Universal background checks and banning high-capacity magazines won’t change much
First, huge numbers of high-capacity magazines are already in circulation. Under the last ban, the price went up, but they were still available, and more have been made and sold since. Even if sales of existing magazines are forbidden, they’ll still exist, and change hands quietly. That is, aside from the ones that people are already manufacturing on hobbyist 3D printers or in metal shops. Getting existing magazines out of circulation is a non-starter, since nobody knows where they are and most owners are unlikely to surrender them when keeping the things is essentially a risk-free enterprise.
Which is the same problem faced by the “universal background checks” Biden insists are part of the emerging consensus he perceives among the people who already agree with him. The background check brainstorm is a bone thrown to people who heard somewhere about a “gun show loophole” — not realizing that most private owners can sell free of paperwork requirements anywhere, in the majority of states, while commercial dealers have to do background checks, even at gun shows. Americans own an estimated 270 million firearms (PDF), most of them unregistered. Even records in those few states that require some sort of registration are compromised by the fact that owners move out of state, or in-state from elsewhere, and the lists become inaccurate and unreliable over time. A gun owner in New Jersey, for instance, where multiple levels of paperwork are maintained, could move to bureaucracy-free Arizona, then move back to Trenton (for reasons I could never fathom) and plausibly deny still owning any of the guns the state of New Jersey meticulously recorded.
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Obama feeds on carrion, from hour one.
Molon Labe
Schadenfreude on January 12, 2013 at 3:57 PM
Meh, that’s why they are so ‘transparent’ all the time…
Link not added because the word equivalent with “split from the union” is not allowed.
Schadenfreude on January 12, 2013 at 4:04 PM
Wouldn’t universal background checks infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear arms? If you want background checks and capacity limitations, modify the Constitution. It should be done and the only way it will be done is if liberals agree to strengthen the language of the 10th Amendment and let states have complete supremacy in regards to guns ( and other things ).
They’ll agree to a New Reconstruction on our terms or they will just have to live with the fact that they can’t infringe on the right to keep and bear arms.
Otherwise, we can wait a few years and they won’t have to make any concessions because the Obama-types and the UN will be able to reconstruct the US Constitution to their liking.
Buddahpundit on January 12, 2013 at 4:12 PM
And if a cop pulls you over for a speeding ticket, will a private citizen get the “dave gregory” treatment”?
rob verdi on January 12, 2013 at 4:17 PM
How hard is it to understand that the push for mandatory background checks on private transfers, sales and gifts of guns is a de facto gun and gun owner registry?
Does anyone fail to understand that this registry is the essential first step to confiscating guns?
novaculus on January 12, 2013 at 4:19 PM
“That weapon? No I don’t own that weapon anymore. I melted it down and turned it into an ashtray, see?”
Universal background checks will never be complied with in any meaningful way. You’re concerns are legitimate, but the government’s reach is still limited. Hell they try to monitor all fertilizer and cold medicine sales, yet they don’t prevent anything by doing so.
NotCoach on January 12, 2013 at 4:33 PM
Well, the gun control people know it, which is why they support it. They know the biggest problem with any confiscation is that they don’t know where most of the guns are and who has them. They can figure some of out (by who has carry permits, who has had a background check performed against them — although thats no guarantee — etc) but without a comprehensive list, they’d miss a whole lot of guns. This is just a step in that direction.
Timin203 on January 12, 2013 at 4:35 PM
Sure, if you really want you to can still get more than a box of sudafed. But to every law abiding person out there, getting cold medicine, or i imagine fertilizer, is still a huge hassle. That’s all these laws are designed to be — a huge hassle. They know that will dissuade all but the most determined, who will end up now being criminals, which means the cops can arrest them.
Criminals are willing to take that risk, most law abiding people aren’t.
Timin203 on January 12, 2013 at 4:38 PM
When laws start infringing upon liberties fewer people remain law abiding. I will certainly not comply with any national registry or universal background check. And if things ever reach the point of confiscation we are now talking about being in a police state and life is going to get very violent for many of us very quickly.
As long as a man’s home is still his castle anything short of a police state will keep me out of trouble. I’ll worry about the consequences of an unregistered weapon after I’ve used it to defend life and property. You know, better to face 12 than be buried by 6. Hope I got that right.
NotCoach on January 12, 2013 at 4:45 PM
How about discussing the death penalty (no appeals) for commission of a felony with a gun? Long-term prison time for commission of a misdemeanor with a gun? Caught with a fire-arm for which you have no license? How about significant prison time? Fine tune these for some reasonable exceptions. Offer incentives to whistleblowers who finger violators. Let’s deal with those predisposed to violence. We can do other things regarding protections from the mentally ill.
By the way, why has there been no discussion about the responsibility of the friends and neighbors of the CT shooter and his mother. The woman was a gun nut and her son was off kilter, and yet no one intervened? If you see something, say something.
BuckeyeSam on January 12, 2013 at 4:51 PM
Wouldn’t have changed a darn thing in the school shooting.
Therefore, it clearly isn’t about dealing with the true issues of mental health and a culture of violence.
ProfShadow on January 12, 2013 at 4:55 PM
Well, certainly the government has been flirting with that line of “police state” for a long time.
Yeah, because we all want our neighbors spying on us and informing the government about our lives. Seriously, don’t you think if anyone honestly thought that this kid was going to kill his mother and shoot up a school, they would have said something? I don’t think the kid went around broadcasting his intentions.
Timin203 on January 12, 2013 at 5:00 PM
We don’t know much about her, except that she owned some guns, and she owned fewer than I do. Her SIL said she was a prepper, but no one else has said that. Preppers range from nuts to people making the kinds of preparations we all probably should.
juliesa on January 12, 2013 at 5:14 PM
Not in the near future, but in 50-60 years, it sure could.
Almost 50 years ago Ted Kennedy got his “immigration reform” bill, which allowed torrents of immigrants to flood in and fundamentally shift the political climate hard to the left.
We have to think in those same long term effects, in order to counter them effectively.
Rebar on January 12, 2013 at 5:31 PM
Lunacy writ large.
chemman on January 12, 2013 at 6:30 PM
Just ask do drugs law promote illegal trade in drugs, weapons and death or change it. The harder they make the sale them more ways they try to hide them. Yet when they don’t punish end the end target with one or two joints the suppliers try even harder with their ton worth.
Laws are is still post crime and punishment with no laws making it pre-crime prevention.
tjexcite on January 12, 2013 at 6:32 PM