Explaining résistance to universal background checks for firearms, etc.

Following the shooting in Newtown, CT, there were calls by many for the imposition of background checks for all firearms purchases. Currently, federal law requires holders of Federal Firearms Licenses (FFL), a license required by anyone “in the business” of dealing firearms (loosely defined as selling five or more a year), to perform an instant background check on anyone purchasing a firearm. If purchasing from an individual who does not hold such a license, no check is required (the so-called “Gun Show loophole” although most dealers at gun shows hold FFLs). There was a great deal of resistance to this plan lead by the NRA and from what I heard, a great deal of incredulousness that anyone would oppose such a restriction. After all, instant background checks were promoted by the NRA.

Some feel that the NRA is the mouthpiece of gun makers who stand to lose sales if such things are implemented. This is untrue. The leadership of the NRA-ILA is made up of True Believers, not cynical Merchants of Death, although you may feel that that isn’t much of a choice. Also, secondhand sales of firearms don’t affect gun makers’ bottom lines.

What the NRA-ILA and most gun owners fear is confiscation of firearms. They figure that I am not hurting anyone and, indeed, I have a right to self-defense, so why should the actions of a few criminals cause the rights of millions of responsible gun owners to be taken away? Universal registration of firearms is opposed because without it, confiscation is effectively impossible, at least not without infringing on the rights of people who don’t own guns. Similarly, universal background checks are opposed because such checks are unenforceable without universal registration.

Most people don’t support confiscation of firearms right now, but gun owners fear that something like a Columbine or Sandy Hook will cause a change in public opinion, and opposition to registration and universal background checks act as a kind of defense-in-depth. That spectre of confiscation drives the uncompromising nature of the NRA.

Things like assault rifle bans are opposed because such things are defined mostly by cosmetic features. Large capacity magazine bans are opposed because it’s viewed as a slippery slope. If someone staged a mass shooting with a pair of revolvers, the fear is that the public will say that the large capacity magazine ban didn’t go far enough. Registration or universal background checks could be used (and in some cases, are) to effectively ban firearms in certain locales.

My personal solution to all this is to make something equivalent to Texas’s Concealed Handgun License required for the purchase and possession of all firearms and ammunition. Someone possessing such a license could possess what they wanted and carry what they wanted.

For what it’s worth,
Rob

How does this solve the “problem” of individual sales? If I sell a gun to some guy in the parking lot, if something happens, I tell the feds that he showed me his permit to buy.

Oh, I have to keep records of who bought it from me? That would bring cries of registration and unconscionable requirements on individuals.

Plus, I could write down that I sold it to John Smith with Permit ID#2342285. That number doesn’t exist? Bastard must have showed me a fake ID! Sorry, feds, I tried.

If the handgun isn’t registered as having a particular person/company as the owner, the second hand market is a complete free for all. You can’t have a controlled second hand market that prevents sales to criminals AND anonymity of ownership. It will just as well controlled as the second hand pharmaceutical market.

Background checks wouldn’t have prevented most of the mass shootings that have happened. Even the most restrictive changes suggested, aside from outright banning of guns, wouldn’t have.