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The NRA has historically cared more about hunting than guns. If a restriction on guns didn't burden hunting, they didn't care. In the firearms community, people

by wl 11y ago

The NRA has historically cared more about hunting than guns. If a restriction on guns didn't burden hunting, they didn't care. In the firearms community, people like this are pejoratively referred to as Fudds. Famously, the NRA supported the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 (which banned new automatic weapons from going into civilian hands). There was a shift in the organization away from the Fudds in the early 1980s and again in the early 1990s. In recent years, the Fudds have lost much of their influence. Respectfully, I think you should look carefully at the kinds gun regulations that are being proposed today. People are confused as to why the NRA would oppose background checks on all firearms transfers without understanding that all proposals put forth to date would create firearms registries, which have been abused in the past. If you came up to a solution to that (and didn't add a new tax on firearms transfers), you might actually get the NRA's support. Additionally, some state "universal background check" measures have done ridiculous things like make it illegal to lend a firearm to someone at a shooting range.

aidenn0 11y ago
I actually do have such a proposal. 1) You apply for a background check; there will be a fee to cover costs. 2) Assuming you pass the background check, you are issued an ID 3) Any gun sale would require you to present the ID. This includes in-state private-party transfers. The seller keeps (but does not register centrally) a record of this (e.g. a photocopy) Note an unexpired id from #2 is not required for possessing a firearm, merely for acquiring one, and having been issued an ID at some point in the past is not proof that you have any firearms (as you may have never purchased one at all, or you may have sold all the ones you purchased). While not perfect, it is a better system than the current system, and lets you audit people suspected of selling firearms inappropriately. Individual firearms are not registered, nor is it possible for the government to generate a list of definite gun owners (though eventually it would be possible for the government to generate a list of definite non-gun owners once everyone who owned a gun before the law was in effect is dead).
- wl 11y ago
  • By charging a fee for an ID necessary to acquire a firearm, you tax the exercise of a constitutional right. • An ID card does not guarantee that the bearer has not subsequently been deemed mentally incompetent nor convicted of a crime that disqualifies them from firearms ownership. • Your proposal would require anyone who has ever sold a gun to maintain records of the transfer indefinitely. In order to have teeth, you'd have to create a new crime for failure to do so. Even federally licensed firearms dealers don't have to maintain records indefinitely. All this aside, there is the larger issue that the kinds of events that prompt such proposals (Sandy Hook, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, Charleston) have perpetuators who either passed NCIC or would have if they went through a dealer. And while mass shootings are what get all the news coverage, they are hardly representative of the average shooting, where the guns tend to have been acquired illegally already.
  - aidenn0 11y ago
    It's not a tax if it's merely covering the costs of the transaction. That is that if we agree that it is a good thing to require background checks at all, then it will be part of the cost of transferring it. If you don't agree that background checks are a good idea at all, then just say so. This proposal is likely a lighter financial burden than either requiring everyone to get a background check for every transfer, or to require everyone go through a federally licensed dealer. It wouldn't necessarily need to be indefinitely; how long one wants to require this is a policy choice. Long enough to catch repeat offenders is all one really needs; stopping a single person from just once committing any crime is pretty hard.
    - someguydave 11y ago
      What incentive does the pro-gun side have to tolerate any new restriction, no matter how insignificant?

by wl 11y ago

aidenn0 11y ago

I actually do have such a proposal. 1) You apply for a background check; there will be a fee to cover costs. 2) Assuming you pass the background check, you are issued an ID 3) Any gun sale would require you to present the ID. This includes in-state private-party transfers. The seller keeps (but does not register centrally) a record of this (e.g. a photocopy) Note an unexpired id from #2 is not required for possessing a firearm, merely for acquiring one, and having been issued an ID at some point in the past is not proof that you have any firearms (as you may have never purchased one at all, or you may have sold all the ones you purchased). While not perfect, it is a better system than the current system, and lets you audit people suspected of selling firearms inappropriately. Individual firearms are not registered, nor is it possible for the government to generate a list of definite gun owners (though eventually it would be possible for the government to generate a list of definite non-gun owners once everyone who owned a gun before the law was in effect is dead).

wl 11y ago
• By charging a fee for an ID necessary to acquire a firearm, you tax the exercise of a constitutional right. • An ID card does not guarantee that the bearer has not subsequently been deemed mentally incompetent nor convicted of a crime that disqualifies them from firearms ownership. • Your proposal would require anyone who has ever sold a gun to maintain records of the transfer indefinitely. In order to have teeth, you'd have to create a new crime for failure to do so. Even federally licensed firearms dealers don't have to maintain records indefinitely. All this aside, there is the larger issue that the kinds of events that prompt such proposals (Sandy Hook, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, Charleston) have perpetuators who either passed NCIC or would have if they went through a dealer. And while mass shootings are what get all the news coverage, they are hardly representative of the average shooting, where the guns tend to have been acquired illegally already.
- aidenn0 11y ago
  It's not a tax if it's merely covering the costs of the transaction. That is that if we agree that it is a good thing to require background checks at all, then it will be part of the cost of transferring it. If you don't agree that background checks are a good idea at all, then just say so. This proposal is likely a lighter financial burden than either requiring everyone to get a background check for every transfer, or to require everyone go through a federally licensed dealer. It wouldn't necessarily need to be indefinitely; how long one wants to require this is a policy choice. Long enough to catch repeat offenders is all one really needs; stopping a single person from just once committing any crime is pretty hard.
  - someguydave 11y ago
    What incentive does the pro-gun side have to tolerate any new restriction, no matter how insignificant?