Why I have NO problem with background checks...

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Don't feel lonley strikefire83. :) I was totally for background checks, but some pretty persuasive arguments were made against it.
Compromise is only good for those with the most power, or those who will do anything to get what they want.
It looks to me like there are only two ways to go:
I'll support background checks on buying firearms when such checks are required for convicted arsonists to buy gas or matches, for convicted pedophiles to buy computers, or for politicians and fools to utter an opinion.
Or the 2nd as it is written.
I still have concerns though, about the bloods, crips, hells angels, and other groups and or gangs like them, being able to carry legally. It seems to me the LEO's would have a tough time of it, having 2 Officers in a patrol car against a whole gang of legally armed thugs. They also believe in all for one and one for all.
 
What I am going to say may not be very popular. I understand a right to be something you are born with. It is yours till you die. It can't be taken away. Think about this, a person is convicted of a felony and goes to prison. When they get out they still have a right to free speech, they still have a right to practice what ever religion they see fit to practice, they still have a right to the pursuit of happiness. These are just some of the rights they have that can't be taken from them because these rights come from god not man. So, background checks that prevent anyone from owning a gun that chooses to is wrong. The crime is not owning or selling the weapon. The crime is inflicting harm on other people. This should be punished accordingly. The mere fact that you own a tool should not be a crime. The 2a did not say the right of some people shall not be infringed. IMO, noone should be prevented from owning a firearm. Background checks are just another way to slowly take all guns from the American people. Eventually we will all be the ones who can't pass the background check. If you are such a bad person and society has such a fear of you causing harm, you should not be out of prison in the first place. Some of the reasons that are used today to prevent people from owning guns are ridiculous. Somebody just has to go to the court house and say they are afraid of you. Guess what, you can't pass a background check now. Even though you have commited no crime.
 
Possible scenario.

Aw gee, I just missed out on that great pawn-shop deal for that pistol I've wanted for YEARS, ever since I got out of jail on that bogus car-theft charge. Well, guess I'll pick up a newspaper and head home.

Hey, looky here in the classifieds under sporting goods. Almost new pistol JUST LIKE the one they had in the pawn shop, and $200 LESS. Let me call the guy.

Gee thanks man, GREAT pistol, even better than the one the govt. wouldn't let me have, and you know, they don't even know about this one, and now I can go to the range and pop holes in targets in peace, which is really what I wanted to do in the first place!!! Really glad they wouldn't let me get the pawn shop gun, this one is three times better!!!

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Basically, the NCIS is a way to a) keep track of who's buying guns where. and b) build income. It in no way works to keep a gun out of the hands of someone who wants to use it unlawfully. So, it is useless to everyone except the ones who instituted that law in the first place.

but that's just my $.02
 
Rhinov, trust me, you are not going to get much argument from anyone here, if you do, it's gonna come from the same ole "But it's the laaawwww" crowd.


Oh, welcome to THE HIGH ROAD
 
LOL

That said, I have NO PROBLEM with background checks for gun purchases!

That said, I have NO PROBLEM with background checks for Bible purchases!
That said, I have NO PROBLEM with background checks for Koran purchases!
That said, I have NO PROBLEM with background checks for Torah purchases!
That said, I have NO PROBLEM with background checks for newspaper purchases!
:neener: :neener: :neener:
 
Reading back over this thread, I see that I was, in effect, arguing IN FAVOR of background checks, which was never my intention. I originally meant to say that I didn't find them particularly offensive or prohibitive. I guess I was wrong, as those of you who didn't attack me provided situations I hadn't thought of. Thank you.

I think that this thread proves one thing, how quickly many of you will turn on/witch hunt/attack someone with a slightly different opinion than you.

To everybody who thinks that a lone man sitting in front of a computer is somehow championing our rights, then you're deluding yourself. Discourse is a part of the puzzle, but organizations like the NRA are, as others have said in another thread, advancing our gun rights. We NEED moderate gun owners, those who only have an over-under shotgun, or those who use single shots only, to JOIN the fight and realize that these people are after EVERYONE'S firearms.

Attacking people and branding them traitors to the cause HURTS the 2nd Amendment fight. I'm not saying sacrifice your personal morals to the status quo, but we don't pass laws and elect senators by ourselves.

That's all. I'm a big enough man to admit when I'm wrong. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Gun grabbers should expect no mercy. In the words of Patrick Henry, “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.” Denial is not that river in Egypt. Keep coming back.
 
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When a person should not have a firearm because he is a felon or mentally disturbed they should be in JAIL or a MENTAL HOSPITAL.

When they are proven to be eligible to be released free into society ALL their rights should be returned.
 
When a person should not have a firearm because he is a felon or mentally disturbed they should be in JAIL or a MENTAL HOSPITAL.

When they are proven to be eligible to be released free into society ALL their rights should be returned.

I would like to point out that while I do not support background checks, nor do I believe in their efficacy in actually limiting access to persons who should not by rights have them, I find this statement to be a bit short-sighted and oversimplified... with sincerest respect to the poster.

There are scores of individuals in any given community, at any given time, who present a clear and present danger to the public if permitted to own a firearm, lawfully or otherwise. That there is no effective means of preventing them from obtaining a firearm illegally should not result in our community's tacit approval (or indifference) of their obtaining one through legitimate means.

Simply stating that such persons should be confined is NOT a realistic option. There are millions of high functioning mentally handicapped persons in this nation for instance who have the financial means and personal freedom sufficient to purchasing a firearm, yet who do not have anywhere near the judgement necessary to safely handling it. They are not criminals and are not deserving or requiring of confinement. Gun ownership is an exceptionally poor idea for them. A background check is probably pointless in attempting to identify such persons, yet the idea that there is no need to identify these folks is questionable.

Further, the idea that all offenders released into the public should be proven somehow worthy and risk-free is at best utopic. There is just simply no way to accomplish this. It is the subject of science-fiction. Even deploying the assessment tools currently available for all violent offenders on a pre-release basis would be prohibitively expensive.

There is also no way to indefinitely detain offenders based upon their presentation of risk. We are a nation of laws and those laws dictate sentencing parameters.

We also simply do not have the infrastructure necessary to keep offenders incarcerated indefinitely based upon possible risk. A state such as California for instance is capable of doubling its' prison population in less than five years by simply suspending early release programs.

Suggestions of "just shoot them, lock them up and throw away the key", etc. are approximately as realistic as advocating we put them in a giant cannon and evacuate them to another galaxy. It isn't within the realm of reason. It's a pointless suggestion. We have no choice but to place these people under community supervision. It would cripple the justice system to do otherwise.

Pragmatically speaking, there are definitely people out there in the community that I feel very strongly present a serious enough threat to your safety and mine that they require restriction from firearm ownership. As long as such persons exist, and as long as there is purpose in effecting such restriction, there will be need to somehow identify them.

Like I say... I do not support background checks for individual purchases. But I do not have an answer to this dillemma either.
 
We also simply do not have the infrastructure necessary to keep offenders incarcerated indefinitely based upon possible risk. A state such as California for instance is capable of doubling its' prison population in less than five years by simply suspending early release programs.

Free all the pot smokers and you'd have twice as much room needed. :D
 
Free all the pot smokers and you'd have twice as much room needed.

There's a can of worms... don't get me started. I've been advocating that cost-savings scheme for the last decade. :D
 
THIS is why we can NOT favor ANY control laws:

A. Because there ARE NO sensible gun laws, other then 1) The 2nd Amendment; and 2) any law that penalizes using a gun to commit a crime. Period.

B. Because THEY think that WE WANT these other (un)sensible gun laws:
..and this is part of the formula need to embrace and stand up for reasonable, sensible gun laws that fix problems in the system and close loopholes: things like requiring background checks at gun shows, fixing the Instant-Check system to make it more instant and accurate, combating gun trafficking, renewing the assault weapons ban -- very basic, sensible policies that have wide support that are also good and effective gun policy.

And for information's sake:

So what Americans for Gun Safety did that nobody had done before was we went and we FOIA'd about 5,000 pages of Justice Department documents. It took us about nine months to get it. They weren't thrilled to release it. I'm sure whoever released it lost their job. And we took a close look at Clinton's last year and Bush's first year on federal gun prosecutions to see whether Bush and his allies, the NRA, whether they were actually fulfilling their promise to enforce the laws on the books. Well, guess what we found? That on 20 of the 22 major federal gun laws -- 20 of the 22 major federal gun laws, they were being enforced so infrequently by Bush and Ashcroft that they might as well not exist.

Two of the laws, which are important laws in which we're prosecuting felons who are in possession of a gun, they were doing better than Clinton. Not amazingly better, but better in perspective and we give them praise for that. They, however, were ignoring the other 20. I'll give you one very powerful example of that. This became the signature issue for the NRA.

It's a crime called "lie-and-buy." Anybody here -- how many people here own guns? A lot. So, you've bought guns. When you go in to buy a gun from a gun dealer you have to fill out the background check form, and when he fills the background check form -- that's what the Brady Law did -- so that when you go to buy a gun, that you make sure that it's John Cowan, the nice guy who lives in Washington who, you know, never did anything bad except when he was a kid and didn't get caught for it, versus John Cowan who is a known felon.

Well, many people -- I mean, this is shocking but a lot of criminals, bizarrely enough, are stupid enough that they go and they go to gun stores to buy guns still, and they fill out the background check form and they fail the background check test. A hundred and thirty-six thousand of them in 2002 went into buy a gun -- 136,000 criminals went in to buy a gun, filled out the form, it was rejected and they were denied their gun purchase.
 
I’ve read a few posts about shutting down NICS would halt all gun sales. It used to be that the weapon could be transferred after three days if NICS failed to give the seller an answer. It this still in effect or did they change the rules?

Just for the record, I believe ALL waiting periods SUCK be it one from a legislature or a de facto waiting period waiting for NICS to come back to life. Too much can happen in three minutes much less three days.
 
As our brother in arms StrikeFire83 has discovered, any gatekeeping system that works at all can be cast too broad a net, be slammed shut for reasons that are mundane, accidental, or intentionally evil, and porous as a sieve to boot.

At the same time, there are also several classes of citizen who prove themselves untrustworthy of the right of arms: children, people of impaired intellect or judgement, the chronically violent and predatory, who are likely to offend again. (I lay aside the thorny issue of how to determine who such people are.)

These two facts cannot be reconciled, even in principle.


Since they cannot be reconciled, we have a choice of evils:


The first evil is to expose society to whatever additional risks it takes from whatever actual (and dubious) benefit it gets from obliging those wrong people to additional inconveniences in arming themselves.

The second evil is to abuse the prerogatives of free men, and in so doing, build a gate that begs to be misused.

How many people really think about it in those terms?

If they think about it all?

The real problem, as I see it, is that great swathes of this society has lost sight any concept that free men have prerogatives, and that they can be abused. If they do have some inkling of that, the imagined benefits outweigh in their judgement what they percieve to be a minor inconvenience.

Even a good, thoughtful man like the starter of this thread, who is well schooled in the issue can fall into that trap.

How do we keep Joe & Jane Normal out of that tar pit?
 
I guess that next it will be no check results, no sale PERIOD. Then they can shut down sales completely. Incrementalism rears it ugly head yet again!!!!
 
What was the quote from Ben Franklin? I think it was something like this."Those who would give up essential liberties for a little temporary saftey deserve neither liberty or safety. Nor are they likely to get either". Guys, I am just not willing to possibly give up my ability to purchase a weapon because it might make me safe, or because someone else says it might make me safe. I would rather know that criminals have access to guns and I also have access to guns. Instead of I definitely don't have access to guns and criminals do. At the rate things are going "no matter what your political affiliation" in two decades we will be disarmed. I just don't think that there is any compromise here. It's all or nothing. I consider myself pretty open minded, but I can't give any ground on issues like this. Compromise has got us to where we are now. I'm sure we all agree that where we are now is not a good place.
 
Different perspective

I have a different perspective, and one that no doubt some will find offensive.

I don't care. Much. I already have a number of guns, so my view is different. Since it is reasonable to assume that posters on this board already own at least one gun, why are you dancing about the issue? We already have the "instant background check", so being in favor or not is a moot point. It exists. Deal with it.

Now, as to the point that any background check is an affront to the rights of free citizens, well, yes they are. But we put up with countless affronts to our rights daily throughout our entire lives. Why does this one get you so stirred up? Every license you have to get, everything you have to ask the govt for permission to do is an affront to the free citizen. And most of them have NO actual benefit to society. At least a background check has the potential of a benefit. What is the benefit to society that makes me have to get govt permission before building a shed on my property? Why does my home have to meet certain arbitrary standards? Why can't I be allowed to live in a cardboard box on my own property if that is what I choose? why do we camly accept the authority of the govt to condem a house I have been living in comfortably for decades because they say it isn't good enough?

All these and many more are part of our daily lives, and, frankly I don't see the instant background check as that much more of an imposition. At least in exchange for the instant check we got rid of the Federal waiting period.

Personally I was incensed after the GCA 68, and drew my own line in the sand. Guess what? It didn't matter. We kept getting more restrictive laws. I still do what I can, and I sympathize with all you no compromise folks, if enough of us voted that way, we wouldn't be where we are today. But we didn't, so here we are.

I do dislike the Instant Check, not because of the nature of it, but because of the fact that while have had a clean record my entire life (haven't even had a traffic ticket in over 10 years), I could be denied due to a screwup in their database.

Part of the problem is that while we have the background checks, actual enforcement of the laws is lax. Just look what was posted earlier, 136,000 "feleons" denied purchase. How many of these were prosecuted? After all, trying to buy a gun as a prohibitied person (felon/mentally incompetant, etc.)is a crime. One report I saw years back (from the Clinton admin) stated much the same, xxx thousand purchases denied. 44 prosecutions! Where is the justice in that? If the system was actually worked the way we were told it would be, there might be some bebefit. But it isn't, and it never was. Therefore, not only is it an affront to free citizen's rights, it is a useless affront, which makes it even more insulting.

However we live with large numbers of insults daily. This is just another one, and not near as big an insult as a waiting period.

As for the people who couldn't get a gun during the LA riots, well too bad for them. I hope it was a real world wake up call for them. CA (at the time) had a two week waiting period, which technically even covered loaning some one a gun. And, the Governor suspended gun/ammo (and liquor) sales in the affected counties anyway. Same goes for the Feds shutting down the NICS system during an emergency to stop gun sales. Big deal. It would be an inconvience for me, but not a disaster. If I made my living selling guns I would be pretty ticked, you bet, but otherwise, no.

The time to buy a gun is NOT when you need one. When you need one is the time to already have one in hand. Same for ammo. Get them now, because odds are that when you need one, you won't be able to get one, unless you already have it.

To those who burn at the stake all those who's views are less "extreme" than yours, keep that up and pretty soon your be in a very small group of people. You will have the moral high ground, but you won't have many friends, or be listened to by more "moderate" folks. And forget about influencing the fence sitters. To them you'll be just "one more nut".

I own or have owned all of the guns considered by the antis most evil, along with those who are only considered evil. I am not one of those "mine are ok, yours should be banned" folks. We all need to work together on this, and castigating personally someone who thinks some of our laws might be reasonable is not the way to go about it. Patience, peserverence, and understanding to educate them is the way to do it.
 
44AMP said:
To those who burn at the stake all those who's views are less "extreme" than yours, keep that up and pretty soon your be in a very small group of people. You will have the moral high ground, but you won't have many friends, or be listened to by more "moderate" folks. And forget about influencing the fence sitters. To them you'll be just "one more nut".

Pretty soon? Sounds like where we are right now.

Tell me, when the nuts are left with nothing but the moral high ground, what will you have?
 
To those who burn at the stake all those who's views are less "extreme" than yours, keep that up and pretty soon your be in a very small group of people. You will have the moral high ground, but you won't have many friends, or be listened to by more "moderate" folks. And forget about influencing the fence sitters. To them you'll be just "one more nut".

Immediately after my first divorce, I realized what a huge mistake it is to try and start at the middle when meeting someone half way. When you start at the middle, they start at their end and you meet halfway down their side of the issue. Bottom line, they get half of what they want and you get nothing. How many times are we gonna meet half way on the anti side until we have nowhere to start at?:banghead:
 
VIOLENT felons, child abusers......Oh yeah, they don't have a right to personal protection. :evil:
 
...shall not be infringed.

No room for negotiation.

If they are a threat, do not release them.

It used to be that a guy got a pistol and a $20 gold piece when he got out of jail. He was then expected to resume his life having paid his debt to society.

Criminals don't get legal guns anyway. Stolen guns are cheaper.

Say it with me: shall NOT be infringed.
 
If they are a threat, do not release them.

Nomad... how are we supposed to do this?

I mean, with all respect, people repeat this like a mantra without any conception whatsoever as to how the criminal justice system actually works.

Hypothetically speaking: we send offender Bob to prison for 15 years on a conviction for sexual battery. He serves full term. He has drawn charcoal sketches of dead naked women without arms and legs for the last five years. He has declined to participate in treatment programs. Now what? The law does not permit our simply saying "aw shucks, let's just keep him awhile longer." The law does not permit his execution. He's "paid his debt to society."

What do we do with him??? Give him a pistol and a $20 gold piece?

I know that a background check will not stop Bob from getting a gun... but this idea that we can simply "not let them go if they are a risk" is a fantasy. These guys WILL get out. There has to be a means of supervising these guys in the community, and I for one am not comfortable with the idea that they be afforded the "right to protect themselves."
 
There's another side to this "if they're a felon keep 'em in jail" thinking.

Over the last century or so lots of laws have been created that turn people into felons for very minor "crimes".

In 10 states if you, your wife or girlfriend "performs orally" (ahem ... apologies in advance to Art's Grammaw), you've both committed a felony (if you and your SO are of the same gender, that number grows quite a bit ... although to be fair I believe this has been overturned by the SCOTUS...not sure if its retroactive though).

Filling out government forms incorrectly can get you a felony conviction.

Say the F word on the radio ... felony.

Damage a mailbox ... felony.

Buy a porno in TJ (or Vancouver...wouldn't want to be picking on Mexico), drive it across the border and bam ... felony.

As I mentioned earlier, assemble an IGB carbine kit on your Glock or Steyr pistol in the wrong order (put the stock on before putting the 16" barrel) and you're a felon.

There's tons more out there if you dig around on the Internet.

So its not like background checks are keeping honest to God bad people from buying guns (they buy guns from the trunks of cars in back alleys anyway), they are just making the lives of us law abiding folk more difficult, and adding additional charges to people who are basically good people that got caught up in a felony rap for something that shouldn't even be illegal (like the first example).


Oh, I believe being a "prohibited person" and attempting to buy a gun is also a felony (have to look that one up to be sure).



With all the fear of terrorism and this new "War on Terrorism" I expect we'll see all sorts of things turned into felonies ... like buying the wrong household chemicals at the same time, or ranting online about the evils of the government, or owning a copy of "Terrorist Literature" like Unintended Consequences or The Federalist Papers.
 
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