In Government We Do Not Trust

Who could be against more comprehensive background checks for the purchase of firearms?

First, notice the way this question is phrased.  There is a difference between being against something and not being for it.  The old adage, "if you're not with us, you're against us" isn't always correct.  So there may be a difference between opposing more comprehensive background checks and not supporting them.

Let us begin with the assumption that one supports the right to keep and bear arms but believes that this right should not extend to persons who have engaged in criminal activity that marks them as dangerous to the safety of others or to persons who have been found to be dangerously mentally ill.  The question then is simple.  Is there a way of keeping guns out of "the wrong hands?"  The short answer is no, because criminals will always find a way to obtain guns.  However, it stands to reason that we could make it more difficult for them, while not simultaneously imposing an undue burden on law-abiding purchasers, if we intelligently devise a screening system.

We currently have a database against which intended purchasers are checked to see if they have a felony record.  This National Instant Check System (NICS) may occasionally prevent the transfer of a firearm that would have been used in the commission of a crime.  It's hard to know that, but not unreasonable to surmise.  The NICS does stop many purchases each year.  Some of those intended purchases represent attempts by convicted felons to buy guns from licensed dealers.  That attempt is itself a felony, but those identified by the system as doing so are almost never prosecuted - a fact that is repeated endlessly by those who say this is all a charade or a waste of time.

At present the NICS is entirely ineffective in preventing purchases by those who should be disqualified because of mental illness.  This is an area in which improvements might really make a difference, because the mentally ill, unlike career criminals, may be stopped from obtaining firearms if they cannot do so through ordinary channels.

After the horrific shootings in Aurora, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut last year, there was a tide of public support for new gun control measures and much talk about improving background checks and banning semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines.  Support for the bans quickly waned, however, for reasons described in earlier essays in this blog.

But what about background checks?  Why not try to improve the current system, and why not extend these checks to all transfers?  What about this "gun show loophole?"

Currently at gun shows, licensed dealers must use the NICS just as they do when they are in their stores.  But private transfers, involving a seller and a buyer neither of whom holds a federal firearms license as a dealer, are not subject to background check.  So a gun can be bought and sold between two complete strangers without a background check.  Various statistics are bandied about in relation to these "private sales."  Claims have been made that 40% of all transfers are "private" and thereby circumvent NICS.  On the other side of the argument is the assertion that only 1-2% of guns used in crimes were purchased at gun shows.  The obvious fact is that guns used in crime were bought somewhere, and the question is whether we can stop a significant proportion of those transactions, and - a very important and - reduce the number of guns obtained by criminals.  Merely increasing the effort or the dollars they must expend to obtain guns is not the endpoint; we want to reduce the number of guns they obtain.

Should there be a background check for all private sales?  What about between family members?  The bill just defeated in the Senate excluded transfers between close relatives, including in-laws and first cousins.  One can always criticize any exclusions as imperfect.  Your first cousin could have a felony record, and you could deny having known that when you sold him a gun.  A close friend and colleague who has in his collection a specimen that I covet offers to sell it to me because he has another much like it.  Sorry, that has to go through a dealer and the NICS.

Why did this latest effort to improve the system of background checks fail?  I believe there are a few reasons.  First is that most people don't really think it will make a difference.  And so, while the polls say such a measure was supported by 90% of the public and 70% of members of the National Rifle Association, that support is lukewarm.  When supporters are lukewarm and opponents are passionate, senators figure they have more to lose by voting "yea" than "nay."

Second - and more important to an understanding of the opposition - is that we just don't trust the government.

What happens when a purchase is denied by NICS?  The purchaser can appeal this.  It may turn out to be a clerical error.  But it may turn out that the intended purchaser is, in fact, classified as a prohibited person by the system.  And then he may wish to appeal that prohibition.  Such an appeal is labor-intensive, which means processing it costs money.  Currently the system for processing such appeals is essentially unfunded.  And that is because pro-gun-control legislators have stood in the way of funding.

At one point, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) supported the Toomey-Manchin Amendment to improve the background check system.  But that support was contingent on including funding for these appeals.  When such funding didn't make it into the final version of the measure that went to a vote on the Senate floor, CCRKBA withdrew its support. Vote counting is a complicated matter, but that might just have made the difference between passage and defeat.  Why did it play out that way?  What happened to politics as the art of compromise?

Perhaps the most important reason for the measure's defeat is that there remains strong opposition to gun registration.  This issue was also addressed in an earlier essay.  It is abundantly clear that a background check system funnels information about all purchases into a central database.  Gun owners don't want the government to keep a record of who owns what guns, organized by owner. Sure, it's fine to have data enabling the tracing of a gun used in a crime from the manufacturer to its last owner of record.  But government agents should not be able to query the system to find out what guns I own.  You may support registration, but I don't, and neither do most Americans.  This is because we do not trust the government.

This measure to strengthen the background check system prohibits its use to consolidate and centralize the data into a registry.  Anyone who understands computerized databases will be highly amused by that.  But do a Google search for the actual text of the bill and read the passage that prohibits a registry. I read it after the bill failed, because I'd heard that many pro-gun-rights groups thought it was inadequate.  I'm no expert on legislative language, but it seemed awfully flimsy.  However, the bill does say a registry is prohibited.  So what if the language spelling that out is fraught with potential ways of getting around it?  Why should we worry about that?

The answer is simple.  I gave it to you in the title.