I hate to say I told you so — oh, who am I kidding; it’s what I do — but the Senate GOP is set to “compromise” on gun-control, enacting the one proposal I predicted they would enact (while proclaiming victory for beating back the rest of the Feinstein agenda), so-called universal background checks.
Which of course are no such thing, because the only people forced to comply will be law-abiding citizens.
The rationale for this intrusion and overreach is a phony set of numbers that are themselves based around a study from the 90s that used pre-Brady data. You’ve heard it: Obama and the anti-gun ground repeat it endlessly. 40% of gun sales occur without a background check, they tell you.
But what they mean is, 36% (rounded up to 40%) of gun transfers (not “sales”) occur without that check. And of that 36%, well over 90% are gifts from family members and/or inheritances. Also, in the original survey that is the basis for this 40% number, people were asked if they believed they’d gotten their weapons from a licensed dealer. But this was not something that was routinely worried about in the early 90s, and many small licensed dealers operating out of their homes didn’t advertise themselves as FFL holders. They were merely local people who sold guns.
So the very impetus for this push for a universal background check is predicated on a series of lies, all of which have been detailed and should be available to any Senator prepared to grant themselves even greater power while placing impracticable restrictions on our rights.
Now, let’s walk through this so that we know just who the GOP members who’d support such a measure are:
1. You are pulled over for a busted tail light and the patrolman sees a rifle in the back seat of your car.
2. The patrolman asks you to furnish proof that you went through a universal background check to purchase the rifle. You reply that after 24 hours those records are destroyed, and besides, the specific weapon isn’t listed on the paperwork anyway. Since you’ve owned the gun legally for over 24 hours, there is no way for you to prove you underwent the check.
3. The officer can either believe you or decide that he’s not taking any chances and confiscate your weapon.
4. You have a right then to go prove your innocence, having been preliminarily found guilty.
5. This will require lawyers and legal fees and you will be deprived of your weapon in the interim.
6. Eventually some court will rule that you were denied due process — that the police cannot presume you guilty until you prove your innocence, especially when no mechanism is in place for you to prove your innocence.
7. At which point, the “common sense” reformers will note that their universal background check — indeed, any background check in the context of showing you have a right to own the weapon (because the same scenario illustrated above can play out now) — is worthless after the initial check (which itself produces tens of thousands of false positives every year, and so is problematic insofar as it keeps law-abiding citizens from obtaining weapons in a timely manner, and at least a percentage of these citizens probably face an imminent threat) unless and until it is tied to paperwork that allows you to show that you aren’t a criminal.
8. And that will be a gun registry. Kept by the government. To protect you! Meanwhile, you’ve been forced to pay legal fees, have been deprived of one means of defense, and have been compelled to surrender your time to the state in order to prove yourself worthy of state sanctioning.
9. Gun violence ended! Career criminals unable to get guns because there’s no way they can pass a universal background check!
How should I put this delicately: any lawmaker who supports an unenforcible law — one that serves only as a precursor to a gun registry — just so they can say they reached across the aisle and “did something,” should be tarred, feathered, and then booted from office. If they be Republicans, there names should become expletives.
Debate will make clear that criminals overwhelmingly get their guns illegally. It will also show that a universal background check has no enforcement mechanism. It is legislation as symbolism, and it is also the next step before a national gun registry.
McCain, Coburn, and Kirk should be ashamed of themselves. They are giving the Democrats cover on this issue — one that can be used to beat them badly with come election time. But one has to have the ability to feel shame first, and I’m not convinced any of these political creatures have that capability.
This is Chris Christie hugging Obama before the 2012 election all over again. A statist is a statist is a statist, regardless of party affiliation. And if the GOP refuses to represent the interests of its constituents, what the hell good is it? Why isn’t McConnell telling McCain, Kirk, and Coburn to shut up and hold the line — that the case can be made very easily against the idea of universal background checks?
And the truth is, the GOP worries more about being cast by the Democrats and media as “against child safety” and “for gun violence” than they do about our natural rights and the Constitution.
It really is that simple. And I hope some of the TEA Party Senator will drop the collegiality bullshit and call them on it directly. We’ve reached that point.
It’s not much of a leap to note that transfers among family members will continue whether or not a law for universal background checks is passed, and very likely very few background checks will ever occur in that circumstance. I would expect private sales to continue quietly as well.
So, to enforce an unnecessary and useless law, another law to register all guns by serial number and associate them with specific owners will have to be passed. The call for registration will also be largely ignored, of course, and those people who haven’t lost their guns in tragic boating accidents will then be felons whenever the government decides it wants them to be and invades their homes to confiscate those guns.
Perhaps that’s the real point. A fearful populace is a compliant populace.
You called it, Jeff, and, sadly, I have no doubt that you’ll be recognized as a prophet once again when the Gun Registry Bill is passed.
Molon Labe.
Resistentiam Tyrannis nunc.
Resistentiam Tyrannis saecula.
WOLVERINES!
[Resistance to Tyranny now.
Resistance to Tyranny forever.
WOLVERINES!]
Crank wrote: Perhaps that’s the real point. A fearful populace is a compliant populace.
Leftism 101 [in Room 101].
Apologies: should read ‘Cranky’.
mccain learned fascism at the knees of some of the best
I can’t believe I voted for that fucking dick head.
Wasted vote indeed.
Or, one could become an instant felon when protecting one’s life and family.
Yesterday I took a really painful McCain. It was exacerbated by a large Boehner on my Rove that was leaking some nasty-looking Christie.
At this point, we definitely need a clear demarcation letting us know which States intend to misbehave. If there aren’t a few of them, we’re doomed. We many be doomed already.
[…] Jeff follows up with another prediction: […]
Right you are, Jeff.
I would have picked Universal Mental Health Checkups by Some To-Be-Determined Federal Standard™ myself, but on second thought universal background checks are easier to implement and you can always add a Mental Fitness Act to it later.
Yahtzee!
Dumbass country.
Lesser of Evils, beemoe, lesser of Evils.
[…] good friend in the ether, Bob Belvedere has written a good post with some excerpts from Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom on the Second Amendment. I’m excerpting some portions of his article with […]
hey you extremists, you still want to regulate vayjayjays more than your phallic guns!!
To be fair, if McCain would have been elected gun control wouldn’t be being discussed. We would have been talking about whether McCain was a war criminal for using Predator Drones, torture at Guantanamo, and how 6% unemployment proved Republicans hate the middle class.
As I posted in my little diatribe, we must do what we can at the local level. That’s where we have the power. Introduce yourself to the local Sheriff and casually talk to them about their views on the Constitution and the Second Amendment in particular.
Go to your local town council meetings and petition for resolutions that back the Sheriff in his quest to protect your Second Amendment rights.
I live in a small town and have already talked to our Sheriff. I’m not sure how you folks who live in larger cities can go about it. But you need to find out and do what you can.
We folks who live in larger cities wait for the police to come down on us like a ton of bricks, and pray we avoid their scrutiny.
yes I always come to a complete stop and do 2 mississippi
i’m sure background checks would have stopped this:
2 questioned in shooting of teen killed hours after sister heard Obama’s speech
Yeah cranky, we are moving towards a police state, and people are noticing. I mean, when people are as fearful of the police as they are criminals, somethings wrong.
John McCain will also allow the cloture vote on Hagel to pass Feb 25. Tiptoeing along behind him will follow Lamar Alexander, the biggest RINO who’s senate term is up 2014. I’m hoping we can nail him for it, despite his re-election war chest the size of M’chelle’s booty.
And because of all that the old bastard would be reaching across the aisle to ban guns all the stronger.
The lesser of two evils is still fucking evil.
McCain needs to head back to Arizona and spend more time with the grandkids.
mccain is about as presidential as your average dumbfuck public high school principal I think
You don’t know that. I don’t think gun control would be an issue if Republicans had the White house. It would be all foreign policy(failed) and the economy (failed). Plus the ecological disaster of Keystone and how coal plants are killing children.
Proggs are opportunistic, and would never bring up gun control if they were hoping to re-take the presidency. I don’t think they would dare bring it up now if they hadn’t made gains in congress this last election. As is, they feel pretty damn snug, and so are going for everything they can.
@ Cranky-d
There should be something you can do on the local level. (We’re lucky in that the town cops and the Sheriff are on the same page.) Don’t know where you live, but surely you can talk to the Sheriff. I know big town police chiefs are usually for gun control, but county sheriffs mostly embrace the Constitution and all it entails. Find local council members who are sympathetic to our cause and keep after them. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Meghan needs some barefoot and pregnant time.
Our Sheriff has said he won’t enforce such laws, and our county council backed our Sheriff. But it’s a small town.
Well that’s good news, Jeff. Small town living is the best.
I moved out here to the hinterlands right after 9/11. It seemed like a sign.
sorry I meaned *assistant* principal
I’d rather she not reproduce.
It’s possible that concern for her offspring and the world it will grow up in might awaken something approaching an adult human intellect in her.
there’s nothing wrong with her when she’s not yapping on the cable news like a dumbass uneducated wannabe propaganda slut
she has fun accessories and probably knows lots of really great lunch places
see here is her most recent blog post about the cessories for example the hand sanitizer
she didn’t linker it which means they’re not paying her money or sending her free samples but I found it! it comes from the united kingdom just like piers morgan!
here is what they say
they call it “your portable sink TM”
British people are weird.
What good indeed? I really don’t understand the thought process going on here: We’re the weak horse! Vote for us in 2014!
Obama wants to destroy the Republican party, and the Establishment wing stands ready to help him do it if that’s what it takes to marginalize and neuter conservatives.
Biden Personally Pressured Colorado Democrats To Advance Anti-Gun Legislation.
Isn’t Michelle in Aspen “on vacation” too?
More rights than all you 2nd class “little people.”
geoffb, the old irony meter pegged with the “bully” comment.
Anyway, I didn’t know cops were on the front line, taking the war to criminals. I thought cops generally had to chase criminals after a citizen had to deal with the crime.
I guess a dead unarmed victim of crime is much better than an under-weaponed cop chasing a dangerous repeat offender.
These cops reps are turning out to be stupid fucking assholes.
Many aspects of the 18 USC 922 disqualifiers are completely ignored today. There’s 10’s of thousands of prosecutable Federal firearms violations every year that are completely passed on by the police and USADA’s for prosecution. Not even difficult stuff, slam dunk shit a jury would convict on with 5 minutes of deliberation
More paper law won’t prompt the USADA’s to do more.
McCain, Coburn, and Kirk should be ashamed of themselves.
It won’t happen until it is pointed out, loudly, again and again, that anyone on this bandwagon is a tyranny loving pile of dung with contempt for the Constitution. Still haven’t seen any full blooded assault by the NRA on any of these scumbags, individually, or collectively. It should be pointed out that any legislator in the nation gets an F rating if they support any of these measures. Put them all in the spotlight.
This.
I think we need to stop worrying about the left for awhile and focus all our attention on reminding the right who the fuck they represent. If all they can manage is being contrarian assholes then that is what they must do.
I think we need to stop worrying about the left for awhile and focus all our attention on reminding the right who the fuck they represent.
We kind of take it for granted that Feinstein and Jugears are tyranny loving collectivists. Still, it would be a nice start if just one congress critter would take to the networks and explain that when Jugears, or Biden says he supports the Second Amendment, he is a lying liar that lies. Not a single one of the spineless maggots will go to bat for the Republic. All one would need would be a copy of the holding in Heller.
SHOCKING OBAMA JUSTICE DEPT. MEMO: Assault Weapons Ban Won’t Work Without Confiscation and Gun Registration (Video)
We all should have seen this coming back when the admin including Hillary started spouting that “90% of the arms in Mexico” bullshit. This DOJ is severely lacking on the “J” end. Fast and Furious got buried with “what difference does it make”, “bumps in the road” Bengahzi victims.
Not a single one of the spineless maggots will go to bat for the Republic.
But they are all we got, so suck it up and get on the slower train to hell.
serr8d says February 17, 2013 at 6:55 pm
John McCain will also allow the cloture vote on Hagel to pass Feb 25.
Politico: “By reversing himself, McCain effectively sacrificed his own credibility”
Oh PLEASE. Hagel is bar-none, the worst nominee for Sec Def in at least a quarter century. If he is so apparently bad in confirmation, who in their right mind would think he is going to be any better as Dec Def ? They might as well just nominate Clint Eastwood’s “empty chair,” who would probably be more effective.
This round of Obama nominations has lowered the bar so low that any “empty suit” is now qualified for virtually any cabinet post.
The irony of ironies is having John Kerry, a known violator of the Logan Act (18 U.S.C.A. § 953 [1948]) during the VietNam war, as the point person for determining who may violate the Logan Act in the future.
It’d be refreshing to go a whole week without happyfeets’ misogyny.
The rest of my life wouldn’t be too long.
Is there any woman whom he doesn’t refer to as a slut, other than nishi?
meghan mccain has built an entire life around being a notorious coward’s daughter and being happy to go on the tv to further the cable news propaganda slut narrative du jour
she nasty
but she knows from hand sanitizer
[…] “McCain expects broad support for universal background checks” | protein wisdom […]
I bet Sen Kirk knows this guy …
Appearing on a Chicago Sunday morning talk show, superintendent Garry McCarthy expressed his conviction that firearm owners who lobby their elected representatives or who donate money to political campaigns are engaged in corruption that endangers public safety. McCarthy went on to express his belief that judges and legislators should rely on public opinion polls when interpreting our Constitution.
After dismissing the citizen’s right to redress grievances, McCarthy focused on the 2nd Amendment. Despite recent court decisions to the contrary, McCarthy opined that the 2nd Amendment limits citizens to owning smooth-bore muskets. McCarthy went on to say that he believes the 2nd Amendment supports mandatory liability insurance for firearm owners and the mandatory application of GPS tracking devices to civilian owned firearms.
So this is Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s man. Ouch.
Existential wrongness is digital; there are no degrees to it, it’s either wrong or it isn’t.
The lesser of two evils is still evil.
Losing more slowly is still losing.
Getting eaten last still gets you eaten.
Rahm has been making noise about runing for president. Spare us, twinkle-toes.
I’m thinking that my Labrador Retriever would make an awesome candidate. She’s female, black, friendly but has a scary bark.