The Problem of Universal Background Checks.

[ssb]

You are giving up to the group polarization effect. Absolutist gun rights people vs. Absolutist gun abolitionists. Both sides yell at each other.

The majority of the country views guns as follows if you ask nonpolarizing questions:

1. Folks should be able to own guns for self-defense and sport
2. Regulations should prevent criminally dangerous or mentally ill dangerous folks from getting guns easily.

Within that framework, the middle of the country will accept gun rights. This is seen empirically by the wave of shall issue laws.

There is push back on the absolute bans but acceptance of what is seen (rightly or wrongly in one's view) of reasonable restrictions. So the SAFE act may go to far but improving adjudication reporting is acceptable.

Now if one objects to private sales UBCs - you have to come up with a reason why your problems with it trump the surface validity of preventing some violent incident or crime.

Was it correct for Cho to get reported but the SAFE act is too much? Convince the public.

As far as appearance issues of rifles - oh, is that a story. Practically, I do think suppressors might make it but easy access to full auto - probably not in the foreseeable future. It is hard to articulate to the general public a need vs. potential danger. Just 'God give right for a Glock 18 won't work. I would like one though.

I agree that screaming "my rights" isn't going to do anything but preach to the choir. I'm not suggesting that we do that. Nor do I think we have a system of absolutes, with Team: Guns pitted only against Team: No Guns. That's the apathetic middle I mentioned. While most of the country, if polls on the matter are anything to go by, seems to fall in the framework you've suggested, they're also wholly uninformed on the matter and generally unwilling to get involved in the details. They'll look at the TV when another shooting happens, say "oh my God, that's terrible, we have to do something, this is an epidemic," accept whatever cookie-cutter solution is presented as effective, and go back to doing whatever it was they were doing before. That's illustrated in the polls after Sandy Hook vs. those conducted today. The apathetic crowd is the reason why we're in a state where I'm one bad shooting away from being limited to ten-round mags again.

The fight for their hearts and minds is important, no doubt, but we're in a less-favorable position than our opponents. We're not seen as the "stop violence" position, but rather the "stop messing with my stuff" crowd. The two aren't mutually exclusive, of course, but rarely do we offer actual solutions. And when we do, those solutions generally involve "more guns," a position which is easily caricatured by the other side. Frankly, ours is a difficult position to articulate to a group of people who scream "we've got to do something" every time something bad happens.

The surface validity of UBCs is addressed in my first point on the matter. They're completely unenforceable without a method of verifying who has possession of what. That system isn't currently in place in most states (California has a method of doing so, some sort of safety certificate IIRC). And while on the surface I'm fine with the idea of having everybody go through a check -- actually, I'd like to see it -- I don't like the means which would be required to institute such a thing. That's my objection to UBCs in a nutshell. You can pass all the laws you'd like on the matter, but without registration or something like it, all you're doing is creating meaningless bureaucracy. I don't think that's an argument that the middle wants to hear. To them, it's just another roadblock to "do something."

You pointed out earlier that many of our high-profile mass shooters wouldn't have been stopped by our current checks, and that post-Virginia Tech we've attempted to strengthen reporting on mental health issues. Again, I'm fine with the idea of increasing reporting. My question is: how do you catch people who aren't currently in the system, as most of the shooters were not? On the surface, the "gun violence restraining order" idea seems like it would do that. My problem there is that the current California law seems ripe for abuse, and it reverses the adversarial process currently in use in our justice system (I have to prove that I'm not a danger at the hearing, rather than the other side having a high burden of proof to meet to show that I'm a danger). Once again, perception as just another roadblock to the "do something" crowd.

[GardoneVT]

You are giving up to the group polarization effect. Absolutist gun rights people vs. Absolutist gun abolitionists. Both sides yell at each other.

The majority of the country views guns as follows if you ask nonpolarizing questions:

1. Folks should be able to own guns for self-defense and sport
2. Regulations should prevent criminally dangerous or mentally ill dangerous folks from getting guns easily.

Within that framework, the middle of the country will accept gun rights. This is seen empirically by the wave of shall issue laws.

There is push back on the absolute bans but acceptance of what is seen (rightly or wrongly in one's view) of reasonable restrictions. So the SAFE act may go to far but improving adjudication reporting is acceptable.

Now if one objects to private sales UBCs - you have to come up with a reason why your problems with it trump the surface validity of preventing some violent incident or crime.

Was it correct for Cho to get reported but the SAFE act is too much? Convince the public.

As far as appearance issues of rifles - oh, is that a story. Practically, I do think suppressors might make it but easy access to full auto - probably not in the foreseeable future. It is hard to articulate to the general public a need vs. potential danger. Just 'God give right for a Glock 18 won't work. I would like one though.

Your framework ignores two very dangerous social facets.

One, politicians gotta get elected . They need to give voters a reason to select them, but without alienating too many voters in the process. Gun control bills which do nothing about criminals -since we know statistically most criminals in our justice system are minorities and thus a powerful voting bloc- make them look good at the expense of our rights. The media weighs in by demonizing us gun owners to draw in viewers on both sides-and both social factors will be present no matter the state of the laws or past agreements thereof.

Two, societies adapt to whatever the laws are over time.Decades ago you could order a Thompson SMG through the mail, direct to your door.That was considered normal in the 1930s.

1968 rolls around. Suddenly there's a push to ban civil ownwership of arms in light of social turmoil and politicians/public speakers dropping dead left and right. Now background checks at FFLs and forbidding trans-state handgun sales seem to be a reasonable compromise .

1994 rolls around. The AWB is passed, and why not? Clearly the norm of background checks, NFA registration, and FFLs hasent done anything to stop the inner city from turning itself into Sarajevo.

Notice how each cycle is about 30 years? Long enough for the old timers who remembered the good old' days to move aside for a generation accustomed to the last set of infringements and believes they're not tough enough, having not known better. Fast forward the tape, and you get Great Britain, where the prospect of armed patrol officers sends panic and controversey through the countryside.
As such, any deal we make with the Opposition will last at best three decades. Then the kids growing up won't think of the gun laws as oppressive- they'll think its normal, and when a blowhard takes the mic after a spree killing the cycle will repeat itself , all the way until a .22LR bullet in a yard triggers an EOD squad response.

The only way to stop the cycle definitively is roll it back. That cannot be done at the negotiating table.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Oh, I guess we never got the CCW movement. We never got the AWB to expire?

We are totally doomed. It's getting silly. TX never got CHL and then fixed the laws. In the good ol' days you couldn't carry a concealed weapon in most states.

Demons and minorities - give me a break. Sit and wait for some Deux Ex Machine Scotus to abolish all gun laws and then set up a Bofors L-70 in the backyard.

You can be defeatist and non-strategic in your thoughts. Not me.

[GardoneVT]

Oh, I guess we never got the CCW movement. We never got the AWB to expire?

We are totally doomed. It's getting silly. TX never got CHL and then fixed the laws. In the good ol' days you couldn't carry a concealed weapon in most states.

Demons and minorities - give me a break. Sit and wait for some Deux Ex Machine Scotus to abolish all gun laws and then set up a Bofors L-70 in the backyard.

You can be defeatist and non-strategic in your thoughts. Not me.

What strategy would that be ,then?Because resting on our laurels is a piss-poor one.

Apparently it must be stated plainly that a CCW permit does one no good if legal access to firearms , ammunition , and magazines is forbidden.

Yes, we've come a long ways from the 1980s and 1990s. Yet we still have a long ways ahead of us-Bloomberg and Company aren't sitting on their rear. Neither should we, and the merits of "negotiation" and "compromise strategy" can be seen in the great strides Australia and England made in granting their subjects national concealed carry.......

[zeleny]

Spell out my concerns? I'd like, in order of significance:
- Actual state compliance with my right to self-defense both in and outside the home. That means no more Chicago-style attempts to make such rights effectively meaningless in a practical sense. Team: Our Side shouldn't have to engage in decades of litigation to force them to get Heller and McDonald's respective points.
- The ability, subject to a prompt shall-issue permitting scheme with a simple pass/fail background check, to carry a concealed weapon in every state.
- At a minimum, SBRs, SBSs, AOWs, and suppressors taken off the NFA registry and treated no differently than any other firearm (NICS check, same-day possession).
- An end to the silly attempts at regulating defensive ammunition and standard-capacity magazines.
- Getting rid of the GCA '68 import restrictions and Bush I's subsequent executive order on the matter.

I don't think UBCs are a reasonable trade for such things, because:
a) They're unenforceable without registration, and I'm unwilling to hand out private information to a government demonstrably unable to keep that information secure (between the risk of some Snowden wannabe, the government's own tendency to leak confidential information for political gain, and the monthly reports of significant data hacks). And even if privacy was viable, I don't think it's practical to expect the 300 million+ firearms currently un-papered in this country to magic themselves onto the registration rolls. We can't keep track of 11 million people who are currently here illegally. Do they expect different results with relatively small and concealable inanimate objects?
b) See I-594 in Washington. The intent of those proposing UBCs isn't safety, it's placing a burden on common and lawful firearms use. I have zero confidence that they will not be used as a tool to restrict access and use, rather than one to promote safety.

If I say such things in the public sphere, I'm branded a nutjob who wants dead kids. And then we get to throw automatic weapons, sawn-off shotguns, and silencers into the negotiation mix? The general public has shown a complete inability to differentiate a semi-automatic rifle covered the firearms equivalent of Legos from automatic weapons. There have been more than a few attempts to run PR campaigns to show that said Lego-covered rifle is functionally identical to a "normal" semi-auto. Such attempts have fallen on deaf ears, and somewhere around 40-45% of the country still thinks they're too dangerous to own. How do you think that same crowd is going to respond to actual machine guns being put back on the table? Suppressors? That opposition almost writes itself.

Final point: negotiation requires mutual trust. You don't build trust on a mound of shit, and a mound of shit is an apt description for the past attempts at "compromise" with that crowd. The history of gun control has been a you-give-they-take relationship. And even if they were willing to offer meaningful compromise, our bottom lines are too far apart to come to any meaningful agreement. You're pitting a group who believes they have a fundamental right to own and carry firearms for self defense against a group who, at best, thinks such a thing should be a highly-restricted privilege, with an emotionally-swayed and apathetic middle balancing out the voter rolls. Somehow I don't see that conversation going well.

Your objections are reasonable, but far from compelling. Opening NICS for individual transactions and generating their anonymized records is a trivial matter. No registration of gun ownership would be involved in, or could ever be assisted by, such procedures. On the other hand, the ignorance of general public is best dispelled by political conversation. Talking about the idiocy of NFA and unfairness of restrictions on CCW reciprocity is a good starting point.

[cclaxton]

The Gun Control crowd will continue to go directly to voters for Universal Background Checks. This is a winning strategy because vast majorities think Universal Backgroun Checks are reasonable (whether we think they are or not.). When they win UBC's, we get nothing out of that deal...nothing. If we take this to State Legislatures, then we can bargain with them and get something in exchange for agreeing to UBC's. For instance we can get the right to store our firearms in our vehicles in parking lots across the State, we can get school carry, or at least "drive through, drop off the kids and keep it in the car possession", or asking for a improved concealed carry process, or shall-issue. This will all depend on the State as each State has a unique situation.

The NRA approach of voting on a competing proposal lost, and will lose. It is the wrong strategy.

This not a court process. This is a political process. The political process requires give and take. Let's not forget the taking part....that is when we can get things we want.

I want to see these crazy gun laws changed for the better. The more we dig our heels in and refuse to do anything, the more ground we lose. The 2nd Amendment has limits, as the SCOTUS has ruled on many times. We need smart strategies and the one on UBC's is a losing one. It's time we start getting something when we lose ground to Universal Background Checks.
Cody

[Chuck Whitlock]

, IIRC, how there's no database of currently stolen firearms (http://www.insanityinc.us/insane0081.html).

Untrue. If you read what is written in that link, the person doesn't understand what the BATFE is telling him. There is a database, within the NCIC, that is maintained by the FBI. It is accessible by your local LE agencies.

We're not seen as the "stop violence" position, but rather the "stop messing with my stuff" crowd. The two aren't mutually exclusive, of course, but rarely do we offer actual solutions. And when we do, those solutions generally involve "more guns," a position which is easily caricatured by the other side. Frankly, ours is a difficult position to articulate to a group of people who scream "we've got to do something" every time something bad happens.

Perhaps by educating folks that prediction/prevention is a fallacy, and the actually way to "stop violence" is with countervailing force. A tough sell, with the wholesale slaughter of herds of sacred cows.

[JV_]

When they win UBC's

I'm not sure why you've already conceded.

If we take this to State Legislatures, then we can bargain with them and get something in exchange for agreeing to UBC's.

I'm glad you're not negotiating for my rights, from a position of power. Just 18 months ago you were willing to trade standard capacity magazines for national CCW.

[joshs]

The Gun Control crowd will continue to go directly to voters for Universal Background Checks. This is a winning strategy because vast majorities think Universal Backgroun Checks are reasonable (whether we think they are or not.). When they win UBC's, we get nothing out of that deal...nothing. If we take this to State Legislatures, then we can bargain with them and get something in exchange for agreeing to UBC's. For instance we can get the right to store our firearms in our vehicles in parking lots across the State, we can get school carry, or at least "drive through, drop off the kids and keep it in the car possession", or asking for a improved concealed carry process, or shall-issue. This will all depend on the State as each State has a unique situation.

As mentioned in the other thread discussing 594, there are only a few other states that are likley targets for gun-control via popular initiative.

The NRA approach of voting on a competing proposal lost, and will lose. It is the wrong strategy.

This was not the NRA's approach.

[cclaxton]

I'm not sure why you've already conceded.

We lost Washington State with 45% on the NRA counter-measure. They won UBC's with 60% of the vote.
The National Polls show overwhelming support for UBC's at about 91% in 2013 polling. Changing that many people's thinking on UBC's is not possible in the next 8 years...and probably not ever. We will lose these votes...it's not a concession...it is a political reality.

The question is whether we can accept the inevitable and actually work to get something out of that deal, or follow the failed strategy until it fails again and again.
Cody

Added Poll: http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-e...ReleaseID=1877