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I'm not against gun show background checks for gun retailers. But I am against background checks every time someone privately sells a gun.

I think people who want to sell their personal guns privately to another person should have the OPTION to do a background check. If the seller waives the background check option he is still listed as the last owner of that gun. If that gun gets into the hands of someone else who ends up using it for nefarious deeds the seller should be just as responsible as the owner.

Can I ask what is the objection to background checks for guns?

Is it a slippery slope concern? i.e. first, it's background checks then it's <something-worse>.

Is it simply a principled stand? That you feel you should be able to sell or buy a gun from whoever you like?

Or is it a pragmatic stance? The old "criminals will ignore the law anyway"?

I'm genuinely curious as to why someone wouldn't want some controls on something as dangerous as a gun.

If you are truly curious I hope you'll read everything.

TLDR Post Inc:

It's basically pragmatism and the slippery slope. You're making a registry of all the citizens who own guns. I mean have you ever applied for your firearms license before? Have you ever purchased a handgun? It's pretty crazy.

I wanted to purchase a handgun about 10 years ago after I got held up. It took me over 6 months to get my permit. Then it took me about another month to be able to purchase a handgun.

The Process:
In order to get your firearms id card you have to apply for it. Part of the process involved me having a sit down "evaluation" with a detective that was basically an interrogation for about 30 minutes.

Then once that detective says "this guys not crazy" He takes his form and all my information and mails it to the FBI. Then I had to wait about six months for the FBI to say "this guys not crazy and/or a terrorist.

When I have my Firearms ID card I can buy a shotgun or a rifle if I want that's no problem. But if I want to buy a handgun (which I did) I have to go back to get a handgun permit. Luckily since I was applying for my firearms permit they also gave me one (read one) permit to buy a handgun. I could buy one handgun; If I wanted more I had to apply for ANOTHER permit. Not another Firearms ID Card just another Handgun permit.

So I take my permit and I purchase said gun. I can't purchase the gun after 5:00 PM because the NIC office over at the FBI closes and they have to call it in. Even AFTER they call it in I still had to wait like 6 days before I could pick it up.

I receive a copy of the permit (and a receipt) , the dealer gets a copy, and the last part gets sent to the FBI. Once the FBI confirms they have a copy of the permit (which includes the serial # that is on multiple parts of the gun) then and only then am I allowed to pickup my firearm.

So even if I sold it to someone everyone would know know who it belonged to beforehand.

I'm not sure how much more gun control you can have. The "gun" that needs the most "control" are handguns because they are used in almost all gun related crimes if you look at the stats.

I wont' get into hypothetical situations about how citizens could perform those checks or whatever. I just want to show how regulated things are already. The idea that I could purchase like 10 handguns and then re-sell them all to someone else and NEVER have it traced back to me seems almost impossible. Heck I doubt I could even get approved to own that many handguns!

Also:

I'm not a "giant conspiracy" kind of person. But I feel like with the way government has been going with Guantanamo, stop and frisk, not really enforcing a lot of anti-trust laws, not really prosecuting some of the big banks responsible for what happened, etc etc etc I just feel like there really an upward swing for government control and collusion with protecting their own interests and not the interests of the people.

I don't see the government as an instrument of the people anymore it just seems to be wealthy people patting each other on the back.

What happened in Boston really upset me where people were just pulled out of there houses at gunpoint because there "could be" a terrorist nearby.

I believe that Obama has a good reason for trying to put these tools in place and he has no motive behind it he is just trying to protect the American People in his own way. But I don't believe gun control will help at all and all it will do is put more of a hindrance on law abiding citizens. I'd equate these laws to Anti-Piracy solutions? Ala Sims3 and Diablo etc etc. It just punishes the actual customer NOT the criminal.

If you told me there was a way to ensure program the registry of gun owners could only be searched if the striations from a bullet were scanned that was used in a crime or something like that I'd be fine with it. But there really is no way to do that.

Sorry it was long but it's not really something I can just say something short.

I'm sure people will says "Well what are your guns going to do against tanks and helicopters and xyz xyz". First I'll point to Iraq and Afghanistan and how well those "wars" went. Everyone can agree it was a disaster and we probably made a lot of terrorists by just killing people innocent or not. The same thing would happen here in America.

Would the government actually TRY to take over? I don't' believe so because it's not in our best financial interests. Everyone wants to stay wealthy and some sort of civil war would be horrible for our economy. But I believe over time constantly just eroding our rights will just lead to that. People got pulled out of their homes at gunpoint and screamed at by police in boston and they were just like "Well the police are just trying to keep us safe!" I just find that creepy.

There's a saying blah blah blah doesn't go out with a bang it happens with a whimper. I'm not going to make myself look smart by googling the quote.

Anyway that's my whole post sorry if it's long but I'm tired. I would have put it in the discussion section but I'm not at the appropriate star level.

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Hey,
sorry I didn't reply earlier, but I figured since you had gone to all that effort I actually wanted to read everything properly.

First up, that does seem like quite a reasonable level of control on handguns.

Is that a state specific requirement? Because looking at this page that doesn't seem the case for all states.

Personally I don't have a problem with making someone jump through a few hoops to get a gun.

As for the government trying to take over, surely the way to defeat these kinds of rights abuses are through the democratic system?

As for Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving the right or wrong of it aside, the "war" part went exceedingly well. The US rolled in and pretty much crushed any opposition. It's the "peace" they're having trouble with. But in real terms, the US military occupied those countries and despite the undoubted problems they're having with IEDs etc, no-one is really suggesting that the "insurgents" are anywhere even close to a military victory.

But ultimately I believe it is politics (for all it's evils) that will prevent the US becoming a dictatorship not arms.

It could possibly be a state specific requirement I have not bought firearms in another state. NJ has VERY heavily regulated gun laws.

If they wanted to implement some of the laws we have in NJ in other states, again, I'm fine with that. Just not citizen to citizen. They should have to own a Firearms ID card before you can sell it.

I want to believe there are ways to defeat it democratically but the only way to get enough power in the system in my opinion is to already be wealthy. Perfect Timing is this video: http://videosift.com/video/Wall-Street-Deregulation-Coming-Soon-TYT

Democratically elected democrats voting AGAINST banking regulation? What the what?

Also about the "war" that's exactly the point I'm making. There wouldnt' be any "army" for America to defeat. It would just be it's citizens. There doesn't have to be a "military victory" for the insurgents. My point was that insurgents on their own preventing people from going to work, causing problems with the nations banking systems, whatever, would be enough to make all the wealthy people who run things much worse off. Then that would make the government much worse off because those wealthy people would simply relocate their businesses to more stable environments.

I don't think the US will become a dictatorship. It's going to be a plutocracy. That's all it is now and unfortunately the way it looks all it will be going forward for a very long time.

I hope I'm proven wrong I just don't see any hope anymore personally. I'm not going to rise up or whatever against the government because my life is pretty okay. But I also won't be fed garbage from the the world and told it's ice cream and be forced to look back at the world and say "GREAT ICE CREAM!"

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