Stugein

Does this background check require a photo of to prove who you are?

Yes...

The only problem I have with it is they're making this "engage in business" of gun sales stuff...

 

but they say... there's no actual rule that determines that. it's up to the 'evidence'

 

I don't like that. I don't care if they limited it to selling 5 guns a year. I'd just prefer some sort of actual rule instead of this ambiguous, we'll figure out how we enforce it later; oh and that's subject to change as we desire.

 

 

As tshile says, the President basically authorized local prosecutors to prosecute anyone they deem to be in the business of firearms without defining what that means. The fact that the local DA can charge you for selling a single firearm because you haven't become a licensed dealer is bull****. Opens a slippery slope. Person who buys your gun gets drunk and shoots someone and they trace the sale back to you and now you get charged for being an unlicensed dealer? Same dude goes to Dick's/Wal-Mart and buys it and nothing happens to Dick's/Wal-Mart. You are politicizing the issue.

 

Yeah I guess I'm with y'all there.  The problem is that giving a hard definition necessarily creates ways to skirt that definition.  Right now we've got guys that probably sell dozens or hundreds of guns annually but aren't "in the business".  But the minute you say "Look, if you transfer ownership of more than X guns per year then you're 'in the business'" you get sued by people who want to give their guns to their kids.  Like you say it shouldn't be vague, but it has to be open-ended enough to disinclude actual private good faith transfers while catching those guys who are selling guns for income but staying just on the outside edge of licensing requirements.  I'm not sure how you go about doing that.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/01/04/fact-sheet-new-executive-actions-reduce-gun-violence-and-make-our

 

FWIW as a gun owner, second amendment supporter, and life member of the NRA, I don't really have a problem with anything in there.

The difference in attitude when it's a protest against or for something that you don't sympathize with is striking.

 

Also I think "yeehadist" is my favorite thing to come out of this whole debacle.  Early frontrunner for word of the year 2016.

The PLCAA isn't terrible in spirit, but in some cases like those detailed in the article it is applied terribly.  It probably should be rethought so that it continues to protect the good, conscientious dealers and manufacturers while not allowing those outliers to hide under its umbrella.

Fascinating.

http://gawker.com/milwaukee-cops-sue-gun-dealer-over-negligent-sale-of-we-1736170656

 

Corrupt FFLs and shady dealers are one of the major problems and something that needs to be a bigger focus of any reform talks.  Over half of all the guns used in crimes can be traced by to just around 1% of licensed gun dealers.  That 1% is tacitly responsible for a lot of heartache.

Could you tell me the difference between a "private dealer that sells 50 or more guns a year", and a "dealer"?

Yeah if you're selling a gun pretty much at the rate of one every week, you're a gun dealer.  You should be licensed as such.

Yeah the "Rambo" mythos that is perpetuated is pretty ridiculous. Everyone puffs up their chest and says "If I had a gun and I were there I would have taken the guy out" as if it is that simple. The reality is that in a mass shooting scenario you're more likely to hit an innocent person than the shooter, unless you find a way to get right up to him without getting shot first.

In that situation there is chaos, people running everywhere, confusion, adrenaline jacking your heart rate up to a hundred miles an hour. The only person I'd trust to start shooting back in that situation would be a former special ops person who had trained to temper those instincts time and time again to where they can pretty much bypass it and think rationally in a panicked situation. Hell, even cops miss far more than they hit when in high stress shooting situations, and they train a lot with their firearms.

I've thought about it. I've never had to defend myself or others in a life or death moment. I've never been in any sort of live fire situation. I'd like to think I'd act right under pressure but who knows? Maybe I freeze. Maybe I panic. Maybe unlucky me is the first victim and I never even get a chance to draw my gun. But there's still a chance that I keep my head about me, react, and maybe save a life of two. I'd rather have a chance at life than a guarantee of being at the mercy of the bad guy.

Casual gun ownership as applied to the second amendment should be incredibly murky. Nowhere in the constitution does it say the average Joe can buy a truckload of guns without any constraints. People who are heavily anti-gun control love to tout the 2nd amendment. They however, love to leave out the part that says, "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State". Never mind the fact this piece of legislation was written 250 years ago, and badly needs to be updated.

Civilian militia's don't exist in this country anymore, except in the mind of paranoid anti-government types. The only way those words make sense in the year 2015, is if you're referring to the Army/Navy/Air Force, etc., when you say "well regulated militia". In this case, it works, since they can and do bear arms, while protecting our country.

I'd say that in order to personally own a device meant for killing, a thorough background check, and firearm registration should be a MINIMUM. I think the background checks should be expanded to look for anybody who's been hospitalized for mental illness, or are currently on certain medications. I don't think that's infringing on anybody's rights. You can still own a gun, provided that you can pass a background check and you aren't a schizophrenic on anti-dissociation medication.

The militia language isn't a qualifier. I thought we were past that. :/

The background check should be a given. The system needs to be improved and checks should be both as fast and as accurate as possible. The mental health check..yes but it has to be done carefully. Potentially violent issues should be identified, but not everyone who seeks counseling or takes certain meds should be barred.

And the 2nd amendment has far more deadly potential consequences than others. I see no reason why that shouldn't be well vetted and regulated.

I was just pointing out that there are limits.  Lots of limits.  Just like those ignorant pro-gun folk who think every proposed new law is a precursor to the government coming to take their guns in the dark of night, you have a subset of anti-gun folk who make it sound like firearm ownership in America is an unregulated free-for-all with people buying guns unchecked down at 7-11. The fact is that in many places exercising your 2nd amendment right is exceedingly burdensome.  And yes, in some states it's probably way too easy.  It's just harder I think for people to come to an understanding on some middle ground if we aren't honest about where we are now.

So there can be no limits on any constitutional rights, no matter what? Its already there for other rights, why not the 2nd amendment?

 

 

It's already there for the 2nd far more-so than any other right.  People would flip their **** if they had to go through the same stuff gun owners do in order to exercise other rights.

I do get the logic of owning a gun to protect yourself, so I'm not going to claim it doesn't have any practical value. But I hardly think it is ever really applied.

 

Guns are used defensively many thousands of times each year.  They may prevent more death and injury than they cause.  And I only say "may" because there's really no way to say how many of the crimes they prevent would've resulting in injury or death.  You generally just don't hear about them because sadly a crime prevented and a life saved doesn't often make for big headlines.

Well, behavioral changes do occur in people, and some of these, sadly take stable, reasonable people, and make them less so.

 

Lots of mental illnesses do not appear until adulthood. It's terribly sad to see a successful business person just utterly implode due to a mental illness starting in their late 20's, but it happens.

 

Sometimes it might be less drastic, but no less dangerous.  The people who were lured in by Manson likely were, for the most part, reasonably balanced human beings, but maybe they were susceptible to whatever advances he made, and the result was significant change in personality, and ultimately, actions.

 

If a person buys Sudafed a couple times a year, that's normal.  If they buy it 50 times in a month, something changed.  A gun owner who buys maybe a gun every three years over a 12 year span suddenly buying 5 guns in a month?  You know, no need to no-knock warrant the guy or interrogate his grandma, but, you know, maybe just check in on him.  See if he's still okay in the head.

 

I hear you, I guess I just don't see buying another gun as an indicator of mental illness.  Heck, I've bought 3 over the last 4 months but that's only because NJ's process is so slow otherwise I would've bought all 3 in the same month.  But who knows.  Maybe instead of disallowing it, doing like you said and engaging in a friendly check-in.  I don't see the harm in it, unless it becomes abused to harass gun owners.

 

You know what is an indicator though, is multiple gun sales.  I've read that a pretty high percent of the guns used in crimes were originally purchased as part of a multi-gun purchase (a person buying 3+ guns at the same time).  Seems that often those types of purchases are a hint that someone is making straw purchases or intending to buy guns for resale without doing the diligence that an FFL does.  Maybe on top of the background checks that exist, there needs to be an added layer of scrutiny and tracking when someone is attempting to purchases several guns in a single go.

What about limits on how many guns you can buy in a month or year?

 

Or limits on how many non-hunting rifles you could own at one time while really defining very specifically what a hunting rifle actually is?  

If you own over a certain amount of guns, you need to register them?

To this I would ask; if someone has been determined, through whatever means available (background checks, mental health checks, character references, etc.), to be a non-threat to general public safety and not part of an excluded class (felons, etc.) and is thus legally allowed to purchase guns, does him buying an additional gun (or 3) over a given number of weeks or months make him somehow inherently more dangerous?  In what way?  What safety gap are we closing with such a limit?

but this is ultimately failure logic, and can be used as a cheap ploy to basically avoid any discussion of any issue.   You need to be able to debate about points along a number line without immediately getting dragged to both extreme ends or NOTHING will ever be done about ANYTHING.

 

 

I should be able to posit that our society needs to a) treat hookers more humanely, or that hookers shouldn't be allowed to street walk in front of my local school     ....  without it degrading into a) this means eventually i want to turn everybody's daughters into hookers, or eventually i want to arrest and execute hookers like ISIS. 

 

debate each point along the way.  the alternative is too damned intellectually lazy.

Oh I agree absolutely.  I didn't mean to imply that we shouldn't even discuss incremental solutions, only that people who may be afraid about the long term consequences of certain restrictions shouldn't be automatically dismissed because $dramatic_action against guns "would never happen".  The fear isn't completely unjustified.  It still shouldn't stop us from striving to find sensible solutions that will ultimately save lives.

Sure, I suppose it is possible...but that is possible with pretty much any law or regulation, if you take the most slippery slope thinking path possible. The question is more "is that likely?". My answer to that would be "unlikely in the extreme". Sorry, I wasn't trying to sound like a dick...I just think that the "well it could erode our freedoms and eventually everything is banned and our guns are taken" is a red herring. It is just so incredibly unlikely.

I hear you.  I guess I just don't find it as unlikely given how rights like the 4th have eroded over the years as exception upon exception keep being piled on.  And how "irrational" fears like "registration leads to confiscation" have been to demonstrated to actually happen (on much smaller scales of course; New York for example).  "Everything is banned and our guns are being taken by force" doesn't have to happen.  They just have to decide that 15 round magazines are too big, then every gun must be registered, then 10 rounds are too big, then nobody really needs a semi-automatic to hunt or for home defense, then 5 rounds are too big, then you need permission from your local police chief to buy a gun, then nobody needs to carry in public then...over the years it goes on.  Yeah, there may never be a time that an "all guns are banned" moment comes, but at some point it won't matter because there won't be any teeth left in the 2nd to pull out.

 

I don't know.  I think there are several things we can do today that will help save lives.  There are systems that can be improved and laws that can be strengthened.  I also think that we as a country suck at getting people help when they need it.  I just don't think that further burdening lawful gun owners who by and large aren't the problem solves anything.

It absolutely is an unreasonable concern. There isn't anything even close to that being proposed or discussed seriously. Nobody is banning guns, nobody is coming to take your guns. Only in the mind of a conspiracy theorist could you paint any kind of direct link between the sort of modest gun regulation proposals that have been put out there and any sort of ban or gun grab. Please just stop with this nonsense.

You may have misunderstood me.  I apologize; I'm not the best at getting my thoughts into text.  I didn't say anyone had suggested bans or confiscations.  I said that allowing the continued progression of more and more smaller, seemingly innocuous restrictions will erode the freedom to the point, perhaps years in the future, where more dramatic proposals like bans or confiscations won't seem as far-fetched.

When you talk about "fighting till the bitter end" to prevent something that no one is proposing, and is legally impossible, and is politically unthinkable - it suggests to me that the gun lobby has done its emotional work on you, just like it has done on millions of other voters.   You offered a tiny bit of reform that you might accept, and then wheeled out every NRA talking point there is, while expressing a fear that all guns are going to be taken away.

 

That's all.

 

Even accepting that, it's not an unreasonable concern.  The fear is that allowing continued small incremental restrictions on the right will, over the years, erode it to the point where final more drastic steps (bans, confiscation, etc.) won't be as infeasible any more. 

I like Popeman's list of solutions. All reasonable.

 

Ehhh...mostly.

 

1) Close the gun show and private sale loophole - make all sales subject to the laws that exist

I'm fine with the idea of this, but it'd be a nightmare to implement.  You'd somehow have to open up the NICS, which is already swamped, to the general public.  That comes with a whole host of security, privacy, and logistical problems.

 

2) Waiting periods - there is no reason a gun purchase can't be delayed by 7 days (you wait for online purchases to be shipped, right?)

I don't believe waiting periods really affect gun violence at all.  The only waiting period should be how long it takes all of the appropriate background checks to clear.  The scenario of someone in an emotional rage running out, getting licensed, going to the gun shop, purchasing a gun, clearing background checks, then running to whatever $person they're still mad at and killing them the same day is largely mythical.  And waiting periods beyond the execution of the background check make no sense at all if the purchaser already owns firearms.

 

3) Trigger locks - require all firearms stored in the home to have trigger locks (yes, a "hollow" law since you can't enforce it until something goes wrong)

I'm totally down with requiring guns be sold with locks, so long that there isn't a usage requirement.  They should be absolutely available to everyone, especially in cases where maybe someone can't afford a safe or other secure storage (though really if you can't afford to store your guns securely you probably shouldn't be buying them in the first place).

 

4) Background checks - more thorough, since the 7 day waiting period makes it easier to go deep

I think what needs to happen is that money needs to be spent to update the NICS infrastructure to handle more comprehensive checking, faster.  I also think we need to mandate reporting requirements to the states into the federal system.  Some states currently may delay reporting of arrests, charges, etc. to NICS which means that a given check may be incomplete for a certain time after an incident occurs.  That needs to change.  NICS should be updated as near real-time as logistically possible.

 

There's also a failure in the federal background check law where if a background check doesn't complete in 3 days the seller may move forward with the sale (this is how the south Carolina shooter was able to purchase a gun illegally despite having pending criminal charges).  One; the NICS shouldn't take that long. Two; if there is a problem that delays the check the default action shouldn't be "move ahead with the sale".  It should be "sale denied" and it should then be the responsibility of the purchaser to clear up whatever the problem is with the FBI and NICS admins.

 

Basically the NICS system really needs to be improved.

 

5) Training - require all firearm purchasers to show proof that they attended a training course conducted at their local firing range (yes, there will need to be standards approved by the govt); only one training course is required, not for each firearm

I'm down for this as long as the training is reasonable.  It should be set federally so the standard is the same everywhere and it should be focused on safety and proper handling.  If you leave it up to the states you'd have a myriad of wildly varying requirements and states like NJ would probably require you put five rounds into a dime-sized circle at 300 yards just so they don't have to approve anyone.

My wife went back to work this year so nobody is home during the day any more to receive our tickets.  I'm unreasonably nervous about this.

Well I opted to get moved over to 212.  We'll see how that goes.

Glad to hear they're bringing the band back to where they belong. Hopefully the post game jams on the concourse will return. 

Yeah.  I mean, I liked my seats so I'm a little bummed.  But for this I can be inconvenienced a bit.

 

I also asked the rep to put in a suggestion for me; told them to put mics in the band box that play over the loudspeakers and to cut the mics on when we score so everyone hears the band rather than playing the canned/sing-along version of the fight song.

I'm in 211.  The rep is supposed to be calling me back today to discuss my relocation options.

 

I like being in the end-zone.  I don't want to move to a corner, but I don't want to move too low in the end-zones either cause it makes it tough to see the far end of the field.  I'd be willing to move to the sides if it was inside the 40's but that won't happen; especially since I have 4 seats in a row.

 

Edit: Typo, I'm in 211 not 111.

 

So I was given 3 possible options.  Move down from 211 to 111, move over one section to 212, or move around to 240 (price increase).

 

I'm thinking 212 is my best bet.

One thing that was mentioned at the Fan Forum was the band being moved to Lower Level and I think they were in the 210s before being kicked upstairs to the Club Level.

I'm in section 113/23 and, as far as I know, I haven't received any notification that mine are being moved.

 

What section are you in?

 

I'm in 211.  The rep is supposed to be calling me back today to discuss my relocation options.

 

I like being in the end-zone.  I don't want to move to a corner, but I don't want to move too low in the end-zones either cause it makes it tough to see the far end of the field.  I'd be willing to move to the sides if it was inside the 40's but that won't happen; especially since I have 4 seats in a row.

 

Edit: Typo, I'm in 211 not 111.

I just got an e-mail that my seats are being moved to make room for the band moving back to the lower level.    I like where my seats are.