“Ask police chiefs — we asked ours — about the need for background checks on gun buyers,” my.chicagotribune.com suggests. “They will tell you universal background checks would reduce the number of guns ending up in the wrong hands.” See how that works? The civilian disarmament industry creates a catchy name—“assault rifle” or “universal background check”—ties it to a piece of gun control legislation and voila! Gun rights gone. Why? Because voters don’t have the time for or interest in investigating the truth of the matter. But it is there. For example . . .
The gun control industry would have you believe that this “universal background check” system would not violate the FOPA prohibition against maintaining firearms purchase records, wich would create a gun registry, which would enable confiscation.
They’re lying. If not now, proactively. To wit . . .
Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who packs an A rating from the National Rifle Association, pulled his support of a background check bill he had been negotiating with Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York. Coburn got hung up on record keeping. Under the bill, all guns sold at gun shows would require a background check, and the seller would keep a record of the sale — just as federally-licensed retailers do now.
That record would not be turned over to the government. It would not become part of a national database. It would not lead to mass gun confiscation.
But it would create a paper trail. Requiring record keeping is key to enforcement of background checks. Without it, there would be no way to know whether gun sellers were doing background checks or not. The records also would give law enforcement additional tools to investigate illegal gun trafficking.
Right. So you’d have to keep a record of a private firearms sale that the government wouldn’t have access to—unless they did. You know; as part of a criminal investigation. Like . . . whether or not you’d kept a record of a firearm sale. Or . . . anything else.
Besides, why should we believe the civilian disarmament industry? Have any of the supporters of a universal background checks come out and said “no records will be kept.” Biden? Schumer? Feinstein? Bueller?
The rest of the editorial is boilerplate NRA demonization, suggesting that the National Rifle Association will do anything to help the firearms industry sell guns. To anyone. And that pro-gun pols are dancing to the devil’s tune, dancing on the graves of innocent life.
Thank God for gridlock.