Gee, wasn’t one of the President’s proposals beefing up enforcement? This should make you happier, right?
As I mentioned in my other post. The law you are asking for ALREADY exists at the Federal level. It is enforced throughout the country, or should be anyway. It is illegal to go to another state and buy a handgun without consenting to a background check and have a FFL in your own state record the sale. The rules on rifles are a bit different I will admit, but the 400 or so homicides nationwide that are committed annually with rifles are a slight minority compared to those with handguns. If you wanted to mandate all long arm sales between states follow the same procedure as handguns that the Feds set up in 1968, I would not argue. It is dumb to treat the two separately.
OK. So, it’s a fig leaf. It’s what should have been done all along. We can all agree, opponents and fans of gun control that this is a good thing that we are finally enforcing existing laws.
So, why are Republicans opposed to this?
The problem is that criminals can buy guns from law abiding citizens. If everyone did as you did and required some proof that your buyer is legit then there would be less guns to illegally ship across state lines.
eta: but of course it is never going to be perfect. A criminal organization could just hire some non-felon frontman for purchases.
Because Obama.
If he had sneezed during his proposal, half the right wing would say he didn’t sneeze hard enough, the other half would say he sneezed too hard, and there would be promises from the RNC that his sneeze would be repealed if only a Republican were elected President.
I don’t believe I have stated otherwise. The funding will never get approved however for 500 new ATFE agents so get ready to blame the Republicans and the NRA and I do take issue with that. One cannot or should not shout out to enforce the current laws but then not provide the funding to do so. I thought his BIG announcement was a complete waste of time and tears.
Hiring a frontman would be considered a straw purchase. Already illegal at the federal level.
I understand the problem. The problem is that people are willing to break the law to make money. You are asking for a law that does exactly what is on the books already. If a criminal from one state buys a gun from a law abiding individual in another state, he or they both are breaking the law today. A new law mandating BG checks will change nothing as it is already the law today. If BG checks become MORE mandatory, there is still no way to track whether the guy in Indiana legally sold his gun to the guy in IL. The mandatory checks would have no teeth.
How to fix that? Easy, on top of all private sales being banned and forced to go through a FFL dealer you will also need to implement a registration scheme to track every gun in the nation. Canada did it and it failed miserably, it’s currently against Federal law to do so, and NOBODY favors the idea, not enough to get it passed anyway, but that would solve the problem of making most sales go through a BG check. All sales except for those who currently are flaunting the very same law today.
Actually, all of them would have argued that sneezing during a presidential speech was unforgivably unpresidential and could not be allowed.
You know this is not honest. Unless the mandated system is uniform across the nation, it will at most be an inconvenience. You can ban guns outright in any one state and guess what? The scumbag/criminals will go the states where they sell them like candy and bring them back to their home state.
It shouldn’t have taken an executive order to enforce existing laws. Federal gun crime prosecutions have fallen through the floor during the Obama presidency.
On the other hand, the Congressional Republicans are butt hurt just as Democrats would be because executive orders bypass the House and Senate. The candidates on the other, other hand, are all about making a spectacle of themselves about it. In other words, OBAMA. I live in Iowa and have to put up with it every day. I cannot wait for the caucuses to be over.
Except we’re talking about it, so the GOP’s refusal to fund enforcement will no longer be a fringe argument (assuming that happens).
Yeah, I already addressed the point twice. The mandated system, at the federal level, that covers all 50 states, IS in place and has been since 1968. You cannot legally buy from one state and take it to another without a BG check and an FFL recorded sale in your home state. To be clear, the BG check was added in 1993 I believe.
No, I am saying it would be a good idea if everyone did what you say you already do - that is not a law on the books already: Make sure that individual to individual sales involve a check, either through a publicly available background check system or going through an FFL. Then there would be less guns available to criminals. And to be effective it has to be a nation-wide principle, even if it’s 50 individual State laws.
eta: you can call that a pipe dream, but I am not asking for something that already exists.
I agree completely. But according to the article I linked, federal gun prosecutions are down significantly even though ATF employment numbers stayed the same. It shouldn’t take an additional 500 employees and the funding to go along with it to get numbers to Pre Obama administration levels.
That article isn’t very convincing (assuming you mean the Washington Times one). First, it says BATFE has the same number of employees as it did in 2004, sure. It doesn’t say that it has the same number of full-time employees, or where they are assigned. I am willing to bet that Congress is appropriating far more money for explosives investigations now than it was in 2004, and a whole hell of a lot more money for foreign investigations.
There are other factors that are glossed over, too. Until 2003 the BATFE was part of the Treasury Department and was primarily concerned with enforcing gun taxes. Since then, it has had a whole host of additional responsibilities given to it but its budget has stayed relatively static.
The article points out that Holder viewed gun prosecution as a local matter. What it doesn’t discuss is how many BATFE recommendations were handled by local law enforcement as a result of that view.
So has the agency’s priority shifted as a result of these executive orders and a different AG? If so, why did it take 7 years into his Presidency to do so, and if not, what are the 500 new agents going to be working on?
Why wasn’t Obama demanding that Eric “fast & furious” Holder more stringently enforce the laws that are already on the books? What has changed? Did Obama’s new AG need a Presidential EO to remind her to more stringently enforce the laws that are already on the books?
Oh. I know the real reason. Just wondering what the mental gymnastics to make it seem legitimate are!
Presumably because this independent action is a last resort.
Not to speak for him but that’s the way I see his objections. This is based entirely on the basis of having given an inch and had them try to take the mile. My point is that they don’t have the reach to ever take that mile no matter how much they want it or lie about wanting it.
He wants CONGRESS (a politically accountable entity, bureaucrats are much more indirectly accountable) to determine who is a prohibited person. He doesn’t want some dude at Homeland Security to start putting Tea Party members and Lutherans on the list.