Whats wrong with extended background checks?

[Potatohead]

Easy now..im a conservative guy..nra member..not a fan of much that the left has to offer..dont believe in global warming..dont want anyone messing w my magazine capacity...dont believe banning "assault" rifles would help anything..but educate me here, whats so bad about extended background checks IF it revealed a mental problem or anger issue or such? i am pretty sure that this still wouldnt weed out any of the Columbiners though, but educate me like you would if i were an anti gunner, on what is wrong with extended background checks.. is it that we are placing to much decision making on the govt about who can do what?..or the fact that big brother seldom knows his limits and keeps on wanting more? just help me out here, the wife was asking me about it and i really couldnt come up with much more than that

 

[ngnrd]

Please define what you are calling extended background checks.

 

[Chevelle SS]

Because background checks could/will lead to registration, which leads to confiscations. Background checks aren't any good if they don't know who owns what.

 

[OilyPablo]

Main reason: We already have background checks. This last bill had a bunch of baggage.

 

[gripper]

I disapprove of background checks to exercise human and civil rights. Period.
If one is too " dangerous" to have full access to ones natural rights, then one should not be out here with us actual free people.
I don't care if decades of statutory and case law have to fall by the wayside ( where it belongs IMHO) and even less for the fate of administrative reg/ executive orders.
Screw any political legacy save that if freedom- and screw those who say otherwise. IRS all smoke and mirrors to distract us from the statist objective- total control over the individual by the collective as personified by the elitist scum who WANT to be in charge.
Rant over, flame away.

 

[Fremmer]

You bet, a new background scheme to register your guns. And then you know what happens? Guess what, they've got a list, time to turn them in.

And none of it would have prevented newtown or most of the murders in Chicago, which has the most stringent gun control laws in the Country.

But they sure do want that list, don't they?

 

[MDW GUNS]

...Because background checks could/will lead to registration,...

Every check with the NIC is saved.
While the ATF does not know directly what the person bought (Handgun, Rifle or Shotgun) they know that s/he did.
Once they get the 4473 they know even what.

Background checks are also only as good as what they are checking for.
The common criminal is unlikely to run into a school and does things like in CT.
Before we ask for more background checks, we should make the government include real info on metal health troubled people.
On the other side, only because someone had a bad moment in his life, does not mean s/he is doing such a thing.
The only way to stop a problem at the door or a school is a well trained and armed person who will protect his school.
This can be a veteran, retired and/or active LEO or military or simply a parent who qualified with a firearm and is IN THE SCHOOL TO PROTECT IT.

 

[Potatohead]

good points.. how do you really "extend" a background ck anyway ,now that i think about it? R they gonna talk to my kindergarten teachers? i can hear it now , "yea he used to eat more play-doh than anyone, but boy could he hopscotch"

 

[Derek Zeanah]

whats so bad about extended background checks IF it revealed a mental problem or anger issue or such?

This is really disorganized, so here are a few responses off the top of my head:

• There is simply no way to reliably identify a person as "safe." Sometimes people go through issues (trauma, loss, sudden onset of mental illness, brain tumors, etc) that are temporary. If you ID someone as someone that shouldn't be allowed to own a gun at (say) 14 years old, that doesn't mean that the same person, once those issues are ironed out, isn't fit to be able to defend his family when he's 40. But no medical professional is going to step up and say 'Bob Smith is no longer a threat,' because there's no way to tell. This is especially if you might lose your medical license for being wrong. Remember the airport threat color ratings in airports? They never lowered them, because it would be somebody's ass if there was a terrorist incident after the threat level was lowered. Same thing.
• Right now people who need help can get help, and they're protected from having their medical information shared. If you lost you wife, let's say, and were having some issues dealing with it, would you go to get counseling if as as result the state would probably seize your firearms and prohibit you from owning them in the future? NYPD may be doing something comparable right now: if you're on an anti-depressant or have been in the past, you're no longer fit to own a firearm.
• Rape often causes PTSD. Most of the proposals we've seen for the "enhanced" background checks use PTSD as a flag. If you were raped and wanted to be able to defend yourself, would you seek medical treatment if you knew it meant you'd likely be disarmed? Is this something we want to prohibit?
• How about combat vets who come back and have issues. How many will seek help if it means a lifelong prohibition on 2nd amendment rights?
• To make this happen all doctors will need to make the medical records of all their patients available to the department of justice. Do we want this?

Then, at the end of the day we come across this fact: criminals get around laws. Remember that 26 year old that decided to bomb the marathon this week? Remember those 200 rounds he supposedly fired in a rolling gunfight?

Well, he was prohibited from firearm possession because of domestic violence issues in the past. Didn't do much good, did it?

The other issue we're looking at is this: right now transfers among individuals that live in the same state are mostly legal. The "universal background check" proposals would do things like make your roommate (and you) a felon if you leave town for a week and leave a firearm behind. Seriously -- there was some bad juju there.

 

[22-rimfire]

I didn't care much for the requirement for reporting a gun stolen within 24 hrs... I believe to the FBI and punishable. Honestly, if someone I know (aka has access to my home) took a couple guns from me, it might be 6 months before I would notice anything missing and might not even then. That requirement was a "harmless baby step" toward registration and taking the ... I lost it defense away from the individual.

If they want my support, they need to carefully craft legislation that increases the mental health aspect of the present NICs check. But I frankly don't think they know how to do that. So, lets just penialize everyone and let's add a sin tax on guns and ammunition to boot.

 

[joeschmoe]

We never gave Congress the power to regulate private individuals. The same document that empowers our government also limits them.

 

[OilyPablo]

We never gave Congress the power to regulate private individuals. The same document that empowers our government also limits them.

Quick, tell them that.

 

[ingloriousbastage]

I didn't care much for the requirement for reporting a gun stolen within 24 hrs

what's interesting is that you're already supposed to report a firearm stolen. But now they want to make the poor sucker that got his gun stolen, a felon if he doesn't report it. A nice slap in the face for having your gun stolen.

 

[RiverPerson]

When a UBC doesn't stop mass shootings, they'll want something else. When that doesn't work, something else, and so on.

Look at where our gun rights are now, compared to what they were in the past before the GCA and NFA.

The founding fathers settled the RKBA issue pretty well, if you ask me. These idiots don't seem to get that.

 

[jj1962hemi]

Most of my liberal anti-gun friends cannot even fathom the concept that an armed citizenry could serve as a bulwark against totalitarianism. They also think it's not possible in the USA. Those two notions make it impossible to reach common ground with them. The most common approach from many of my friends lately, which is sensible if you have such faith in the government/human nature is: "You register your car, and are held responsible for what happens with it. Why not each gun? That would keep people from selling them or not reporting thefts." When I respond that I can never buy that encroachment, that there are probably hundreds or thousands of Polish relatives I'll never be able to meet because of a fascist dictator's control......They tell me to freshen the tinfoil in my Browning cap and stay out of politics. The divide is very clear and the education about issues like these is very one-sided.

 

[saltydog452]

Mostly, efforts to circumvent the Bill Of Rights, ( that issue was straingtened out about 1950 or so) .the governemental mandate, approval, and being blessed by the current powers in charge.

salty.

 

[ngnrd]

Quick, tell them that.

The Supreme Court understands it. In writing the majority decision for the Heller decision, Justice Scalia specifically noted that the government regulation of 'commercial sale of arms' was presumptively lawful. The inclusion of the word 'commercial' in that statement clearly indicates that the Court recognizes the difference between commercial and non-commercial transactions. The corollary of which is, government regulation of non-commercial (private) sales does not carry that same presumption of being lawful. i.e., the feds have no business regulating private transactions of lawfully possessed goods.

EDIT: had previously omitted an important phrase, which I added and underlined above

 

[kwguy]

We already have background checks. They need to fix what's broken before they come up with other nonsense that doesn't even fix anything. Just by taking what's on the news, listen to the goofiness of this 'logic':

"The senate voted down 'expanded background checks' this week. Those 'crazy' NRA folks don't even want reasonable check that '90%' of the American public believe in. Those checks would have closed the 'gunshow loophole' and kept weapons out of the hands of convicted felons and the mentally ill. It also would have exempted private sales, blah blah..."

This is the drivel the media has been spinning all week. Only problem is this: The current laws already do this, so what the heck are they doing? Wasting time on onerous, nonsense legislation. Fix what we already have. Prosecute those that need prosecuting. And don't pass laws that we already have, because you know what? It will be something else that passes, but we won't know what it is until AFTER we passed it.

 

[SabbathWolf]

What Derek said....

 

[mljdeckard]

Fundamentally at issue is the idea of having to check with the government before we are allowed to exercise a right. This would render it a privilege.

Secondly, no matter what law is passedNOW to protect us from the information being compiled as a registry, there is absolutely nothing preventing a future congress from chasnging the law. Eventually, one way or another, it will lead to registration.

Thirdly, it is entirely ineffective. Canada just abandoned their registration system due to massive non-compliance. New York just de-funder theirs for lack of cost-effectiveness. It's really simple. If a criminal knows a gun can be traced back to him, HE WILL USE A DIFFERENT GUN.

 

[OilyPablo]

I forgot: They pretty much don't work.

 

[browningguy]

It's not really background checks that bother me as the way they will want to do it. What they don't tell you is how they will implement it, that's because it will require you to go through a licensed dealer for all firearm transactions.

If they made it simple so that as a gun seller I could call in to NICS for an instant check I wouldn't mind using it, I don't want to sell to a convict if I can help it.

And no, I don't believe in the touchy feely if they have done their time everything should be ok. Recidivism rates are horrible for all types of criminals.

 

[Potatohead]

i feel much more edumacated...good point Derek, and everyone else to..

 

[SpentCasing]

Heres my problem:

Say, I get pulled over with a trunk full of rifles. The cop runs the serials to make sure they arent stolen. Okay, fine. Now he needs to make sure I didnt use the "gun show loophole" to purchase them according to the new law.

How would he/she check that they were all purchased through a FFL? How would this law be enforced?

There's only one way. REGISTRATION.

Im against UBCs because the only way for it to possibly be enforced has to be through registration. Plain and simple.

Hope this helps to understand where we are coming from. RKBA is a birthright NOT a privilege.

 

[Potatohead]

I'm new to being up close and personal to all this gun business and you all have shed a lot of light.. and all of these comments are very well made by very very rational sounding folks who make a lot of sense..its to bad that makes people unelectable for some reason