- What problem are we trying to solve?
- Are there large numbers of prohibited persons obtaining guns in private sales?
- Is one enough to justify a new law?
- Is there an indication that absent the private sale "loophole" the prohibited possessor wouldn't have gotten a gun a different way?
- Why is the solution to make it harder for law abiding, non-prohibited possessors to buy and sell guns?
- What is the justification, if any, for involving the federal government in a state matter (i.e. intrastate transfer of private property between individuals)? The 1968 Gun Control Act establishing FFL's and certain federal control of firearms transactions was specifically predicated on controlling int
erstate commerce in firearms (you know the magic Constitutional talisman that federalizes everything
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
). States (including Texas) are free to impose additional regulation in transactions within their borders if they see fit. I still don't see that it would help anything, because you start to get into the minutiae of how closing the private sale loophole would work. It wouldn't.
- How is the private seller to check that the person they are selling to or transferring to is prohibited or not?
- Give them access to Federal NICS? Really? Every Tom, Dick, and Harry can spend all day looking people up for thrills? What if they get a delay?
- Follow the same process that FFL's do? Wait 3 days?
- Do you (privately) have the buyer fill out a 4473? Do you have to keep it? Send it to the State? The Feds? OK force everyone through an FFL? All right, what about 18-20 year olds...no more handguns for them? Exemptions for military and police 20 year olds?
- What constitutes a sale/transfer? When my dad loans me his Glock to go the range. When grandpa passes and wills me his WWII 1911? Does the executor run to an FFL?
- If someone is willing to murder somebody, how is closing the private sale "loophole" going to help? We didn't have NICS until 1998. Before then an FFL did what current private sellers are obligated to do. They didn't sell the gun to someone they knew or had reason to know was prohibited. We hear lots of great things about how NICS blocks a zillion sales, but the violent gun crime stats were falling before NICS. My proposition was that the reason was because sentencing on both a state and federal level for crime got a lot stricter.
- Another point about NICS. Everyone says why aren't we prosecuting NICS denials? Well...because NICS database stinks! My proposition is that a significant percentage of denials are false positives.
- A federal appeals court (4th circuit I think) has ruled that prosecuting a prohibited possessor for perjury on a 4473 requires proof that the person knew or should have known that he was prohibited. And with the cruddy NICS database, the vague definitions of prohibited possessors (misdemeanor DV, "adjudicated mentally defective", even the definition of "felony" in 50+ jurisdictions, the definition of "restraining order", and so on and so on).
- So now we want to engage this process, not just for regulated FFL's but for every time your brother in law loans you his lever action to go varmint hunting? -
- Also, what about the ammo "loophole". California implemented background checks for ammo.
So no we don't need to DO SOMETHING1 Well, maybe one thing, speed up the application of the death penalty to convicted capital criminals...but that's help up by the SCOTUS "loophole". No executing 17 year olds, no executing violent rapists, no executing insane people (aren't all murderers arguably insane?).
No pre-crime laws!
No unconstitutional federal interference in intrastate commerce!
No cosmetic feature bans!
No magazine size limits!
If a politician, supposedly "on our side" like the Lt. Governor or Governor or President, is going to propose additional restrictions, then they owe it to us to explain how it would work, how it would help, and how it would be Constitutional. The other side doesn't care a bit about this and will simply keep pursuing their goal of a total gun ban and confiscation and screeching and flinging poo like the monkeys they are.
4/13/1996 Completed CHL Class, 4/16/1996 Fingerprints, Affidavits, and Application Mailed, 10/4/1996 Received CHL, renewed 1998, 2002, 2006, 2011, 2016...). "ATF... Uhhh...heh...heh....Alcohol, tobacco, and GUNS!! Cool!!!!"