Universal Background Check = Universal Registration.

[Deanimator]

No, I did not miss the point. What I said, and still say, is that in Illinois we have the closest thing to that. You, legally, cannot sell to another individual without submitting their FOID number and birthdate to the Illinois State Police (which therefore makes a record of a transaction), get a transaction number (which you have to keep), and wait (supposed to) the required waiting period. If that isn't universal, what with checks being required at gun shows and for dealer purchase, what is? Let's not be contentious. I read the article and understand that their goal is that everyone should have to go through a dealer but we are as close to their goal as anyone out there. Do I like it? NO. Do I follow it? Yes. Too much invested in the collection to risk a big hit for a minor infraction.

They want to ban face to face sales. What Illinois does is irrelevant to that.

 

[CoalTrain49]

By repeating the line that "UBC's are ineffective without registration," we preclude ourselves from designing a UBC system without registration. Who says that UBC's have to be100% effective, anyway? An airtight system is impossible, as we all know. The theory behind UBC's is to make casual misuse a little more inconvenient, not to deter hardened criminals.

UBC's are window dressing for the soccer moms, with or without registration. I don't care what it is, it's totally unenforceable. Even in states with UBC's, they're probably being widely ignored. In reality it's all voluntary. Why not set up a frankly voluntary system, like the one we have here in Virginia? In Virginia, the State Police are required to set up a booth at every gun show, where private sellers can get background checks of their buyers. Hardly anyone uses this facility, but that's beside the point. We can say that we have background checks available.

I'll buy this. I live in a state with a UBC. For the most part it's ignored by people who transfer and by the police. It's an unfunded mandate and the police just don't have the resources to enforce it. Occasionally they find a firearm that wasn't transferred thru a dealer but that's usually connected to a homicide. Lots of guns were sold in this state without an FFL transfer prior to the law 2 years ago. One of the big problems with UBC's is the fact that I can put a rifle in a box, take it to the post office, mail it to an FFL out of state and there is no record of that transfer in this state. If the state where I shipped it isn't a POC state there isn't a record there either except with the FFL. There is no requirement in this state for me to disclose who I sold that rifle to or even keep a record of the sale. All they know is I sold it legally which I did. The firearm may no longer be in my possession but that doesn't mean anything other than it was sold and a BC was run on the purchaser. But where did that happen?

There are lots of problems with laws requiring a UBC. The best solution is a system where a person can sell to an individual and know they aren't prohibited without a fee. Most people I know would do that. As it sets right now here, the dealers are getting rich and lots of people are end running the UBC because of the dealer fees and lack of enforcement.

For a UBC to work there can't be a fee associated with it. That would require resources (money) for local LE to do that, or require dealers to do it without a fee. Some dealers will tell you the BC is free then turn around and charge you $50. That doesn't sound like free to me. ATF would have to make it clear to dealers that they can't charge for the service with penalty of loosing their license. Just because the fed doesn't charge the dealer doesn't make it a free service for the transfer.

It's just like garbage. If you have to pay someone $50 to dump it somebody will find a vacant lot or back road and dump it. No charge.

 

[ATLDave]

One other thing to keep in mind in the public discourse is that most people think it is common for the police to know exactly what type of gun was used to commit a murder/shooting and be trying to track it down. IOW, they think there is a ballistic fingerprint data base that not only exists, but is highly effective. They think being able to "trace guns" is important to solving crimes and finding currently-dangerous criminals.

This is, of course, a total fantasy created and maintained by hollywood. But most non-gun people believe it to be true.

 

[Telekinesis]

For a UBC to work there can't be a fee associated with it. That would require resources (money) for local LE to do that, or require dealers to do it without a fee. Some dealers will tell you the BC is free then turn around and charge you $50. That doesn't sound like free to me.

I agree with you in general about the fee, but remember that there IS a cost for the FFL to handle the transfer. While calling in the information may be free, the FFL is responsible for keeping the paperwork for the next 20 years. And it must be available for inspection or to help with a weapons trace, so it can't just be thrown in a storage unit somewhere, it has to be relatively easy to find a specific form by either name of buyer, date, serial number, or any other identification that the ATF may use to request information.

If we look at a FFL that does say 25 transfers a day (I'm not sure what a reasonable number is, but I would bet that is somewhat reasonable for a large shop taking into account both busy and slow days) you're looking at something like 180,000 forms that need to be filed and easily retrievable. There's a cost to making that happen (floor space, filing cabinets, creating a system to track everything, etc...).

Is $50 or $25 the right number? I don't know, but handling a transfer isn't free for the dealer.

 

[AlexanderA]

Unless every single gun you've ever bought was done face to face with no 4473 involved you are already in the system. They may not know exactly WHICH guns you own, but someone in an alphabet agency knows you are a gun owner. I don't see a huge difference.

There are two aspects to this: checking the buyers, and checking the guns. The authorities know that I'm a gun owner (because of NFA registrations, for one thing), but they don't know exactly what guns I have (other than NFA items). Forms 4473 can be destroyed by dealers after 20 years, and even before 20 years, the records of out-of-business dealers are sent to the ATF, where they disappear into the great government warehouse (such as the one shown in The Raiders of the Lost Ark). These records are apparently not digitized, and thus are not easily retrievable. The whole Form 4473 system is designed to trace guns as a "chain" -- from the manufacturer, to the wholesaler, to the dealer, and then to the first buyer. After the first retail buyer, once the chain of custody is broken, they can be very hard to trace.

 

[AlexanderA]

That the UBC is intended to create, in and of itself, a total and leak-proof registry is very obvious because of the obvious alternative that is not offered: Allowing private transactions to proceed based upon showing evidence (such as a CCW permit) of legality on the part of the purchaser/transferee without going through an FFL. We have a fairly active private sales market here in Georgia, and most sellers ask to see a CCW (even though it is not currently required) as proof that they are not transferring to a prohibited person. Just enshrine that practice in law and you have universal background checks (as the CCW functions as a check) without creating a de facto registry.

Exactly. That's the approach that we should take, rather than blindly opposing every UBC proposal on the ground that it might create a registration system. Such alternatives are obviously not being proposed by the antigunners. It is up to us to negotiate a benign UBC system, thereby undercutting the antis. Remember the byword of the conservative Italian nobleman in the novel The Leopard: "things must change so that things can stay the same."

 

[ATLDave]

Alex', I tend to agree, but you also have to remember that the anti-gunners take the efficacy of gun control as a matter of religious faith. If they try measure 1 and crime rates fall by X%, then they conclude that measure 2 will bring crime rates to .5x%. Conversely, if they get measure 1 passed and crime rates stay static, they will conclude that measure 2 is necessary because measure 1 obviously didn't go far enough.

The strategic question is whether it is better to hold the anti-gunners up at measure 1 for as long as possible (ideally forever), or whether it is better to create/give measure 1 and thereby deprive the committed anti-gunners of spill-over support for measure 2.

These days, with the ability of the internet and social media to propagate ideas/whip up outrage, and with the polarization of big swaths of both parties' electorate, I'm not sure the second strategy works as well as it might have in the past. But I'm not sure the first strategy is going to work for much longer at all.

 

[AlexanderA]

A "universal background check" system WITHOUT registration is as meaningless as a speed limit without traffic cops and speed guns. It's literally IMPOSSIBLE to enforce.

It's meaningful because it would mollify the soccer moms. We can't overlook the political dimension to this. A quasi-voluntary UBC system wouldn't be 100% effective (actually no system would be 100% effective), but it would undercut the support the antis need to pass what they want. We need to frame this as a civil liberties issue, playing on public skepticism of government snooping and overreaching.

 

[Deanimator]

It's meaningful because it would mollify the soccer moms.

...until it doesn't "work" and those pushing racially invidious gun controls move onto registration. Then they'll get the low information voters riled up about how the government doesn't know where EVERY gun is. Then after registration, they'll get them riled up that the "wrong" people have guns. Then...

The other side [from those opposed to authoritarian gun controls, anyway] isn't EVER going to be satisfied with ANYTHING save total disarmament of everyone but them and those whom they employ as paid bodyguards.

Offering a saltwater crocodile your leg so he won't take your arm is sub-optimal strategy... unless your plan all along was to give him BOTH... and everything in between.

 

[Deanimator]

One other thing to keep in mind in the public discourse is that most people think it is common for the police to know exactly what type of gun was used to commit a murder/shooting and be trying to track it down. IOW, they think there is a ballistic fingerprint data base that not only exists, but is highly effective. They think being able to "trace guns" is important to solving crimes and finding currently-dangerous criminals.

This is, of course, a total fantasy created and maintained by hollywood. But most non-gun people believe it to be true.

It's amazing the GARBAGE people learn from watching TV.

At Christmas dinner once, my relatives asked me:

1. if my guns were "registered".
2. whether Cleveland was so dangerous, I needed to carry a gun.

They bought into the "Law & Order" fantasies that:

1. registration is universal. - The only guns I can "register" in Ohio come under the NFA.
2. the police have a legal duty (never mind the ability) to protect you as an individual. - Want to get "protected" by the police? Get ARRESTED. They have a duty to protect you while in custody, and not in many other situations. Ask the kids at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School if you don't believe me. Amusingly, these are the same people who will believe pretty much ANYTHING Black Lives Matter tells them about the police.

Needless to say, getting your knowledge about guns, self-defense and law enforcement from TV dramas is the equivalent of deriving all of your knowledge of astronautics and planetary science from "Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars".

 

[ATLDave]

Yep. I'm always amazed that people feel like they are well-situated to have strongly held opinions on matters they know very little about. There's a very strange dynamic right now where granular discussion of actual facts regarding crime statistics, how guns operate, existing gun laws, etc., is regarded as being beside the point. What matters is the feeling of wanting to do "something."

More leeches for the patient, please!

 

[Texas10mm]

The Left gets UBC, of course they know it doesn't/won't work.

They then get Universal Registration because that will make UBC work. Of course they know that that many people will just ignore the universal registration.

Next they decide that every gun owner, past and present, needs to be visited by the Universal Registration Compliance Squads in order to make sure all your guns are registered. Of course knowing that you might have guns they are going to visit you unannounced at 0 dark thirty. The URCS blows your door off the hinges, shoots your dog and you if you resist, and proceeds to ransack your domicile while looking for unregistered firearms. They find a single .38 SPL casing in your house and since you only have a .357 revolver registered to you, you are now prosecuted for having and hiding an unregistered gun, the proof being that single .38 SPL case.

 

[Old Dog]

It's meaningful because it would mollify the soccer moms. We can't overlook the political dimension to this.

Sigh. Why do we have to mollify any one group? Especially a group whose only response to any single issue is based on emotions, not reason.

Ain't no such thing as affirmative action when it comes to conceding rights.

We need to frame this as a civil liberties issue, playing on public skepticism of government snooping and overreaching.

I do agree with this aspect, and I've said that before many times on this very forum.

However, it's abundantly clear (based on our culture's addiction to cell phones and social media alone) that citizens who are actually concerned about their right to privacy or even understand the 4th Amendment are a very, very small minority in this country these days.

 

[AlexanderA]

The other side [from those opposed to authoritarian gun controls, anyway] isn't EVER going to be satisfied with ANYTHING save total disarmament of everyone but them and those whom they employ as paid bodyguards.

You have to look at the "human geography" of the antigun movement. Yes, there is a hard core of dyed-in-the-wool gun-banners who will never be satisfied with anything less than a wholly gun-free America. But this hard core, although noisy, is few in numbers. (Much fewer, I might add, than the hard core of gun-rights supporters.) The vast majority of antigunners are emotional do-gooders who are motivated by feelings rather than facts. In other words, their support is a mile wide and an inch deep. It's a great mistake to attribute motives of a disarmament conspiracy to these people. They just haven't thought the issue through to that level. To some extent they are persuadable if presented with a barrage of facts. What we don't want to do is alienate them completely by calling them "liberals," etc.

 

[Old Dog]

You have to look at the "human geography" of the antigun movement. Yes, there is a hard core of dyed-in-the-wool gun-banners who will never be satisfied with anything less than a wholly gun-free America. But this hard core, although noisy, is few in numbers. (Much fewer, I might add, than the hard core of gun-rights supporters.) The vast majority of antigunners are emotional do-gooders who are motivated by feelings rather than facts. In other words, their support is a mile wide and an inch deep. It's a great mistake to attribute motives of a disarmament conspiracy to these people. They just haven't thought the issue through to that level. To some extent they are persuadable if presented with a barrage of facts. What we don't want to do is alienate them completely by calling them "liberals," etc.

Yet the other side has no such qualms about alienating Republicans, folks that reside in rural areas, Christians, people who don't believe in same-sex marriage or legalized drugs, but most especially gun-owners. Anyone ever read the comments under news stories on the MSM websites? Gun-owners are the retarded spawn of the devil.

Why should we have to swallow their crap, and try to "mollify" their sub-groups?

At least Trump gets it: zero reason for him to play nice when the other side consistently holds him up for ridicule, no matter how low the unemployment rate, price of gas or how well the economy is doing.

 

[Deanimator]

You have to look at the "human geography" of the antigun movement.

I have... for FIFTY years.

Yes, there is a hard core of dyed-in-the-wool gun-banners who will never be satisfied with anything less than a wholly gun-free America.

And they are 100% in control of the anti-gun cult. Without them, there is no movement. Nothing is going to satisfy THEM. Hence nothing is going to satisfy the "MOVEMENT".

Pandering to the supporters of racially invidious gun controls accomplishes NOTHING save to whet their appetite for further concessions. The other side has NOTHING to offer, ONLY escalating demands.

 

[Deanimator]

Yep. I'm always amazed that people feel like they are well-situated to have strongly held opinions on matters they know very little about. There's a very strange dynamic right now where granular discussion of actual facts regarding crime statistics, how guns operate, existing gun laws, etc., is regarded as being beside the point. What matters is the feeling of wanting to do "something."

More leeches for the patient, please!

An anti-gun Brit I used to abuse in usenet used to call it "train spotting", ie. relying on detailed facts. These people are not only utterly immune to facts and reason, they have an incandescent HATRED for them.

 

[George P]

A saying I saw (and can't remember where or by whom);
Want to make a Republican mad? Lie to him.
Want to make a Democrat mad? Tell him the truth.

 

[Odd Job]

We are veering into the grass, folks.
Let's take it back to the discussion of whether a UBC can work without registration or not.

 

[exbrit49]

I have been hearing this since 1968,. not going to worry about it. I will take action when needed. I havet too many other things to do Like reloading,,Hunting range shoot twice a week and all my other hobbies!

 

[boom boom]

Without enforcement, no law can work. The Feds are doing an incredibly poor job of enforcing current background check laws, let alone new ones. Many of the most recent horrific incidents of mass shootings involve people who would pass the background check as written--Orlando nightclub murderer, California terrorist murder couple who used a straw buyer, Las Vegas mass murderer, Ft. Hood murderer, Sandy Hook murderer (mom had the firearms), Ark. School shooters (seized relative's guns), Texas church murderer, VA Tech murderer, Miami school murderer, and so on. For those planning mass mayhem, most are not in the system and thus will pass any background check proposed so far.

UBC's might have an slight effect on domestic violence cases where crimes of passion exist. However, the substitution effect normally applies here where other means of mayhem may be chosen instead. Gangs use straw buyers, often family members, girlfriends, or even gang members that purposefully stay "clean" in order to forward gang business. Little to no effect then on gang violence using guns from UBC's. Criminals already have their own system for firearm purchases developed and currently straw buyers are already unlawful but that is rarely, if ever enforced by the feds (I suppose states might have similar laws but have not come across any data about convictions or even arrests for this).

Mentally ill individuals that have not been held involuntarily or have a disqualifying conviction would also probably not be affected by UBC's as these individuals would not be buying guns off of the streets. Any UBC probably will have a negligible affect on crime rates other than making non-criminals into criminals just like Prohibition (WA's poorly drafted law and NV was also a poor one that was eviscerated by the courts for that reason are examples).

The major purposes for the UBC movement is to criminalize private sales, create paper trails of purchasers, increase cost and inconvenience of firearm ownership with an eye to making it more difficult to buy, provide virtue signalling opportunities for the "good" folks to triumph over the "bad" folks, and increase the isolation of the firearm community. It will fail to do much of anything regarding actual firearm crime without actual enforcement against mostly the same folks that would give such laws support.

 

[Kaybee]

Of course UBC can work without registration. Everyone just needs to get their expectations right. NO form of bgc in will "work" in the sense of being 100% effective in keeping criminals from guns. Can it slightly cut down on the availability to criminals. Sure. But I don't think you need registration to go along with it.

--

Registration in itself is very dangerous, because it can lead to confiscation. Lets not beat around the bush, it already has been used for that, even recently. I fear that the background checks are intentionally being used to obtain registration by well funded anti-gun strategists.

Since no form of bgc is going to be 100% effective in keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, whatever benefit could be had for registration in reducing crime is not worth the risk to our freedom. Even without UBC most guns used in crimes are not legally obtained, so the registration itself has very limited use for law enforcement for anything except confiscating guns.

The way I see "it" (ubc without registration) working would be like this.. you go in. you get your background check and you can or can not purchase a firearm then from the dealer without a record. You want to sell your gun, gun dealers and police stations should all be required to offer bg checks for people wishing to complete a transaction. I think a small reasonable fee would be acceptable. NO record of sale should be recorded.

Would that "stop" criminals from illegally selling their guns without a bg check? nope. But it would give gun owners, the vast majority who are law abiding citizens & who would not want to sell their gun to a criminal, a safe way to sell their firearm instead of a parking lot and also some assurance that they are putting the gun in good hands. Doing so would help dry up the market a little for criminals, they'd have to solely rely on other criminals which would drive up the price a little for illegal guns. (thats the most we can hope for bg checks in any form to achieve)

Yes there is currently paperwork that give the government lists of your firearms. I personally would like to see 2a rights groups fighting to remove the registrations that are currently in place. I think police tracking of guns should end at the retailer. I have no problem tracking firearms from the manufacturer to the retailer. Point of sale should be where it ends. If it ended there with a BGC I would be ok with it.

 

[kcofohio]

The Left gets UBC, of course they know it doesn't/won't work.

They then get Universal Registration because that will make UBC work. Of course they know that that many people will just ignore the universal registration.

Next they decide that every gun owner, past and present, needs to be visited by the Universal Registration Compliance Squads in order to make sure all your guns are registered. Of course knowing that you might have guns they are going to visit you unannounced at 0 dark thirty. The URCS blows your door off the hinges, shoots your dog and you if you resist, and proceeds to ransack your domicile while looking for unregistered firearms. They find a single .38 SPL casing in your house and since you only have a .357 revolver registered to you, you are now prosecuted for having and hiding an unregistered gun, the proof being that single .38 SPL case.

I don't believe they are that stupid to try that with tens of millions of gun owners. They may get away with doing it 10, 20, 100 times, but word gets out and they know they will start meeting resistance. It would fuel a fire that may not be quenched that easily. Law enforcement manpower has enough of a time keeping up with daily task. Of course this is just my belief.

 

[CoalTrain49]

I agree with you in general about the fee, but remember that there IS a cost for the FFL to handle the transfer. While calling in the information may be free, the FFL is responsible for keeping the paperwork for the next 20 years. And it must be available for inspection or to help with a weapons trace, so it can't just be thrown in a storage unit somewhere, it has to be relatively easy to find a specific form by either name of buyer, date, serial number, or any other identification that the ATF may use to request information.

If we look at a FFL that does say 25 transfers a day (I'm not sure what a reasonable number is, but I would bet that is somewhat reasonable for a large shop taking into account both busy and slow days) you're looking at something like 180,000 forms that need to be filed and easily retrievable. There's a cost to making that happen (floor space, filing cabinets, creating a system to track everything, etc...).

Is $50 or $25 the right number? I don't know, but handling a transfer isn't free for the dealer.

Roger that. Unfortunately that's the problem with a UBC. The NICS system wasn't set up to handle private transfers after firearms have passed from a dealer into the wild. Private sales aren't even mentioned in Brady so dealers should have no part in private transfers. Unfortunately they are the only ones, other than LE, that can run a BC. The reason I have to pay for a BC is to take the burden off of the state to pay for it. I say if the fed or the state is going to pass a UBC they better have a means to pay for it. If they don't it will be just like the UBC we have here, unfunded and unenforced. I should be able to walk into any police/sheriffs office and transfer a firearm to an individual without charge. Until that happens people are going to continue to skirt a UBC law and LE isn't going to enforce it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bad mouthing dealers. It wouldn't be fair to have them absorb the cost. What would be fair would be to have the state or fed reimburse them for every transfer of a used firearm so no cost is passed onto the parties doing the transfer.

 

[Good Ol' Boy]

I've never really understood the folks on the pro2A side who fret over a "UBC".

Is there any state in the country in which one can buy a gun from a dealer in which a 4473 is not part of the process?

I feel fairly certain the answer to that question is no. So we basically already have nationwide BC's for the purchase of firearms.

FTF sales will never be able to be regulated, regardless of who wants what or what laws are enacted. So to me that's not really even a basis for any argument one way or the other. They will continue to happen period.

As far as registration we basically already are, if you've been through a dealer. As has been mentioned the records are kept by the dealer and can be checked out at any time. Not as easy as a few key strokes but still available the same.


So to sum up...

Everyone is already doing BC's.

FTF is a non issue as there is no way to regulate or enforce.

We are basically already registered.



So what's all the fuss about?