Universal Background Checks....

Lightbulb!

Alabama Shooter, I think where you're getting tripped up is the distinction between civil rights and constitutional rights, and the distinction between whether a man has a right, and whether I, acting as an individual, am capable of violating it. I have not gone back and re-read my previous posts this morning, but I may be partially to blame for that confusion, as I was perhaps not as clear as I could have been. In the interest of not derailing this thread any further, though, I'd like to move on to another topic. I may start another thread to address the other issues.

I had a "lightbulb moment" last night that I thought I'd put out there for everyone's consideration. There's been a lot of talk about universal background checks, mandatory background checks, etc. What if there were a way to encourage background checks without mandating them? Don't get me wrong, I still oppose mandatory, universal background checks. I also do not believe that this proposal that I am about to make would fly with any of the hardcore anti-gunners. Still, I think it's worth consideration.

18 U.S.C. § 922 currently reads:
(d) It shall be unlawful for any person to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person [is a prohibited person]. 18 U.S.C.A. § 922
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As written, one of the key elements is "knowing or having reasonable cause to know" that the transferee is a prohibited person. Note that, under this section, it does not actually matter whether the transferee is a prohibited person. For example, if my ol' fishing buddy Frank Felony has "convicted murderer" tattooed on his forehead, I have reasonable cause to know that he is prohibited, at least arguably. Even if he is not, in fact, a convicted murderer, a US Attorney could make a decent argument that I had "reasonable cause to know" that Frank is prohibited, even if he is not.

What if the following section were added to 18 U.S.C. § 922?
It shall be an absolute bar to prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 922(d) that, prior to the transfer of any firearm or ammunition, the transferor caused to be conducted a background check with respect to the transferee, which background check complies with 18 U.S.C. § 922(t).[Spats Note: There may be other language that would need to be added to include other applicable law besides 18 U.S.C. § 922(t)]
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For those of you in support of universal background checks, would this be palatable? It seems to me that it would provide some concrete incentive for tranferors to use background checks (a bar to prosecution), without mandating them.
 
MLeak I answered that question once before. Did you not understand it? Was it not clear?

Are you so single-minded and fixated on details and specifics that you fail to recognize hyperbole, supposition, or a simple what-if scenario? Look dude, if people can do it, they most likely will do it, even if it isn't smart.

In my particular case, I answered that I have done this before, I knew the guy was an Active Duty Army Officer who was being reassigned to a location and couldn't take his gun. I didn't even want it, plastic pistols are not my style. But he needed to sell it and so I bought it to help him out. He was already getting too cheap out of desperation and I knew I could get his price back out of it.

But my point is that there are people who will do this and this is what is going to happen to them.

No one thought that the guy in Wisconsin who was open-carrying was going to make a target of himself but he did. There was a bad guy who saw him and robbed him of his gun.

Open Carry makes you a target.
Gun Free Zones make you a target.
Forcing individuals to perform a government function restricting personal business is going to make you a target.

The only real question left is who is going to be "you".
 
This is just another in a long line of Government attempts to take over our right to individual privacy. They will eventually add a tax to the private sale of guns then continue raising it to further discourage gun ownership. Remember nothing ever given to Government control was ever a success. Drugs are illegal, hows enforcement of that law going? Each year hundreds of thousands are affected by illegal drugs, thousands die from using them, thousands are killed getting and selling them and we spend Billions of dollars treating abusers and victims of drug users and traffickers. Now lets talk about Illegal Immigration. Hows enforcement of that going? Again we spend Billions supporting these lawbreakers and now we want to make them legal citizens. The legal law abiding citizens are the only ones who will follow these laws and "WE" are not the problem "WE"are the solution. AAARRRGGGHHH Nuff said
 
Alabama Shooter, I think where you're getting tripped up is the distinction between civil rights and constitutional rights, and the distinction between whether a man has a right, and whether I, acting as an individual, am capable of violating it. I have not gone back and re-read my previous posts this morning, but I may be partially to blame for that confusion, as I was perhaps not as clear as I could have been. In the interest of not derailing this thread any further, though, I'd like to move on to another topic. I may start another thread to address the other issues.
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It is not a derailment. It is essential to the topic. The CRA and it most of it's follow ups were written to ensure that people have the necessaries in life (education, housing, employment, basic services etc) and not are not to be denied them for discriminatory reasons.

I personally believe that the tools for self defense (arms) are also a necessary and should not be denied without just cause. Therefore obtaining them should not be subject to discrimination (of course most of us know the history of arms control in the US has a long, long racial/ cultural background).

I think if you believe that you can discriminate on who you sell you guns to than you would have to accept it is not truly an essential right.

Agree or disagree? No need to get shaky knees and equivocate here. The question is pretty straight forward.

For those of you in support of universal background checks, would this be palatable? It seems to me that it would provide some concrete incentive for tranferors to use background checks (a bar to prosecution), without mandating them.
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It shall be an absolute bar to prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 922(d) that, prior to the transfer of any firearm or ammunition, the transferor caused to be conducted a background check with respect to the transferee, which background check complies with 18 U.S.C. § 922(t).[Spats Note: There may be other language that would need to be added to include other applicable law besides 18 U.S.C. § 922(t)]
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It would be enormously helpful. I think that kind of language should be included any proposed legislation.
 
lcpiper, those other people who will do this should have learned lessons vicariously from the folks who have already been robbed by strangers who responded to jewelry ads, and were given the sellers' addresses. People who will rob somebody of valuables don't need the excuse of a failed NICS check.

So, I am opposed to mandatory checks, but I think your specific example is silly, and I think silly examples detract from our other points.

I think your other arguments are fine. And yes, I recognize hyperbole, supposition, etc. However, I think you are approaching reductio ad absurdum with your recurring supposition.

win-lose, I think BigDinFL realizes the persons in your examples would not be eligible for a lawful transfer, and doubt he meant he would sell to such people. I suspect he meant that, assuming in his judgement the person would not be a prohibited person, then he would be ok with the law in his state, and that is good enough for him.
 
One, this is beyond the Federal Government's business.

Two, that this is an issue for our states to handle individually.

Three, that all this will do is boost the crime rate for gun theft.
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Absolutely!

BigDinFL, basically you are saying that it is perfectly within your rights to:

A) Sell a gun to an 11 year old, from across town who answered your add because he was being bullied at school and wanted "protection"

b) Sell a gun to ex-con who is loaded with prison tattoos, sporting his gang colors and bragging about the crap he has done and hopes to do.

c) Sell a gun to your neighbor who you KNOW beats his wife and has threatened to kill her.

d) Sell a gun to the neighborhood nut who walks around town having intense arguments with himself and threatens anybody who approaches.

etc....

If a person does any of the above, to my mind there should be consequences. I don't have a good balanced solution to this problem but am participating in this discussion with the hopes of finding such a solution. So for myself, I will continue to transfer through an FFL.
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What a bunch of strawman BS due - let's come back to reality.

You must not remember the days when folks put ads in the paper with their home number and address and folks came over with cash and bought whatever you were selling - I do, it was NO BIG DEAL. I have sold guns at garage sales (and bought some too) where we didn't even exchange first names, let alone our entire history.

YOU are free to do it anyway you want, but trying to state that we should ALL do it YOUR way or face criminal charges IS acting like Bloomberg and wanting a nanny state

This is NOT something that should be anywhere near being handled at the Federal level - NO social issue is. We need this tyranny to grow smaller, not larger with more impediments in peoples' lives to do what they want with their property
 
Alabama Shooter said:
The CRA and it most of it's follow ups were written to ensure that people have the necessaries in life (education, housing, employment, basic services etc) and not are not to be denied them for discriminatory reasons.

I personally believe that the tools for self defense (arms) are also a necessary and should not be denied without just cause. Therefore obtaining them should not be subject to discrimination (of course most of us know the history of arms control in the US has a long, long racial/ cultural background).

I think if you believe that you can discriminate on who you sell you guns to than you would have to accept it is not truly an essential right.
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A person can legally refuse to rent an apartment to a pregnant (family status and sex), paraplegic (disability), Japanese (national origin), Ainu (race), Shinto (religion) with a pet goat ... as long as the refusal is based on discriminating between renters with or without goats. By your logic, legal discrimination has occurred, so housing "is not truly an essential right."

I would not sell a gun to a person with gang tats (think MS13). Yes, I would discriminate on the basis of tattoos, which is not legally prohibited. And that discrimination would not reflect in the least on whether the RKBA is or is not an essential right.
 
A person can legally refuse to rent an apartment to a pregnant (family status and sex), paraplegic (disability), Japanese (national origin), Ainu (race), Shinto (religion) with a pet goat ... as long as the refusal is based on discriminating between renters with or without goats. By your logic, legal discrimination has occurred, so housing "is not truly an essential right."
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That is not discrimination. A goat is personal property can be gotten rid of. Walking again or converting to Hinduism is another thing entirely. Now if you were a goat worshiper or married to one the court might have to hear your argument. (this is a farcical argument purely for humor).

No civil rights are granted based on status of pet ownership.

I would not sell a gun to a person with gang tats (think MS13). Yes, I would discriminate on the basis of tattoos, which is not legally prohibited. And that discrimination would not reflect in the least on whether the RKBA is or is not an essential right.
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That might very well be a wise thing to do. The tattoos might be an indicator of felonious behavior or they could be the battle scars of a lost and misguided youth. You have no way of knowing so it would be prudent.
 
You must not remember the days when folks put ads in the paper with their home number and address and folks came over with cash and bought whatever you were selling - I do, it was NO BIG DEAL. I have sold guns at garage sales (and bought some too) where we didn't even exchange first names, let alone our entire history.
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So... clearly you exercise good judgement and therefore should not need to perform any additional due diligence. You do realize that your words represent a very strong case for universal background check requirements?

Taking this a step further.... as judgement is clearly not universal and there are already laws on the books, what methods are available to ensure that individuals don't sell to the prohibited?
 
Ah, win-lose, you must be an "anti" as well. If only I could remember the secret handshake, how does it go?
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It is unfortunate, but I think some here may view me as such...

In reality, I'm doing the best I can... I'm writing letters, going to rallies, donating to organizations, losing friends - all to protect my, and more importantly, my kid's constitutional rights. This is consuming most of my free time and much of my emotional energy. Unfortunately, as with any issue, there are elements that have a lot of "grey". It's these grey areas that I'm trying to work out in my head, through discussions in threads like this....
 
In reality, I'm doing the best I can... I'm writing letters, going to rallies, donating to organizations, losing friends - all to protect my, and more importantly, my kid's constitutional rights. This is consuming most of my free time and much of my emotional energy. Unfortunately, as with any issue, there are elements that have a lot of "grey". It's these grey areas that I'm trying to work out in my head, through discussions in threads like this....
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If it makes you feel any better I am guessing you are doing more than 95% of the tomato throwers.
 
Wow wow wow.


Guys no one said that you can't discriminate. All one's choices are based on discrimination, the discriminating connoisseur of good wine.

Discrimination based upon sex, race, religeon, etc .... Zis ist Verbotten ;)
 
Alabama Shooter said:
That is not discrimination.
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Yes, making a distinction is the very definition of discrimination. And that gets to the point that you have used the word "discrimination" somewhat indiscriminately when you probably meant "illegal discrimination based on a prohibited basis" rather than simply making a distinction.
 
So... clearly you exercise good judgement and therefore should not need to perform any additional due diligence. You do realize that your words represent a very strong case for universal background check requirements?

Taking this a step further.... as judgement is clearly not universal and there are already laws on the books, what methods are available to ensure that individuals don't sell to the prohibited?
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So if we go back a little further in time - pre 68 GCA when there were no FFLs, let alone checks and folks ordered guns from magazines delivered to their homes, even at 16, where was all of this lib concern? No school shootings, even though kids brought guns to school all the time, no need for any checks, yet society was very safe and secure.

Keep the Feds out of our personal business, no matter what it is - especially social issues. There has never been a social issue program "helped" by the fed involvement that was ever worth having - every single program has been a failure with cost overruns, unintended consequences and restrictions, one size fits all mentality that fits no one and solves nothing. This becomes a mere step to total confiscation - except for the criminals - and I include the elected politicians in that group
 
So, if I understand this correctly...

People accept that the federal government has not made the prosecution of prohibited persons attempting to buy, or of straw purchases a priority because, in Biden's words there is no time for that;

People accept that universal checks could be abused, and used to set up a national registry;

People accept that in Chicago, such a system has already been used for confiscation in the past, and that in New York, they have implicitly threatened such a possibility in future (so we don't even need to look at the UK and Australia);

People have heard from FFLs that the system, as it is, is overloaded and that adding to it will bog down or break the system;

And yet those people still not only favor universal background checks, but they can't understand why they would be perceived as offering aid to the antis, from within our tent?

Really?
 
Win-Lose, again here is the same old foolish concept.

Taking this a step further.... as judgement is clearly not universal and there are already laws on the books, what methods are available to ensure that individuals don't sell to the prohibited?
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Laws do not ensure, guarantee, or prevent anything ever.

Are you ever going to get this concept? Or do you disagree?

If laws actually prevented crime, we would have no crime.

Laws are a guide for the law abiding and a justification to punish the law breaker. But they do not stop anything. In fact, you can not stop these acts. You can't do it, it can't be done. At least not in a free society.

There are however numerous science fiction stories/movies which leverage the idea that if government exercises absolute control, and the population can be coerced or co-opted into submission, then you can get pretty damn close.

I don't recall anyone who watched those shows thinking the people were getting a really good deal out of it all.
 
Win-Lose, again here is the same old foolish concept.

Quote:
Taking this a step further.... as judgement is clearly not universal and there are already laws on the books, what methods are available to ensure that individuals don't sell to the prohibited?
Laws do not ensure, guarantee, or prevent anything ever.

Are you ever going to get this concept? Or do you disagree?

If laws actually prevented crime, we would have no crime.

Laws are a guide for the law abiding and a justification to punish the law breaker. But they do not stop anything. In fact, you can not stop these acts. You can't do it, it can't be done. At least not in a free society.
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Before calling someone foolish, perhaps you should read what they wrote. I asked "... what METHODS are available to ensure that individuals don't sell to the prohibited?" Requiring the use of a method would be a law, the method is the means. Now, if you don't feel that you have a responsibility to not sell to prohibited individuals, then say so.

As to methods...
We currently have NICS which seems to have been pretty effective at preventing FFL's from DIRECTLY selling to the prohibited. There are clearly laws supporting this system that need to be enforced. If the FFL system can be expanded/staffed to support the additional load, without firearm registration (beyond the FFL's book), with fee schedules that FFL's will be able to effectively participate and perhaps tax credits for those that use the FFL transfer, we may have a workable system. To my mind, getting prohibited individuals to participate only in the black market will go a long way to put the burden of enforcement on the feds and away from us.

Like it or not, we have a very real argument ahead of us on universal background checks. When this argument is separated from all other items under consideration, we need to be able to be persuasive, on a logical level, to those who do not have the passion for the issue that we do. To date, I have not seen a single Pro Gun person being interviewed that has handled this question well. This discredits the rest of our positions because most of the population see's this as intuitively "reasonable" and without a persuasive argument, we are seen as unreasonable. So the challenge is to construct an argument that a middle of the road person (non-gunnie / non-anti) would accept as reasonable for not implementing universal background checks.
 
And that gets to the point that you have used the word "discrimination" somewhat indiscriminately when you probably meant "illegal discrimination based on a prohibited basis" rather than simply making a distinction.
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Holy outofcontextalization batman! Were you paying attention to any part of the conversation? You understand that words have more than one meaning right? That in order to understand what they mean you have to read them within the context of the conversation? We were not for example talking about how to discriminate variables in a science experiment right?
 
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