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Is it rabbit season or duck season? Before you purchase your next firearm, you might need to pause and make sure your driver’s license is valid. ID checks are intended to keep dangerous people from getting guns, but opponents say that these measures are ineffective and perhaps even counterproductive. In the world of gun sales, should we demand ID checks?
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ID Checks Turn the Bill of Rights On Its Head
- From Gun Owners of America
By Gun Owners of America - A No-Compromise Gun Rights Organization
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Denying a felon an assault rifle is clearly not "prior restraint"
You set up a straw man argument here. First, you say that we do not gag everyone entering a theater from talking, and that setting up ID checks would be the gun-control equivalent, denying everyone a gun. The straw man is in the equivalency. ID checks are not intended to deny everyone a gun. They deny certain dangerous individuals guns.
For example, if a theater had a patron who yelled "fire" in one of their theaters causing a panic, the theater may choose to gag that particular individual in the future, or deny them entry altogether, based on the previous evidence. Similarly, if someone commits a violent crime, we should prevent their access to deadly weapons. This isn't "prior restraint," this is restraint based on previous experience -- we know them to be dangerous individuals.
- brianegan
December 1, 2008 4:30PM
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On Criminal Restriction
"ID checks are not intended to deny everyone a gun. They deny certain dangerous individuals guns."
If the vast majority of all criminals can just buy a gun off the black market then what difference would it make?
"For example, if a theater had a patron who yelled "fire" in one of their theaters causing a panic, the theater may choose to gag that particular individual in the future, or deny them entry altogether, based on the PREVIOUS evidence." (emphasis mine)
Again, what difference would we see, especially since such a process would be futile against someone with no prior criminal record?
"Similarly, if someone commits a violent crime, we should prevent their access to deadly weapons. This isn't "prior restraint," this is restraint based on previous experience -- we know them to be dangerous individuals."
See the above points, if they can buy a gun off the black market and if they have no prior criminal record then what hope would such a system give?
- F2XL
December 2, 2008 6:00PM
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Totally missed the point
"If the vast majority of all criminals can just buy a gun off the black market then what difference would it make?"
Here's my response from another comment to this point:
Well, heroin is illegal, and cannot be purchased in a store. Just because I can go get it on the street is not a reason for its legalization, which is essentially your logic here, and would legalize hookers, every drug, and a whole lot more as a logical extension. The fact it's illegal makes it harder and more costly to obtain, which is why it should be illegal for hardened criminals and convicted felons to purchase guns, to put barriers between registered felons and gun purchases. Just because a 4 year old can go buy crack on the street doesn't mean we should offer it in a store for their purchase.
"Again, what difference would we see, especially since such a process would be futile against someone with no prior criminal record?"
The whole point of the ID check system is that is SHOULD be futile against people who haven't committed crimes, as they haven't done anything wrong and shouldn't be denied a gun -- they haven't proven that they're dangerous, and shouldn't be treated as though they are. It should USEFUL in denying those that have committed crimes from purchasing weapons. This would at the very least make it harder for previously known offenders to obtain weapons, rather than enabling them to commit crimes with violent weapons. Furthermore, we should be doing more to bust those gun selling rings. Make it illegal for them to get a gun in a store, and reduce the black market availability, and hopefully we'd see a reduction in the number of criminals with weapons. That's clearly more responsible than giving every violent assault convict access to a gun.
"See the above points, if they can buy a gun off the black market and if they have no prior criminal record then what hope would such a system give?"
I think you're totally missing the point. I'm not restricting the purchasing of guns from normal people, ONLY criminals. That's the WHOLE POINT of the ID check system - restricting CRIMINALS from purchasing guns. If criminals can't buy guns to commit more crimes, or at the very least it's much harder, then we've succeeded. Especially if we can do that while not infringing upon the rights of good, trustworthy citizens, who should be able to buy as many guns as they want, should they continue to use them in a responsible manner.
- brianegan
December 2, 2008 6:40PM
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Do You Know How Much of a Hypocrite You Are?
Let's see if I can make myself more clear this time.
"Here's my response from another comment to this point...."
So if this argument you're using is from a separate comment then how can you say I missed a point you never made in the comment I replied to?
"Well, heroin is illegal, and cannot be purchased in a store. Just because I can go get it on the street is not a reason for its legalization, which is essentially your logic here, and would legalize hookers, every drug, and a whole lot more as a logical extension. The fact it's illegal makes it harder and more costly to obtain, which is why it should be illegal for hardened criminals and convicted felons to purchase guns, to put barriers between registered felons and gun purchases. Just because a 4 year old can go buy crack on the street doesn't mean we should offer it in a store for their purchase."
Besides completely ignoring my response to this claim that I made in another comment to you, it is at best a straw man. Guns are already legal. Besides......
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=981
"The whole point of the ID check system is that is SHOULD be futile against people who haven't committed crimes, as they haven't done anything wrong and shouldn't be denied a gun -- they haven't proven that they're dangerous, and shouldn't be treated as though they are."
So you at least agree that ID checks by nature have one limitation. That's a start.
"It should USEFUL in denying those that have committed crimes from purchasing weapons."
So what if they resort to straw purchases, black market sales, fake ID's, etc?
"This would at the very least make it harder for previously known offenders to obtain weapons, rather than enabling them to commit crimes with violent weapons."
Besides the fact that most of the crimes that people have on their record that constitute gun denial tend to be things as menial as traffic violations, meaning this system makes no distinction between your typical American and a VIOLENT criminal.
"Furthermore, we should be doing more to bust those gun selling rings."
Are we at an agreement then that the main problem has little to do with typical legal gun sales?
"Make it illegal for them to get a gun in a store, and reduce the black market availability, and hopefully we'd see a reduction in the number of criminals with weapons."
Ummm, it's already illegal for someone to purchase a gun for use in the black market.
"That's clearly more responsible than giving every violent assault convict access to a gun."
Who here argued for that approach???
"I think you're totally missing the point. I'm not restricting the purchasing of guns from normal people, ONLY criminals."
Because of all the ways criminals could get around this rule, and because most of the people denied a gun tend to be people with minor traffic violations and not VIOLENT criminals, this is not the case.
"That's the WHOLE POINT of the ID check system - restricting CRIMINALS from purchasing guns."
Tell me something I don't already know. And see the above point.
"If criminals can't buy guns to commit more crimes, or at the very least it's much harder, then we've succeeded."
Which won't happen with this system because:
1. A huge black market for guns exist where they can be purchased instead.
2. Straw purchases can be made instead.
3. Fake ID's are a factor.
4. These measures are useless if someone has no prior criminal record
5. Such laws also take guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens who could potentially serve as a deterrent against crimes since they tend to affect those with simple traffic violations, or crimes unrelated to violence.
"Especially if we can do that while not infringing upon the rights of good, trustworthy citizens, who should be able to buy as many guns as they want, should they continue to use them in a responsible manner."
See point #5 above.
- F2XL
December 2, 2008 7:43PM
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Final response to both
"Besides completely ignoring my response to this claim that I made in another comment to you, it is at best a straw man. Guns are already legal. Besides......"
I replied to your original message at the same time you were writing your second response to my other comment, and therefore I couldn't have read your response to my second argument. Look at the time stamps. It took 13 minutes for approval of my last message, submitted at 6:40 and approved at 6:53. If it took roughly the same amount of time, then your story would have been posted around 6:40, perhaps shortly after I posted my response.
"With the first two premises you pointed out of course they are bound to fail to drop crime rates."
That was exactly the point of those first to premises, which was a summation of the original argument made, and why the original argument was flawed.
This is over. I don't think we're having a very fruitful discussion, because I think this forum is the wrong place for us to discuss our ideas at any reasonable length. I don't think I'm fully understanding you, and I don't think you're fully understanding me, as we're both pointing out how w
Thanks for your time,
Brian
- brianegan
December 3, 2008 12:29AM
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OK Then
Regarding the timing of the comments: My bad.
I would respond to what you said regarding the context in which arguments where made against the ID check system but if you done with this debate then fine.
- F2XL
December 3, 2008 6:31PM
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History teaches us who is missing the point
Prior to the passage of the '68 Federal Firearms Act, almost all restrictions on the purchase and usage of firearms were left to the states. Most department stores carried arms and ammunition. Stores such as J.C. Penney, Sears, Western Auto and many more carried their own lines of firearms. I bought ammunition in hardware stores, gas stations and small country stores when I was twelve. When I was eighteen, I ordered my first centerfire rifle from Gander Mountain through the mail. Then some politicians told us that they were going to make it safe for us to walk the streets by passing the second major federal firearms law , the '68 Federal Firearms Act. The first major federal anti- gun law was the National Firearms Act of 1934. Now here's where it gets juicy. Dig out your old copies of the World Almanac and look up the federal statistics on gun deaths. The murder rates rose! All the regulations accomplished NOTHING! Everyone forgets that you cannot legislate morality. Never have, never will. All that can possibly be done is to punish miscreants swiftly and positively to serve as a lesson to those who might be convinced not to stray.
- Robb375
May 27, 2009 9:37PM
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You are wrong.
Your fire in a movie theater argument is a poor analogy.
If you want to use that analogy, then let's make it apples to apples. What if everyone entering a theater had to undergo a criminal background check to find out if they had ever yelled fire in a theater? What if 10% of all persons attempting to enter a theater, even though they had never yelled fire, were denied entry because the database flagged their names on the background checks? What if you were one of that 10% group, and had to go to a police station to be fingerprinted, then wait 6 months to have your file corrected to avoid being automatically barred from entering theaters?
Would there be any question in your mind that your right to view a movie had been infringed?
There are two massive falacies in the reasoning for tolerating these infringements. The first being that anyone who has yelled fire in the past, is automatically assumed will do so in the future. The second is the assumption that those who have never yelled fire in the past, will never do so in the future for the first time.
"Infringe" is absolute. It means don't touch, NOT only touch a little bit. If you look about your home, you will find you own many things. Unless you own a gun, you will find your right to keep and bear those things is not infringed. What time is it? Look at your watch and tell me. Now take a closer look at your watch and tell me if you are required to buy a license to wear it? When you purchased your watch, did you have to be fingerprinted, show ID, answer a laundry list of inpertinent questions, or submit to a criminal background check?
You know you didn't. That's because your right to keep and bear a watch has not been infringed.
- Don Earl
December 16, 2009 10:05AM
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ID's Required for Gun Sales?
i think that as a felon they should be issued only one kind of ID that distinguishes them but doesn't disrupt the inalienable rights of a citizen of the USA under the second amendment . a direct line and a facial recognition software could replace the current program and save taxpayers money and not keep paper to violate the rights of the people but i do believe there should be some standard by which to protect the rights and stop criminals at the same time
- the mourbid angel
March 21, 2009 6:15PM
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Could Also Make Your Own Guns (Part 1 of 2)
Firearms ownership is a RIGHT not a privilege. Criminals and our corrupt Fascist Government can always get guns no matter if they are legal or not. All Gun Control does is promote criminals, Communists, Socialists, Fascist and other types of Nazis. The law -abiding people are the only group that is punished by Gun Control, no one else. Criminals will always get their cocaine , firearms , gold and oil , regardless of any laws.
I myself am a Mechanic Engineer, Applied Physicist and Technician with applications in Automotive & Aerospace Technologies. I can tell you that manufacturing a semi-automatic pistol and rifle, or a revolver or a shotgun is rather simple. Even the nitrocellulose smokeless powder used as the potential energy to develop the pressure needed to amplify pressure x surface into force upon the bullet, as in the ammunition. The rest is using the same nitrocellulose for primers. Shell casings and bullets can be pipe-sectioned and cast in dies. Any High School kid with a year of Gunsmith Training, some basic Applied Physics, basic machining tools and supplies found at any supermarket are enough to manufacture his own firearms. Building a nice .30 caliber (7.62mm) rifle with 12:5:1 lands/grooves rifling pitch for the inner barrel, basic metal tempering to remove rigid stresses in the barrel and the piston slide and gas vents, all of it is just arts and crafts, coupled with basic physics, geometry and math. Any skilled mechanic, machinist, engineer, technician or scientist could build nice rifles from scratch and the ammunition to go with it. Firearms originate from Middle Asian and East Asian people from the ancient world. They operate on a very simple principle. The same principle which powers piston engines, jet engines, pneumatics, hydraulics, and airfoils/flight, which is: Pressure x Area = Force. Some pressure buildup times a surface area = force. The back of a bullet pressed inside of a shell casing is the surface area, the combustion of propellants which carry their own oxygen is the pressure all resulting in force on the bullet. 1 PSI of pressure x 1 square inch = 1 lbs of force. Typical bullets can have between 125 and 225 lbs of force instantly exerted onto them, with barrel venting to keep the recoil manageable without losses in power. Force is also mass x acceleration. Acceleration is the change in speed per second. Speed is the change in distance per second. Acceleration is the change in distance per second per second or second squared. All the other listed technologies operate on the same F = P x A formula. Compressed nitrogen, Freon and other gases can also be used as pressure to power rifles. The bullet is pushed out from force building up by pressure amplified against area. The bullet spins through the lands/groove rifling threads in the inner barrel so it maintains gyroscopic procession as to become rigid in space and project out of the barrel in the straightest manner. The quality of the barrel machining is the accuracy of the bullet. Lastly, the metal of the inner barrel must be tougher than the bullet. So the rifling threads cut into the bullet. Different technologies to make this happen even lamination of weaker metals over stronger interior metals of bullets also exists. Making it so any standard non-composite inner barrel can fire exotic bullet metal types for armor piercing ease. The list goes on, but guns are just physics, chemistry and mathematics, like any other mechanical and electronics technology is. Knowing this, there is no reason people should be blaming guns, when the same result can happen from a lead pipe, baseball bat, knife, sword, pick axe. Pipe bombs can easily be made by the same principle as Force = Pressure x Area.
- Mistertruth
May 10, 2009 2:17PM
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Americans Wake Up Before It Is Too Late.
Maybe if you people were educated as whole and were Mechanical Engineers, Physicists, Technicians, Scientists, Researchers, and had a real education . Maybe then you wouldn't take all these false laws seriously, and you would realize they're only there to take away your Rights. Take away your Right to free speech, right to defend yourself from violence by firearms , right property ownership, right to have evidence of wrong-doing before charges can be laid upon you.
These Rights are being slowly done away with, while most of you people are sitting there listening to what the Government is telling you.
Hello!, do you people even understand that the U.S. Government CANNOT pass ANY law which violates the U.S. Constitution? Yet they are and keep doing so, that is when you the Common People as a whole should just ignore the Government. You are to abide by the U.S. Constitution not the Government. That is what being a real American is about.
Go look up the U.S. Constitutional Amendments, they're written in plain English, written for the Common Person who can at least read the English Language.
Turn off the T.V. Set, forget about going to the mall and buying worthless junk. Spend 45 minutes and read the Constitutional Amendments.
Know that the Government SHALL NOT INFRINGE on ANY of those Constitutional Rights afforded for the Common U.S. Citizen! There shouldn't even be a debate when it comes to the Government wanting to break the law and do away with our Constitutional Rights. If they do, just ignore them.
Hundreds of millions of people abiding by the U.S. Constitution, all united is no match for the Nazis and Terrorists who make up the U.S. Government. They're powerless when all of you know and abide by your U.S. Constitutional Rights!
Did you know the U.S. Government is behind all the Racism, Sexism and Classism in America? As long as the common people are divided and fighting with each other, it becomes easier for the Nazis and Fascist in our U.S. Government to conquer the Common American people.
If all Common U.S. Citizens settled their differences and stopped fighting with each other in the U.S., and untied, then there is no way the Fed can divide you all up into little camps and take away your Rights.
Right now the Fed has promoted all these fringe groups in America, all designed to hate each other. Too bad so many Americans have been deceived into hating each other. When the U.S. Federal Gov't is the real enemy and terrorist against all citizens!
Wake up before it is too late, every common citizen will regret not doing so, if what's coming upon America very soon, does takes place!
- Mistertruth
May 10, 2009 2:52PM
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Already required
When someone fills out a 4473 Form they must provide their SSN, or a Valid Drivers License, and then wait until the Proceed from the NICS before the Gun is picked up.
- Pegleg4570
June 18, 2009 10:16AM
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But But But....
The problem with your argument about prior restraint is that ID laws are not an infringement of the right of gun OWNERSHIP. Instead they are a regulation of the manner in which guns are obtained - a regulation of commerce. The governent has a well-established right to regulate commerce and to create laws that control how products are marketed and sold, particularly when there is a public safety concern with the product in question.
It only becomes an infringement of the second amendment right when the laws regulating the sale of firearms are so onerous to adhere to that they actually prevent people who are otherwise qualified from owning guns. Waiting a few days for a background check to be run is not such an onerous requirement that it presents an insurmountable impediment to gun ownership. If there are problems with the way that the ID checks are run that result in qualified peole being denied the opportunity to purchase guns, then the ID check system should be fixed, not scrapped entirely.
- mr average
June 24, 2009 11:56AM
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Current Brady/NICS checks policy PROVES it is worthless
Less than 100 criminals are prosecuted each year for Brady/NICS violations -- and the vast majority of these are because the authorities needed to arrest or prosecute a criminal but can't make the real charge stick, or as a "predicate felony" for a conspiracy or RICO charge.
Less than 100 criminals PER YEAR (and even those are artificial charges.)
Review of the ATF’s Enforcement of Brady Act Violations Identified Through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System Office of Inspector General's (OIG) Draft Report: Review of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' Enforcement of Brady Act Violations Identified through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. A-2004-001
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/ATF/e0406/final.pdf
Couple this with the inability to find ANY gun control law which stops violence:
None of the CDC, the National Academy of Sciences, nor DoJ were able to find that ANY gun control reduces VIOLENT CRIME, SUICIDE or ACCIDENTS in any significant manner.
...and you are left with the common sense conclusion that infringing on the rights of the law -abiding WITHOUT having ANY useful effect is just wrong headed.
- HerbM
June 25, 2009 12:52AM
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Prior Restraint
Just because you have to show a valid ID before purchasing a fire arm doesn't mean it is a prior restraint. It means that the community is making sure that the purchaser has fullfilled all the requirements for owner a hand gun. Requiring people to be citizens in good standing is a fair request from the community.
brianegan asked why we don't muzzle people people before going into a threater for fear that they may yell fire. It is his statement that would be prior restraint so we don't do it, therefore, we shouldn't ask for ID because it would be prior restaint. First, if someone yelled fire in a theater in the past perhaps we should know about this so that we could take some action to prevent him from doing it again. Second, we don't have hundreds if not thousands of people being killed because someone yelled fire in a theater. We do with guns .
Just because the community is taking responsible action to prevent someone from getting weapons that shouldn't have them doesn't make it bad or an unconsitutional act.
Seriously, in the Constitution it says that the President of the United States should be a naturally born citizen. Should we ask for an ID from all people who run for President? If you answer yes to this, then you should have no problem with asking for ID to purchase a gun.
- morrishagerman
November 15, 2009 11:36AM
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You are confused.
The Constitution puts restrictions on being president, citizenship , as you note, is one. A president must also be at least 35 years of age. The "right" to be president is subject to conditions , hence it is by definition infringed.
- Don Earl
December 16, 2009 10:20AM
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