Study Finds Background-Check Laws in Wa. and Colo. Did Nothing

[Charlie T Waite]

In an article by CHARLES C. W. COOKE in the National Review he reports that In the Guardian, Lois Beckett highlights a new study that has found that background-check laws in Washington and Colorado have “had little measurable effect”

 

Charlie

[Blackwater 53393]

I DON'T wonder!!

 

Criminals don't submit to background checks!!!

[Dantankerous]

Colorado... Tighten up the gun laws but let's make marijuana legal for everybody.

 

That can only mean one thing. The legislature there is all smoking marijuana and turned into a bunch of goofy b**tards. 

 

Criminals don't use background checks. And background checks will never reveal the intent a firearms purchaser might have. 

[Charlie T Waite]

Three questions that usually arise regarding issues that the background checks fail at are something akin to:

1. “Then how do you propose to keep guns out of the hands of criminals???” This is somewhat of a flawed question and here’s why. It assumes, first of all, that background checks can do that very thing.

2. "It is ignoring the fact that a felon not being allowed to own guns is a relatively new phenomenon" See (1968 Gun Control Act).

3. "It fails to address a massive hole in the overall problem"; namely, that if we as a society have deemed an individual too unsafe to own a firearm, why is he walking freely among the populace? Charlie

[Dantankerous]

Charlie, your number three is an interesting point in that the only way to control for this is George Orwell's thought police. But I submit that there are people in government who would be happy to place US on another red flag list solely for being an NRA member, on this board, or maybe even simply driving pickup truck with a republican candidate name on a bumper sticker. We are all evil, you know and must be dealt with accordingly. They know better than we and are only acting to protect us from ourselves.

 

Apparently laws against murder don't work either.

 

Just what is this new phenomenon? People killing other people? Did it never ever happen before the invention of the firearm?

 

I might argue and have argued that background checks presuppose the notion that we are all guilty until proven innocent, or criminal until proven not criminal. In order to legally purchase a firearm we have to show that we aren't who they think we are. What happened to due process? Isn't that the Crux of the anti-gunner's argument? Anti-gun folk generally presume the worst in people apparently. Therefore no one can be trusted as they think they know what's in our hearts and souls. Again, we are all guilty until we show ourselves through some type of legislative bureaucratical red tape to be legal, moral, and decent folk. 

 

 

 

 

[Charlie T Waite]

Well how about Four other things to thik about are:

 

1. Expanding the background check requirement makes no sense as a response to mass shootings (even though that is how it has been presented), because the perpetrators of these crimes typically either have actually passed background checks or could do so because they do not have disqualifying criminal or psychiatric records.

 

2. Expanding the background check requirement makes little sense as a response to more common forms of gun violence, since criminals with felony records can always obtain weapons on the black market, through buyers with clean records, or by theft.

 

3. Expanding the background check requirement, especially if it is coupled with "improved" databases, compounds the injustice of disarming millions of people who pose no threat to others but are nevertheless forbidden to own guns because they use illegal drugs, overstay a visa, were once subjected to court-ordered psychiatric treatment, or have felony records, even if they have never committed a violent crime.

 

4. Expanding the background check requirement is not the same as actually compelling people to perform background checks for private gun transfers. Many gun owners will balk at the inconvenience and expense of finding and paying a licensed dealer who is willing to faciliate a transaction. Consider: Does the theoretical prospect of a 10+/-year prison sentence deter gun owners from taking drugs or drug addicts from taking drugs or possesing guns?

 

Charlie

[Rooster Ron Wayne]

When guns are Outlawed.

Only Outlaws will have guns .

Just sayin 

Rooster 

[Dantankerous]

Charlie,

 

You're correct on you're next four assertions. None of them will keep tragedies from happening. Even if enacted they still would not make the anti-gunners happy because expanded background checks are really just more of the same. Anti-gunners do not want more of the same they want more of what they want but don't yet have which is a drive to total registration and confiscation.

 

The logistics behind expanded background checks would be very difficult, very costly, extremely legally contentious pertaining to what that expansion would involve leading to years worth of litigation, and very prone to mishandling and mistakes.  And I'd argue expanded background checks would have no greater effect than what we currently now have.