TTAG commentator cjstl (not shown above) wrote this underneath our post Tough Going for Bloomberg’s Nevada Gun Control Push:
I hate complicated, confusing laws. I believe every law should be plainly written, easy to understand, and to the point. Our ancestors erred, and we have continued to err, by handing the power in this country – be it federal, state, or local – to a bunch of attorneys. Lawyers gotta lawyer, and what do we expect but for them to make the legal code as complicated as possible to provide continued job security for themselves and their ilk?
These are the things I believe, yet as a conscientious libertarian I believe we still need some regulations. It is important to protect the innocent from harm at the hands of those who have more money and power and just don’t care.
It is important to keep corporations from poisoning our air and water just to make a few extra bucks. It is important not to allow farmers to use a pesticide that is proven to cause severe neurological damage in children just so they can sell a few more almonds.
I believe the free market will work out most things if left alone, but it would be naive to assume that it will work out everything. Some things need to be protected, or it will be too late by the time we realize what damage has been done.
That said, I know UBC is a bad word around here, but I don’t understand why. Yes, I suppose not prohibiting the private sale of private property that is enumerated in the BoR is a valid argument. And I realize that you can kill someone with a knife that anyone can buy at Walmart. But let’s not pretend that firearms aren’t the most lethal and effective weapons available to us.
If someone pulls a knife on me and I am unarmed, I still trust my ability to defend myself in that situation better than I trust my ability to draw my own gun and defend myself if someone pulls a gun on me first. There is no guarantee in either situation, and I 100% believe that I have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of myself and others. And I certainly exercise that right in the event I’m ever thrust into such a situation.
I’m not naive enough to think that bad guys won’t get guns if they want them, but I don’t want to be the one who helps a bad guy get a gun. I cannot personally imagine selling one of my guns to someone I didn’t know without going through an FFL. I wouldn’t want to. Why would anyone want to?
As I said earlier, lawyers gotta lawyer. Moral obligations aside, I wouldn’t want to open myself up to the liability if I sold a gun to someone who used it in a crime. If that means I can’t sell a gun to someone I do know without going through an FFL, I’m OK with that. NICS checks for EVERY gun sale.
Seems like a no-brainer to me. And with a UBC, it would weed out those complicated, confusing local ordinances and Bloomy would have to find something else to waste his $20 million on. And just to clarify, I’m talking about background checks for all gun purchases.
I am not talking about registration, federal or otherwise. I am completely opposed to registration and all of the potential tracking, profiling, blacklisting, and other invasions of privacy it implies.
Am I wrong here? If so, tell me why.