Instant check for ammunition purchases.

We have instant background checks for firearm purchases.

What do you think of doing the same thing for retail ammunition purchases?

What might some of the potential downsides be of such a thing, if it were to be implemented?

Giving credit where credit is due, this was something suggested by Iverglas in another thread.

I gave it some though overnight. Speaking for myself only, I support instant background checks for firearm purchases at retail, and can not on principal think of a reason do any less for an instant background check for ammunition.



So pick your brains people.

Is there any good reason not to support such a thing?


Edited for spelling

I don't know if that's a good reason not to support it or not.

But it's a good reason for me not to support it.

I can see, stores that sell ammunition, but not firearms, not being set up to do such a thing, but most places that sell ammo one, would think, would also sell guns and be logistically equipped to do the job.

Can you be more specific?

for any firearm.

The CA DOJ imposes a 10 day waiting period for the purchase of any handgun or long gun.

I can just see this extended to the purchase of ammunition.

A new bureaucracy complete with a fee (surcharge on ammunition purchases) to finance it.

I've seen it too many times.

Knowing some of what your dealing with in CA, I can understand where your coming from.

AB 2062 is exactly such an example:

http://www.nssf.org/share/PDF/AB2062_Petition.pdf


I would only support a simple NICS check on a federal level without any data mining or 4473-ish stuff.

just a federal Firearms ID card? Shall-issued for life, upon application and completed background check, at age 18/21.

Revoked "immediately" upon violent felony conviction, mental illness determination, etc.

Necessary for all firearms & ammo transactions & firearms possession. Produce a valid ID, buy what you want - no registration, no check, no forms.

It is a hassle, above and beyond the minor, worthwhile inconvenience of the NICS point-of-sale checks for firearms. I would actually be more happy to eliminate the 4473 from firearm purchases and keep NICS, now that the bureaucracies-that-be are planning on sharing that information with the Mexican government. I almost can't believe that our own government is willing to be a responsible party in the massive identity theft and fraud that will certainly take place after they share such private information with a government of highly questionable integrity.

Anyway I am against background checks for ammunition, what good purpose would it serve? Would there be penalties for failing a background check beyond the immediate shortage of ammunition for the prospective buyer? Would it be as quirky as the NICS is with firearm purchases? would it help prevent ANY crimes? would it mean that one would only be able to buy ammunition from local vendors, instead of being able to shop around online and find exactly what they what for the best possible price? Would online sellers be required to send all ammunition to an FFL who would then conduct the check? Would we then be paying not only the rapidly rising cost of ammunition, but also for the increasing shipping costs and then the FFL transfer fee?

Because I can't afford to tack an extra $30 onto every order of ammuntion I buy, just to make some dunderhead "feel" safer.

Show me any benefit to such an idea that could possibly outweigh the cost of paying for an ffl transfer every time you buy some rounds.

I buy ammunition in bulk (1000 rounds +) through various online ammunition vendors. If I were forced to buy at a gun store I suspect I would pay twice what I do now. It would be easy for criminals to bypass the check by having friends purchase it for them.

NICS checks for ammunition, hand in hand with doing away with the import ban, for example.

I wouldn't support anything more than NICS checks though.

No 4473.

No waiting periods.

and on edit: No data mining.

We have to sign a registry to buy powder in California. I'd actually prefer an instant check system if it was actually instant.

For most of our uses it would not be problem, since my wife and I both re-load...a lot. For cheap .223 and 7.62x39 it would be a major PITA. Those purchases are mostly through online purveyors.

An endorsement on your driver's license that you have a clean record and are OK to buy ammunition might work. Also, since most collectors rely on mail-order to supply rare calibers (I buy 7.62x54R for my 103-year-old Mosin-Nagant online, since nobody carries it), the system would have to be easy to implement through the mail and over the Internet.

There would also have to be stiff criminal penalties against the collection or retention of information on those who pass, or else it would be a de facto gun registration system.

Within those parameters, something like that might be workable. But the current NICS system would be utterly swamped, were ammunition purchases run through it.

How will society benefit from this?

What will this cost society? Not just dollars, but paperwork, burueaucracy, privacy, and time.

Is this an actual crime-fighting measure, or is it just political chest-thumping? What other laws, processes, or restrictions will this lead to? Is this just an attempt to harass casual gun-owners and discourage future gun-owners? Is this just an attempt to normalize the concept of severe restrictions on gun ownership or marginalize gun owners?

Is this Constitutional?

Are we approaching this from a personal freedoms perspective?

http://books.google.ca/books?id=5k4GFx0FzxcC&pg=PA230&lpg=PA230&dq=nicholas+battersby+ottawa&source=web&ots=NHQZZmUDVg&sig=nZgJMM9Brd0qseqH7HwxFfAjAW0&hl=en#PPP1,M1

Switched-currents: An Analogue Technique for Digital Technology
by Chris Toumazou, John B. Hughes, Nicholas C. Battersby - 1993

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0780311701,miniSiteCd-IEEE2.html

Circuits and Systems Tutorials
Chris Toumazou (Editor), Nick Battersby (Assistant Editor), Sonia Porta (Assistant Editor)

http://www.occdsb.on.ca/content.php?doc=3454

Award: $800

On March 27, 1994 Nick was killed in a random drive-by shooting in downtown Ottawa. The community was stunned by this senseless act of violence, and expressed its grief and sympathy in many ways.

Nicholas Battersby was born in Brackley, England. From an early age he excelled academically, ultimately receiving his Ph.D. from Imperial College, London in electronic engineering at the age of 26. He achieved his first patent during this time at College. Although of quiet nature, Nick had a strong drive for excellence in all that he did. He had a love for travel, classical music, cycling, good food and many other great interests.

The Nick Battersby Memorial Fund was established to provide financial support to students similar to Nick, thus honouring the memory of this exceptional individual.

Each year Nick’s parents Gay and Charles Battersby try to visit Ottawa from their home in England to present the Nick Battersby Memorial Scholarship to the winning recipient.

Three young offenders broke into a home in an upscale neighbourhood in Ottawa (capital of Canada). They stole a rifle that was illegally stored in the home (not secured against theft -- but amazingly, possibly in compliance with the separate storage of ammunition requirement).

They walked into the local Canadian Tire (automotive/hardware/sporting goods) store and purchased ammunition for the rifle.

They got back into their car and drove to the main busines/commercial street in downtown Ottawa.



-- up near those tall white buildings in the distance, where all the civil servants throng around on the sidewalks at noon.

One of them aimed the rifle out the window, and shot out store windows as they drove along. And then shot Nicholas Battersby in the heart. I gather it was a .22 that it was done with.

They hadn't needed a firearms licence to buy the ammunition. A firearms licence is now required to buy ammunition in Canada.


How will people in illegal possession of firearms acquire ammunition for them if they have to pass background checks?

Why would "straw" purchases/sales of ammunition be treated any differently from straw purchases of firearms?


Firearms can be acquired illegally, i.e. by ineligible purchasers, by illegal sales by licensed dealers, straw purchases from licensed dealers, purchases from private vendors at gun shows and through the classified ads, thefts from homes and businesses, resales in pawn shops and on the street. They last for many years and through many uses.

Ammunition is a consumable. Members of the public do not ordinarily sell their used ammunition, or their grandfather's ammunition, or their excess ammunition, or ammunition they've decided to replace with a newer model.

Limiting access to ammunition by people in illegal possession of firearms -- from the most common sources, commercial dealers -- strikes me as eminently reasonble.

I have been ridiculed for stories like this and accused by the gun grabbers of posting anecdotal evidence that is proof of nothing. So the gun grabbers don't want you to post stuff like this.

David

... well, other than the dog's breakfast ...


I have been ridiculed for stories like this and accused by the gun grabbers of posting anecdotal evidence that is proof of nothing.

This "anecdote" is proof of exactly what it is proof of: that someone who did not have a firearms licence was able to buy ammunition and then use it in a stolen firearm, which he was in possession of illegally.

That individual then used the stolen firearm, which he was in possession of illegally, and the legally acquired ammunition, to kill someone.

If the purpose of imposing restrictions on the legal acquisition of firearms, however minimal those restrictions are, is to prevent people who should not have firearms from having them, and thus, it is hoped, to prevent some people from doing bad things with firearms, what purpose is served by allowing the same people easy access to ammunition?

If it is illegal for some people to purchase firearms, what good reason is there for it to be legal for them to purchase ammunition? If it is not legal for them to purchase ammunition, why would there be no background checks required for purchasing ammunition?

If it is acceptable to take steps to make it more difficult for those people to acquire firearms, why would it not be acceptable to apply to same measures to make it more difficult for them to acquire ammunition?

What is the goal of measures to reduce access to firearms by people with criminal records, people with serious mental illnesses, people subject to restraining orders, etc.? How is that goal served by not attempting to reduce their access to ammunition?

How is an "anecdote" that illustrates the problem to which a solution is proposed objectionable?

Do your anecdotes illustrate a problem to which a solution is proposed?

As has been stated above, such a scheme would have to be a lot more streamlined if it were to "work." If a check takes too much time, this would encourage "off book" sales of re-loaded ammo and may establish, thereby, another class of "criminals." (Re-loading equipment is fairly inexpensive, certainly no more costly than grow lamps, fans, aeromatic scrubbers, etc.) It is axiomatic that the more one attempts to prohibit an action (also to disrupt or slow such), the more pressure there is to get around the law.

Further, there are already attempts to get at NICS records by gun-controllers for "research into crime trends," and a NICS test for ammo would only provide these anti-2A groups more "data" to play with.

No FOID card no ammo purchases or even gun touching, none. Gun shows or gun stores same rules apply. Nada.

In spite of the NICS system (FOID came before it, theoretically as a way to pre screen gun owners) we still have to wait to be cleared then waity to pick up the guns, 3 days for handguns, 1 day or long guns. Meaning exactly 72 and 24 hours.

No ammo, primers, powder for reloading or anything else that might go "bang".

It's usually only a pain trying to buy ammo at places that are staffed by the walking wounded like Wally World. You get in the habit of tossing it on the counter when you go in to look at anything. If you buy, they use it to fill out parts of the 4473.

They asked to see my FOID card when I was buying pellets.

The cashier then realized they didn't need it, when they apparently didn't get a screen they were expecting on their register.

If we go this route, where to buy either firearms or ammunition, we might as well issue Federal Firearm Ownership Permits. Because that's what a background check at any purchase will amount to.

Already when I buy ammo at Walmart I have to present my driver's license, which I'm sure they record.

Already when I buy ammo at Walmart I have to present my driver's license, which I'm sure they record.

Don't you know whether they record it??

You're just cool with handing out your personal info to a private corporation like that? Giving your personal info to someone and then having no control whatsoever over what they do with it?

Is WalMart required to law to see identification when it sells ammunition? My questions assume that it is not. If not, what authority does it have for requiring you to identify yourself? What oversight is there of how it stores your personal info and what it does with it?

Up here, that sort of thing -- collecting and storing identifying personal info -- is subject to pretty stringent rules. In fact, I can pretty safely say that WalMart would not be permitted to collect and store the identifying personal info of people buying anything at their stores, unless informed consent were given, and unless a bunch of other criteria were met. They certainly could not decline to make the sale unless the would-be purchaser complied.

Do you give Radio Shack your phone number when you buy batteries, too? I never have.

It just kills me. Hand over anything WalMart asks for when it comes to personal info, for WalMart to have and to hold for eternity, but object to checks of your personal info against a govt database of people ineligible to possess firearms.

And it just kinda makes me say hmm when I hear people getting all hot and bothered about their names being on lists in computers somewhere ...

Already when I buy ammo at Walmart I have to present my driver's license, which I'm sure they record.

Don't you know whether they record it??

You're just cool with handing out your personal info to a private corporation like that? Giving your personal info to someone and then having no control whatsoever over what they do with it?

Is WalMart required to law to see identification when it sells ammunition? My questions assume that it is not. If not, what authority does it have for requiring you to identify yourself? What oversight is there of how it stores your personal info and what it does with it?

Up here, that sort of thing -- collecting and storing identifying personal info -- is subject to pretty stringent rules. In fact, I can pretty safely say that WalMart would not be permitted to collect and store the identifying personal info of people buying anything at their stores, unless informed consent were given, and unless a bunch of other criteria were met. They certainly could not decline to make the sale unless the would-be purchaser complied.

Do you give Radio Shack your phone number when you buy batteries, too? I never have.

It just kills me. Hand over anything WalMart asks for when it comes to personal info, for WalMart to have and to hold for eternity, but object to checks of your personal info against a govt database of people ineligible to possess firearms.

And it just kinda makes me say hmm when I hear people getting all hot and bothered about their names being on lists in computers somewhere ...


You're right - I should be more annoyed about it, but unfortunately they have the least expensive ammunition so if I want it I pretty much have to do what they ask me to do. Just like I have to submit to NICS when I buy a new firearm - I've pretty much just resigned myself to this annoyance.

I don't know what they do with the driver's license - I have to show it to the clerk and they type something into their keypad while looking at it. They may just be typing in the date of birth, they may be typing in the license number. I don't know, and I haven't asked because it doesn't really matter if I want to buy ammo there.

I don't give my phone number when buying batteries at Radio Shack because I don't have to to buy batteries at Radio Shack.

Next time I buy some ammo from Wally World I'll ask what they do with the license.

to seek Concealed Handgun Licenses, right? In many states, a valid CHL acts in lieu of a criminal background check.