The failure of the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to prevent the Sutherland Springs shooter from purchasing four firearms has taken front and center in the “debate” over his horrific crime. This isn’t the first time a spree killer managed to pass — or bypass — a NICS check at a gun store. It’s not even the first time a church shooter passed the FBI’s approval process. Common sense says d’uh! If you think about it logically. . .
criminals, crazies and terrorists are going to get guns for their nefarious purposes no matter what. Just as drug addicts get illegal drugs no matter what.
In a country with over 300 million firearms and counting, the odds of stopping bad guys from tooling-up by passing a prohibitive law — any prohibitive law — can be rounded down to zero. And anyone who thinks the government can fairly and efficiently administer a gun control law — any gun control law — is dangerously, demonstrably deluded.
But as Voltaire said, common sense is not so common. The majority of Americans support [clearly unconstitutional] background checks for firearms purchases, as did the NRA when the deal went down. That’s even as these background check supporters clock the government’s incompetence and impotence and flock to gun stores to buy a firearm to protect themselves against killers who “slip through the net.”
Should The People of the Gun concede the point, accept political reality and support efforts to “fix NICS”? Or argue — perhaps uselessly and certainly provocatively — for its removal?