I understand you may support it, but S. 649 is undoubtedly an infringement on rights that I currently enjoy. Right now, I might have a conversation like this:
my friend: “Hey, I’ve been thinking about getting a Sig 226. What do you think of them?”
me: “I think they are great! In fact, I’ve got two of them. Want to try one before you make a decision?”
my friend: “Sure, that would be great!”
me: <hands friend unloaded gun in carrying case> “Here you go, just bring it back to me next week.”
My friend and I wouldn’t have that option if Schumer gets his way. It may be a petty little thing, but gun control supporters don’t seem to be above doing petty little things to needle and inconvenience gun owners. I’m sick of it.
Seems rather pointless, too, unless someone can point to the massive amount of gun deaths due to loaning a friend a gun.
And I think that’s the part that a lot of gun control advocates on this board don’t get. Yeah, it’s a little thing, but it all adds up, and while it might not be obvious to them, it’s fairly obvious to a lot of gun owners that this is all part of the same old shit that the anti-gun folks have been trying for decades now. A little chip here, a little chip there…a really, really stupid and pointless ban on a made up class of weapons here…rinse and repeat until you get your way…
Infringements are permissible at the very least if it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest (like a massive amount of gun deaths due to loaning a friend a gun) but it is not clear that the constitution requires such a high standard of review for second amendment rights. IMHO, we are better off just having a national gun license so that your friend can show he is eligible to possess a gun and then you can store your entire armory at his place if you want. As a bonus, lets make the license a national CCW.
At least know we’re moving into the sort of horse-trading that would make for an actual compromise, instead of the kind the Left typically asks for (“I want your cake” “ok, let’s compromise and I’ll take half your cake”).
Most people on this board would say that I am on your side of the debate. I own over a dozen firearms, some of them are so impractical that they are little more than jewelry that iwear at bbq’s
So some people might say that our side is negotiating with itself. Of course if you want a rational negotiating partner…
Considering the Manchin/Toomey amendment is the only viable legislation that has any chance of making it to the President’s desk, it seems we are in fact negotiating with ourselves. The gun control nuts in congress have basically earned themselves a seat in the corner of the room facing the wall (with a dunce cap). Maybe next time they won’t be so stupid. Meanwhile, not only dues the NRA have a seat at the table, they seem to have vetro power (which they wouldn’t have if the gun control advocates weren’t so damn stupid about how they handled this).
That’s fine, you just keep going on about “the left” and wonder why you’re not convincing anyone not in your echo chamber.
Then again, I’m on “the left” and my personal preferred solutions to the gun issue are on the same lines of Damuri’s, except I also think full-auto ought to be back on the table.
It appears sales of the “saw a posting on the internet and bought a gun face-to-face with no background check” variety do happen. Does anybody have a problem disallowing that?
In what way do you think full auto-should be back on the table? Do you think the military ought to be able to sell surplus M-16s to the public? They could make at least 10 billion dollars from doing that. I’m sure that Colt and Armalite would love to sell select fire guns for a humongous mark-up.
I don’t think anyone really has a problem with it. I don’t think the NRA had a problem with it until they realize that the gun control nuts had stabbed themselves in the dick so many times that they could save this and give it up on a rainy day. The gun control nuts have basically squandered an opportunity for meaningful gun control for the forseeable future by indulging in their paranoia over assault weapons.
And the registry is the first step towards confiscation, I guess? Which side is paranoid again?
So you really have no problem with folks explicitly asking online for face-to-face sales with the express purpose of avoiding a background check? Often because they know they would fail said check?
It could be. CA sent letters to a bunch of SKS owners after the state changed it’s mind on whether their guns were evil or not. I’ll give you one guess how they knew where to send the letters. I don’t trust the government with lists of gun owners, even partial lists. It leads to things like this or this.
No. I’m one of the people that does this. I’m not doing it to avoid the background check (I have a Utah CFP and no criminal history and would, and do, pass without issue), but so that I have at least some guns that aren’t on any government list.
Maybe “no” is too strong of an answer. I might have some problem with it, but if the alternative you’re suggesting is to have every gun transaction in a bound book that the ATF gets to review annually, then my answer is “thanks but no thanks, I’ll pass”. I’m much more receptive to Coburn’s idea.
I think it’s an open question how often that’s actually the motive.
So on one side we have a group of people so scared of guns that they can’t be bothered to learn what the parts are, or do, much less how to fire one. And on the other we have a perfectly legitimate gun owner that is so scared of a federal list that he circumvents the law to avoid a background check.
It’s no wonder that those of us towards the middle just shake our heads at the futility of it all.
It’s hard to find much information about this online, since it happened in the late 90s (and the original law was much earlier). But from what I can tell this was a semantic argument having to do with what constituted an AW under the CA law, and what exactly “detachable magazine” meant. The AG reversed his decision and issued some letters saying that certain guns were no longer legal. Of course, having those guns unregistered was also illegal, so being on the list didn’t really make a difference.
Since an AWB isn’t the topic of discussion, nor is it a policy I am particularly fond of, it’s not really relevant. Except, I guess, to point out that even in one of the most gun-grabby states in the union we only have one particular model that has been “grabbed” using a registration list. And that was 16 years ago, while the federal AWB was active.
Those are both cases of people being told they can no longer have their guns for mental health reasons. The first is contesting it, and if her claims are true (which they seem to be) she will have them back in 30 days. In the second the gun was never even confiscated.
I understand your concerns, I just think they’re misplaced and rather overstated. Obviously 41 Senators agree with you so my opinion doesn’t really matter anymore. We can do this all again in a year or two.