Six Reasons Why The Gun Rights Community Should Pass Expanded Background Checks

Before you think I have gone nuts or switched sides. PLEASE READ THIS WHOLE POST!  I have not changed sides, gone soft, or otherwise sold out.  I propose this action because I believe it is the best thing we can do for gun rights, both long and short term.  I list the reasons below, in Letterman fashion, from least to most important.

6) Like it or not, background checks are very popular

Never mind the fact that at best, their effect is extremely limited.  Never mind that criminals are not arrested when they try to slip though.  Never mind that illegal transfers will still take place on the black market.  In spite of this and other reasons to question their effectiveness, the public simply thinks that no one should be able to by a firearm without a background check.  Like it or not, this is the reality.

Sooner or later, background checks will be expanded to private transfers.  It is therefore a good idea for us to do it, rather than allow the gun grabbers to control the process.

5) We immediately look reasonable and credible in the eyes of the public.

By finding a way to pass background check expansion, we would gain a massive amount of support from people outside the movement. This will go along way towards passing other reforms we want.

4) We can include severe penalties for the misuse of any data

What kind of penalties?  I think a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison for the use of any NICS or 4473 data to create a registry of guns or gun owners - or for any other purpose not authorized by law (Specifically allowed: The tracing of crime guns).

Another provision that would insure such crimes are investigated and prosecuted: Any state attorney general could appoint persons to investigate and prosecute violations of this provision of the law.  This would go along way to preventing a future anti-gun administration from attempting to create a registry.

3) We can control exactly when they are required and how they are done.

a) When they are required

First, we would require all gun owners to insure that they do not transfer a firearm to a prohibited person.  Only such transfers would be criminalized.  Transferring a gun to your buddy you have known since elementary school? No check required.  Transferring a gun to your kids?  No check required.   Basically, any time you are positive the person is not prohibited, you would be able to transfer the firearm without a check.  However, if there is any doubt, it would be wise to conduct one - because if they are prohibited, you would be facing mandatory jail or prison time and the loss of your gun rights should the gun be traced back to you.

Second, while it would not be a crime to transfer a firearm without a background check - it would be highly incentivized.   Under the law, any transfer done with a background check would not be prosecutable.  The seller would be deemed to have complied with the law.  The seller would also be deemed to have complied with the law if they obtained from the purchaser a copy of a valid CCW permit or license, or a copy of any valid FFL, including 03 C&R FFLs.   In this way, we focus only on those situations that should be criminalized: The negligent or deliberate transfer of firearms to prohibited persons.

In reality, this law would be as effective as a law requiring background checks on all sales.  After all, even if required on all sales, transfers would only come to the attention of authorities when a gun is recovered after a crime.  An "all transfers" law would also, like this law, depend upon voluntary compliance.  Furthermore, this law would put the focus where it belongs: On transfers to criminals and the severely mentally ill.  The only reason to go further is to infringe on gun rights.

b) How the system would work

First, the checks would not be directly conducted by the government.  Instead, they would be conducted through a non-profit corporation with a board of directors appointed by the NSSF and the NRA.  This would insure that measures would be taken to prevent access to firearms specific data, except as provided by current law - which allows such access only for audits and firearms traces for active investigations.

This new non-profit corporation would act in the exactly the same way FFLs currently operate for retail sales.  They would receive that firearms specific data and the data on the purchaser.  They would only submit the latter to the FBI NICS system.  Alternatively, a copy of a valid CCW or FFL could be submitted as proof that the person is not prohibited).  As is the current requirement for NICS checks, data on authorized purchases would be required to be purged within 72 hours.

Conducting a check would be easy.  Simply go to a website and input the seller, purchaser and firearms information.  When the buyer passes the check, a PDF of the "proof of background check" form would be emailed to the seller and printed out by the non-profit.  The non-profit would file their copy and the seller would keep theirs.  No electronic record would be kept.  A system to accomplish checks via fax would also be set up.  In the event that the seller loses their proof of background check form, the non-profit could provide a duplicate.  Authorities could also validate the forms by checking with the non-profit.  This form would be all a person would need to avoid prosecution.

Another positive would be a requirement that all records of closed FFLs would be maintained by this new non-profit and not the government.  All records currently held by the BATFE would be transferred immediately and any records from future closed FFLs would go directly to the non-profit.  This would take these very sensitive records out of government hands.

2) We can use background check expansion to expand gun rights

The bill creating this new system would contain many other pro-gun rights provisions, such as:

CCW reciprocity: It would be very hard for the opponents of gun rights to oppose a bill containing both CCW reciprocity and the expansion of background checks.

Suppressor reform: This would be a bit harder, but we could  probably get this too, given that many other nations, including those with strict gun control, do not control suppressors.

National preemption: This would be the hardest of all, but given the fact that we would be adopting a virtual background check requirement, we could include a provision making it illegal for any state or locality to pass laws regrading the sale and possession of firearms and ammunition that exceed those in current federal law.  States could "mirror" federal law, nothing more.

1) We can use background check expansion to stop Michael Bloomberg

This is the biggest and most important reason to write our own background check bill.  Bloomberg's so called background check bills go far beyond background checks on private sales.  They are filled with "flypaper provisions" designed to entrap gun owners.  They are filled with broad prohibitions for which a few limited exceptions are provided.  This means that if you are arrested, you must prove that you are covered by one of the exceptions.  This is the same system that has proved to be so prone to abuse in New Jersey.  Bloomberg must be stopped at any cost, because he will not stop until he has taken all our rights away.

Bloomberg has virtually unlimited resources - not only from his own wealth, but from the resources of other billionaires such as Paul Allen and Bill Gates.  He has the resources to outspend us and to prevent us from getting our message out by purchasing ALL the air time and ad space (this is EXACTLY how he won in Washington state).  He is willing to spend as much money as it takes to get his bills and propositions passed.  In Nevada, he spent the most money per vote that has ever been spent in any election.  He barely won, so he will likely spend more in future elections.  Remember too, that we barely won in Maine - so he will come back next time and spend as much as it takes to win.  He also is willing to spend as much money as it takes to elect state politicians who will do exactly what he wants.

Bloomberg has one, and only one, weakness: In order to pass his bills, he has to call them "background checks on private sales" bills - and then make sure that he can deceive the public into thinking that is all they are.  Take the background check issue away from him and he has no winning issue to piggyback his draconian laws onto.  The public support for background checks - and the false notion that all his bills do is expand the current system (which was designed with lots of NRA input) - are his hook.  Take it away, establish national expanded background checks, and, even without national preemption, you stop Bloomberg.  That is why the CCRKBA/SAF has supported "clean" background check bills.

Conclusion: Before I became disabled, I was a firefighter.  Wildland firefighting is usually pretty basic.  Make fire breaks, put dirt on fires and most of all, "put the wet stuff on the red stuff".  However, there are times when firefighters do something that seems completely wrong: They intentionally start fires.

Why in the world would they do this?  Isn't their job to fight fires?  Simple, they do it to create a fire break and deprive the fire of fuel.  They do it to stop the fire from progressing.  They do it to beat the fire and win.  Passing our own background check bill will have the same result as setting a backfire.  It will deprive the gun ban advocates of fuel and enable us to win.  That alone is reason enough to do it.