11 ms·

If the better approach is to focus on the "who", why does the NRA oppose background checks?

by sanj 10y ago

fdhj4094njdf 10y ago
They don't oppose background checks. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/nra-supported-background-gun-check-john-cornyn-121035 http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/nra-supported-backgrou...
- ixtli 10y ago
  It says they do on the NRA-ILA website. https://www.nraila.org/issues/background-checksnics/ https://www.nraila.org/issues/background-checksnics/
- lionsdan 10y ago
  Sometimes they do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njBvpxhsa_Y&feature=youtu.be&t=141 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njBvpxhsa_Y&feature=youtu.be...
- BookmarkSaver 10y ago
  I don't think so. They've opposed any background check legislation proposed before, and that bill seems more like it is about "augmenting" "background checks" rather than actually augmenting background checks in a useful manner.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  The pertinent part of that bill is about listing mental health information in the background check system. It doesn't increase the number of transactions where a background check would be required. The NRA regularly opposes such expansions (for instance they oppose closing the so called gun show loophole).
  - msandford 10y ago
    The idea that mental health information should be a part of background checks is a pretty tough row to hoe. With crimes at least there's an ostensibly fair trial that determines the guilt or innocence of the person; with mental health there may or may not be any kind of trial but the resulting embargo on your gun rights will be just as real. Further that would incentivize people who might be struggling with mental illness NOT to seek help, lest they forever find themselves unable to own a gun. Is that what we want? Discouraging people from seeking help? Finally, there's absolutely NO incentive for the people actually executing the background check system to "be reasonable" such that if you had a nervous breakdown in college at 20 years old from trying to take 21 credits so you could graduate before your scholarship ran out (as a totally contrived example) should that really prevent 40 year old you from owning a shotgun to shoot clays? I might argue "no" but the bureaucracy has NO incentive to allow it and EVERY incentive not to allow it. There are no real repercussions for taking someone's rights in a nebulous and opaque manner but large repercussions if anyone, anywhere ever who has any kind of mental health history ever gets a gun and uses it murderously.
    - hga 10y ago
      The idea that mental health information should be a part of background checks is a pretty tough row to hoe. So tough that many states still absolutely refuse to supply their relevant mental health records to the NICS "instant" background check system. And then there's the screwups, the Virginia Tech shooter should have been stopped by the gun store (and who knows what would have happened after that), but Virginia hasn't forwarded his involuntary treatment order to the NICS due to their confusion and/or sloth. Or take the Colorado theater shooter, he so alarmed his university psychiatrist that she reported him to its threat board, which she was also a member of. But he soon withdrew, and they washed their hands of any further responsibility WRT to him.
      - msandford 10y ago
        I'm sure it's a "hard-line" stance to take, but if you want to make gun violence a public health issue I'd be far, far more supportive of the idea that we have a mental health problem here in the US than an access-to-guns problem here in the US.
ixtli 10y ago
I think we all know why. In fact. This author implies it: the NRA actually represents the business interests of people who manufacture and sell firearms. They may mask these interests as a public service, defending your rights and hobbies and whatnot but it is always the case that they oppose anything that would reduce firearm sales and support anything that makes it easier for you to get a gun.
- fiatmoney 10y ago
  That's absolutely false. The NRA's membership drives their policy, not the other way around - manufacturers have historically been perfectly content to give into things like the assault weapons ban or magazine capacity limits (they make roughly the same amount of money if they sell their guns with a scary flash hider or a sanctified muzzle brake). In fact there are numerous groups, like the Gun Owners of America, who are even more membership-driven and essentially exist in order to keep pressure on the NRA to avoid making "deals" with gun control partisans. This idea of the NRA as a manufacturer-driven astroturf organization seems to have been made up out of whole cloth over the last 5 years or so and is only sustainable to the extent that its proponents avoid actually talking to any gun owners.
  - jonstokes 10y ago
    OP article author here: You are correct and the parent comment is incorrect. The NRA actually used to support background checks, but after decades of "compromises" where they basically gave up ground and got nothing in return, they went hard-line at the membership's insistence. This cartoon does a great job of explaining the average NRA members view of what it means to meet the gun control lobby "halfway" on an issue: http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2013/11/08/cake-and-compromise-illustrated-guide-to-gun-control/ http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2013/11/08/cake-and-comprom... I'll link another piece I wrote on this topic, which is way too long and incoherent and should have gotten edits but didn't: http://www.alloutdoor.com/2015/11/12/why-fake-moderate-gun-owner-orgs-like-arcog-fail-every-time/ http://www.alloutdoor.com/2015/11/12/why-fake-moderate-gun-o... For discussion of the evolution of the NRA into a hard-line, no-compromise lobbying group, see the last section, "NRA: The Original Moderate Pro-Gun Group".
adrusi 10y ago
If you commit a felony and are as a result never again allowed to purchase a firearm, your rights are being perpetually limited, and I and a lot of other people object to that, and it's arguably a violation of the 8th ammendment. If background checks were more limited in the kind of background they checked for, say only restricting people who had injured someone using a firearm, then there might be fewer objections. And felons who want to buy a gun for nefarious purposes are either smart enough to pay up and get an unregistered one on the black market (so you're not targeting them with background checks) or dumb enough to get one at a local gun store. But the dumb ones are still felons, which means they likely have criminal connections, and if they need a gun they probably can find another way to get one. So by stopping them from buying a firearm legally, they're more likely to end up with unregistered weapon, which makes the DoJ's job harder. I concede that a fair number of them might be inconvenienced enough to just not buy a gun, but then many of them will just go on to stab people instead of shooting them. The number of actual lives saved by background checks is probably much lower than people think. Further, background checks are notoriously unreliable, turning up plenty of hard-to-resolve false-positives and dangerous false-negatives. And then there's restrictions on mental health conditions. The problem with these is that people like guns, and if someone who likes guns thinks they might have a mental health disorder like bipolar or schizophrenia that would perclude them from owning one, they won't see a doctor. The result is that they won't get treatment and are more likely to hurt themselves, and indeed, others. Shootings and violent crime have been declining for decades, but the lives of the mentally ill have not been improving. I find the mental health problem much more important than the gun control issues to the proper functioning of our society, it's just that gun violence is more visible. This is a hard problem, and there will have to be compromises but it has to be part of the debate. I don't know why the NRA opposes background checks, but there are good reasons to.
- SpaceX_Tech 10y ago
  I agree with you that on the fundamental level I don’t like the idea of rights being perpetually limited on the basis of being a convicted felon. As far as I’m concerned once a person has served their sentence, including parole, they have paid their debt to society in full and shouldn’t be barred from exercising any rights that non felons enjoy. This isn’t limited solely to the right to bear arms but also the right to vote, which many states still bar for convicted felons. If we as a society are so uncomfortable with the people who have paid their debt that we deem they must be prevented from exercising their rights even after serving their sentence, then perhaps it’s time we take a hard look at the failings of our “corrections” system. On a hypothetical level, even if I did support the current laws barring convicted felons of certain rights in perpetuity, I would still have a problem with the way this is being administered today. I’ve read some pretty damning reports on some of the discriminatory practices that continue at the institutional level within the broader criminal justice system which seem to primarily affect certain segments of our population. Poor people, particularly minorities and specifically black males, face some very specific challenges when it comes to things like selective enforcement, pretrial plea bargains, rates of conviction and length of sentencing. At this point I can’t really describe our justice system as anything but blatantly discriminatory. Even in a more equitable and just system, I personally wouldn’t support the taking away of rights in perpetuity, and I certainly don’t support it when it seems to have such a deliberate and specific impact on certain groups.
space_fountain 10y ago
The argument I have heard is that a universal background checks system would require the government to keep a registry of gun owners to be at all useful. You have to be able to go back and prove whether a seller performed the proper background check before selling a gun to a particular person. A possible alternative I thought and have always wondered why it doesn't get used would be some sort of private public key cryptography where the seller would get a signed certificate proving they ran a background check and it's result, but the government wouldn't store anything.
- hga 10y ago
  The argument I have heard is that a universal background checks system would require the government to keep a registry of gun owners to be at all useful. Bingo, and the imposition of a registry would inevitably spark our next hot civil war. Best to avoid that.... where the seller would get a signed certificate proving they ran a background check and it's result, but the government wouldn't store anything Unfortunately, a lot of people are really really bad about keeping records. It would also be open to abuse by the government seizing and disappearing the certificate of someone they wanted to persecute. Heck, the government sucks here, the BATFE's machine gun etc. registry is in horrible shape, and they sometimes abuse that.
  - lumberjack 10y ago
    Serious question: do NRA members leave their smartphone at home when they go to a gun range? What about buying ammo? Do they use cash? What about their internet browsing activity? Do they go through a proxy?
    - hga 10y ago
      It depends; many of us realize we're already on plenty of lists of "undesirables", so OPSEC measures like that are not yet needed, although it might be a good idea to get in practice now. And it's not just smartphones, all will at minimum triangulate to the nears cell towers while on.
  - 10y ago

If the better approach is to focus on the "who", why does the NRA oppose background checks?

by sanj 10y ago

If the better approach is to focus on the "who", why does the NRA oppose background checks?

They don't oppose background checks. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/nra-supported-background-gun-check-john-cornyn-121035 http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/nra-supported-backgrou...

ixtli 10y ago
It says they do on the NRA-ILA website. https://www.nraila.org/issues/background-checksnics/ https://www.nraila.org/issues/background-checksnics/
lionsdan 10y ago
Sometimes they do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njBvpxhsa_Y&feature=youtu.be&t=141 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njBvpxhsa_Y&feature=youtu.be...
BookmarkSaver 10y ago
I don't think so. They've opposed any background check legislation proposed before, and that bill seems more like it is about "augmenting" "background checks" rather than actually augmenting background checks in a useful manner.
maxerickson 10y ago
The pertinent part of that bill is about listing mental health information in the background check system. It doesn't increase the number of transactions where a background check would be required. The NRA regularly opposes such expansions (for instance they oppose closing the so called gun show loophole).
- msandford 10y ago
  The idea that mental health information should be a part of background checks is a pretty tough row to hoe. With crimes at least there's an ostensibly fair trial that determines the guilt or innocence of the person; with mental health there may or may not be any kind of trial but the resulting embargo on your gun rights will be just as real. Further that would incentivize people who might be struggling with mental illness NOT to seek help, lest they forever find themselves unable to own a gun. Is that what we want? Discouraging people from seeking help? Finally, there's absolutely NO incentive for the people actually executing the background check system to "be reasonable" such that if you had a nervous breakdown in college at 20 years old from trying to take 21 credits so you could graduate before your scholarship ran out (as a totally contrived example) should that really prevent 40 year old you from owning a shotgun to shoot clays? I might argue "no" but the bureaucracy has NO incentive to allow it and EVERY incentive not to allow it. There are no real repercussions for taking someone's rights in a nebulous and opaque manner but large repercussions if anyone, anywhere ever who has any kind of mental health history ever gets a gun and uses it murderously.
  - hga 10y ago
    The idea that mental health information should be a part of background checks is a pretty tough row to hoe. So tough that many states still absolutely refuse to supply their relevant mental health records to the NICS "instant" background check system. And then there's the screwups, the Virginia Tech shooter should have been stopped by the gun store (and who knows what would have happened after that), but Virginia hasn't forwarded his involuntary treatment order to the NICS due to their confusion and/or sloth. Or take the Colorado theater shooter, he so alarmed his university psychiatrist that she reported him to its threat board, which she was also a member of. But he soon withdrew, and they washed their hands of any further responsibility WRT to him.
    - msandford 10y ago
      I'm sure it's a "hard-line" stance to take, but if you want to make gun violence a public health issue I'd be far, far more supportive of the idea that we have a mental health problem here in the US than an access-to-guns problem here in the US.

ixtli 10y ago

I think we all know why. In fact. This author implies it: the NRA actually represents the business interests of people who manufacture and sell firearms. They may mask these interests as a public service, defending your rights and hobbies and whatnot but it is always the case that they oppose anything that would reduce firearm sales and support anything that makes it easier for you to get a gun.

fiatmoney 10y ago
That's absolutely false. The NRA's membership drives their policy, not the other way around - manufacturers have historically been perfectly content to give into things like the assault weapons ban or magazine capacity limits (they make roughly the same amount of money if they sell their guns with a scary flash hider or a sanctified muzzle brake). In fact there are numerous groups, like the Gun Owners of America, who are even more membership-driven and essentially exist in order to keep pressure on the NRA to avoid making "deals" with gun control partisans. This idea of the NRA as a manufacturer-driven astroturf organization seems to have been made up out of whole cloth over the last 5 years or so and is only sustainable to the extent that its proponents avoid actually talking to any gun owners.
- jonstokes 10y ago
  OP article author here: You are correct and the parent comment is incorrect. The NRA actually used to support background checks, but after decades of "compromises" where they basically gave up ground and got nothing in return, they went hard-line at the membership's insistence. This cartoon does a great job of explaining the average NRA members view of what it means to meet the gun control lobby "halfway" on an issue: http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2013/11/08/cake-and-compromise-illustrated-guide-to-gun-control/ http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2013/11/08/cake-and-comprom... I'll link another piece I wrote on this topic, which is way too long and incoherent and should have gotten edits but didn't: http://www.alloutdoor.com/2015/11/12/why-fake-moderate-gun-owner-orgs-like-arcog-fail-every-time/ http://www.alloutdoor.com/2015/11/12/why-fake-moderate-gun-o... For discussion of the evolution of the NRA into a hard-line, no-compromise lobbying group, see the last section, "NRA: The Original Moderate Pro-Gun Group".

adrusi 10y ago

If you commit a felony and are as a result never again allowed to purchase a firearm, your rights are being perpetually limited, and I and a lot of other people object to that, and it's arguably a violation of the 8th ammendment. If background checks were more limited in the kind of background they checked for, say only restricting people who had injured someone using a firearm, then there might be fewer objections. And felons who want to buy a gun for nefarious purposes are either smart enough to pay up and get an unregistered one on the black market (so you're not targeting them with background checks) or dumb enough to get one at a local gun store. But the dumb ones are still felons, which means they likely have criminal connections, and if they need a gun they probably can find another way to get one. So by stopping them from buying a firearm legally, they're more likely to end up with unregistered weapon, which makes the DoJ's job harder. I concede that a fair number of them might be inconvenienced enough to just not buy a gun, but then many of them will just go on to stab people instead of shooting them. The number of actual lives saved by background checks is probably much lower than people think. Further, background checks are notoriously unreliable, turning up plenty of hard-to-resolve false-positives and dangerous false-negatives. And then there's restrictions on mental health conditions. The problem with these is that people like guns, and if someone who likes guns thinks they might have a mental health disorder like bipolar or schizophrenia that would perclude them from owning one, they won't see a doctor. The result is that they won't get treatment and are more likely to hurt themselves, and indeed, others. Shootings and violent crime have been declining for decades, but the lives of the mentally ill have not been improving. I find the mental health problem much more important than the gun control issues to the proper functioning of our society, it's just that gun violence is more visible. This is a hard problem, and there will have to be compromises but it has to be part of the debate. I don't know why the NRA opposes background checks, but there are good reasons to.

SpaceX_Tech 10y ago
I agree with you that on the fundamental level I don’t like the idea of rights being perpetually limited on the basis of being a convicted felon. As far as I’m concerned once a person has served their sentence, including parole, they have paid their debt to society in full and shouldn’t be barred from exercising any rights that non felons enjoy. This isn’t limited solely to the right to bear arms but also the right to vote, which many states still bar for convicted felons. If we as a society are so uncomfortable with the people who have paid their debt that we deem they must be prevented from exercising their rights even after serving their sentence, then perhaps it’s time we take a hard look at the failings of our “corrections” system. On a hypothetical level, even if I did support the current laws barring convicted felons of certain rights in perpetuity, I would still have a problem with the way this is being administered today. I’ve read some pretty damning reports on some of the discriminatory practices that continue at the institutional level within the broader criminal justice system which seem to primarily affect certain segments of our population. Poor people, particularly minorities and specifically black males, face some very specific challenges when it comes to things like selective enforcement, pretrial plea bargains, rates of conviction and length of sentencing. At this point I can’t really describe our justice system as anything but blatantly discriminatory. Even in a more equitable and just system, I personally wouldn’t support the taking away of rights in perpetuity, and I certainly don’t support it when it seems to have such a deliberate and specific impact on certain groups.

space_fountain 10y ago

The argument I have heard is that a universal background checks system would require the government to keep a registry of gun owners to be at all useful. You have to be able to go back and prove whether a seller performed the proper background check before selling a gun to a particular person. A possible alternative I thought and have always wondered why it doesn't get used would be some sort of private public key cryptography where the seller would get a signed certificate proving they ran a background check and it's result, but the government wouldn't store anything.

hga 10y ago
The argument I have heard is that a universal background checks system would require the government to keep a registry of gun owners to be at all useful. Bingo, and the imposition of a registry would inevitably spark our next hot civil war. Best to avoid that.... where the seller would get a signed certificate proving they ran a background check and it's result, but the government wouldn't store anything Unfortunately, a lot of people are really really bad about keeping records. It would also be open to abuse by the government seizing and disappearing the certificate of someone they wanted to persecute. Heck, the government sucks here, the BATFE's machine gun etc. registry is in horrible shape, and they sometimes abuse that.
- lumberjack 10y ago
  Serious question: do NRA members leave their smartphone at home when they go to a gun range? What about buying ammo? Do they use cash? What about their internet browsing activity? Do they go through a proxy?
  - hga 10y ago
    It depends; many of us realize we're already on plenty of lists of "undesirables", so OPSEC measures like that are not yet needed, although it might be a good idea to get in practice now. And it's not just smartphones, all will at minimum triangulate to the nears cell towers while on.
- 10y ago