This one is a doozy, which is more in the category of “Unhinged Tools”, or at least “Barking Moonbats”, rather than under the “Constitution” and “2nd Amendment” categories. Here’s Rep. John Delaney, Democrat of Maryland’s 6th district
Congressman: 97% of Americans Want One Kind of Gun Control. Here’s Why Congress Hasn’t Acted
As the nation has mourned the 14 students and three staff members killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida and marched on their behalf, a remarkable national consensus formed around the need for gun safety legislation. In a recent poll conducted by Quinnipiac University, an astonishing 97% of those surveyed said that they support requiring background checks for all gun buyers. More broadly, a Politico/Morning Consult poll found that 68% support stricter gun laws.
I’ll write it again: I have no problem with requiring a background check for every gun purchase, including private ones, and including transfers. Want to give your adult son or daughter a gun? How about getting a gun for the wife? Yeah, there needs to be a background check. Just bought one last week? Background check. Have a concealed carry permit? Background check for new firearm. Things can change. Someone who had been legally allowed could have something show up in their record. Heck, I’ll go a step further, in that there should be a permit system for purchasing ammunition. Once a year you need to renew it, much like a fishing license. This would greatly reduce the number of people legally purchasing ammo to use with their illegally possessed, possibly stolen, firearm. It would have to be very tightly written legislation, to avoid the impulses of gun grabbers to deny people who shouldn’t be denied.
Despite such broad support and public mobilization, it looks like Congress and the President will do nothing to address the issue. There is no indication Republican leadership in the House of Representatives will even bring legislation that creates universal background checks forward for a vote, let alone consider other commonsense measures that are also widely supported. Across the country, people are rightly asking how this is possible. In addition to being the right thing to do, wouldn’t it make good political sense to implement policies that nearly everyone wants?
Well, really, the problem is that if you give the gun grabbers something, they will want more and more and more. And might even take advantage of legislation that most of us agree with and use it to deny law abiding citizens their 2nd Amendment Rights. It really is that simple. Give Democrats an inch, they’ll want lots and lots more inches. Pass universal background checks, and they’ll say “this is a great starting point” and demand more.
That’s not Delaney’s idea, though. Are you ready? Put the beverage down
One of the defining characteristics of American democracy in the last decade has been the loss of the House of Representatives as a responsible legislative body that reflects the will of the people. This has happened because of gerrymandering. And that’s a big part of why my colleagues and I can’t get anything done.
“I’ll write it again: I have no problem with…”
I’m glad my rights are not up to you or anyone else to negotiate away.
Here is my reasonable gun regulations:
1. Repeal the NFA of 1934 in its entirety.
2. Repeal 1968 gun control act.
3. Disband the BATFE, repeal all federal laws granting them any authority.
Now, let’s “be reasonable” and compromise to just do 2 out of 3. I’m tired of “compromise” and “reasonable gun control” always moving in the same direction. A little at a time. Half a loaf. Half a loaf. Half a loaf. When you compromise with leftists, it is never enough. They always come back for another half of your loaf.
If you care about saving lives, do something that really matters:
1. Close public schools. More students die every year on the roads going to and from school than in shootings.
2. Death penalty for anyone who kills while committing a crime. Dead criminals don’t get out later and commit more crimes.
Self preservation is the most basic human right. Any law that restricts your ability to do this effectively by having access to the means to do this effectively, is a direct threat to your human rights.
Gun control today is the same old communists trying to enact the same old agenda as if they haven’t noticed that European communism failed. And they are doing it the same way they always do, chipping away at it in the courts, the schools, and legislatively a little at a time.
I would strongly disagree with your proposals, Teach. Perhaps sometime we could argue about them. For now, I’ll just have to take the opposite side and say Hell no to both.
Our esteemed host wrote:
Beyond the fact that we never seem to have “very tightly written legislation,” your ‘proposals’ are poor ones. How long does a background check take? If it’s anything other than ‘instant,’ you are proposing infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
Permits to buy ammunition, because “This would greatly reduce the number of people legally purchasing ammo to use with their illegally possessed, possibly stolen, firearm?” That assumes that people who are buying ammunition are doing so for illegally possessed weapons, presumes guilt over innocence.
“Once a year you need to renew it, much like a fishing license.” I object to the cockamamie notion that you should need to have a license to hunt or to fish!
A background check should take a reasonable amount of time. Whether that is instantaneous, 3 days, a week or 10 days is a matter or opinion, but a small waiting period is not an infringement to own a firearm.
The second problem with “instantaneous checks” is that it would require a database of citizens who are allowed to possess firearms and those who are not.
Instead of getting an application and searching databases which is the case now, the government would have to maintain a list of who is eligible. That means that the government would also have records on who applied or who purchased a firearm which is not allowed now. Under the current NICS protocols, the requests for approval are wiped off the books which is the way it should be.
It would be nice if the checks were instant, but in a very real sense, it isn’t practical. A person could walk out of court after being given a restraining order or even convicted of assault and waiting to be sentenced and go buy a gun because the court records haven’t caught up to the database yet.
Teach’s proposals aren’t perfect, but allowing private citizens to sell a gun with a background check is a good idea.
Mr Carver wrote:
Yes, actually, it is. If I wish to buy a firearm, and have the money to do so, the government imposing a ‘waiting period’ on me is an infringement of my rights.
Dana, Professor, Neon, I certainly understand your points of view, and I respect them. My opinion is based on wanting to do things to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, as well as making it harder for them to get ammo. I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with y’all. But, that’s OK, because people can disagree.
Teach, I don’t have any problem with that and if the situation would ever come up, I’d be more than happy to sit down with a couple of beers and discuss this (or many other things with you). Respectful disagreement and honest dialog are things that I can always work with. On the other hand, the closed-minded “my way or nothing” attitude so many have – well, I have better things to do.
Sounds good.
Of course, the thing is, any ideas I would be up for I would attempt to block, exactly because the gun grabbers will use them as an excuse to go further and further and further.
No thanks, no thanks, no thanks. As the Professor points out, nothing will ever satisfy the left, so whatever you give them today – they’ll double-down on it tomorrow. Frankly. I’m disappointed people don’t know better. Requiring a check to buy ammo is silly and only inconveniences legal buyers, it’ll do nothing to stop criminals. Next you’ll be agreeing that the best way to keep guns out of the hands of criminals is to not have guns at all. Slippery slope, camel’s nose, etc….
… only the tip, promise.
Which is why I would never agree to implement things that I think would be good, because they would take that and want more and more and more.
Look at that. A lively back and forth about a contentious issue and no one is resorting to name-calling, character assassination, or making it about Trump.
Not exactly. See “barking moonbats”, “communists”, “gun grabbers”, “unhinged tools”, “leftists”…
What YOU see is name-calling you agree with (and perpetrate).
Is the only issue that separates TEACH from a “gun grabber” is that “gun grabbers” would ban assault weapons?
The author of this screed has NO CONCEPT of what the word “Rights” mean.
It’s not a matter to be negotiated, restricted, controlled or administered.
ANY acceptance of ANY limitation whatsoever turns a RIGHT into a PRIVILEGE
and PRIVILEGES are granted, altered or withdrawn at the will and the whim
of those in power. The Second Amendment does not GIVE me the right to arms
(and ‘arms’ means ANY WEAPON I CHOOSE), the Amendment merely LISTS that right
as a specific item that government MAY NOT INFRINGE AT ALL IN ANY WAY EVER.
So GFY you moron. You have zero clues about reality and life.
Oh…. So close.
So, let me ask, Dan: are you good with felons and gang bangers having guns? How about non-citizens, including Islamic jihad. A deranged person threatening to kill his/her ex-spouse/significant other?
My ideas are to implement, and I hate to put it this way, since Leftists have ruined the phrase, common sense solutions which do not interfere with the Rights of those who should be able to purchase and own and use a firearm, while making it incredibly difficult for those who should not have them to not have them. Could those laws involve a little more work for law abiding citizens? Sure. But, a waiting period is no big deal. At least not to me.
Remember, all the bad actors, including idiots who get busted for doing things like forgetting to put their firearms in their baggage at airports, give the rest of us a bad name.
Bill, Let’s look at this holistically.
1. Do gang bangers have an inherent (God Given?) right to self preservation? Or did they somehow lose their irrevocable right?
2. Do foreigners on US Soil not enjoy their right to self preservation as much as those who were granted that accident of birth? Or do they have a different God/natural right?
If you believe that self preservation is a human right and is inseparable from what it means to be human and, as our founders did, is granted by God and may not lawfully be restricted, then it follows that it is true even for gang bangers, foreigners, (gasp) Black people.
As for convicted felons, if the penal system has decided that they are safe enough to roam at will among the rest of society, then they also have a need and inalienable right to self defense. Some would argue that due to the friends they keep, they have a greater need to have and hold firearms. Using them to commit further crimes would still be illegal, just like committing crimes without guns is. Logically, If you can’t trust them to not behave violently, WTF are they doing back out on the streets? The whole point of prison is not to rehabilitate, punish, or deter. It is to separate violent people from the general population so that the general population can thrive.
The same goes for crazy people and the mentally incompetent. Since there is no clearly recognizable standard between “too crazy” and “almost too crazy”, the law must defer to the common law standard of “court determined”. Thus, if you are so crazy that a court has restricted your rights and freedoms for your own good and the good of others, then you don’t get guns. Otherwise… you do.
Finally: Firearms are 14th century technology. Children can make them using tools and materials found in 7th grade metal shops and every Home Depot in the country. Prisoners, with no access to home depot and totally restricted in movements, have been known to fabricate firearms and ammunition. You can close the factories, but you can’t stop the signal. Every person who has ever lived in a police state can tell you, The Police have guns. So if you need one, there is an easy source in every city.
If gun safety is your issue then I recommend firearms safety classes be taught in the public schools, every school, with mandatory live fire. And the NRA, as the largest gun safety organization, would be the only qualified instructors.
If crime is your issue then I recommend the death penalty for any crime where the sentence is more than 20 years, or for third offense of any violent crime. Get rid of violent people and you get rid of violent crime. It’s not the guns that are the problem, it’s the violence.
If saving life is your issue, and you believe you have the right to tell other people how to extend their lives, then go for the statistically more likely causes. Ban smoking, don’t just gouge the vendors with taxes. Ban alcohol, don’t just decide which stores can profit from it. Ban Obesity. Mandatory fat farm attendance for anyone who approached the limit and cut them off from all public assistance and health insurance until they comply. Use those public schools to teach kids the propaganda that will save their lives instead of nonsense like globalism, warmism, socialism and recycling.
I grew up in rural Indiana and hunter/safety classes were part of the middle-school curriculum. The class lasted a semester and included inspecting weapons and everything (with dummy bullets, but no live fire).
I’ll agree to one “common sense” gun solution when the left agrees that making someone show an ID to participate in the franchise is an acceptable and “common sense” idea. Not going to happen, so I won’t worry about it.