.
 
Its already established that cities can regulate the discharge of firearms within city limits. That is not the case with currently legal shooting areas like a National Forest.
 
Isn't there a USSC case which stated that to license or register someone before they exercise a fundamental right turns the right into a government privilege, or something to that effect? I tried several phrases in Google and Yahoo but didn't come up with anything.
 
it was a post in this forum for licensing. Kachalsky v. Cacase

Edit: By the way noone's mentioned it yet, but I think my favorite part of this bill is the typo.

shall not include temporary possession of the firearm for purposes of examination or evaluation by a prospective transferee while in the presence of the prospective transferee
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So the potential buyer may handle and evaluate the firearm as long as the potential buyer is physically present. Wonderful. Glad they made that legal. can only assume they mean in the presence of the Transferor.
 
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Ok I'm posting again, but with new thoughts. Having read through the text of the bill again I came up with this gem:

If Andy Taylor takes 12 year old Opie Taylor out to the woods to sight in his hunting rifle the week before Deer Season opens, Andy has to GIFT the rifle to Opie, who then owns the rifle- and can haul it all around Mayberry if he so desires. Luckily Mayberry is in North Carolina, which has no state minimum for possession of a long gun. Had Andy and Opie settled in Florida, poor Andy would have to choose between breaking the illegal transfer law, or the minimum age of possession State Law.

Is this really the way the gun control advocates want this to go?
 
ZincWarrior said:
Whats wrong with a universal background check?
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I'll refer you to my quick post at #18. And yes, I'm a lawyer and a gun owner. Spats McGee went into it a bit more in his post at #19. This bill will not simply control permanent or long term transfers between individuals. It goes much further. The problem is that the gun grabbers have managed to describe it as closing the "gun show loophole" and make sure there is a "sort of" exemption for transfers between some family members. The general public, even the general gun owner public, will never read the bill and will never know what it does unless there is some extensive publicity the other way.
 
In my state, we have access to a website where we can do FTF transfers. You can still do it by paper (FA-10) if you can find one as I recently did too.

You can only do a FTF if the person has a LTC and you do as well. You can also do a check on the FA-10 website to see if the license is valid.

I don't see why the background check thing isn't just made available to everyone like this, if they're determined to put it through. If they force everyone to go to an FFL and pay extra for it, it's a terrible idea. They also need to fix the NICS system, I get delayed every single time and it's downright obnoxious to say the least.
 
MercyfulFate said:
I don't see why the background check thing isn't just made available to everyone like this, if they're determined to put it through.
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Because every:
1) employer;
2) father of a daughter;
3) landlord;
4) divorce lawyer;
5) neighbor;
6) etc
would be using for stuff other than firearms transactions.
 
Because every:
1) employer;
2) father of a daughter;
3) landlord;
4) divorce lawyer;
5) neighbor;
6) etc
would be using for stuff other than firearms transactions.
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How so? It will say Proceed/Delay/Deny and nothing else, just make there be penalties for uses not related to guns. People can already do background checks if they want to.

My state has it, I can go right to the website and verify someone's license and do a transfer and it tells me if the license is valid currently. So it's pretty much a template. I still don't like the system overall because I always get held up, but still.
 
Apologies. I think I read your prior post too quickly. I was thinking that you meant a background check, not just a proceed/deny.
 
Yeah I just mean access to the NICS system instead of forcing private sales through an FFL and making us pay more money. It's not about it being easier though so it won't happen.
 
I just mean access to the NICS system instead of forcing private sales through an FFL and making us pay more money.
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There are several issues here.

The first is that the NICS system is set up for dealer use. It is staffed appropriately to handle a given amount of volume and time. If we open it up to everyone, it's going to slow the whole thing to a dead stop.

(I really doubt a law mandating universal usage of the NICS system will include funding for more operators.)

The second is that I don't how one could prove they're calling in for a firearm eligibility check as opposed to "Imma check out mah neighbors." Would there be some kind of form with a unique identifier? If so, what are the filing requirements, and how would they collate the information?

Then there's the problem with "Imma check out mah neighbors." Even if it's just a proceed/delay/denial, that's more information than Joe Bob has a right to get about me.

The NICS system is intrusive and problem-ridden enough as it is. Nothing good will come of applying it to the whole populace.
 
What you're also missing is that then that guy you met in the parking lot of the grocery sale for the in-state internet sale now has your name, SSN, address, etc all on a piece of paper he's REQUIRED to hang on to. A law requiring people to hang onto roadmaps to identity theft do not sit well with me.

As is being discussed on another thread right now, there are some serious doubts about how effective the NICS check is at all given the total number of records in the database, compared to estimates of just the total number of felons out and about today.
 
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