While the gun owners and gun sellers are offering facile inane bullshit like "if guns kill people how does anyone come out of a gun show alive?" the NRA and the gun lobby is spending millions to keep the lax laws the way they are.Gun show vendors require background checks when selling guns, sort of.All licensed dealers do check your criminal history and it usually only takes a few minutes, said Mike Reber of Arizona Arms.However, private dealers, people who sell their individual guns to buyers at gun shows, don't have to perform such a check as long as they're "reasonably sure you're not a felon," Reber told ABC15.Reber has a booth this weekend at the "Crossroads of the West Gun Show" in Glendale, and is expecting a large turnout.
For years we've been hearing ridiculous arguments justifying the private-sale loophole, and what's been done? Nothing.
Is it going to change? What's your opinion?
Please leave a comment.
Let's hope that this doesn't change. We've told you before, there is no loophole. The current situation is defined by the law. Private sellers cannot run a background check.
ReplyDeleteSecond point: The killers named and others bought their guns at FFL dealers. In other words, they had their backgrounds checked. Universal checks wouldn't have stopped them. Did you hear? Universal checks wouldn't have stopped them.
I've bought several guns from private sellers, both at gun shows and other places. It's no different from buying anything else, except with guns, it has to be done between two residents of the same state. What buying from a private seller allows me to do is find older guns that aren't commonly sold in stores these days. I'd wanted a Nagant 1895 revolver for a while, but never found one at a licensed dealer. Finally, I ran across one at a gun show. That's why I go to gun shows. It's the same reason that I shop at used book stores.
The goal of banning private sales is making sure that no citizen has a gun that is without paperwork. That's a first necessary step toward confiscation. This isn't about safety. Criminals will import guns or sell them among themselves without bothering to comply with any laws. Did you hear? This isn't about safety. We know its real intent. You're fooling no one in the gun culture.
Fortunately, you're also losing.
Hey mikeb, I want to run a background check on someone; can you provide the phone number to call?
ReplyDeleteIf you are unwilling or unable to do so, ask yourself why?
The reason it can't be done now is because your side has been successful in preventing it. It is a foolish and facile argument to say as a private seller you cannot, as if you wish you could. This needs to change as a policy.
DeleteSo what's the phone # to call?
DeleteMikeb, it's foolish and facile to demand something of us that we can't do. You are correct to say that we don't want to do it, but you may as well complain that we don't make the roads safer by flapping our arms and flying.
DeleteGreg and Anonymous, I'm not demanding that you do what you cannot do. I'm lamenting the fact that things are like they are and pointing out that they need to change at the national policy level, which they will.
DeleteDon't hold your breath on that. Or do.
DeleteI will have to side with Mike on this one - partially. It is a circular argument to say a private seller has no means to perform a background check when they are not required by law. If the laws were changed, the mechanism would have to be created.
DeleteBut more than likely what would happen is ALL firearm transactions would have to occur via an FFL ... for a fee. But, of course, all means all – doesn’t it?
Want to gift a firearm to you children? $45 FFL fee
Want to sell one of your guns to a friend who has a CHL already and so who has passed a background check? $45 FFL fee
Husband dies and wife assumes firearms collection? $45 FFL fee for each gun
Right? Because that one gun might somehow get into the hands of a criminal so we have to make sure that ALL transactions are monitored and recorded by the gooberment. It's the only way we can all "feel" safe.
Well, who said it has to cost $45? What if it were only $10?
DeleteThanks for pointing out Greg's "circular argument."
It's not a circular argument. A circular argument uses the conclusion to prove the truth of the conclusion. What I said is that at present, we can't run background checks ourselves. We oppose requiring universal checks. We recognize that there are hundreds of millions of guns that would be available for a black market if your proposals passed. We recognize that guns will cross the border with drugs if your proposals pass.
DeleteWhat's circular about that?
Greg, I obviously don't disagree with you about what the results of Mike's goals would be.
DeleteHowever, it is circular to say that you can't force private sellers to perform background checks because there is no mechanism in place for private sellers to perform those checks -> when the reason there is no mechanism in place is because there is not requirement (or at this point even authority) for a private seller to initiate the check.
It is circular - sorry.
But that's not what I'm saying. The Brady law set up the background check system, but private sellers are not included. That's why we can't run a check. There is no mechanism because the law didn't allow one.
DeleteRight, private sellers are not included because it is not required (or even permitted). But if the law were changed to require such an action, access would have to be given. Or more likely we would all be required to hire/pay an FFL to facilitate all transactions.
DeleteEither way, the fact that we cannot access it now is not a valid argument for why we should not be required to do it in the future.
There are dozens of reasons why it is a bad idea. But the fact that we cannot currently access background checks currently is not one of them.
And I wasn't arguing that. My point was that we can't right now, and we don't want to change. Since laws are made by elected representatives, and voters send a pro-gun message to them in most places, no change is likely.
DeleteAgain with the universal background checks. What would compel a criminal seller to comply with a requirement to conduct a background check on his criminal buyer? He is already barred from selling guns to other criminals, what would change his mind about complying with this requirement?
ReplyDeleteA lot of the sellers are not criminals, they enjoy the "freedom" to operate in a gray area in which all they need to do is turn a blind eye and claim they had no idea the buyer might not have been legit.
DeleteThis needs to stop.
but a lot of the sellers are criminals, selling to other criminals, which is prohibited. What would compel these prohibited persons to comply with a NICS check? The simple answer is nothing, and you're proposing something that, once again, would only affect the law abiding citizen. When Brady was passed and background checks were required, did that stop prohibited persons from getting firearms? No, it only opened up a new business called straw buying. For some reason, you think that passing a law will affect criminals.
DeleteTake a look at prohibition, did that stop people from drinking? No. Did that stop people from making liquor? No, as a matter of fact, it created a new criminal enterprise.
Let's assume that a prohibited person can't get firearms through the regular channels, either private sale or straw buyer, does the criminal go without a firearm? No, you're just opening the doors to a new criminal enterprise for home manufacture of firearms. Then you end up with a criminal market flooded with homemade firearms with no serial numbers to even start a trace. It took me 5 hours to make an M4 type rifle with a die grinder, a drill and a block of aluminum, I wonder how many firearms a small machine shop can make in a day.
Bill, you're being purposefully dense (I think). The argument that criminals don't follow the laws therefore we shouldn't have them is one of the stupidest of all. You should be embarrassed even mentioning it.
DeleteThe world of gun owners is not neatly divided between the good and the bad, it's not that simple.
Most gun control laws are aimed at the law-abiding, because believe it or not, the whole gun control community is not as ignorant as you think about that ole criminals don't obey laws thing. We know that. That's why the lawful gun owners, who don't take it upon themselves to do the right thing need to be constrained to do so.
Thanks for the insult.
DeleteI'm not suggesting that we not have laws because criminals don't follow the laws, I'm suggesting that we not have stupid laws that won't have an affect criminal behavior.
In order to compel every firearm transaction to go through a NICS check, every firearm would have to be registered and that is a no go. In addition to registration, you would somehow have to prohibit homemade firearms. We can't keep drugs out of the hands of criminal, what makes you think we prevent criminals from obtaining firearms. Then ask yourself if you really want to do that. Some of the worst mass murders are committed with explosives and fire. Would you have preferred the the theater shooter just blown up the building and killed 200 or 300 people?
Mikeb, are you going to answer the main point that Bill made? Prohibition is a good example of what happens when we try to ban a desired product. I have no problem with making laws against bad behavior--narrowly defined and against causing actual harm, not imagined. But banning or restricting access to a desired product creates a black market and often results in more bad results than good.
DeleteSo what are you going to do with the hundreds of millions of guns that are currently unregistered and will become available for this black market? This is why I call you unrealistic. Gun control removed guns from good people in Britain because the population had many fewer guns and those were registered. In purely practical terms, it's too late for America. You have yet to address this basic fact. Unless you're ready for door-to-door sweeps, American guns aren't going away.
Bill says, "In order to compel every firearm transaction to go through a NICS check, every firearm would have to be registered and that is a no go."
DeleteI wish you would explain that leap of logic to us.
If suddenly there were a law that required every sale of a firearm to go through a background check, most of the private sellers would comply. They'd take their clients to the nearest FFL guy and pay a fee. This would be a big improvement immediately. Then when we get all the guns registered, the authorities will be all the better able to control and enforce the background check law.
1. We want private sales for a variety of reasons, but one important one is that there is no paperwork on such sales. The government can't track them.
Delete2. What you propose is a new way to tax citizens without giving them anything of benefit in return. Have you not paid attention to American politics lately? Do you really believe that such a thing would pass?
3. Most private sellers would comply? You mean the way that all controlled substances are sold only by licensed pharmacies to people with a doctor's prescription?
4. You think you'll get gun registration? You should visit one of those mental health professionals that Dog Gone loves so much. You're suffering delusions.
Funny that this is always made such a priority and big deal when the DOJ and criminals themselves admit they don't get there weapons from gunshows.
ReplyDeletehttp://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/fuo.pdf
.7% of state inmates possessing a gun got if from a gunshow.
Confusing them with facts, Frail Liberty? That'll get in the way of their feeling their way through things.
DeleteThose cherry-picked misleading "facts" don't have much of an impact. You're right about that, Greg.
DeleteYou're telling me that the Department of Justice is cherry-picking? It's their data, not ours.
DeleteYeah, isn't funny when it doesn't matter whether the source of the data is a right-leaning organization or a left-leaning origination or a govt study ... it's all "cherry picked" when it doesn't line up with their world view and non-negotiable and solid when it does?
DeleteInstead of looking at the methodology of the study itself to see if it might be flawed as I was willing to do with the Kleck study even though it supports my thesis.