Universal Background Check and Universal Gun Registration-Breitbart

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you mentioned Vegas shooter..have there been any 'underlying factors' discovered with that guy?
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I anyone has come up with anything relating to why he did it, they haven't released it to the media. Which leads me to believe they haven't found squat. IF he had a social media "presence" and there was anything on it that might be remotely related to the shooting, no one has found it...

They experts really don't know what to make of the Vegas shooter. He was so far outside the usual profile they are stumped.

Wealthy middle aged white male with no criminal history, no history of violence, not under medical treatment for mental issues or on medication for such (as far as we know), who carried out an obviously pre-planned attack, and left no note, no journal, no manifesto, no string of rants on social media, and apparently told no one else what he planned to do.

He literally left investigators with nothing indicating his motive. All these are way outside the profile of the rest of the mass killers we have seen in recent decades. We still discuss mental state and motive of other mass killers, looking at where the system "failed them", what might have been done different to prevent the killings, but for the Vegas shooter, the silence is deafening. There is simply nothing to base speculation on.

My personal theory is demonic possession :eek:. Scoff if you want, there is as much evidence supporting demonic possession as any other reason, to date (meaning none). :rolleyes:

No background check stopped a guy worth a couple million dollars, who owned a airplane or two, from obtaining weapons. No "red flag" law would have stopped a guy who didn't give any "warning signs".

Think about that...
 
This same thinking can be applied to all of them.

My brother the Dr. and I started the conversation when James Holmes went off the tracks. These people are broken, damaged. Yet they can walk amongst us completely undetected and unmolested until they break out of the closet shell. Sadly the next one is already out there and we have no idea where he is or when he'll strike.

As can plainly be seen here the Background checks didn't do anything to detect or stop these people. They were hidden in plain view.

In the case of Holmes he should have been detected and stopped all but for the HIPPA Laws. Though I also support those HIPPA laws as no one needs to be in my medical records.
 
In the case of Holmes he should have been detected and stopped all but for the HIPPA Laws. Though I also support those HIPPA laws as no one needs to be in my medical records.
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This is something I've always wondered about, people who are ok with the govt (or business?) looking into every aspect of their lives without much complaint, but fiercely guarding the privacy of their medical records.

Perhaps, its because I don't have anything in my medical history I'm concerned or worried about. One operation (tonsils at age 6) two broken fingers in Jr Highschool, and a bit of dental work in the 50+ years since.

What could you have in your medical history that needs such protection that it concerns you? If it's something that disqualifies you for a certain job, you have to tell your prospective employer about it, anyway. If you don't they could fire you anyway, for not telling them...


If you have a condition that makes you a risk to yourself or others, DR's are required to do certain things, including reporting it to the proper authorities. I understand a desire for privacy, and fully support that, what I don't get is people who have a fit about their medical records privacy and don't about the rest of their lives...


I heard that they changed the laws so that dangerous folks wouldn't be protected by HIPPA, but if Holmes wasn't "outed" due to HIPPA laws, then they haven't changed them enough...


Patrick Purdy, who's attack on a Stockton schoolyard back in 86 is generally regarded as the first of our current "cycle" of mass shootings WAS protected by medical privacy laws at the time.

Purdy bought two handguns in California, going through the then existing 15 day waiting period and background check, TWICE. He was, also, getting a monthly payment from Social Security because he was "mentally disabled" and unable to work. At that time, SSI could NOT, by law, inform the state of California about his disability. Had CA known about his disability, he would not have been approved to purchase a firearm. Purdy moved to Oregon, briefly, where he bought the AK-47 variant he used to murder those kids and a teacher at Stockton, after he returned to CA. He killed himself with one of the pistols he bought in CA.

One of the many results of that shooting, besides the beginning of the "assault weapon" frenzy still going on, was that we were promised that the situation with privacy laws would be examined, and the laws changed so it didn't happen again. If Holmes was protected by HIPPA laws, that's just another broken promise in a long, long string of broken promises.
 
have there been any 'underlying factors' discovered with that guy?
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No, because for some reason, the FBI has released next to nothing about this guy. In a time when we know the name of the shop where every mass shooter got his gun the same day as the incident, this is very odd. I'm to understand the weapons still haven't been turned over to the ATF for inspection.

people who are ok with the govt (or business?) looking into every aspect of their lives without much complaint, but fiercely guarding the privacy of their medical records.
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They're OK with it as long as it applies to those awful gun owners. If that sort of thing were to affect them, there'd be gnashing of teeth and protests about privacy rights. It's like the hypocrisy over no-fly lists. By all means, let's use them to limit gun rights, but if I get denied a flight, it's the mother of all civil rights abuses.
 
44AMP, There are many things that I believe no one needs access to. Bank records, Tax records, Medical records, Phone records. As I've stated I also do not have a Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook or any of those accounts because of their TOU Agreements. They are Data Minors. My posts here and other public forums are just that Public and I do not expect privacy. I do not post anything on these forums that I wouldn't want anyone else to see. Including harsh or derogatory comments. If an 8 yo. cannot read it then it doesn't belong on a public forum.

I will say also that in the last few years of my working life my medical records and conditions have cost me jobs. Just as my age has. It is almost impossible to prove age discrimination.

Twenty years ago after my first bypass surgery 6 months after returning to work I was suddenly and unexpectedly terminated from a job I had been at for 17 years. The reason was arbitrary and obscure. But I know part or most of it was because of the surgery. While I was off looking for work at that time I got a line on a job with General Mills in Milwaukee. After testing and 4 interviews I was offered a job pending a physical. At the physical the Dr. came in and immediately seen the bright red scar running all the way from my chest it inside my pants. So of course he asked what it was and I honestly told him. It was then his opinion that I was unfit to perform the job. Even though it had been over 6 months and I had full releases from all my Drs. to work w/o restrictions. Funny how I worked for 20 more years in the same industry after that.

Then we can fast forward to the last 2 years I worked. 3 jobs within 2 years all with questionable terminations or at least dishonest terminations. I know the last two jobs the terminations were due to my deteriorating health and I knew it and if they would have come to me and honestly stated that I would have respected them for it but they didn't. As it turned out the day I was terminated from my last job when I arrived home that day in the mail was my Letter from the SSA stating my disability had been approved. So I would have had to quite working anyways.

So age and disability discrimination does exist. And I can attest to it first hand.

Yes it does work both ways, Some gun owners believe the HIPPA Laws to restrictive and hid too much yet they complain about a background check to determine if someone is a felon. Same as there are those that won't even post a general location as to where they are at in their ID. They feel it's too revealing.
 
When background checks result in something like 90% false positives, and prosecution of true positives is similarly dismal, there is no reason why background checks should be further expanded or supported in any way. Background checks have been in place long enough to demonstrate their effectiveness, and have failed miserably. Unless, of course, their purpose is to simply deny firearm transfers that might be unlawful.

If background checks were judged on their effectiveness, they would have received failing marks long ago. But effectiveness is not a requirement for our laws.
 
And then there are the cases where the very government power promoted by anti-2A advocates knowingly let's guns out on the street, knowingly in the hands of criminals even, for the sake of an investigation (cough... ahem "Fast & Furious"... cough).

No, because for some reason, the FBI has released next to nothing about this guy. In a time when we know the name of the shop where every mass shooter got his gun the same day as the incident, this is very odd. I'm to understand the weapons still haven't been turned over to the ATF for inspection.
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I suspect it MIGHT have something to do with the first part of my post. I do not know, but were I a gambling man I would make a small wager on it if we could be assured we would know for sure at some point in the future. The FBI has had a bad run over the past few years (Boston Bombers, Pulse Nightclub Shooter, all of the political crap, etc.), if there was any kind of pending investigation involving Paddock that they were running it would be very bad press for them indeed if that were to come out.
 
Thanks. It appears to me like the two articles are quoting the same unnamed source. They are saying that 95% of denials are wrong, fingering innocent people as being prohibited. Could be, but seems a bit extreme to me.
 
They are saying that 95% of denials are wrong, fingering innocent people as being prohibited. Could be, but seems a bit extreme to me.
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Sure it seems high, but consider this, the majority of people who know they are prohibited persons don't go through a background check. the simple fact that they will avoid the check means that the majority of people who do go through the check are "law abiding", which means there is a high probability that any denial will be done to someone who isn't actually a prohibited person.

95% seems high, but even 50% would be, to me unacceptably SLOPPY.

IF the error rate is as LOW as 50%, then the system is a bust, might as well just flip a coin.

Another point here, is that the background check only affects individuals, one potential gun buyer at a time. There is nothing affecting any group of people at once, so there is little collective outrage at failures of the system.

Oh you got wrongly denied? took a bit of time and money, to get it straightened out? Well, no system is perfect, you must just have been unlucky enough to be a glitch.." etc. So, its one person here, another there, and there is no organized collection of numbers to generate general public outcry. The system may fail at a 95% rate, but if the general public doesn't know that, the system "works fine".

And, of course, to the general public, the only people affected are that small percentage of people who are trying to get a gun that they probably shouldn't be allowed to have, anyway..or so the media keeps telling us, over and over, and over.

We hear, all too often, that this kind of crap is worth it, "if it saves just one life"...and morally, I'd say ...maybe, but what if it costs "just one life"?? If just one person was wrongly denied, and couldn't get a gun to defend themselves with, and were harmed or killed, what then??


Sure, having a gun is not any guarantee of successfully defending yourself, but NOT having one goes a long way to ensuring you won't be able to successfully defend yourself in gravest extreme.
SO, when the system screws up, and it appears someone dies as a result (though difficult to prove, appearance is enough for the court of public opinion these days, it seems), when that happens, who pays for that beyond the victim? The system doesn't. The politicians don't. The judge that issued a restraining order that wasn't worth the paper it was printed on doesn't. no one but the victim and the victim's family suffers.

Oh, yes, and the rest of us, who pay by facing ever increasing legal hoops to jump through each time the system fails. Or, so it seems to me....
 
44 AMP said:
Sure it seems high, but consider this, the majority of people who know they are prohibited persons don't go through a background check. the simple fact that they will avoid the check means that the majority of people who do go through the check are "law abiding", which means there is a high probability that any denial will be done to someone who isn't actually a prohibited person.
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That's a good point. Still, when I hear extreme statistics bantered about, by either side, my antennae start buzzing. The first book I was given to read in college was "How to Lie with Statistics". I never forgot it, and prefer to dig deeper before relying upon quoted statistics, especially those from the Internet.
 
Out of 1,923 unlawful possession cases investigated by ATF in 2010, about 26.5% were dropped because they weren’t actually prohibited people. Out of 4,184 cases declined by ATF, 11.5% of those were declined because they weren’t prohibited people (Source: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/grants/239272.pdf)

If we are seeing those kinds of error rates that late in the process, I’d say there is a valid concern about erroneous denials.
 
Are there any figures comparing the number of cases the ATF looked at compared to the total number of denials??

I would expect not, but it would be interesting, if not useful information.


So, what are we offered with a "universal" background check system? Promises that it will keep guns out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them, stop school shootings, and reduce the level of "gun violence", all prefaced with words like "may" and "could".

A system that imposes both a physical and financial burden on law abiding citizens in the exercise of a constitutionally enumerated right, won't, and can't stop any one who does not have a prior criminal (or otherwise disqualifying) record. A system tailor made to support (or create) registration, and one with a known error rate that approves some people it shouldn't and denies some people it should approve.


Seems somewhat like Communism to me, a good sounding concept, but real world implantation is seriously flawed.
 
According to the above link:

“The DENI Branch screened 76,142 NICS denials received from the FBI during 2010, and referred 4,732 denials (approximately 6%) within the established guidelines to field divisions. The referred cases were made up of 2,265 delayed denials (3% of all denials) and 2,467 standard denials (over 3%). The remaining denials (71,410, or nearly 94%) did not meet referral guidelines or were overturned or canceled.

Overturns occurred after review by the DENI Branch or after the FBI received additional information. The FBI canceled a small number of denials in cases where a NICS check should not have been conducted.”
 
We always seem to go to mass shootings in topics like these. In any event nickolas Cruz, Stephen paddock, Omar mateen, Dylan roof, and devin Kelly all obtained firearms used in their shooting sprees pursuant to a background check. A sound argument could be made for why some of them passed a background check, but the fact remains that they did. Those are the instances where BCs failed to stop the violence.

Now, back to UBCs. What prohibited person buys guns from private parties who want to do right, but agree to private sales? How many robbers got their gun from armslist or a private party at a gun show vs the local black market stolen gun dealer? How ever many it is (spoiler alert, it’s not many), that’s the target population of offenders who MAY be stopped by a UBC law. Even if stopped in the typically legal venue by a UBC law, it is easily reasoned that a fair number of those prohibited persons hell bent on obtaining a firearm will then resort to black market channels to obtain their “burners.” Using this logic, which is not false logic, UBCs are not the panacea of “gun violence” prevention.

Now, what may be the harm of a UBC? It would depend on how the law is written but I think of a number of harms. It may would prevent me gifting firearms to my children without a background check. Is it a huge deal? Well it’s not the end of the world but it’s a fee I have to pay and a hassle to take just to give my kid a gun. What about loaning a hunting buddy a rifle? Or if I want to sell an old mil surp gun at a gun show, I have to spend extra money and jump through extra hoops to go through a dealer when I could be done with it in 10 minutes. No k31s are being snapped up for the purpose of robbing folks, that’s pretty much known to be a collector item and not a “street piece.”

All this isn’t even bringing up the false positives in NICS. That’s my main bone of contention. Look into ted Kennedy terror watch list.

What’s the takeaway? The worst mass shootings we have had in the past 5 years were committed by people who passed a BC. Criminals will likely obtain firearms through illicit means if UBCs are eneacted (though they already do get firearms primarily through illicit means. Lastly, a true UBC bill would be a hindrance to law abiding people, while stopping almost no crime.
 
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The risk of harm with every law is in how it is written. Specific to background check laws, existing ones are not written to an identical template, and any proposed Federal law will be written to a template that very probably contains some if not all of the flaws in current laws.

One big issue is the definition of the term "transfer". Sure, the obvious intent is sale, where there is a transfer of ownership. However, some law uses the word transfer to include mere transfer of physical possession. One I know of has exemptions for certain transfers, meaning under the law, the listed transfers many take place without going to and through an FFL. These exemptions do allow you to loan a non family member a gun at a "licensed range" (not defined) or while hunting. And you can loan or give a direct family member a gun without a check. (cousins are too far removed, etc)

Sounds reasonable, right? ok to let a buddy check out your gun at the range, or while hunting, all good, right? BUT...

If the law makes only certain transfers (of possession, not ownership) legal without a background check, does it not then follow that all other transfers of possession not listed as exempt, DO require the full check under the law???

So, say you're visiting a friend, at his home, and he hands you his newest pistol, clearing it in front of you, before handing it over. If you were at the range, the law would allow the transfer without a background check. But the law doesn't exempt his house (or yours), so under a possible reading of the law, he's breaking the law handing you his pistol, and YOU are breaking the law handing it back...without (physically) going to an FFL and having them run the check for EACH transfer (including giving the owner his property back...)

Sure, that's an extreme interpretation, but it is a possibility until there is a test case and a court rules on the matter.

I don't want to be that test case, but until someone is, we're all at risk.


If such language were used in a Federal law, there is a potential for MILLIONS of people to be prosecuted for doing what they've been doing their entire lives, and something that is impossible to avoid unless you never physically touch a firearm (which I think would please the crafters of such law, a lot...)

And, for those doubters, don't think "they'd never be dumb enough to arrest people for that..." because they can be. Virtual certainty given enough time, someone will be, if that kind of language becomes, and remains law.
 
ATF Enforcement of NICS Denials - A Study

Many firearms owners are somewhat confused by the opaque numbers and statistics used in gun control debates. Using a 2010 Enforcement of the Brady Act study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (Source: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/grants/239272.pdf), I am going to walk everyone through how ATF enforces the law. Throughout, you’ll notice some numbers don’t add up. I know. That’s what BJS reported.

First, the NICS background check is run by the FBI, not the ATF. Additionally, some states choose to conduct their own background checks and these are not counted in the FBI numbers. In 2010, the FBI conducted 6,037,394 checks. It denied 72,659 of those (1.2%) and referred 76,142 cases to ATF in 2010 (I’m assuming the extra cases are carryovers from 2009; but I do not know the source of the extra cases.)

These cases were received by the ATF Denial Enforcement and NICS Intelligence (DENI) branch. DENI breaks the denials into two categories 1) delayed denials (the subject was initially delayed but picked up the gun after three days passed) and 2) standard denials. Delayed denials receive an expedited process.

Using criteria set up by 94 separate judicial districts and additional database searches, DENI screens the referrals to see if they should be 1) overturned (erroneous denial), 2) cancelled (no check should have been made) or 3) fail to meet the referral criteria for the district where the field office is located. In 2010, 71,410 (~94%) of referrals were overturned, cancelled, or did not meet referral criteria. Of the remaining 4,732 cases referred to field offices for investigation, 2,265 were delayed denials and 2,467 were standard denials.

Here, the BJS study chose to interject “unlawful possession of firearm” cases and statistics for retrieval in those cases. I’m not sure if they lacked specific delayed denial data or what; but this mixes delayed denial cases with other ATF retrieval cases. The results from this smaller subset of 1,923 cases were 60.5% of firearms retrieved, 26.5% subject not prohibited, 6.7% subject not located, and 6.3% other outcomes.

In 2010, 4,184 cases were declined for prosecution after referral by DENI, investigationby a field office, and consultation with the U.S. attorney. The reasons given were: No prosecutive merit - 1,661. Federal or state guidelines not met - 1,092. Not a prohibited person - 480! (that’s right - an 11.5% false positive despite multiple pre-screenings designed to eliminate false positives)

In 2010, 62 cases were actually referred for prosecution! Of these 62, 18 were later declined by the prosecutor anyway. The defendant pled guilty in 13. The defendant was still awaiting outcome in 12. The charges were dismissed as part of a plea agreement in 10. And the charges were just plain dismissed in 5.

So, out of 76,142 denials in 2010, 62 prosecutions, 23 guilty, and 12 pending. And some considerable evidence of false positives on denials throughout the system.
 
And, for those doubters, don't think "they'd never be dumb enough to arrest people for that..."
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To prove your point, need we remember that the ATF seized airsoft guns resembling AR15s arguing that the lower receiver could be converted to take a FCG and an upper... yet virtually every AR15 armorer who opined on it stated that it MAY (a very big one) could converted to actually work as a lower receiver after inletting and shimming a whole lot. To the tune of it isn't radically more complete than an 80% lower. And then it would likely not last through a magazine as it isn't hard anodized AL and is way too thin in areas for any kind of durability.
 
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