Are we going to lose the battle on background checks for every gun purchase?

[badkarmamib]

My wife who stays up with national news tells me the poll she saw the other day put support at 90% for UBC. Seems high to me, and certainly not a FOX poll, but those numbers are hard to overcome if they are close to correct.

They're not. How many gun owners will answer these polls, asking what kind of guns they own, how many, etc? Most gun owners, as soon as the survey turns to ownership, will hang up/stop answering, out of fear of helping to compile an "ownership database". They can only count the votes of answers, and most people against UBC's will not have their voices heard. If it were TRULY 90%, then how come they can't get 90% of the politicians to vote for it?

 

[AlexanderA]

Let's remember that the "nightmare scenarios" outlined in this thread can come to pass only if there is general public support for them. The general public appears to be in favor of background checks for private gun transactions, but is not in favor of nationwide gun registration. The antis will have quite a bit of work to do to persuade the public to take that extra step. This is where pro-gun activism can be effective. I'm skeptical of the "slippery slope" argument.

 

[doubleh]

My state is going to stuff UBC down our throats although the majority of people are in opposition. However the liberals are in total control of state government thanks to our two large population areas and are running rough shod over everyone and everything and UBC is one of their milder agendas.

I'm hoping it will die in the senate on a national level but I have very little faith in our politicians. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. If it fails nationally we may have a chance at the state level with the lawsuit that is just waiting on our liberal idiot governor's signature on the bill.

 

[BSA1]

It's pretty clear that a number of folks are reading what I say but not understanding it.

National reciprocity is not the same as federally issued CC permit/license. The latter I wouldn't want at all. Wouldn't it be nice, though, if instead of a patchwork of reciprocity that changes somewhat frequently, you knew your state permit was valid in the other 49 states? You don't want that?

Why is my Kansas drivers license recognized in all other 49 States?

It is because all 50 States have agreed to the same driving laws.

For National Reciprocity to work all 50 States are going to have to agree to the same requirements. One of the reasons some States refuse to honor other States Carry Licenses is the differences in their training requirements to get the license.

Consider the recent posts about Illinois and their requirements to get a carry license. It is naïve to think that Illinois is just going to say any conceal carry license from any other State is good enough. Given the anti-gun attitude of the State Government are they going to agree to lowering their licensing requirements? Or are States like Utah and Kansas going to have to increase their licensing requirement to satisfy Illinois?

This is assuming Illinois politicians, Democrats and Liberals want more armed people roaming around in their State to begin with.

And don't even talk about Maryland.

So the Federal Government is going to have to pass laws setting uniform training licensing requirements to satisfy all 50 States.

er, no thanks. Kansas requirements are expensive and pain-in-the-rear enough.

I am free to travel where I choose. When I choose to visit family in Maryland I weigh the danger of being unarmed vs. visiting my loved ones. Risk assessment is just part of daily life.

As for HPA, there's a large portion of the community who'd love to have it, and an even bigger amount who may be ambivalent, but would reap the benefits if it came to fruition.

Nice but a dead horse even before the recent shootings. Suppressors and SBR's are already legal so the main benefit is being more affordable and easier to buy. The HPA is modifying existing law not creating new ones like national reciprocity.

 

[MachIVshooter]

Okay then. I have two questions for you.

If we are going to get behind UBC’s and make them the law of the land, how does government enforce that law?

And, regarding the theoretical goodies we get in exchange for bartering away someone else’s liberty, how will we ensure government can’t undo what “gains” we get?

I don't have all the answers, and there's a difference between getting behind something and deciding to be part of the discussion so we can make the best of a crap situation. Less than ideal, but a whole lot better than sticking your fingers in your ears and throwing a couple hundred bucks at the NRA, then getting all indignant and blaming other gun owners for not "doing their part" when it becomes law in spite of your obstinance.

You can continue to keep up the morally superior facade and throw in little hyperbolic jabs about "giving away other people's freedom" if it suits you, but UBC will be a reality within a decade no matter how high you hold your nose whilst denigrating realists & pragmatists.

 

[MachIVshooter]

Why is my Kansas drivers license recognized in all other 49 States?

It is because all 50 States have agreed to the same driving laws.

For National Reciprocity to work all 50 States are going to have to agree to the same requirements. One of the reasons some States refuse to honor other States Carry Licenses is the differences in their training requirements to get the license.

Consider the recent posts about Illinois and their requirements to get a carry license. It is naïve to think that Illinois is just going to say any conceal carry license from any other State is good enough. Given the anti-gun attitude of the State Government are they going to agree to lowering their licensing requirements? Or are States like Utah and Kansas going to have to increase their licensing requirement to satisfy Illinois?

You're never going to get all 50 states to agree to CCW reciprocity on their own. That's a fact.

As for a standardized 50-state training requirement, that may or may not be a part of reciprocity legislation. Your driver license example doesn't support that, though. Most states are pretty similar, but each have their own tests, requirements & renewal periods, as well as unique traffic laws.

 

[MachIVshooter]

They're not. How many gun owners will answer these polls, asking what kind of guns they own, how many, etc? Most gun owners, as soon as the survey turns to ownership, will hang up/stop answering, out of fear of helping to compile an "ownership database". They can only count the votes of answers, and most people against UBC's will not have their voices heard.

By the numbers, ~75% of respondents are not gun owners at all if you have a truly unbiased poll. Of the remaining 25% who do own guns, most are far more "moderate". I think members here tend to forget that THR (or other gun forum) members are not representative of the average gun owner. We're the collectors, serious enthusiasts, staunch pro-2A crowd. And we're a tiny minority. The membership here is 205,000; that's not even one-third of one percent of 80 MILLION American gun owners.

If it were TRULY 90%, then how come they can't get 90% of the politicians to vote for it?

Because our representatives also have a duty to represent the minority, and to protect the constitutional rights of every American. That's how a representative constitutional republic works. If it were a simple democracy, 2A would have been completely gutted long ago.

My wife who stays up with national news tells me the poll she saw the other day put support at 90% for UBC. Seems high to me, and certainly not a FOX poll, but those numbers are hard to overcome if they are close to correct.

90% might be a little high, but it's a very solid majorty. >75% I'm sure

 

[BSA1]

You're never going to get all 50 states to agree to CCW reciprocity on their own. That's a fact.

I am ok with that. For me it is a Sate's right issue. Everything that has been accomplished has been on the State level and through the Courts.

I fully appreciate the divide between urban vs. rural areas. However laws are most often changed due to the loudest group that VOTES. That is one of the reasons why gay right laws have been passed. Gun Owners are our own worst enemy by failing to organize and making gun rights their most important voting issue.

 

[kmw1954]

They're not. How many gun owners will answer these polls, asking what kind of guns they own, how many, etc? Most gun owners, as soon as the survey turns to ownership, will hang up/stop answering, out of fear of helping to compile an "ownership database". They can only count the votes of answers, and most people against UBC's will not have their voices heard. If it were TRULY 90%, then how come they can't get 90% of the politicians to vote for it?

On another gun forum I belong I had suggested a thread that included a generic map that one could "pin" a name and location to, Granted it was a random location with no real into to it. Well I caught so much flack over it from members I found it amazing. Gun owners on a public forum didn't even want it made public as to which state they were in as if it were giving away some dark secret. To make it possible that our tyrannical govm't might find out who they are! So what makes anyone think a gun owner will honestly answer a gun poll?

 

[GEM]

It is not a state's right issue when a state violates a fundamental human right. As has been said so repeatedly, gun rights may not be the most important issue for some gun folks given a candidate being a strong opponent of equally important personal liberty issues and/or being a morally bankrupt person except for blathering about and/or waving a gun. Quite a few examples out there.

It s easy for folks to say that gun rights are the only issue when they are correlated with their other beliefs.

BTW, if you posted here, a government can have you identified. Hiding your mags in the basement is laughable if it came to that.

 

[Doc7]

I don’t think the general public is “opposed” to gun registration and needs to be convinced. These people aren’t writing their congresspeople to ask why they voted against keeping living infants alive or why they voted against ICE notification of a criminal attempting to buy a gun, why would they care if their congressperson voted to register guns? Congress is almost acting in a vacuum now where nobody is holding their representative accountable to anything, as long as they have the proper D or R in front of their name.

 

[Sovblocgunfan]

I don't have all the answers, and there's a difference between getting behind something and deciding to be part of the discussion so we can make the best of a crap situation.

I see. We don’t know how it would work, but we’ll get to decide when we get to the negotiating table because we will be a part of the discussion. Will we have to pass the bill to find out what is in it?

You can continue to keep up the morally superior facade and throw in little hyperbolic jabs about "giving away other people's freedom" if it suits you, but UBC will be a reality within a decade no matter how high you hold your nose whilst denigrating realists & pragmatists.

Thanks for your validation, but there's no morally superior facade here. Those little hyperbolic jabs are exactly what is being proposed. We agree UBC will be the law of the land soon.

 

[Deanimator]

I think the ignorance of the masses and the deceitfulness of representatives will eventually get some form of "universal background checks" and several add-ons passed. It has nothing to do with public safety, it has everything to do with making a compliant public and so severely restricting or outright banning of firearm ownership, that the 2A becomes irrelevant for their campaign speeches.

We have an openly pro-Socialist group of politicians, and the only way for a Socialist state to succeed is to have an unarmed population and a brutal police-state to enforce it; it's basic History 101.

As soon as UBC's get "implemented", there will be no drop in crime involving firearms. Well, we need to clamp down even further, so the only rational push would be to register all firearm transactions to assist the police in enforcement. Well what about all the firearms not federally registered? Well, common-sense gun legislation is necessary to have all law-abiding citizen register their firearms. Wow, they will exclaim, that's an expensive piece of law...we'll need to apply a tax to help fund this public safety measure! Unregistered firearms will criminalize their owners and uncontrolled tax rates will make ownership too onerous to maintain. Red Flag laws will be constantly re-defined by the bureaucratical winds and any form of hate speech will be applied, maybe even a tax lien, you-name the offensive nature, likely even retroactively, thereby making the gun-owner a target for firearm removal...all for public safety and to help our law enforcement community.

Oh, crime continues despite draconian measures. We have to remove firearms from the homes of gunowners because of some massive database leak that now jeopardizes the addresses of all gun owners. Oh shucks, time to push for a Safety and Storage Law that will force every registered gun owner to pay a storage fee at government-authorized gun clubs; all at the expense of the gun-owners. Now, Socialism Utopia is a single step away by declaring an emergency at any advantageous crisis and federalize all the gun clubs to control and cease all access to private citizens...all for public safety. The path to utopia! We'll make Venezuela look like a vacation!

ROCK6

I don't know if that's how they plan to do it, but the more malice you impute to the other side, the more accurate your forecast is likely to be.

Anybody who believes they have benign motives would probably fall for a Nigerian "404" scam... the SAME one... ten times in a row.

 

[Deanimator]

Dan Crenshaw gets it. This isnt about “guns”. This is about infringement of individual liberty.

Why are we okay with this? Just because we think it will get “us” something in return? Individual liberty of others isn’t something we are supposed to be able to bargain away like its on Craigslist.

https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/201...yrdwZB0kB49LYTBupev0pCPNP9m_-F5CuZz6lSHpr8pl8

It's an infringement of liberty that'll get us EXACTLY nothing. Anything else is delusion.

 

[Tommygunn]

It is not a state's right issue when a state violates a fundamental human right. As has been said so repeatedly, gun rights may not be the most important issue for some gun folks given a candidate being a strong opponent of equally important personal liberty issues and/or being a morally bankrupt person except for blathering about and/or waving a gun. Quite a few examples out there.

It s easy for folks to say that gun rights are the only issue when they are correlated with their other beliefs.

BTW, if you posted here, a government can have you identified. Hiding your mags in the basement is laughable if it came to that.

How are they going to possibly know if you have magazines, or what kind if you do if you actually have them? Guns, yea, ok....but then, "if it came to that," the govt. would probably just assume everyone here had those anyway.
Worrying about magazines is silly.

Worry about the guns and the govt. attitude toward the owners ......

 

[Deanimator]

The point I have been trying to make is that with the current balance of power, we stand to minimize it's impact and possibly get one or two of the things we've been wanting attached to this. If we stonewall it, they'll ram it through hard when the dems have majority control again, and at that time it'll be far worse with absolutely zero positives for gun owners.

You're not going to minimize anything. You're greasing the skids for far worse. You're not going to get anything from the other side but a kick in the crotch. It's ALL they have to offer.

Of course what you neglect to mention is what goings to happen if they DO get majority control. They can just replace any joke "deal" you think you're going to get, and you made it EASY for them. Then you'll move on to the next "deal", and the next until we're Britain... or worse.

 

[Deanimator]

Wouldn't it be nice, though, if instead of a patchwork of reciprocity that changes somewhat frequently, you knew your state permit was valid in the other 49 states?

Wouldn't it be nice if the government were giving out free American Eagle Lugers?

You're not getting reciprocity. You're not getting ANYTHING to do with concealed carry. They're UNALTERABLY opposed to anybody but them and their mercenaries carrying. You're more likely to get a liquor license in Mecca.

 

[Deanimator]

And, regarding the theoretical goodies we get in exchange for bartering away someone else’s liberty, how will we ensure government can’t undo what “gains” we get?

We CAN'T. But then we already knew that, didn't we?

 

[Deanimator]

All of this is based on the premise that the other side can in ANY way be trusted, before, during or after any sham "deal".

When you make "deals" with sociopaths and totalitarians, you get what you deserve.

"Peace in our time" usually has a VERY quick expiration date.

 

[danez71]

Why is my Kansas drivers license recognized in all other 49 States?

It is because all 50 States have agreed to the same driving laws.

Driving laws are no where near being universal from state to state.

Even the training requirments to get a license are different from state to state.

 

[Jim Watson]

Yes, but once you have one, you can drive anywhere in the country.
Of course the main use of a driver's license is as an internal passport.

 

[Walkalong]

Let's remember that the "nightmare scenarios" outlined in this thread can come to pass only if there is general public support for them.

Enough politicians to vote those measures in only takes a small % of voters. Too many people stay at home. All they need is enough impassioned voters whipped into a frenzy to get out and vote, even if the "general public" doesn't support them. Not to mention how voting actually works, popular vs electoral vote. Most Germans did not support what Hitler and his chronies did. They got into power on false promises and lies.

 

[danez71]

Yes, but once you have one, you can drive anywhere in the country

Right. But thats not because its a Fed issued drivers license... it's 50 state reciprocity.

The same is plausible with a 50 state reciprocity CCW.... but not likely in reality.

(not saying that you think differently... I havent gone back to read your posts)

 

[AlexanderA]

Nothing major will be passed regarding guns (or health care, or climate change), no matter what happens in the 2020 election, because of the Senate filibuster. People on the left are already wringing their hands about this. Yet every Democratic candidate for president (except Gov. Inslee of Washington, who stands zero chance) is either against changing the filibuster rule, or is noncommittal. Even the most radical of them, Bernie Sanders, is against changing the filibuster. The crowing about guns is all posturing, positioning, and pandering for votes. State-level antigun laws are a bigger threat.

 

[GEM]

The state threat is the biggest one - quite correct on that, unless there is a Senatorial blow out.

The only remedy to the state threats would be a clear and decisive SCOTUS decision. Don't hold your breath on that. The bloviating on Kavanaugh being the savior is just that - bloviating. The empirical test will be the upcoming NYC case. I predict it will not be a smashing defeat for the antigun folks. It may give city dwellers limited relief on travel to restricted locations but the draconian NY laws will stand with some Heller like blather about reasonable ...

I've said this before and you can go all hair on fire and screaming but in this thread, if I take the position of someone who is neutral or opposed to gun ownership, I haven't seen one argument that is compelling against a UBC extension of NICS to private sales that explicitly says no registry is intended.

Saying it would inconvenient - that's an argument? Tough. Saying, it won't work without a registry - well, thanks for the suggestion! Duh.

Typing in capital letters about socialists want to control us isn't going to do squat. Nor will local rural sheriffs saying that they won't comply, keep the laws off the books.

Empirically, can you make the case that gun sales and/or ownership have dropped in states with such system? Can you make the case that civilian DGUs have diminished or been impeded? That's the kind of argument one should research.

Otherwise, most of this thread is venting. Which is too bad because the end state of the antigun folks is clearly to reduce gun ownership to some limited sports usages.