Universal Background Checks are Unenforceable and Easily Defeated at Trial

As you may or may not know, we are fighting this very fight in Nevada. Ballot Question 1, a ballot initiative that was funded by Bloomberg's Everytown and MDA organizations along with the local liberal shrews and limousine liberals will be on the November ballot. Basically the idea is to force you to go to a dealer to have a background check done via NICS before transferring a firearm, with limited exceptions. In Nevada, normally DPS does the background checks for dealers and charges $25 per transaction. I'm not sure what the reasoning is for choosing to use NICS for the private party sales, but that will add another layer of confusion for dealers who have never used it, I'm sure.

Here is the issue that I see with these "universal" background checks. First, I will talk about enforcement. I want you to keep in mind that you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. This means that it is on the prosecution and by extension, the police, to prove that you have committed a crime. What would be the crime they would be enforcing? The crime would be failing to obtain a background check. The police have to have probable cause that you did NOT do something in order to arrest you for failing to get a background check.

Then the prosecutor has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you haven't completed a background check. It's difficult enough proving that you actually did do something let alone trying to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you did NOT do something. Keeping in mind that you are innocent until proven guilty, you don't have to tell them what FFL you used to get a background check. You don't have to tell them what date you transferred the firearm. You are free to exercise your 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. The entire onus of the investigation lies with law enforcement and the prosecution.

For example, Nevada currently has approximately 740 licensed FFLs. There are 365 days in a year. Remember that FFLs keep their records in their "bound book" per ATF regulations. Some may have converted to electronic bound books if issued a variance by the ATF, but this is not yet the norm. That means someone has to physically go and paw through their bound book and possibly the 4473 forms at each dealer to prove that a record does not exist. So they would have to reasonably ensure that they inspect every record at every dealer.

If law enforcement/prosecution do not check every dealer or check every record, they leave the door open for the defense to create a reasonable doubt that the one record at the one dealer that they did not inspect could be the form proving that the background check was completed. Remember that by federal law, the NICS system may not be used to create a registration of firearms or gun owners. This means that under federal law the identifying records on their end must be destroyed after the background check is completed. The man-hours required to attempt to prosecute a single violation of this law would be ridiculously prohibitive.

Second, I will talk about the background checks as they apply to prohibited persons. It is unconstitutional to require a prohibited person to present himself for a background check. Yes, I'm serious. There was a Supreme Court decision in 1968, Haynes v. UnitedStates. The reader's digest is that a man who was a convicted felon was caught in possession of an unregistered NFA firearm. He successfully argued that requiring him to register the NFA firearm is akin to forcing him to make an open admission to the government that he is a felon in possession of a firearm. Remember that 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination? The courts agreed with him that the law cannot compel him to perform an action that would amount to confessing to committing a crime.

While the Supreme Court did not invalidate the law requiring the registration of NFA firearms nor did they invalidate the prohibition on felons possessing firearms, they agreed that the law requiring registration could not be enforced against convicted felons. How hard do you think it would be for a defense lawyer to make this same argument for his client previously convicted of a disqualifying offense (domestic violence, felony, etc), subject to a protection order or adjudicated mentally ill? These are the very people that this law was intended to keep guns away from and they are already exempt from the requirements of this law!

I believe this law was written to intentionally fail. The left wants it to be unenforceable so it opens the door to push for registration. As the law abiding citizens go for background checks at dealers, their updated 4473 forms will help create more accurate, useful records to show who owns which firearms as of a certain date. Then the forms can be pulled to create the registration database. The next step will probably be confiscation of certain types of firearms. Think it can't happen? California and Connecticut have already been reported to be tracking down owners of certain types of firearms. It's not hard to imagine that being stretched into a nationwide system.

-John

Bloomberg Trolls Seeding Online News Comments

Those who follow Nevada's largest newspaper, The Las Vegas Review-Journal, online might have noticed something about the comments section on any topic that touches on the upcoming Ballot Question 1, universal background checks, which would ban private gun sales. That little something is the short-lived commentators who fearlessly shill in favor of the initiative using catch phrases like "common sense gun laws", etc.

A tactic that leftists, including the Bloomberg backed anti-gun groups is to use their practically unlimited money supply to inject their highly biased and factually inaccurate viewpoints into articles via the comment sections. The actual things said are really nothing more than the same regurgitated talking points and favorite myths, lies, and fallacies that are common to pretty much any organized anti-gun organization (be it Bloomberg, the Brady Campaign, or other fringe groups). The accounts are private and past Bloomberg trolls have seemed to disappear with their comments being scrubbed from existence.

Let's take a look at the latest local commentator, NVLisa (her DISQUS profile name), who we suspect to be the latest paid Bloomberg troll. NVLisa seems to be targeting only background check, gun, shooting, or domestic violence related posts. Of course her profile is private because it would be a shame if everyone could more easily connect the dots to her motivation and bias. Note that she joined on April 26, 2016, the day Clark County District Attorney (a Democrat) announced his support for banning private gun sales. What follows is a little taste of 'her' work.

Editor's note: We actively scrub the occasional anti-gun commentator who tries to spam the blog with their garbage. Differing viewpoints are welcome here, but vapid illogical and false statements are removed. 

Domestic disturbance cited by police in teen’s shooting Tuesday night

DA Wolfson endorses initiative to mandate background checks on gun sales

Man arrested in fatal shooting at mobile home park

FBI director expresses concern over murder increase in US cities, including Las Vegas

Politics NOW - 4/24/16

This commentator sums up the whole thing quite well (hats off to whoever you are Mr. or Ms. Knees:

Clark County DA Wolfson Supports Banning Private Gun Sales

The LVRJ had short blurb shilling for Ballot Question 1, Universal Background checks, which would ban private gun sales by requiring all gun sales to proceed through a dealer. This is widely believed to be the first step in a sale/transaction based gun registration system.

DA Wolfson vomited up the same liberal, anti-gun propaganda lines that have been used in one variation or another all over the place this cancer has been found. Frankly, it seems like another 'cut and paste' article from a press release.

“As a prosecutor, I know that it is all too easy for criminals who are prohibited from buying guns to get them online where background checks are not required," the paper quoted him. I kid you not; this exact phrasing can be found in all sorts of similar endorsements.

Hey you lying dumbass, you don't buy guns online. Stop spreading the myth that there is some sort of Amazon.com of guns. Of course, this is the same guy who will call his plea bargains part of his "conviction rate." Yeah...

Online guns sales work two ways: One, you arrange a face-to-face meeting with the buyer/seller just like a classified ad in the paper (but I guess "Ban the Classified Ad Loophole!" doesn't have the same ring). Two, you can order the gun shipped to a federally licensed dealer who then runs the standard Brady Check. Gangbangers aren't getting guns dropped off at their houses. It doesn't work that way.

Wolfson is the kind of person, as a Democrat and a prosecutor, who loves new laws that he can use to lock people up. In Clark County, the criminal justice system has always been hungry to regulate guns. Look at the fight it took to get rid of blue cards! It doesn't matter to Wolfson if he can never enforce the law. Aside from a sting operation or a confession, there is no way to enforce this law! Of course, that's without gun registration. Now if guns were registered, then it's really easy to check and see when the registration was changed and check that against the corresponding background check records.

But nah, it's not about registration, Bloomberg and his anti-gunners say (they've been caught saying otherwise). Then why do they want private checks to use the federal background check system while dealer sales still use the Nevada system with better local records? Why are they pushing this in every state they can? Yes, this is gun registration at it's finest.

These laws simply don't work. California has had a version of this law in one form or another since the early '90s, but its criminals are still awash in guns. Washington's example has been a dismal failure, stopping a fraction of the numbers caught in retail sale Brady checks. So Mr. Wolfson, please shut your mouth, start prosecuting actual criminals, and go work on your TV show.

Read more at www.ballotquestion1.com

UPDATED: Westside Armory Responds to the Background Check Controversy

Last month, Bloomberg Business published a story after spending three days in Westside Armory. The owner, Cameron Hopkins, was a former gun journalist and he invited a friend, Paul Barrett, to observe what went on inside a real, Nevada gun store. The whole piece turned out to be nothing more than a thinly veiled push for the universal background check initiative. After the outrage in social media, Hopkins realized that Barrett had used their relationship to promote Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun agenda. Hopkins admitted that he was not pleased with being taken advantage of someone he thought was a friend.

While we are sympathetic to Hopkins for being so blatantly used by a tool of America’s nanny, the apparent innocence that area gun dealers have shown when talking to the media about background checks is concerning. Three gun stores too many have made comments that, they claim, were taken out of context to support background checks. Gun owners and dealers need to be more careful speaking to the media on the topic. The Nevada gun community has demonstrated that it has little tolerance for those that would compromise on gun rights.

This was a big lesson that Hopkins learned firsthand. Several members of a grassroots gun rights group spoke with Hopkins at length and discussed the article and the initiative. 

Update 3/14/2016: Mr. Hopkins, in a relayed email, requested that we retract his article that he shared with some of our associates. Hopkins stated that the article "serves as a reminder that there was a problem. I’d rather let this wither on the vine, so I’d rather not remind people there was a problem." Mr. Hopkins has been invited to comment.

Rant: Westside Armory, Open Carry, and Thank-Yous

Normally, I’m not one for rants on this blog, but several things have stuck in my craw lately so I have to get them off my chest.

Westside Armory hosted a reporter from Bloomberg Business for three days. Bloomberg Business is former New York mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s legitimate reporting arm. Bloomberg is a leading financial news business, but Bloomberg’s affiliated The Trace is an anti-gun rag which is used to spread agitprop under the guise of being objective. In all fairness, the article is un-sensational and rather even handed, yet it clearly tows the company line of gun control and pro-universal background checks. Why did they pick a gun shop in Nevada? Oh, that’s right, the anti-gun groups Bloomberg is funding are pushing the UBC initiative here.

Westside Armory’s owner Cameron Hopkins, told Bloomberg he had no objection to universal background checks, which would ban private gun sales by requiring owners to obtain a background check with licensed dealers like Hopkins. If the initiative passes, that means that dealers like Hopkins gets to charge people for the privilege of selling their guns. Dealers will make money if the initiative passes. Numerous other statements in the article imply that Hopkins is okay with compromising when it comes to the Second Amendment. I’ll let you judge his words on your own, but I’m not okay with that.

To be fair, dealers do have to make judgment calls on their customers the same way a liquor store or bar should be denying liquor to people who are already obviously well-beyond drunk. It’s called self-policing and part of responsible citizenship. Self-policing of an industry is a lot more preferable to government regulations, which most gun dealers and Californians will tell you has become excessive. Facebook took away a huge option to self-police when it came to private gun sales and indeed made private gun sales less safe.

Gun owners did some stupid things, like the guy who gave his full name and where he works, while admitting that he intends to carry a concealed firearm at work. We can only hope that if his boss sees the article, that the distributor he works for supports its employees’ right to self-defense.

Several people have asked me about giving Hopkins a chance to clarify his statement, since the Bloomberg article didn’t give exact, detailed quotations in context. We’ve seen this before with local TV news channels. However, Bloomberg’s reporter spent three days in the store. Three days is long enough to gather and reflect the true opinion of the business owner. Three days is long enough to clarify:

“Well actually, only about 15% of guns bought privately would require a background check under the wording of the initiative. The 40% you quoted was a myth that included family transfers that wouldn’t regulated. Plus, the majority of illegal gun transactions come from corrupt dealers, street dealers who sell guns like drugs, straw purchases, and theft.”

But Hopkins didn’t do that, apparently. It appears that he jumped at the chance to get publicity for his business, either unaware or not caring that Bloomberg Business has an agenda to help destroy gun ownership. Not cool. This is the same business that continued to hold guns for 72 hours even after SB 175/240 did away with the local laws requiring the same. It was only after Metro PD sent a letter out a few days later confirming that they were no longer enforcing this did Westside drop their pointless waiting period.

New Frontier Armory, in North Las Vegas, is a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment and private gun sales. They held the blue card burning party back in July to celebrate state preemption. Their employees know better than to end up in a compromising position with the media and their owner is a pretty cool stand-up dude. They aren’t wanting for business, either.

Now, Hopkins can certainly contact us to clarify his stance and will happily retract our statements, but only subject to our new policy below. We have seen too many businesses whose employees or owners make statements that are either outright support for banning private gun sales, or have been open enough to be taken out of context by biased news media (disclaimer, I admit my bias). Local gun owners need to either say ‘no’ to interviews or make darn sure their words are

New policy: Because it's all too easy for businesses to make damning statements and later retract them, under the claim that they were misquoted or taken out of context, Nevada Carry will assume business meant what they told journalists. Ex post facto apologies must be confirmed by prior proof that the business does not support background checks on private gun sales or the other gun control issue du jour. To businesses, if you put yourself in a position to be misquoted or misconstrued, be very careful what you say. The onus is on you to prove that those were not your words.

Open Carry

You want to open carry? Fine. I don’t care how you dress or if your holster cost $9.99. Just make sure it’s a retention holster and you carry smart. I don’t want any gun snatchings in Nevada (which are exceedingly rare period, so STFU) and I will make it a point to humiliate you if it does happen to you here.

USE A RETENTION HOLSTER, CARRY LOADED, AND PRACTICE SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AT ALL TIMES  OR DON’T CARRY OPENLY

Open carry isn’t about looking cool. It’s not something you do to make you look more intimidating to bad guys or someone who might disrespect you. It’s not about getting attention. The people who carry openly for those reasons make the rest of us look bad and endanger our rights.

Also, you want to open carry and make a point, such as when it comes to government buildings? Fine, but do it right. Have the courage to go in. Be knowledgeable about the laws and how to talk to the staff. Record or video your interaction and get the names of everyone you talk to. If the police do something bad, like take your gun or tell you lies about the law, file a complaint so that they can be corrected. Don’t just whine online, leave out details, and expect us to jump up to defend you.

Also, tell people about this website. Spread the word because, and this just isn’t my opinion, it’s a really good central resource for Nevada gun and self-defense laws. We’ve literally be educating and changing thousands of minds here, but we can’t reach those outside the mainstream gun community without word of mouth. One guy, me, pays for this and I can’t afford the advertising and time chasing stories around like the biased and disinterested Review-Journal reporters.

Thank You

I would like to thank my contributors and proofreaders for your help. My friends here at Nevada Carry keep me going when I have to do the heavy lifting and your work to make us a stronger information and news outlet is appreciated.

I want to thank everybody on here who does something for the Second Amendment fight. We all know the core individuals who give them time to volunteer, speak out at public meetings, march, run the FB pages (espcially the mods/admins), websites, etc. It's a very small group, but I'd like to think that our small corps are the vanguard of the Nevada defenders of the 2nd Amendment. With all the gun stores and ranges, it's our daily efforts that are making the biggest impact in keeping the fight going.

-GC

Fake 'Study' by Everytown on Online Gun Ads

Everytown for Gun Safety, a former New York City mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg sponsored gun control group, issued a 'study' trying to smear Nevada’s online gun sale advertisements as a funnel for arms to criminals. Since they are heavily invested in the universal background check initiative to ban private gun sales, this kind of hyperbolic, weasel-worded, and tortured statistics ‘study’ is what we can expect of them. In fact, a similar study in Vermont, aimed at the same ends as in Nevada, was also discredited.

Nevada’s report is riddled with problems that would give a statistics professor’s red pen a field day.

Starting with dealer sales, over two years (2012-2014), there were 5,000 blocked gun sales, out of 400,000 background checks run by dealers. First, that means that 395,000 gun sales were approved. That’s a denial rate of 1.3%. Second, they used three years’ data to conflate the problem, meaning that, on average, 1,666 gun sales were denied per year out of 133,333 total sales per year. Did you also know that the largest category of denial reasons, fugitive from justice, can include those with simple traffic or bench warrants they may be unaware of?

The report then jumped into the false premise that “you can buy a gun online.” Incorrect. One can only advertise a gun for sale and arrange a face-to-face meeting or have the gun shipped to a dealer. There is no Amazon.com for guns. Everytown even admits that most sellers are ones

“who only offer guns occasionally or from their personal collections.” Sorta like people selling cars online, which also get sold to people who shouldn’t be driving and have or will kill people with cars.

They conveniently left out the fact that most guns tied to a prohibited person or a crime come from corrupt dealers or through straw purchases, not online advertisements.

Now here’s where we get into the really bad exaggerations. Of course, this doesn’t matter to Everytown. They are aiming at the low-information voters who won’t think about what they’ve read and their avid statist Kool-Aid drinking crowd.

Everytown found 1 in 11, 8.7%  shopping—not buying— were prohibited persons. Again, shoppers, not actual buyers. 8.7% of the people Everytown investigated did not actually buy firearms. Everytown supposes a rate of guns being supplied to prohibited persons—not guns that actually do wind up in the wrong hands, but supposedly could. So there goes that statistic out the window on to the pile of BS.

Look at how they then get confused about what they just said: 

“The share of prohibited online gun buyers [Didn’t they just say shoppers?]  is almost seven times higher than the share of Nevadans who try to buy guns at licensed dealers and fail background checks…” 

Criminals will get guns regardless of universal background checks or not. Everytown even admitted as much. “people who shot and killed law enforcement officers in Nevada between January 1980 and October 2015 showed that more than half were likely [emphasis added] prohibited from possessing guns. ” They couldn’t even get that right bit right. Notice how they qualify that the cop killers were only likely, no actually, prohibited persons?

Next, their sample size is laughably small. 

“Of the identified individuals seeking guns in unlicensed online sales in Nevada, 8.7 percent (20 of 229) [emphasis added] had been convicted of crimes that prohibited them from possessing firearms.” 

How can you gather any meaningful data from 229 people? That’s .00078% of Nevada’s population. And they admit these were only the people they could get (we're assuming) complete Facebook profiles on. On a side note, Facebook's new policy would have made this study impossible for Everytown. 

The ‘report’ goes on to list the most sensational stories about the prohibited persons they found, which serious statistical research does not do. This is agit-prop for the ill-informed and the choir members who want preached to. Did Everytown’s investigators report their findings about these criminals and what they were doing to law enforcement? Probably not.

Next, they bring up Colorado, which banned private gun sales just like the initiative in Nevada is proposing to do. In 30 months, 700 out of 40,000 private sales were denied in Colorado, giving a percentage of 1.75%, which is slightly more  than Nevada’s dealer sale background check denials. So tell me again, how would this law deter criminals from trying to buy guns if they’re dumb enough to go in for a background check anyhow?

Facebook may have caved in to pressure from the Bloomberg groups and the White House, but private gun sale advertisements will flourish elsewhere, where they are welcome. In fact, Facebook probably made it a lot more difficult for average citizens to do their homework on to whom they might be selling a gun too. But it’s not about safety or rights, it’s entirely about gun control.

California Number One Supplier of Crime Guns to Nevada*

California Governor Jerry Brown criticized states like Nevada and Arizona for having so-called ‘lax’ gun laws. “California has the toughest gun control laws of any state and Nevada and Arizona are wide open. So that's a gigantic backdoor through which any terrorist can walk.” Governor Brown apparently missed the fact that a whole host of California laws were broken by the terrorists in San Bernardino. His state’s draconian gun laws did not prevent this tragedy, but instead reduced the victims to cowering in the face of Islamic terrorists. Hero Shannon Johnson was killed bravely shielding Denise Peraza with his own body.

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey said: 

"All of Arizona mourns for the victims in California. To politicize a tragedy of this magnitude and use it as an opportunity to attack our state is out of bounds. Not only will we be ignoring Gov. Brown's advice, but I call on him to retract his incredibly thoughtless and ill-advised comments.” 

In regards to the Paris terrorist attacks last month, Gov. Ducey said, “These acts serve as a reminder that the world remains at war with radical Islamic terrorists. Our national leaders must react with the urgency and leadership that every American expects to protect our citizens.” Gov. Brown did not shy away from acknowledging the threat of Islamic terror. At least Gov. Brown got one thing right. 

“At the same time, I don’t minimize the significance of this terrorist attack. […] It’s a very clear indication that this is a global phenomenon and that people who are committed to this jihadist doctrine are going to be killing people in very unexpected places. So we have to be, as I said, we have to be on our guard and we have to do whatever we can do.”

Nevada's governor's office, issued a statement Sunday afternoon.

"Nevadans share California's grief during this time of tragedy following the horrific events in San Bernardino. However, Governor Brown’s assertion that our state laws create an opening for terrorists is wrong and irresponsible. This type of political rhetoric is discouraging to hear at a time when all Americans are looking for thoughtful, honest leadership. Governor Sandoval’s top priority has always been the safety and well-being of Nevadans and the millions of tourists who travel to our state annually."

Nevada, California’s Criminal Arms Market?

Everytown Research, the discredited research arm of former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg's anti-gun organization Everytown for Gun Safety, has published 'research' (really just statistics explained in a way that makes Nevada look bad) supposedly drawing the conclusion that Nevada is some sort of arms bazaar to California criminals. The reality is quite the opposite.

Everytown says: “[...]  since 2006, the number of Nevada guns recovered at California crime scenes has increased 94 percent.” According to an ATF firearms trace data (cited by Everytown), in 2006, 361 guns traced, came from Nevada, versus 2013, where the number was 699 guns. Saying the guns were recovered from a crime scene is a lie. The stats used are for all guns traced by the ATF, which includes not just guns from crime scenes, but guns confiscated from felons, for instance. Of course, California itself was the largest source of firearms recovered from criminals or at crime scenes.

The actual sources of the guns are never mentioned. For this to be an accurate comparison and used as evidence for universal background checks, how the guns got into the hands of California criminals is vitally important.

• How many of these guns were actually bought in sales which would be prohibited by the universal background check initiative?
• How many of these guns were bought/transferred illegally under existing laws (Straw purchases, illegal street dealers)?
• How many of these guns were legally brought in or sold/transferred to Californians?
• How many of these guns were stolen? 

Everytown isn’t interested in answering these questions, only presenting the appearance of a problem where there is none. Now here’s the kicker. The largest out-of-state source for traced guns in Nevada (again, using the same source and definition as Everytown used) is: California!

https://www.atf.gov/file/55016/download

https://www.atf.gov/file/3286/download

Yes, Nevada does have private gun sales that a criminal from California could abuse. However, the onus is on California for infringing upon the Second Amendment rights of its citizens. California is also responsible for an influx of felons. “California’s two-strike felons often come to Nevada to avoid their third felony, and thus a potential 25-to-life sentence, and continue committing their crimes. Nevada’s three strike law doesn’t count out-of-state convictions,” Nevada Carry’s anonymous law enforcement source told us.

California’s Gun Laws Just Don’t Work

An effort, lead by California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, the former mayor of San Francisco, seeks to confiscate all grandfathered 10 round plus magazines, among other ineffective measures. California started the ‘assault weapons’ ban back in the 1980s after a mass shooting at McDonalds, later copied at the federal level for ten years. Clearly this ban had no effect on the terrorists. Brown and Newsom, along with Senator Barbara Boxer, who foolishly praised California’s gun laws after the terrorist attack. Boxer, whose brain must be malfunctioning after years of drinking the liberal Kool-Aid, liked the guns law working to speeding law working after illegal street racers plowed into a crowd.

In California, all ‘assault weapons’ must have been registered by 2001 or altered so that they no longer meet the state’s arbitrary criteria. The ‘assault weapon’ ban is predicated on mostly cosmetic and inconsequential features, such as a pistol grip, flash suppressor, detachable magazine, and collapsing stock. It was alleged based upon specious logic that such features make the weapon more deadly.

Media reports are stating that  the rifles used in the attack were purchased by a friend Enrique Marquez. Police have not released any further details on how the weapons were acquired. They may have been solid in a private party transfer, using a gun dealer as California has banned private gun sales without going through a licensed dealer. Or, Marquez may have bought the weapons as a ‘straw purchase’ where they were intended for suspect Sayed Farook the whole time. Another option, most disconcerting to proponents of universal background checks, is that the law didn’t stop Marquez from illegally selling the weapons to Farook.

Media is also mistakenly describing the weapons as having been modified to be more powerful. An AR-15, like most rifles, is capable of penetrating soft police body armor, walls, and vehicles. Nothing was done to enhance the physical ‘punch’ of the weapons. Only modifications to the weapons functionality were made and illegal 10+ round magazines were used.

Under California law, if you took an AR-15 that was legal to possess in Nevada, removed the standard magazine release, and put one on there that needed a ‘tool’ to release it, such as the tip of a bullet, the weapon, though functionally identical to the prohibited ‘assault weapon’ would then be legal. Swapping out the bullet button for a proper magazine release takes about two minutes or less and requires no tools. At least one of the rifles was modified in attempt to make it fully automatic, but it was done improperly and it failed.

Law enforcement hasn’t said yet how the weapon was modified. AR-15 style rifles are distinctly different in semi-automatic and fully-automatic form. The conversion from semi-to-fully auto is not easy. Semi-auto ARs have a ‘denial hump’, or simply an area of the receiver that hasn’t been milled out. This is to deny the room needed for installing the auto-sear, which holds the hammer from hitting the firing pin and detonating the cartridge until the bolt is locked, preventing an explosion. The rifle would also need several different parts—a full-auto hammer and trigger disconnector, a three position safety catch, and a full-auto bolt—changed to function properly.

A “Lightning Link” could also have been made and installed. This is basically two pieces of metal which basically forces the semi-auto trigger to work in full-auto mode while delaying the stroke of the hammer as described as above. Truly modifying a weapon to be an illegal machine gun (under federal law) requires advanced gunsmithing and mechanical knowledge. Simpler solutions, like the SlideFire stock that moves the trigger finger to rapidly pull the trigger nearly as fast as full-auto fire, are already banned in California.

Another so-called modification was using 30 round ‘high capacity magazines’, which in reality are standard capacity. AR-15 designed Eugene Stoner’s original rife was designed to take 20 round magazines, increased to 30 rounds in 1969 for the M16 variant used in Vietnam. Supporters of restricting magazine capacity erroneously believe that ten round (or fewer) magazines will necessitate more frequent magazine changes. Sheriff Campbell of Boone County, Indiana, demonstrates how magazine capacity makes virtually no difference whatsoever in reloading speed, thus negating any alleged safety.

Fox 5 Gets it Wrong on Background Checks

A Fox 5 (Las Vegas) segment irritated many local gun owners, who felt that the piece was deceptive and improperly edited. It focused on the 2016 universal background check initiative which would ban all private gun sales by forcing those sales to go through a federally licensed dealer. The initiative is believed to be the first step in establishing a national gun registration database. Christine Maddela, weeknight evening co-anchor and Denver native, reported. 

Maddela’s report did balance both sides of the argument. Oddly enough, the message that I thought came across the loudest was “criminals will get guns anyway,” even though the perspective of the piece seemed to be pro-initiative. Despite manipulative edits, the cries against more gun control and the futility of the initiative were loud from a lot of the interviewees. Nonetheless, the broader points of the argument were left out and over-simplified to just two blunted viewpoints.

The piece generated an immediate online backlash against Maddela and Fox 5, causing the next evening’s ‘Rant’ to explode over the topic. Rocky Mountain Gun Shows and local gun dealer Fallout Firearms were also blasted because of statements in the report that were allegedly taken out of context. Online, gun owners took to Facebook and Yelp to post damning reviews against both. Both businesses have since explained their positions and blamed Fox 5 for taking their statements out of context. 

Kourosh Haroni, on Facebook, clarified that he was referring to dealer background checks (required by state and federal law) and not private sales. He and Rocky Mountain Gun Shows do not support the initiative or mandatory background checks on private gun sales.

Fallout Firearms and its employee, Alex Acree, quoted in the piece, immediately disavowed the report and declared their opposition to banning private gun sales. Owner Mike Crowder posted the following on his blog: 

“While setting up at the Rocky Mountain Gun show at Southpoint, Fox five was interviewing the promoter for Rocky Mountain Gun Show and she was hammering on him about the ‘Gun Show Loophole’. He remarked that all transactions done at his gun show between dealers was done legally. Then he brought them over to talk to us since we are his out of state transfer dealer for dealers that come in from out of state. 

“I was unable to respond because I was sick and my throat was so sore that it would have been a disaster, so I asked my salesman Alex Acree to respond to them. 

“She asked him if he saw any transfers between people without background checks at the gun show, and he said no because we are required by federal law to do background checks so we do them. She then told him that other dealers in the show do not support background checks, and that they don't work and does he support that, and he said no, background checks absolutely do work, they catch felons and domestic violence all the time. 

“She then asked if he supported having background checks between individuals and he said no, he did not support background checks, and he has been involved in many private party sales himself. [emphasis added] She then asked him if he was worried about selling a gun to a felon and he replied that if there is concern about selling a gun to a felon, you can download a form on the internet to help with private party sales that makes the person check that they are not a felon or have any domestic violence charges in their background.

“Of course the footage was edited down to make it seem like Alex replied in context that he supports background checks between private parties, and that Karoush Haroni of Rocky Mountain Gun Shows also supports that, but that is not true, and not how the interview went.

“[…] They showed all of a minute of Alex talking but he spent over 30 minutes with the news crew answering all kinds of questions. They picked out the one minute of footage of him speaking and put it into the context that we support private party background checks […]

“I cannot stress enough that my business DOES NOT SUPPORT background checks between individuals for several reasons. 

“#1. I do not feel that the government should be allowed to tell you that you cannot sell your private property without the government getting involved. If we allow the government to get involved in the sale of private property, what's next? Are they going to regulate me selling my car to someone who had a DUI in the past? […]

“#5 The state makes a lot of money off of background checks. Many people think we profit off of that, but we do not. The state charges us $25 for each background check that we pay monthly. We collect the $25 from the customer, and then pay the state at the end of each month. Last year alone my business paid the NV Department of Public Safety close to $60,000.00 in background check money. Other states are not required to go through the department of public safety and they deal directly with the FBI and there is no fee for a background check in most states, and there is no two hour wait before a DPS employee answers a phone. It is almost immediate with response. […] 

“We as a business are so anti-individual background check that any time someone walks in to do a transfer between private parties, we ALWAYS try to talk them out of using us to do it. We explain that it is completely legal for them to do the background check without using us. We ONLY will do a private party transfer in the store if the two people insist that the firearm go through a FFLs A&D books. If we supported individual background checks we would try to get people in the store so we could charge them a transfer fee and make a little money, but we personally do not believe in that and go out of our way to discourage it since it is not illegal to transfer between private parties.
 “I'm not sure what else I can state to help people understand that we are definitely for private individual liberty and against private party background checks. […] 

“We were sort of thrust into this interview because we are the official out of state transfer dealer for the Rocky Mountain Gun Show. The context that was being used at the time was that there were dealers doing sales without background checks at the Rocky Mountain Gun Show, and we were trying to step in and explain that that simply is not true. ALL transfers between a dealer at the gun show are required to have a background check and no funny business was happening at the Rocky Mountain Gun Show. 

"I can assure everyone reading this that we will never do another news interview with ANYONE again. We were trying to assure the news reporter that nothing illegal was happening at the gun show with DEALER transfers, and there really wasn’t a need for more legislation because everything was happening according to federal law." 

Alex was described as a "gun control advocate", despite making no such comment in his clip. Alex clarified his comments on Facebook, stating that he was referring to the required dealer 'Brady checks' on retail sales (which comprise the vast majority of gun sales).Alex said: 

"She apparently forgot the part during the interview after this where she asked if I supported background checks for individuals and I said "No, I don't. I have personally been involved in several private sales...To set the record straight I am a proud supporter of the Second Amendment and a Veteran." 

Maddela issued this apology: 

"Last night we interviewed Alex Acree regarding background checks for gun sales within a story about the proposed background check initiative. We want to clarify that his opinions are not necessarily those of his employer Fallout Firearms. We apologize for any confusion.” 

Pro-gun control bias?

Gun control advocate Tim Titolo said in his interview that the background check initiative will make it harder for criminals to obtain firearms by banning private sales. Only slightly harder, actually. Very few criminals actually get guns by sales that would be regulated by the initiative. All the available, pre-existing, criminal outlets would still exist. Maddela and the advocates failed to mention that no mechanism will exist to actually enforce the law or determine if a gun was bought or sold privately without a background check.

Strangely, while a lot of the dealers and personalities, including the self-proclaimed Duke of Fremont street, were against the initiative, the piece definitely slanted toward pro-initiative.

Kristen Kidman, acknowledged as a Fox 5 employee and credited as ‘gun owner’ in the piece, was interviewed, apparently to add credence to the idea that gun owners support private sale background checks. In reality, most do not. It is incredibly misleading, biased, and hardly objective reporting to interview an employee of the same news station, who conveniently has the same opinion that the segment is trying to argue.   

The report did correctly point out that the group leading the universal background check initiative, ‘Nevadans’ for Background Checks, is backed and funded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Initiative supporters are very keen to promote themselves as ‘grassroots’ when they are anything but.

Gun owners are wary of media reporting on issues of gun rights. The mainstream media is well-known for having a liberal bias and often distorts coverage of gun related issued. Local gun owners reacted with skepticism in response to Maddela’s teaser Tweets about her piece.

Noted gun control advocate Michael Bloomberg sponsored his own gun-reporting service, The Trace. The Trace is fairly transparent as an anti-gun media outlet dedicated to subtly and not-so-subtly offering pro-gun control propaganda. It claims to present a “moderate” take on the issue of gun violence, yet its articles highlight almost exclusively the problems that guns cause and none of their solutions. While it isn’t the same preaching to the choir as the obnoxious group Moms Demand Action does, it is not the independent journalistic source it claims to be.

Because of the amount of money flowing in to Nevada from Bloomberg an other anti-gun sources, just as in Washington and Oregon, who recently had their own bans on private gun sales enacted, gun owners are wary. Common tactics are getting local news to cover the issue of background checks, ostensibly from the side of supporting them. Reporters were encouraged to apply to a Bloomberg-backed media workshop on 'gun violence'; obviously this was an indoctrination camp on how Bloomberg and his ilk wants gun control covered. 'Did Ms. Maddela attend?' one wonders.

Local TV News Not a Paragon of Public Debate

Local TV news is a horrible medium for reporting nuanced issues. It's a half-hour of coverage, repeated several times, designed to get the most viewership to sell ad-time. Also, because of the ‘sound bite’ culture that pervades the entertainment industry, much information is left out. Is seven seconds really enough to communicate someone’s opinion? Years of experience, education, and thought goes into the formulation of an opinion. Condensing the product of decades into a few seconds is disingenuous as the context necessary to develop and informed opinion is absent from the news material. 

“Not by accident, 7 seconds is the length of the average sound bite in news media. On TV or radio, 7 seconds is how long your spokesperson usually gets to make a point. [...] In online and print media, 7 seconds translates into 23 words or less—a headline and a subhead, or a headline and two bullets. Most of us receive hundreds of emails a day.” (source) 

A full, fair, and accurate investigation into a topic cannot be made in a six and a half minute video filled with cuts measured in mere seconds. The Boston Globe decried this kind of reporting in its investigation of sound bites: 

“There are plenty of reasons to distrust sound bites and the kind of journalism that produces them. First and most obviously, we miss out on the variety and authenticity of hearing people speak at length, and in their own words.” 

Complex reasoning cannot be hashed out in a 23 word clip, especially when the only part of the conversation used is one that promotes the story’s agenda. Presenting all angles of the story, just the flashy and noisy ones that will tune out screaming children, turn heads from ironing boards, and lift eyes from dinner plates, is not something that is within the interest of local TV news. Their job is to attract viewers in order to sell commercial air time; journalism has always been secondary.

Don’t believe me? Just think about those teaser commercials through Prime Time getting you to hang-on until the ‘Death Storm 2015’ weather report or the story “Will this common grocery store product kill you? Find out a 10,” comes on.

AG Gancarski of Folioweekly.com explains the problem with local TV reporting: 

“[…] news outfits are owned by powerful holding companies with real agendas and no real interest in anything local, beyond what's best for business. They share reporters and reportage, editorial perspectives, sponsors and sets, and everything that makes a newscast a newscast. [...] 

“[former Action News reporter Cathi Carson (Florida) said] ‘The problem with local news is they are hyper-focused on the competition instead of the content," she says. "The average viewer is not watching all three news outlets at the same time. They don't care if one station had the story two minutes before the other. Somewhere along the way, the race to beat the other stations became the guiding force in local news.” 

Worst of all is that many people simply do not have the time or the inclination to seek alternative sources of news, such as this blog. By years of literal indoctrination, they accept local TV news and the cable outlets as their only sources of information. This report and future ones like it may be the only information they base a vote on their Second Amendment freedom on.

Thankfully, Twitter, Facebook, and the Internet have been able to change this, but the detailed reporting found in newspapers and magazines have either disappeared or are ignored. Low-information voters, those informed by what they catch briefly on TV or hear from others, are the ones who will make choices, often detrimental, based on reports like this one.

I am charging Fox 5 with dereliction of duty. If they do not have an anti-gun agenda and did not want to portray gun shows and gun dealers as supporting the initiative, why did they select the few relevant sentences from many minutes of interview time they did? Facts from the interviewees don't square with what Fox 5 showed. Such reporting that we saw here does not engender gun owners to trust local media.

Conclusion

Sadly, our culture does not have time for the in-depth, primarily written media of the past. On this blog, some of my articles are wildly popular, others not so much, yet those who do take the time to read get their answers they need. NevadaCarry.org has been steadily demolishing long-standing rumors and myths in the Nevada gun community. Despite a short attention span for society as a whole, those who want to know the truth and the full story will seek it out.

As editor, I am an unabashedly biased journalist-activist. To our friends in local TV news, we want better reporting. Don’t try to indoctrinate people, don’t talk down to us, and don’t try and fool us. Provide accurate and objective reporting or don’t try it at all.

-G. C.

See also: Fox 5 story: Can you have a gun in your car? 

How They'll Lie to Ban Private Gun Sales

Click image to enlarge

Would you vote for a law that made the innocent, everyday gun sales on Facebook illegal? By misleading people, supporters of  2016’s ‘universal background checks’ initiative use false positives to sell their ban on private gun sales. Even the name is misleading. Would you vote for the ‘Ban Private Gun Sales’ Initiative?

Here is how they are going to try and sell the ‘benefits’ of restricting your private property rights and infringing on the Second Amendment, all so they can have the stage set for gun registration.

They’re going to tell you it’s a benefit to the seller. “By completing the sale/transfer at a federally licensed dealer (FFL), the likelihood of a robbery for your cash or firearm is greatly decreased.”

Meeting at a police station, a high-traffic public area, or by being aware, staying smart, and going armed can have the same benefit with none of the negatives.

“Instant background checks give the seller piece of mind knowing they aren’t unwittingly breaking the law by selling or transferring the firearm to a prohibited person.”

Most criminals and prohibited persons don’t buy guns from private sales organized online or at gun shows and usually get them from relatives—something not prohibited by the initiative. And if you’re that worried, Nevada already has free voluntary private background checks available, and most dealers will even now facilitate a private sale.

“All of us are asking: ‘How can I be part of the solution to gun violence?’ Easily! Vote for universal background checks and end the internet and gun show loopholes.”

Laws can’t legislate away criminals. Murder is illegal, yet it still happens. Only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun. Also never mind that all of the murder weapons in the recent high-profile mass shootings were either obtained legally, through a licensed dealer, or through theft/murder.

“Dealers will make $25 for a fraction of their time without the overhead expenses of acquiring and stocking inventory.”

For $25, is the extra hassle really worth the increased number of records which must be retained for 20 years and the time it takes to record the sale/transfer and call in the background check?

“The increased traffic into gun stores will be a wonderful opportunity to sell additional firearms, magazines, accessories, and ammunition to customers who might not have otherwise come into the store.”

What about the multitude of better deals for gun gear and ammo that people are finding online these days?  

“Private sale background checks will benefit sellers by reducing their risk of exposure to liability if the firearm they sell is later used in a crime.”

Only knowingly selling/transferring a firearm to a prohibited person is illegal and a good-faith sale wouldn’t expose a seller to liability.

“Only criminals, terrorists, and smugglers have something to hide from background checks.”

Innocent until proven guilty anyone?

“By law, none of the records are retained, so there is no fear of national or state gun registry.”

Backdoor gun registration exists as FFLs are required to retain their records for 20 years or surrender them to the ATF if they go out of business. Additionally, the ATF and law enforcement can inspect or require records from FFLs at any time as part of an investigation.

“With 97% of Nevadans living within 10 miles of an FFL, the few minutes spent completing the transfer at a dealer is worth it for the peace of mind.”

Is peace of mind worth eroding your personal property rights and infringing on the Second Amendment because of an unenforceable, feel-good law? Would you vote to ban private car sales because there is a DMV nearby?

If stopping sales to prohibited persons were the real goal, why not make it easier to get a background check and why make it harder to sell a gun privately? Meeting at a dealer is a time-consuming burden. The same level of peace of mind and enforceability could be had by establishing free background checks for private sales or opening a public hotline.

Background checks are almost totally ill-relevant to the ultimate goal. By forcing all sales/transfers to go through a dealer, it will be extremely easy to require dealers to report all sales/transfers to the government and thus create a gun registration system. The ‘universal background check’ initiative is the precursor to total gun registration.

The over-riding reason to say no is this: Can you trust that the government will not abuse this power or take it to the next level and require gun registration?