Are background checks good or bad?

[gregthehand]

Background checks don't "stop" criminals, but they do slow them down and make the weapons cost more. I think the system we have here in TX works just fine with the background checks. They clear fast, and if you have a CHL you don't have to wait. Anything past that is a un-due interferance. If we get rid of the background checks then criminals can walk in and buy weapons un-inpeaded. At least with the check they have to go through background channels and pay more. This usually results in them getting a cheap piece of junk, which is fine with me. I know that it sounds anit-gunish of me but if your clean you should have no worries. I do have a problem though with the ATF using it as a backdoor gun registration.

 

[M_Olson]

Mental Illness is not entirely subjective. I suggest you go down to your local Emergency Psychiatric Services ward and you will understand what I mean.

how much do you want to bet that there are plenty of these psychiatric "doctors" out there who would love to institutionalize me just for wanting to own a gun?

The point still stands. If you cannot stand a piece of legislation that is fallible, look no further than the Constitution. It has done nothing to stop what the government has been doing on breeches of the 1st, 2nd, and 14th Amendment. I am not saying that the Constitution is worthless because it is not, I am pointing out that your argument is flawed.

if you are comparing the Constitution to background check legislation, you are in fact saying the constitution is worthless. background checks are feel good legislation, nothing more nothing less.

No one gets "punished" by an instant background check. There is no assumption of your current guilt or innocence, only your past where you were previously judged (or not).

thats quite the twisting of the meaning of guilt and innocence. if i refuse to submit to the background check, will i still be assumed innocent and be allowed to purchase my gun? no i will not. i will be assumed guilty. and just the fact that i have to be "checked on" is an assumption of guilt. the twisting and rationalization you employ in your argument is just not true.

you never answered what would happen when hillary and her brood decide its time to defund or shutdown the background check system, conveniently not repealing the law making it mandatory?

 

[Fletchette]

I think anybody should be able to buy a gun.

Keeping and bearing arms is a right.

Do we allow background checks before purchasing a book? What if the person wants to do something criminal with that book?

Speech permits anyone?

 

[kurtmax]

I think anybody should be able to buy a gun.

Keeping and bearing arms is a right.

Do we allow background checks before purchasing a book? What if the person wants to do something criminal with that book?

Speech permits anyone?

^^ Agreed. Why is it that felons are secured every right mentioned in the constitution except the right to bear arms.

I believe that anybody that has served their time in prison, for any crime, should have no less rights than 'normal' citizen. Why should law-abiding people (and this includes ex-convicts... if they aren't law abiding then they go back to prison..) have to submit to checks that presume us as guilty?

If someone shouldn't have a firearm, they shouldn't be on the streets. Period. It's not like firearms are the only thing they can kill people with. If the problem is because of our justice system, then fix that. Don't mess with firearms purchases just because there are inadequacies elsewhere.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Punishing The Innocent

If a man TRULY has "paid his debt" to society, and we let him out, why do we continue to punish him?

Truly paying debt and being out on parole are two separate things.

You know, we have the technology to brand criminals and make it easy to identify them.

This is, however, viewed as inhumane. It's unkind to openly identify someone as untrustworthy. The insistence on letting a known bad guy loose among the general population without some means of recognizing him for who and what he is -- and then "prohibiting" him from certain access -- leads to the "axiom" that you can't trust anybody and therefore have to verify that everybody isn't him.

And it's more humane to hassle every honest, law-abiding, never-been-charged-with-anything citizen, every time he wants to exercise a a basic human right.

The open breach of logic is just astounding.

And why -- if we mean to punish HIM do we instead punish everyone else

No one gets "punished" by an instant background check. There is no assumption of your current guilt or innocence, only your past where you were previously judged (or not).

Really?

Why don't they already know I can be trusted?

They insist that I fill out a form (attesting I'm a good guy) every stinking time I buy a gun, then they call to see if I lied on the form. Oh, and they make me PAY -- in advance -- for this privilege every stinking time.

And that's not punitive?

I bought a car last year, and one the year before that. Why didn't I get a background check? Why didn't I have to pay for a background check?

Simple. I can't defend my family with a car. I can't defend my family, my person, my property, my rights, or my country with a car.

And the objective is to obstruct my purchase of defensive capability. The objective is not crime prevention. If the objective were crime prevention, they would have long since ceased doing what so obviously doesn't work and would have started branding criminals.

The objective is the degradation and obstruction and eventual denial of a basic right.

And this is necessary because the ultimate plan is tyranny.

And that's why the right was enumerated and secured in the first place.

 

[Soybomb]

Some people should flat-out not be allowed to own a firearm legally. This list includes gang bangers, criminals, people suffering from mental anguish, et cetera. Without a background check, there is no distinction between a legal purchase and an illegal purchase, for they are all the same without one (a "no-questions asked" policy if you will). Currently these thugs get their guns from the streets that have been stolen or straw-purchased. How is making it even easier for them to get one (just walking into a store and buying one) going to make the situation any better?

Do you really believe the ease of buying a gun in the store really factors into things? To me thats like saying because pot is illegal it is in someway difficult to obtain. I can only buy alcohol while the liquor stores are open, pot is far more readily available. For that matter after 10pm around here I can buy pot easier than ibuprofen. I've never seen any reason to believe that background checks really keep guns out of criminals hands, and I suspect a great number of criminals wouldn't even try to buy them at stores if they could. Guns are expensive to acquire honestly.

I think you recognize the real need here is to keep the dangerous people off the streets and in prison. The man who can't buy a gun at walmart can still acquire one illegally with ease, run people over with cars, attack people with sharp pointy things or blunt objects, make bombs, etc. Ultimately its just a feel good attempt to do something without confronting the real issue. Drop the support for the bandaid over the gushing wound, we need laws that try to fix the real problem, not to support laws that just make us feel like we're doing something.

 

[rbernie]

I need to explain why a Rapist, Murderer, or a person suffering from paranoid delusions should not have a gun?

We let 'em have cars, and cars are statistically far more dangerous than firearms.

So - do you advocate background checks for car purchases or gasoline purchases?

 

[Bazooka Joe71]

You know, we have the technology to brand criminals and make it easy to identify them.

This is, however, viewed as inhumane. It's unkind to openly identify someone as untrustworthy

Then why do we make child molesters go door to door in their neighborhood telling the families that they are sex offenders?

Granted, I believe that a child molester is the worst of the worst, but I wouldn't trust a guy that has murdered or robbed anyone either.


I think background checks are a good thing, even though criminals are going to get a gun one way or another, at least its just a bit harder than walking into a gun shop, located in pretty much every city in the US.

I haven't read this entire thread, so sorry if you heard an echo.

I need to explain why a Rapist, Murderer, or a person suffering from paranoid delusions should not have a gun?

We let 'em have cars, and cars are statistically far more dangerous than firearms.

So - do you advocate background checks for car purchases or gasoline purchases?

C'mon now, theres a bit of a difference.

 

[mpmarty]

If you had a large, legible sign in front and back of you giving the serial numbers and calibers of every gun you had on you, I would go along with the automobile comparison. The fact is, a vehicle is visible, has (usually) a license plate. Ever try to buy or sell a motor vehicle that didn't have a title? Go license that and try to use it. You have a RIGHT to own a motor vehicle. You have a RIGHT to own firearms. There are some makes and models you CAN'T buy in this country and there are some firearms you can't buy here legally either. So what? Would you give your six year old the keys to the car and say go play in traffic? There are mental incompetents out there with six year old capabilities, want to give them the right to walk into a store and buy a firearm? I am libertarian enough to resent infringements on my freedoms and realistic enough to respect the need to regulate certain aspects of modern life. I voted for the checks. I don't like them but neither do I have a better idea.

 

[Werewolf]

I need to explain why a Rapist, Murderer, or a person suffering from paranoid delusions should not have a gun?

Yeah - you do.

And while you're at it explain why these evil people are allowed to have knives, hammers, cars, clubs, chainsaws etc, etc etc all of which are just as deadly as a gun (some even more so - think car - think crowd - think mowing down) and all without a background check. Seems somewhat forgetful of big brother to leave those out don't you think?

If background checks are so darn effective and so unintrusive - what the HELL! Let's just implement them for everything that could conceivably be used for evil!

Wow - think about it a world where evil people can't do evil and all because we implemented background checks.

OKAY - everyone whose against evil repeat after me...

Background Checks are good. Ommmmmmm Ommmmmm
Background Checks work. Ommmmmm Ommmmmm
Background Checks are unintrusive. Ommmmmm Ommmmm
Background Checks are good for us all. Bleat Baaahhhh - ooops Ommmmmm Ommmmm

 

[Bazooka Joe71]

....

 

[Bazooka Joe71]

If background checks are so darn effective and so unintrusive what the HELL! Let's just implement them for everything that could conceivably be use for evil!

I'll vote for that before letting rapists and murders walk into a gunshop and purchase a gun anyday.

I need to explain why a Rapist, Murderer, or a person suffering from paranoid delusions should not have a gun?

Yeah - you do.

I also think this is just type of thinking is what hurts us law-abiding gun owners. I can just see the anti's drooling over statements like this.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Joe

The problem is the assumed framework.

We assume a civilized framework.

Bad people don't live in that framework.

They don't care about that framework, except as it keeps their victims helpless and clueless.

Good people, being civilized and all, look at the restrictions imposed on acquiring arms, and conclude there must be something wrong with being armed, otherwise why would a civilized framework make it hard?

Good people remain unarmed (and clueless) and the bad people take advantage of that -- often with arms they obtained outside the framework.

You don't want it to be easy for bad people to obtain arms.

Unhappily, the very process that supposedly makes it hard for the bad guys makes it hard for the good guys, who are they discouraged from being armed.

And the bad guys will reach outside the framework and get theirs anyway.

The restrictions in the civilized framework thus work to achieve exactly the opposite of their supposed intent.

Let me put it another way: you have been lied to. You have been fooled.

The guys that set up the restrictions in the civilized framework have no interest in reducing crime. That's only their advertising. They set up the restrictions to disarm you.

Not the bad guy. Just you.

You can believe their lies, but at your peril.

The bad guy will always be armed. The people who established the restrictions knew this then, and they know it now.

They don't care.

They want YOU disarmed.

They worry more about you than about any murderer or rapist.

You're the guy who wants to keep freedom intact. That's a real problem for them. If they can sell you on the restrictions, they win, at least a little.

The answer?

Arm the bad guys.

And arm every one of their potential victims.

And then loosen the rules of engagement.

It'll be pretty messy for a short while.

And then you'll have ACTUAL civilization, and bad guys will have to get day jobs or die.

I'm okay with either of those outcomes.

 

[Bazooka Joe71]

Mr. Greebly, I agree with most of what you say but,

Unhappily, the very process that supposedly makes it hard for the bad guys makes it hard for the good guys, who are they discouraged from being armed.

A simple 2 minute background check has never made it harder for me to get a gun, nor has it discouraged me from getting one.

It takes 2 mintues for me(a good guy...well at least I think so) to get a gun, and it take a criminal as long as it takes to steal(at the cost of his life) or buy a stolen one(which also takes time and money)...Either way its inconveniencing the criminal much more than my 2 minutes.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Just So

And that would be because you, being somewhat smarter and more capable than the average citizen, are able to look past the barriers and not be discouraged from obtaining your own arms.

Trouble is, a substantial portion of the civilized framework isn't that smart and isn't that capable.

And they believe the crud that's shoveled at them by media and education.

Ever wonder why there's so much bloody inertia in trying to spread the word for RKBA?

The people around you can be smarter than they are, but they must first be disabused of the false data that clouds their minds.

Guns are bad. Guns are bad. Guns are bad. Only bad people want guns.

And so on.

The "disarm everyone" folks put up the biggest barrier they could get away with. Remember Feinstein. She said publicly that if she'd had the votes she'd have taken them all.

They couldn't get away with that, so they settled for the much more "reasonable" background checks.

They're still trying.

Our job?

Help people unlearn the lies, help them learn the truth, and help them arm themselves.

Simple, huh?

 

[M_Olson]

ill ask again, open to any of those in favor of background checks:

you never answered what would happen when hillary and her brood decide its time to defund or shutdown the background check system, conveniently not repealing the law making it mandatory?

 

[ctdonath]

we have the technology to brand criminals and make it easy to identify them.
This is, however, viewed as inhumane.
... it's more humane to hassle every honest, law-abiding, never-been-charged-with-anything citizen, every time he wants to exercise a a basic human right.
The open breach of logic is just astounding.

Worth repeating.

Then why do we make child molesters go door to door in their neighborhood telling the families that they are sex offenders? ... I think background checks are a good thing

Let me share a recently-received email with you:

MOORE, JOHN LASON
ABSCONDED
CUMMING, GA 30041

This person is an absconder
An absconder is a person who has failed to register with the appropriate sheriff's office either (a) initially within ten days after release from prison, placement on parole, supervised release or probation; or (b) on their registration anniversary date.

If you have information regarding the whereabouts of this person please contact the GBI by clicking here.

He's free.
He's not cooperating.
He's not going door-to-door informing his neighbors he's a sex offender.
He's probably not going to refrain from repeating his crime.

Why is he out?
...and more relevant to this thread: do you honestly think a background check on anyone buying a gun retail is going to stop this non-cooperating violent felon from getting a gun to perpetrate his next crime (which he most likely WILL commit in fairly short order)?

 

[ctdonath]

So - do you advocate background checks for car purchases or gasoline purchases?
C'mon now, theres a bit of a difference.

The second-worst mass-murder in US history was perpetrated with a few gallons of gasoline. The worst was with fertilizer and diesel.

More people are killed annually with cars & gasoline than with guns & ammo.

...care to explain the difference?

I'll vote for that before letting rapists and murders walk into a gunshop and purchase a gun anyday.

Does it not occur to you that people can easily buy guns outside gunshops?

I handed a friend of a friend $60 and owned a rifle a second later.
I accepted $450 from a friend and he owned a handgun a second later.
Gee that was easy.
And no background checks.

Please explain the magic of background checks that prevents people from buying guns.
Background checks only work when people cooperate with them.
Remember: the people you're trying to stop are proven non-cooperative.

 

[Dr. Peter Venkman]

I'll respond when I can. Work is cutting into my leisure time.

 

[kludge]

Every four years we all walk into the Licence Branch to renew our drivers licenses.

Everybody gets a background check.

Not everyone has, can get, or even wants a drivers license. You want to require people to obtain and maintain a drivers license so they can buy firearms? How is a desire to drive at all related to exercising a right.

Your papers please? Talk about infringement...

Not to mention a background check every four years? That's certainly doesn't seem effective.

Also, your yellow/blue background makes it so those who could legally purchase long guns could no longer at 18 could no longer do so until they are 21.

Additionally, if I can drive at 16, and we renew every 4 years, that means that when I renew at 20 I get another yellow backed card until I'm 24, effectively limiting purchases for an additional three years.

Somehow, I don't think you thought your cunning plan all the way through.

In Indiana everybody has to have photo ID to vote. Requiring it to buy a gun is not an issue in my mind.

The yellow background is for minors for entering bars... for firearms/ammo it only means the dealer has to take a closer look at the birth date, depending on state laws.

In Indiana, everybody's drivers license expires the month of their 21st birthday, your state is probably the same.

Papers please? Give me a break, we've been there for a looooong time already.

 

[fast eddie]

I see the poll is still running 65% that background checks are a good thing. I assume you fellows won't object when the various state legislatures or the Fed mandate background checks for ALL firearms transfers.
Sarah Brady loves ya.

 

[rbernie]

You have to wonder how many of the folk that voted that background checks were a good idea have also completed face-to-face firearms transactions where no background check was conducted.

However could they live with themselves, after demonstrating such blatant disregard for 'doing what's right'?

<sigh>

 

[USAFNoDAk]

Background checks might feel good in that they prevent a person convicted of a felony or some particular misdemeanor from buying a gun "in a gunshop". As many folks have said, it doesn't mean that same person can't buy one on the street or from a friend.

The Brady's and other gun control proponents were well aware of this, but sold this as "Who can be against stopping criminals from buying guns by using a simple background check?" The NRA figured they couldn't talk their way out of that corner, so they changed the playing field and went along with background checks, as long at they are instantaneous, which could really mean up to, what, 72 hours? I forget all of the details of the NICS.

What the Brady's and other gun control groups have now done is move the ball forward by claiming that background checks, which are necessary, are not 100% effective because "criminals" can still buy guns at gun shows and from straw purchasers without background checks. According to them, this shows a need for registration. They are trying to sell us on the idea that registration will stop straw purchases and close the gun show loophole. A part of registration will be to make sure that ALL gun transactions go through a licensed dealer where a background check is done. The gun(s) involved, along with the buyer and seller, will be registered. This will all be to make sure that the path of any gun can be traced back to the original owner. This is sold as a way to figure out who is supplying guns to criminals. (See Michael Bloomberg).

Most of us know that there are several flaws in their plan. First of all, we have more than 200 million firearms in the US. I think the number is actually much higher than that, but does it really matter? How are they going to get all of those registered? (See Canada's billion dollar gun registration program.)

Second of all, if someone can smuggle into the US, trucks full of objects the size of humans, (because the objects being smuggled are humans), what's to stop them from including some firearms in the mix? The black market recognizes no borders or free trade agreements.

Cripes, look at the UK. They are an island and guns are continually being smuggled in, most likely by drug smugglers.

So, while background checks might make some folks feel good, they are quite ineffective at reducing crime. The gun controllers use that knowledge to push for more gun control. It really is a slippery slope. At times the slope is shallow and folks might not feel themselves sliding down. When the conditions are favorable to the gun controllers, however, they make every attempt at increasing the slope. Can you say "assault weapons ban"?

 

[Bazooka Joe71]

Trouble is, a substantial portion of the civilized framework isn't that smart and isn't that capable.

And they believe the crud that's shoveled at them by media and education.

Sad but true.

More people are killed annually with cars & gasoline than with guns & ammo.

...care to explain the difference?

I would venture to guess that the vast majority of these were accidents...Many good people had a slip of the brain, or a maybe even a malfunctioning car and killed someone.

Also alot of DWI/DUI's as well and I also think multiple DUI offender should lose their license for alot longer than they do.

However could they live with themselves, after demonstrating such blatant disregard for 'doing what's right'?

I never said that it was wrong for you to do a FTF. You're a good guy right? I obviously know that bad guys are going to get guns no matter what. All I said was that I don't have a problem with a 2 min Background check if it stops/slows even at least some of the BG's down from acquiring a gun...Yes, I guess it is against my rights for them to do this, but if it makes the anti's happy then whatever.

And yes, please don't repeat yourselves anymore than you have, I understand that its just a step in their grand scheme to take them all. When they try and take more rights, then I'll get mad. But for now, 2 min to maybe even slow a couple BG's down doesn't bother me all that much.

 

[ctdonath]

I would venture to guess that the vast majority of these were accidents.

Quite! Without intent, cars became the key factor in more deaths than deliberate actions with guns. Sounds to me like cars are a much bigger problem if the accidental death rate involving them is orders of magnitude higher than guns.

When they try and take more rights, then I'll get mad.

They already have. Repeatedly. Apparently you're not mad yet.