Also, if anyone doubts at all this assault weapons ban is doomed to failure:
The Senate majority leader has not come out in support of it, and has vaguely suggested he may oppose it.
It is being routed through a committee chaired by Patrick Leahy, who is a very pro-gun rights Democrat and who will almost certainly oppose this legislation.
There’s over a dozen Democrats in rural states up for reelection in 2014 who are both personally pro-gun and represent States that are strongly pro-gun. Guys like Max Baucus, Mark Begich, Mark Pryor etc. Even the lone strong gun rights Democratic Senator who has seemed in favor of more gun control (Joe Manchin) is working on a background check bill and has not signed on or been involved with Feinstein’s bill. Suggesting he probably does not plan to support it or vote for it.
So before we even talk about Republican filibusters, there’s a good chance this bill never makes it out of committee and that Reid and other pro-gun Democrats generally want this bill to get bogged down in endless hearings until national attention wanes and it can be forgotten.
After all that, we can speculate on whether Republicans might filibuster this.
After that, we can speculate on whether the House will even vote on this. (They won’t.)
After all that, we could speculate on whether Pelosi could successfully pass a discharge petition to get the House to vote on it over Boehner’s objections. (She could never get the discharge petition passed.)
This legislation literally has as much chance of passing as bill saying the President has to be sworn in on the Quran.
In California the buyer and the seller go to an FFL holder. The buyer fills out the paperwork, pays the DoJ fee, and pays whatever the FFL holder wants to charge for handling the transfer. The FFL holder calls in the NICS check and holds the firearm for 10 days. Then the buyer can pick it up.
For interstate transfers (where states do not have reciprocal agreements allowing face-to-face out-of-state purchases), the seller ships the firearm to an FFL holder in the buyer’s state. The buyer pays the FFL holder whatever he wants to handle the transaction, and the transfer proceeds according to that state’s laws.
I have heard proposed an internet-based system, available to everyone for free.
You put the buyer’s name it, it says “yes” or “no” and you keep a copy for your records if it’s “yes”.
Whether or not this is a good idea, I’m not yet sure.
I will say, in the past, I’d always ask for a copy of the buyer’s drivers license when I made a private sale to someone I didn’t know. I know more that a few guys who do this. I’d keep the copy along with the make/model/serial number with my records. Just in case.
Right now, FFL dealers will run a background check and handle the transfer if required by law, but they charge anywhere from $25 to $60 or so for the service.
Sometimes the current gun laws are so damned silly and confusing, it’s hard to figure out if you’re a felon or not.
Some years ago, I wanted to give a bird-hunting shotgun and a revolver to my father, who lived in another state. I researched it for a while, and concluded the transfer hand to go through and FFL (Federal Fireams Licensee, usually a gun dealer.)
So I took dad and the guns to a dealer in his state, and told the guy I wanted to transfer the guns to my father, and asked how much he would charge for the transfer.
TThe guys said “He’s you dad, right?” I said “Yes, but the law requires it. I live in another state.”
We discussed it for a while, he went and looked some things up, check with the other employees, and finally agreed that yeah, it’s the law. He charged me the normal price for a one-gun transfer for both. Nice of him.
What kind of world do we live in when I have to do background check on my own father?
I’d be perfectly happy with that strategy, I just don’t think the Democrats are either capable of it or inclined to try. This is just another doomed-to-fail proposal designed to make it look like they are Doing Something without actually accomplishing anything.
How do you regulate private sales of expensive memorabilia? In truth, not all that well, but technically if I sell a collectible baseball for 20% more than I paid for that’s a tax event and I should pay tax on the income. It’s technically illegal not to do so.
I imagine many private gun transactions would have about as much chance of the buyer and seller getting caught as private memorabilia transactions. However, what you could do is attach penalty multipliers on other crimes where the gun involved was transferred without a background check.
But it is a first step, and when you apprehend criminals who have used a gun in a crime, you have the option of trying to track down where they bought it, and if it was some private individual who did not go through the background check process now that individual will be facing felony charges. Just the risk of that and the fear of the gun going back to the original seller will at the very least reduce the number of gun owners willing to set up shop and sell guns. Right now it’s not illegal to sell a gun in a private transaction without doing a background check, so many law abiding people are fine doing it. Make it a crime, and there are people who won’t do it just because it is criminal, regardless of the likelihood of getting caught.
It would also at the very least make these transactions harder to organize. No one would have large gun shows with this going on (I admit–that’s rare than many indicate because many of the more respected gun shows seem to require background checks, as someone who doesn’t go to gun shows that was news to me when I found out), because that would be easy for law enforcement to catch people in the process of breaking the law.
I guess if you want them thinking for you, he’s supported a ton of gun liberalization activity in the past 15 years, including allowing guns in national parks and such.
Almost every hunting rifle has a bottom shroud. A top shroud is frequently just a rail that you can attach optics to but a lot of times its just lets you get a better grip.
I’m hoping that is what it is.
On the other hand there are a lot of folks who paid triple price for assault weapons who would be gravely disappointed if the ban didn’t happen.
This is the sort of blowback I am afraid of. the partisan in me doesn’t want to lose the house for another congress because of something as fucking retarded as an assault weapons ban.
You just can’t stop crazy people with something like this. Columbine happened smack dab in the middle of the assault weapons ban. You aren’t going to prevent crazy people from shooting people by denying access to a particular type of firearm.
The only way you are going to get rid of firearms is to start dismantling the constitution. The same constitution that protects rights that Der Trihs likes heck it even has a penumbra that protects unnamed rights that Der Trihs likes.
Have a national gun registry. You have to transfer title to transfer the gun.
Well maybe your dad is crazy. I suspect my parents of insanity.
My thinking too that even if a bad guy finding an assault weapon after a ban would be a problem, which it won’t be, they would switch tactics to use what they have, either handguns or high powered rifles. Charles Whitman, the tower shooter, took out 14 people and wounded a number of others with a bolt action hunting rifle.
I think the assault weapons ban is the NRA wet dream. It won’t pass and will use up a lot of political capital, and even if it does pass it won’t be all encompassing. Sheesh, one could think that Feinstein is a NRA mole for proposing such a steaming pile.
Universal registration and background checks for *any *purchases is what we need to be shooting for. Christ, we can do that for cars and require insurance, we should at least be able to register all firearms and circumvent the gun show loophole.
(Seriously, isn’t it basically a pot-holder for a gun?)