Gun background checks and the government surveillance controversy

[alp227]

I think I sense a double standard with the "if you have nothing to hide" argument with gun background checks and the NSA surveillance of emails/phone calls.

Govt surveillance: BADBADBADBADBADBAD "But you have nothing to hide if you're not doing anything illegal!" "YOU ARE A TOTALITARIAN ENEMY OF FREEDOM"
Gun background checks: "Why are you afraid of them if you have nothing to hide and have done nothing wrong?"

In the wake of the surveillance scandal i thin gun control advocates oughta stop using this "nothing to hide" appeal. Sadly that scandal is only going to serve as confirmation bias for the "OBAMA GUNNA TAKE MAH GUNZ" types who think if govt can do that thru the NSA and PRISM what stops it from other deranged acts?

[DWC]

1. Sort of like the SSN will NEVER be used for any other purpose. n/t

[Starboard Tack]

2. Are suggesting no background checks?

[alp227]

3. How can they guarantee gun owners' right to privacy?

There has to be a compromise between security and liberty.

[Starboard Tack]

5. There is a compromise already. No national registration.

A background check is to determine eligibility, not an invasion of privacy. Or do you think violent criminals and the mentally deranged should be able to purchase whatever firearms they want?

[alp227]

6. So to prevent the crazies and criminals from buying guns,

background checks are a "price of civilization"? But it's just too hard to implement in a nation that increasingly distrust the government.

[Starboard Tack]

9. What are you talking about? It is already implemented.

Not perfectly, but it works. Background checks are not a "price of civilization", anymore than TSA screening is when you fly commercially, or getting an eye test before you can drive. They are about public safety.

[gejohnston]

7. He might be confusing the two.

BGCs simply go to an existing FBI data base. I think there are better systems for private than going to an FFL, which has to log the gun in his inventory before doing anything else, creating more work. Any clerical error can mean license loss and prison time. A better system would be MI and MN where the cops print out a "purchase permit" good for a certain amount of time. Or go to the FBI website and print your own out with the personal information. The print out only has tell the seller this person with this drivers license number (or some other non SSN identifier) is OK. Make CCW holders exempt in ATF approved states like current system.
If you do it by state, the push has to be from those in that state. Bloomberg and Brady writing bills and flying lobbyiests like ALEC won't work in places like Wyoming, Colorado, or Nevada. That is why Colorado has the recalls. Those are grassroots in Democratic majority areas, many are signed by registered Democrats to recall people who listened to Bloomberg.
Same concept with SYG in Wyoming. It was removed from a bill that contained a narrow Castle Doctrine. Why? There was no indication that the Democratic governor was going to veto it, (the state party platform puts gun ownership as a civil right next to marriage equality). But some asshole from back east wasn't going to push us to fix something that isn't broke.
It wasn't opposition to BGCs per se, it was some corporatist authoritarian asshole from New York using his and NYC taxpayers money to push it on to others.

PS, I say we because, I'm still a Wyomingite trapped behind the cornbread curtain. Floridian by marriage, Wyominite by birth and grace of God.

[petronius]

4. That one isn't ever a good argument for anything, that I can think of - it's in the

"no reason not to!" family of arguments (close kin to the "gotta do something!" tribe), which never carries any weight in favor of doing something, IMO...

[safeinOhio]

8. I've never head that argument used.

The only one I hear is "If you go thru a background check to purchase from every retail sale, why not on private sales?.

[Eleanors38]

10. There probably is a double standard, but I think a UBC is workable...

The irony is such a plan may come about due to the efforts of less partisan gun groups like the Independent Firearms Owners of America, perhaps with the assistance of more moderate gun-owning pro-control folks. As Johnston has alluded, the well is poisoned for now.

The UBG has been discussed here for years, and the legislative models are several. Economy, effectiveness and speed tend to point to an expansion of the NICS data base. I like the idea of "self check-out." Any passage at the state level, however, depends on grass roots organization, and guess who has that? Hence, the possible future role of IFOA and like groups.

I don't have a link, but I read where a bill is winding thru the FL legislature which would prevent NICS clearance for those voluntarily committing themselves for psychiatric reasons. Of course, we know the dangers in that for those who need help, but Scott says he'll sign it with NRA backing, and without support from more "extreme" gun groups. FL's demographics are changing & Scott's numbers stink. Something could be afoot in the state that started the modern-era sweep of CCW. Developments like this signal changes in the gun culture, much more than the old & static culture war politics practiced by the controller/banners.