Universal Background Checks
There is a push for Universal Background Checks when it comes to firearm transfers. The amount of deception and/or stupidity is quite amazing.
Ignoring the fact that criminals don't follow the law and ignoring that there is no proof that doing this is going to have any positive effect, this is being pushed as the first step in a process. If you don't believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you.
One of the common means of pushing this issue is to claim that a majority of people think that it is a good idea. This is a scam. If you asked someone if they wanted $1 million, they would say yes, until you told them what the strings were. In theory, universal background checks seem like a good idea. The problem is when you figure out how to implement it.
Who is going to do the transfer?
Are you going to have firearms dealers do the transfer?
Who is going to decide what the cost is?
Firearms dealers can be forced to do the transfer and you can limit the fees which they can charge, but then you are basically making slaves of them. There is talk about minimum wages, well what about maximum wages? In CA private sales are required to go through a firearms dealer, but the fee that the dealer gets is limited to $10 and when you consider the time and effort, as well as the legal liability it is certainly not worth it.
Why not have the police do the transfers? They are already a government employee, so they get paid already. There are also police stations all over. What do you do if there is no firearms dealer around? See Washington DC for an example.
If you force the firearms dealer to do the transfer and don't limit the fees, then it could be very expensive to transfer a firearm. It could make a cheap, old firearm worthless. Who is going to buy an old .22 rifle when the fees associated with transferring it exceeds the value of the firearm?
But there is a more important aspect. If you pass a law, then you should have a means of enforcing it. How are you going to force people to do all transfers with a background check? Unless the police see the person doing it, such as with a sting operation, you are not going to be able to enforce this law UNLESS you also force all firearms to be registered. If firearms are registered, then you can track when a firearm is transferred without a background check.
So, if you ask a person if they think background checks are a good idea and then tell them what it is going to cost, what hoops they will have to jump through in order to do it, as well as it might mean that all firearms have to be registered, then the number of people who think it is a good idea might drop. Then add to that the reality that it won't have much of an effect on criminals and those who would fail a background check, then the support might really drop. Then again, it seems that many people can be fooled into supporting stupid things.
How about this for a good first step, make the NICS (Federal Background check) available to EVERYONE. It is currently free, so let anyone who wants to sell a firearm and who wants to have the buyer go through a background check call and have the check done. You will see how popular that is. If a majority think it is a good idea, then a majority will use it.
As a side note, when talking about this issue the high crime rate areas with strict gun control are talked about and the typical response is that people buy guns from out of state and bring them in and this background check idea is supposted to fix that. Well, anyone who buys a firearm at a legal gun dealer (FFL) has to go though a background check, with some exceptions, like those who have a self defense permit from the government (CCW). Handguns can not be purchased from an out of state FFL. You can pay for it, but the firearm has to be transferred to a FFL in your state of residence. So this concept of a person going out of state to buy a handgun is bogus. If the resident of another state buy a firearm, if they want to transfer it to another person, by law they are required to go through a FFL in the state of residence of the buyer if they are not both residents of the same state. This means that the claim that background checks will solve this is bogus since what the people are doing is already illegal if they don't go through a FFL, which involves a background check.
The bottom line is if you look at ALL of the facts, the universal background check will not solve the problems that people claim it will. Don't be fooled by the propaganda that these idiots are spewing.
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