There’s a rumor floating around that one of the proposals the White House is weighing is a phone app to allow private parties to conduct their own NICS checks.
I can think of various reasons conservatives probably would not support a proposal like this, but I would imagine the dems aren’t very enthused about it either. Giving every smart phone user a way to check if someone is a prohibited person kind of defeats those “ban the box” campaigns, doesn’t it?
I was going to post that “this vicious assault on the Second Amendment shows the Trump Administration is coming to take your guns and we need to get him out and put a real gun-loving Republican in the White House.”
But then I read (from your link): ‘Trump initially appeared open to expanding background checks following two mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, last month, but backed off after pressure from the National Rifle Association.’
So that’s all right then - the NRA is looking out for us all. :smack:
I’ve long supported the notion as part of eliminating or reducing the private sale exemption to background checks. Privacy matters; without controls it could be a way to check people you aren’t selling a gun to for mental health issues. The devil is in the details but I kind of hope there’s some work being put into crafting a good proposal to take advantage of tech that didn’t exist when we put the current background check system in place.
It’s not as bad as paying over $100 to give my child a firearm (FFL will charge, plus Cali fees including mandatory safety test).
But I am also concerned that NICS checks can be used to create a list of firearm owners to facilitate confiscation.
This is probably the biggest concern I’ve heard among gun owners. And stories like this one reinforce those concerns.
I’d be skeptical if the government could deploy something reliable at scale for a reasonable cost.
Alternatively, Andrew McCabe recently wrote about 2 potential things that could be beneficial, and I’d be in favor of one (reverting to previous interpretation of what it means to be a fugitive) , and conditionally in favor of the other (allowable delay in NICS verification [ but only up to a certain amount, maybe less than 10 days])
I think that something like this could actually be a useful part of a deal to get “universal background checks”. Not necessarily a “smartphone app” as such, but some kind of federal government web site (along with a toll-free phone number for people who are still marooned in the 1990s) whereby if Alice wants to sell Bob one of her guns (Sure-Fire Firearms Model X, serial number XYZ123), she can enter Bob’s info and get back a “YES, you may lawfully convey a firearm to this person” or a “NO, you may NOT lawfully convey a firearm to this person” message. Alice would then get some kind of receipt with all the relevant info about the transaction–along with a fancy barcode on it to prove authenticity–that she can keep to prove she did her due diligence. I suppose Bob could get a print-out too, if he wants one, but it wouldn’t be as relevant for him.
So, Sure-Fire Firearms Model X, serial number XYZ123 gets used in a crime. (Maybe the cops find it right at the scene and everything.) The ATF goes to Sure-Fire and says “Who’d you sell #XYZ123” to? They reply “Oh, that was part of a shipment to Joe’s Gunshop in Anytown, USA, FFL #4567890”. ATF goes to Joe’s Gunshop and says “Who’d you sell Sure-Fire Firearms #XYZ123 to?” Joe pulls his Form 4473 and gives them Alice’s info. (Up to this point, this is how I understand the system works right now.) So, ATF goes to Alice and says “Hey, do you still have Sure-Fire Firearms #XYZ123?” She says “Why, no, I sold it to Bob. Here’s my receipt from universalbackgroundchecks dot gov”. So, on to Bob. Maybe Bob has a receipt of his own, and the ATF goes to track down Charlie. Maybe Bob says “Oh, that’s my gun that was stolen–here’s the police report”. Or maybe Bob doesn’t have a receipt from universalbackgroundchecks dot gov, or any other lawful account of where Sure-Fire Firearms #XYZ123 wound up (“I transferred it to my son, Bob, Jr., in accordance with the Close Family Members Exception of the Universal Background Checks Act”), in which case Bob is in Big Trouble (he’s actually guilty of the crime that’s being investigated) or at least in Serious Trouble (he has an iron-clad alibi for the crime that’s being investigated, but is still looking at federal charges for a gun sale that he didn’t bother to do a background check on, where the buyer wound up committing a crime with that gun–even if Bob gets no prison time, since we’re trying to reduce “mass incarceration” in this country, he’s still saying “bye-bye” to any right to legally own guns himself).
(Note that Bob could have passed the background check, but still be the criminal. “Past Performance Is No Guarantee of Future Results.” But on the other hand, after they give you the PPINGOFR disclaimer, all the stock prospectuses give you information on past performance, because what else can they do? So, Bob is arrested, but Alice and Joe’s Gunshop and Sure-Fire Firearms are all off the hook, since they all did what they were supposed to do.)
So, universalbackgroundchecks dot gov has a big screen that says “You agree, under penalty of perjury, that you are conducting this background check as part of a lawful firearms transaction to which both parties agree” (or something like that) and you have to check a little box which counts as your e-signature. Of course Mrs. Grundy might just ignore that statement, and I doubt much effort would be put into actually tracking down people who abuse the system. But realistically, what does Mrs. Grundy get? She gets the biographical information on Dave, next door. (Maybe she goes through his garbage on trash day.) She commits some kind of federal crime by running an unauthorized background check on him. And…she gets a message that says “YES, you may lawfully convey a firearm to this person”–which doesn’t actually tell her if Dave has any guns or not, or anything much about Dave’s medical and mental health history beyond that he hasn’t actually been involuntarily committed, and doesn’t tell Mrs. Grundy if Dave was ever tried for a felony but acquitted, or if he was charged with a felony but the charges were dropped. Or, Mrs. Grundy runs Edna (from the house on the other side of her) through the system and gets the “NO, you may NOT lawfully convey a firearm to this person” message. So, Mrs. Grundy has committed a federal crime, and found out that Edna is a serial killer. Or that Edna was convicted of lying to the feds about an insider trading case ten years ago. Or that Edna spent a few weeks in a mental hospital when she was in college. Or that Edna was charged with a felony, but the charges were dropped, but the Podunk P.O. are lousy at record-keeping and reporting and poor Edna may be in for a Big Surprise someday when she gets pulled over for a routine traffic stop. Or that Mrs. Grundy screwed up Edna’s biographical info and got a background check for some other person. Note that there’s no reason why the system would need to be set up to give a user (authorized or not) more than a “YES/NO” decision, so Mrs. Grundy (who, again, has knowingly violated federal law) hasn’t actually managed to get that much information for her (potentially serious) trouble.
There’s a number McCabe leaves out of his article: how many times did the FBI delay a purchase for 3 business days for a qualified buyer? I’ll feel differently about his proposal if it was 4,000 out of 8,000 delayed purchases that were ultimately found to be prohibited persons than I will about 4,000 out of 40,000 or 400,000.
I thought Bill Clinton already confiscated all of the guns in America. And then Barack Obama did it again.
On a more realistic level, I’d be concerned about this system being abused the way DinoR described. What’s going to keep people from using this just to check if people they know have a criminal history or record of mental illness or have been accused of domestic problems?
On an effectiveness level, will this proposal have any teeth? If private gun owners aren’t required to do background checks or if there are no meaningful consequences for not doing them, then this is just a symbolic gesture.
Skipping the silly 1st para…
What currently keeps FFLs fron doing that now?
If private owners aren’t required to check, or no consequences, then there is no need for regular folks to access the database. At present, though, I live and work in a state that makes me jump though several hoops to exercise my Constitutionally guaranteed rights. Many here are fine with that, but if the Second Amendment can be so easily ignored, we all should worry about which rights will be next.
I haven’t thought through all the ramifications, but disallowing use except for to verify eligibility for a firearm sale and requiring the person to approve lookups of their eligibility
Authentication could be done… however it’s currently done for a background check? That is, no one would be able to look up your info until you had set up an account and proved who you are to the same extent that you currently have to be, and you’d have to consent to each lookup.
It may be silly but conservatives keep saying it every election. They keep telling us that if the wrong persons elected, it will mean all our guns will be confiscated.
But sometimes the wrong person gets elected anyway, and you know what? We still have guns.
Conservatives need to stop crying wolf.
I agree with this. I think the Second Amendment is a outdated idea and it should be repealed. But as long as it’s part of the Constitution, it’s the law and we should follow it.
I don’t know about the word “all” there. It seems like you’re trying to construct a strawman argument. But it’s a pretty weak point you’re making here anyways, at least as long as Beto is running around the country all “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15!”
Michigan has had handgun registration since I think before I was born. Nobody has come to take my guns.
You should use “Mexico will pay for the wall” as your baseline between what politicians say and what they actually do.
Maybe. But the statement demonstrates intent, regardless of the ability to implement.
Beto has made that a plank of the democrat’s platform no matter how much they attempt to distance themselves from it.
No, he hasn’t.
One candidate for the nomination making a statement doesn’t get something into the party platform. This is true even if that candidate wins the nomination, which Beto isn’t likely to (though winning the nomination would improve the chances.)
What [ETA: it reads as if] you mean is that, even if a candidate who disagrees vehemently with Beto on this issue actually wins the nomination, and no matter what the party platform actually says, some people who are opposed to any Democrat being elected will try to use Beto’s statement, no matter how irrelevant, to discourage votes for the actual candidate; and, further, [ETA: I expect] that these people will try to claim that Beto said he wants to confiscate all firearms, which is not at all what he said. This is true, but I don’t see what the Democrats can do about it.
You bring up two points that I agree with. “Universal background checks” sounds all fine and dandy, but it becomes an onerous problem for many transactions, depending on how much local FFLs charge to do the background check and transfer. In my gun-friendly area, gun stores charge $25 to $50 to do the check and transfer. That’s not inconsequential if you are talking about a cheap firearm that you are selling for $150 to $300. It’s much worse in other areas, however. I’ve read that gun stores in Washington DC and in the San Francisco area charge $100 to $200 to do the check/transfer. I’ve said before that I don’t have a huge problem with universal background checks if it was free or no more than $10 for administration.
In CA, for in state transfers, the fee is capped by law at all FFLs. $25 for the DROS, and up to $10 per firearm for the transfer. Out of state there is no cap so most FFLs will charge at least $100. DROS is still $25.
As someone who didn’t grow up in the United States the single most mind boggling cultural adjustment has been this. Who the heck gives their child a firearm in the first place?!