Good to see they are pulling the trigger on this bill

When will them Democrats just accept this fact.

I am sure this is what Rush / Fox are screaming at the top of their lungs.

Performing a background check has nothing to do with the number of weapons you own.

I like target shooting and, although I *REALLY* hope to never fire a gun in anger, would prefer to be judged by 12 rather than carried by 6 if someone were threatening myself or my family. But I have zero problems with demonstrating training, safe practices, or law-abiding citizenship. I've always had, and liked shooting, but there are people who shouldn't have guns.

They typically charge $20-50 to.process a transfer. So this is a moneymaker for gun shops.

Background checks are the lowest of low hanging fruit. BUT, still Great!!

From what I understand, gun purchases already require background checks but the NRA managed to punch the blanket requirement full of holes. Requiring them on every single sale is a good first step. I can see how it would make gun-shows less profitable since it would cut into "browse-buying" - walking in empty-handed and leaving with firearms.

I think they have the basic technology to do a background check, or at least have a list of those who have passed one recently, so without too much problem there could still be a lot of impulse buying at gun shows. I go to them on occasion because they are also the best source of emergency preparedness and first aid supplies (quasi-fanatical prepper as I live literally on an earthquake fault and a fire zone)

Federal Firearm Licensees (FFL's) are required to conduct background checks of buyers as a requirement of their licensing. Such a license is required of anyone who sells enough firearms that it is part of their routine economic activity and livelihood. You or I, or any other gun owner, can elect to sell a firearm to a private buyer as a means of disposing of our own private property without such licensing. Gun shows just happen to bring a lot of such private individuals together, along with potential buyers. I don't generally attend them, as they also tend to aggregate blowhards and nutjobs, but that's another story...

I'm not particularly in favor of this background check bill changing how individuals may dispose of their private property, but I won't expend a lot of energy opposing it either. Still, there is a growing body of peer-reviewed and published evidence showing that expanding background checks does not measurably reduce crime or gun deaths, such as: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1047279718306161?fbclid=IwAR1Q-PYe6c_oC106rrh3DWARax0nwCG440OH-Au8BUzUJh1CMDjGQ5FSBI8

This bill is doomed to die in the Senate anyway, but I still would rather see Democrats addressing financial regulation, environmental protection, access to education and health care, etc. well ahead of tweaking with Second Amendment issues.

-app

This would take the place of a seller-initiated background check. If a gun sale takes place at a non-licensed location, the seller must fill in a code from a temporary "firearms sale authorization" card that the buyer applies for on their own to initiate their own background check and then can use it to purchase guns for a period of say, two months. The card would expire and need to be renewed on a regular basis, or whenever the person was planning to purchase a firearm. That would eliminate impulse purchases since there's an intermediate step to buying a gun.

Gun stores could still do the standard background check/waiting period themselves if the customer doesn't have a current card. If the customer has the card proving they had a background check with a current authorization number, they could buy guns the same day.

A valid "okay to purchase" serial number would be required to be documented at gun shows and for private sales. The seller could report the sale on a public website at any time, or be required to keep the paperwork showing they validated the customer. The customer could also report the purchase with the serial on their end.

If a crime is committed with an undocumented weapon, the charge will automatically include a charge for a stolen firearm and the resulting additional sentence. If a person is found to possess a weapon they cannot prove was registered during purchase, it's an automatic firearms theft charge.

(This is just spitballing on my part. Tear me apart if you feel you must, Gun-Humpers, I really don't care. No, I can't label the parts of a gun on a diagram nor disassemble and reassemble an AR-15 in twelve seconds, so you don't need to point that out.)

Second Amendment issues can be quite polarizing, so I appreciate anyone who brings the effort of calm thought and rational debate to the arena, basically regardless of perspective.

The worry that many gun owners have regarding universal background checks is that it constitutes a first step toward a national gun registry, which itself has often served as a step toward confiscation (see Australia particularly, but also some European countries, Canada to a certain extent, and even California in a small way, regarding so-called "assault weapons" ).

Your idea of a background check for a "buy card" rather than for the firearm itself, is one that may find greater acceptance among gun owners, especially if there is some barrier between the record of the background check for the card (that may be good for 24 hours or a similar brief period) and the firearm itself. What sort of barrier and proportional warrant process could then serve to allow law enforcement agencies to trace specific guns used in particular crimes then becomes the million dollar question.

At present, law enforcement agencies can do a pretty good job of tracing most (excluding home-built firearms that begin a '80%' receivers, but that's a pretty tiny subset) guns via its original 4473 (FFL record) and then questioning the original owner (+ perhaps subsequent owners) about private sales, but it's slow and ponderous. The 4473 records are kept by individual FFL's so the search has to begin at their door, rather than at the front stoop of the firearm owner him/herself. Essentially, Second Amendment rights are being protected in part by inefficiency.

I'm not sure that anyone has come up with a background check system that is both more efficient, and at least equally resistant to authoritarian abuse, but your proposal seems like it could be part of such a future system. Let's keep at this, with more such inquiry down such a path.


-app

Taking your idea a step further, what if the records for background checks for "buy cards" are in fact national, digitized, and searchable, but the firearm records are not? In short, we would end up with a more efficient system that still maintains an institutional barrier to a national registry. What it would take is a requirement that the seller of a firearm maintain a record of who they sold their firearm to (it's pretty routine already for responsible private sellers to ask for a copy of a buyer's driver's license or CCW permit). That sales record could be held by the individual though until a warrant empowers a law enforcement agent to demand it.

The private seller could then choose to retain the information on paper or digitally, as the seller sees fit. Regardless, there would be no instantaneously-accessible registry suitable to become a directory for a confiscation process, yet firearms could get tracked when needed.

I'm not an FFL, and as a private individual have generally bought my firearms from licensed dealers, so there are 4473's on me and I don't worry about them of course. I did buy one pistol from a private individual in my home town many years ago, and he asked for a copy of my driver's license, which I provided. When it came time for me to sell the one rifle I decided was not useful to me (due primarily to bad ergonomics), I dropped it off at my FFL (who of course kept the 4473 record from this sale, as he does all others) since I did not want the hassle of dealing with gun buyers at my house or job, etc. In this latter case, the commission to the FFL was money well-spent in my book, as I then knew that the buyer passed a background check, and was less likely to use the firearm in any crime.

-app

that "Still, there is a growing body of peer-reviewed and published evidence showing that expanding background checks does not measurably reduce crime or gun deaths..." Then how come everyone screams "JUST FIX THE BACKGROUND CHECKS" when confronted with other forms of gun control?

I mean...I know the answer for most vocal anti-regulation gun-enthusiasts is basically "muh 2nd amendm't rights" but yeah.

that we can still see her at all.

Why should gun humpers believe we are expected to let all these evil crimes slide just so they can continue to play at being men by dragging around their guns to strike fear into others? Successfully grown men have no interest in such stupid fool's play. They treat life with respect and don't scheme how to get the drop on others.

I was thinking that The Constitution, Article 1 section 8 could be used if it hasn't already been tried.

Any other fundamental, enumerated freedoms you plan on sneakily circumventing there, Spook?

-app

We have the militia mentioned in 2 separate parts of the Constitution. How does one reconcile them. I didn't say anything about a new amendment to abolish either of them. What is un-American about trying to see if these two mentions in the Constitution have anything to do with one another. If not, okay, if yes, how do they coexist. I will admit that I could have worded my original post better. Basically I wanted to know whether or not this has been brought up in any cases before The Supreme Court.

The old notion of the unincorporated militia (males between the ages of 18-45, I believe) would have to be updated to reflect longer life spans and gender equality, but I have no particular resistance to the notion that with Second Amendment rights (among others) come responsibilities and obligations toward our common good.

I always get a little prickly when people mention 'getting around' a part of the Constitution, but it sounds to me like you are pondering the proper balance between rights and responsibilities rather than trying to abrogate rights via technicalities. Thanks,

-app