2020 Election News and Information (Week of November 1st)

universal background checks

Background checks are already done every single time a gun is sold from a dealer, auction company, pawn shop, etc.

The only time a background check is not done is on a private party (person-to-person) sale and as a gun enthusiast I wholly support being able to do so. Dealers, et al. use the NICS system to run background checks. This is a simple online system run by the ATF; you put in identifying details of the individual purchasing the gun (name, address, DOB, race, and other info like social security number if you've ever been mixed up with someone else), hit go, wait a couple of minutes, get result. It'll either be pass, fail, or wait (meaning they need longer to check). There is zero reason I shouldn't be able to use this on my phone when selling a gun to someone. Instead I have to go with a "gut feeling" that this person is not a felon, not planning on killing someone, mentally stable, etc.

Personally I just require anyone I've sold guns to privately to have a concealed carry license as it means they've already gone through the checks and approved. However not all people do that and it's not required of them.

In nearly half of the states do have some measure of "universal background check" by requiring a private sale to go through a dealer where the dealer will run the check before the gun can be transferred. This can and should be done across the country, but that's not where it stops with DNC. All of the guns used in Sandy Hook were legally purchased by the perpetrator's mother. Connecticut is one of the states that requires even private sales to go through a background check. A national universal background check law would have done nothing to prevent it.

From Biden's website on gun control:

Hold gun manufacturers accountable.

There's plusses and minuses here. Are guns meant to kill things? Yes, but so is every weapon. Should I get to sue Bear Archery (makers of almost 400 different models of compound bow) if I get hit by an arrow from one of their weapons? Should my wife get to sue Cutco if I'm murdered by someone using one of their knives? How about if someone beats me to death with a DeWalt hammer? Kills me in a bar with a broken Budweiser bottle? Lures me to an electronics recycling warehouse and crushes me under the weight of a million gen 1 iPods?

Now there's definitely some really fucked marketing by gun companies and that is why there's a lawsuit against Remington about it. Just as tobacco ads no longer show babies and doctors, gun shouldn't be marketed like it makes average idiot extremist into Rambo either. I fully support this just as I would any fertilizer company advertising "Great for Oklahoma!"

Ban the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Assault weapons are already banned and have been since 1986 when further changes to the National Firearms Act went into effect. No civilian can own an assault rifle made after that date, as a result any full auto firearm made and registered with the ATF prior to that date is prohibitively expensive (think cheapest in the $10k range) and requires a intense background check and fingerprinting by the ATF that takes a year or more to get a result.

Now if we want to start the moving-the-goalposts definition of "assault weapon" we'll head over the to the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban:

Semi-automatic rifles able to accept detachable magazines and two or more of the following:

• Folding or telescoping stock
• Pistol grip
• Bayonet mount
• Flash hider or threaded barrel designed to accommodate one
• Grenade launcher

Want to guess what civilian semi-auto rifles haven't had since WW2? Bayonet lugs. Want to know what is already banned by the NFA and no civilian has? Grenade launchers. Most rifles already have fixed stocks, pistol grips are optional (and don't make a gun more deadly or easier to fire), and most rifles don't have threaded barrels. Law = ineffective

Semi-automatic pistols with detachable magazines and two or more of the following:

• Magazine that attaches outside the pistol grip
• Threaded barrel to attach barrel extender, flash suppressor, handgrip, or suppressor
• Barrel shroud safety feature that prevents burns to the operator
• Unloaded weight of 50 oz (1.4 kg) or more
• A semi-automatic version of a fully automatic firearm.

This definition was in place to stop the traditional "gang banger" guns like the Tec-9. None of these definitions apply to pretty much any pistol. Law = ineffective

Semi-automatic shotguns with two or more of the following:

• Folding or telescoping stock
• Pistol grip
• Detachable magazine.

This definition was to stop street sweeper style shotguns that were shit when they were being made and aren't made any longer because they're still shit. Although now there are better (but not good) shotguns that would be banned by this, too bad they aren't actually used by anyone or in mass shootings. Law = effective at banning something that doesn't happen in the first place

For "high capacity magazines" they like to throw out the 10 round limit. I don't have a problem with this as I have firearms that I find mechanically interesting pieces of engineering; I don't shoot people and I don't hunt (and even if I did capacity isn't a thing to worry about because if you can't kill your meal with one shot you probably can't kill it with 30); I just put holes in paper at greater and greater distances to challenge myself to be accurate.

However I'll play devil's advocate on this point: Why does "high capacity" start at 11 rounds? Why not 6, the traditional number for revolvers? Why not 15, half the capacity of the standard rifle magazine now and the standard capacity of nearly every pistol? Why not 30, the standard capacity in the most popular (both civilian and military) rifles and what they're designed to use? Why not 50, where traditional magazines tend to have trouble working reliably and even non-traditional magazines are considered too heavy and bulky to be worth carrying? How about the fact that attempting to make a law to stop something only creates innovation to get around it. Even the National Criminal Justice Reference Service study at the end of the 1994 ban noted advertisements for post-ban guns that barely changed from the pre-ban models. Looking at gunfight statistics shows that even the trigger happy NYPD doesn't fire 10 rounds per incident (average 5.2), which drops further in places like Miami-Dade where it's down to 3.2, or in LA where if there are multiple officers involved it jumps to 6.48 (4.98 with 2 officers, 3.59 with only 1), Baltimore averages 2.8 rounds fired.

What is a ban going to accomplish? Mass shootings are awful, no one will argue that. However, gun deaths per capita are 12 for every 100,000. 4.6 of that are homicides, 6.9 are suicides. A magazine limit and ban on grenade launchers and bayonets isn't going to stop someone shooting themselves.

If we want to talk about impact and effective policies, why are we legalizing drugs across the country when they average 19.4 deaths per 100,000 while an "assault weapon and magazine ban" would maybe half the 4.6 per 100,000 homicides that happen each year?

So Biden and the Democratic Party are pushing legislation that in a best case scenario will halve the number of homicides per year from 4.6 per 100k to 2.3 per 100k while alienating millions more voters so that the changes we all actually need (climate change, green energy, socialized medicine, etc) will never happen.

Regulate possession of existing assault weapons under the National Firearms Act.

They. Already. Are. Unless you're talking about renewing the 1994 ban at which point one of two things will happen. Manufacturers will change the guns to get around it as needed or they won't and you'll disproportionately effect the poor and POC as guns regulated under the NFA carry an additional tax on top of the purchase of $200 per firearm. Which is more than half the price of the guns that the poor and POC already purchase. So yeah, great idea, let's put in another law that only protects those with the money to afford protection.

Buy back the assault weapons and high-capacity magazines already in our communities.

Buybacks don't work. The second part requires people who don't let the government buy back their guns to register them with the NFA. Which is a $200 tax per item on something you cannot trace at present and no one will do in the first place. So no one will sell it back to you and no one will register it. Again, ineffective.

Reduce stockpiling of weapons.

This limits purchases to one gun per person per month. On the one hand I don't buy that many guns that quickly all that often (I like unique guns and they don't come up often so of the dozen or so I have, not counting my wife's, only a couple were purchased at one time), but when a collector does die/liquidate and has several guns I'd like to collect this would limit me which is a pain in the ass.

Require background checks for all gun sales.

That's the universal background check that I and most people have no issue with.

Close other loopholes in the federal background check system.

There isn't a loophole. The "boyfriend loophole" is where you have someone that will pass a background check buy the gun and then give it to you. This is already illegal.

Reinstate the Obama-Biden policy to keep guns out of the hands of certain people unable to manage their affairs for mental reasons, which President Trump reversed.

Mental instability is already one of the things that bars you from passing a background check, however the ATF does have limited records on mental health issues as not every state or institution reports it. Trump reversed an Obama policy that had the SSA report mental hospitalizations to the ATF for the background check purposes.

Close the “hate crime loophole.”

This is a "loophole" about misdemeanor hate crimes. Felons can't have guns. The solution is to make misdemeanor hate crimes into felonies. Hate crimes are so rarely prosecuted in the first place that this seems useless.

Close the “Charleston loophole.”

So remember the pass, fail, wait in the background check from earlier? The "wait" thing has a timer. If the ATF doesn't respond in three business days the law says you have to release it to the buyer, if it comes back fail later the dealer contacts the police/ATF to say it failed and that this person has a gun they shouldn't have. Biden's proposal pushes this to 10 days instead of three. I have no problem with this either.

Making it easier for the average joe selling a gun to run a background check is a no brainer.
Making it harder to get guns by people that shouldn't have them is a no brainer. Push Universal Background Checks, explain it simply that every gun sale needs a check to make sure bad people aren't getting guns. Say you can run a background check on the person you're selling a gun to on your phone, for free, and all you need is for them to show you their ID.
Saying that some guns that look scary need to be banned is taking an entire group of people that like your other policies out of your corner.
Saying you won't ban some arbitrary definition of "assault weapon" and won't put an ineffective limit on magazine capacity isn't going to magically make a bunch of democrats start voting republican as the republicans aren't suddenly going to go "Keep your guns, abortions, immigrants, and gay marriage!" to counter the dems dropping "gun control". They don't like to be controlled, they like being safe. Don't try to control the guns, put in legislation that keeps people safe by expanding access to background checks.
Don't try to push gun registration. The repubs will call you a nazi as they revisit Hitler's requirement of Jews to register themselves.

How many states don't already have universal background checks?