Comprehensive Background Checks: Ballot Question 1

During tonight's debate, Hillary threw out the term "comprehensive background checks." It's the flavor of the month version of "universal background checks" or banning private gun sales. The whole idea is to get guns into dealers so they can, in the future, pass a law requiring all gun sales to be reported to the government and create an instant gun registration database.

Most guns sold are through retail sources; gun stores or licensed dealers where background checks are required. Guns legally sold face-to-face have never been a major crime problem. Instead, the problem has been criminals who have passed existing background checks, dealers who break the law, illegal street deals no law could stop, the stolen gun trade, and people with 'clean' records buying guns for felons. The initiative wouldn't stop any of these. They call it "comprehensive background checks" or "universal background checks", but in the end, it's an infringement on your Second Amendment and private property rights.

"Federal law already requires background checks for most guns sales."

Ballot Question 1 would require that private, face-to-face, firearm sales be conducted through a federally licensed firearms dealer and the buyer undergo a background check. Currently, Nevada law allows for any two private persons to buy, sell, or transfer a firearm with each other in this state without a mandatory background check. Voluntary private background checks are free. Buyers purchasing from dealers are already required to undergo a background check, which account for the majority of legal gun sales. In the few states where private gun sales have been banned, the illegal gun trade has not been thwarted.

"75.9% of illegally bought/sold guns would not be stopped by comprehensive background checks."

‘Nevadans’ for Background Checks allege that their initiative would “close a loophole in Nevada law by requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales, with reasonable exceptions for family, hunting, and self-defense.” By criminalizing currently innocent behavior, the supporters hope to eliminate legal private sales as a source of firearms. There is an unstated implication that this initiative would stop illegal trade in stolen guns, illegal street dealers, or illegal gun transfers to known prohibited persons; something the initiative simply cannot do. Unfortunately, laws never convinced criminals to stop breaking the law. 

Worst of all, convicted felons (and other prohibited persons) could not be convicted of failing to undergo a background check; rather it would be the seller or the innocent buyers who would be convicted. The initiative doesn't even require dealers to notify police when a criminal attempts to buy a gun.

It is already illegal under state and federal law to sell firearms to prohibited persons, including those convicted of domestic violence. The availability of guns does not cause crime. As Everytown for Gun Safety says itself: "falsehoods spread by a vocal few should not be allowed to cloud public debate[...]"

"This will effectively ban private, face-to-face, gun sales and ruin gun shows, without stopping crimes or preventing mass murders."

Comprehensive background checks are not about background checks; they are about limiting private property rights and subjecting sales to government scrutiny in order to eventually register guns. They erode our constitutional rights, impose unreasonable burdens and harsh penalties upon the law-abiding, and provide no mechanism for enforcement or to ensure compliance. Nevada already has a free, voluntary private sale background check process and dealers will currently process a background check if asked to do so.  

"It should really be called 'universal gun registration'."

​Background checks and mandatory transfers through dealers will lead to a gun registry via reporting sales and transactions. As happened in California, all it will take is a single bill passed by the legislature to make it mandatory to report all gun sales/transactions. The initiative is the first step. The next step is to require all firearm transactions to be reported to the state by the dealer (as in the case of California). Lastly, existing firearms that are not already registered would have to be registered to remain legal (several countries have done this). Confiscation will be next.

"About 80% of informal polls show most Nevadans are opposed to more background checks and most Nevada sheriffs are against Ballot Question 1." 

Vote no on Question 1. Your rights depend on it.

Democratic Gun Control Debate Elder Abuse; Bernie Gets Beaten Up

Last night, Las Vegas hosted the democratic candidates’ debate and a major segment of the debate centered on gun control. Hillary and former Maryland Governor O’Malley basically beat up on Bernie Sanders (elder abuse, anyone?) because he didn’t support the Democratic position on gun control one hundred percent. Independent thought is not allowed in that party and Sen. Sanders was chastised for deviating from the party line. Even if a gun owner considers themselves to be a liberal, they should not support Democrats for the single reason of gun control and the Democratic Party’s apparent goal to destroy gun rights entirely.

All you need to know about the debate and the left’s (including the media) view on guns is contained in this short video clip. There was a time when Democrats were just another viewpoint on the world. Today, their party represents the virtual eradication of gun rights and a vehement hatred against guns and gun owners. In a shrill voice, Hillary decried gun rights, working herself into apoplexy, like some sort of revolutionary denouncing capitalism. The Democrats fervor for gun control is akin to a religious obsession and their loathing of gun owners would be unimaginable if gun owners were a racial minority.

Democrats mistakenly view the Second Amendment, at best, as a soft throw to hunters. In the debate,  O’Malley said of his draconian anti-gun legislation: “We were able to pass this and still respect the hunting tradition.” It was one of the knee-jerk reactions to the Sandy Hook school massacre that the left used to push their gun control schemes in their typical exploitation of such tragedies. Those who advocate for such bans fail to realize that the notorious Columbine school massacre occurred during the height of the Clinton-era Assault Weapons Ban.

Gun control is the one area where Democrats and the progressive, statist regime must hammer to crush all opposition. Whether they acknowledge it publicly or even internally, they are aware that civilian gun ownership will derail their ultimate agenda. Though they are nominally for the public good, instead of the individual good, they know that the socialism they seek to enact will be resisted with violence once it inevitably attacks individual freedoms. We’ve seen socialism and communism fail in all its forms in the past century and all those regimes tolerated no dissent towards their failing policies.

Democrats are the same way. Internal dissent cannot be tolerated, just as external dissent must be ridiculed and drowned out with a chorus of mindless, chanting drones. The same topics come up, time and time again, repeating the same manipulated data, overly simplistic talking points, and offering the same pointless solutions. This debate was no different.

The gun control portion of the debate focused on the need for more background checks and being able to sue gun manufactures. Background checks were mentioned because they are the gun control cause du jour, and bans from suing gun manufacturers because it was something Bernie Sanders supported. In 2004, the gun control talking points were the Assault Weapons Ban, while in 1992, the Brady Bill. It’s the same non-sense, just with different gibberish.

Suing Manufacturers

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was passed in 2005 to prevent firearms manufacturers and dealers from being held liable for negligence in nuisance lawsuits when crimes have been committed with their products. This was found to be necessary when dealers and gun makers were being successfully sued because someone used their product to commit a crime. Protecting manufacturers and dealers was needed because without it, they could be sued to force them out of business by vengeful or greedy victims of gun crimes.

Frivolous lawsuits are nothing new to Americans. We all know of the tragic McDonalds hot coffee scalding which could have been prevented with a simple ‘Caution—Hot’ warning label.

Such suits would be like suing Sunbeam because an angry wife dropped a toaster in the tub to electrocute her husband. No one sues car dealers for selling a car to someone that later drove drunk and killed a family in a crosswalk. Manufacturers and dealers would only be liable for a defective or dangerous product or if they knowingly sold a firearm to a prohibited person.

Background Checks

The major issue of the night was the relentless harping on background checks; our nation’s ‘need’ for more and Bernie Sanders softness on them. Background checks are going to be a very big deal in 2016 here in Nevada. You can bet big the candidates and their lackeys on the left will stump for them. Never mind that background checks never stopped the recent high-profile shootings and that most criminals don’t utilize (legal) private gun sales.

The Universal Background Check initiative will have the effect of forcing all gun sales to go through a dealer. No more private sales; they will all require the same NICS check, Form 4473, and the sale recorded in the dealer’s bound book just like a commercial sale. This isn’t a voluntary thing or something that will only be required in Clark County (like the blue cards were). This will be mandatory across Nevada, and across the country if Democrats have their way.

President Obama’s token action after the Umpqua Community College shooting was to propose that Curio and Relics dealers be required to get background checks on their sellers. C&R licenses are basically meant for collectors to obtain older, antique firearms by receiving them directly, instead of going through a dealer. This proposal would do nothing.

Yet Obama and the left has what they believe to be a moral duty ‘to do something’ after a school shooting. So they choose the little they can do without a majority in Congress. One small nibble at a time, they make it harder to buy guns. It’s part satisfying their base and part exploitation of a crisis to further their disarmament agenda. We have seen it enough in the past few years to know this is their M.O.

If you cherish your Second Amendment rights, don’t vote for a Democrat. Until the two-party system is broken in America, we can’t afford to have anyone other than true conservative or libertarian representatives in office at that doesn’t mean voting Republican either. The whole system needs to change, but we must be aware that the Democratic party in control would severely curtail gun rights.

-G. C.