Thinking Through Background Checks

They're already the law of the land.  Gun stores have to run all customers through a background check system associated with local law enforcement before they can sell them firearms.

Now we hear that the Democrats have figured out they won't be able to get bans of scary-looking guns (called "assault weapons") or high-capacity magazines (they still haven't figured out whether to call them magazines or clips).  So they've fallen back on something they call "Universal Background Checks".

I don't know the details of the current version of the law, which was written in secret by a hanful of Senators.  But by just listening to the debate, I think I've picked up that the Democrats believe that private sales of guns are the biggest problem that needs to be overcome.  They also claim that polls indicate that as many as 90 percent of American support the idea of background checks to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally unstable.

Why of course, who doesn't think that the criminal and insane shouldn't be able to own guns?

But let's think through this for a minute.  First of all, what does "Universal Background Checks" on gun sales mean?  Well, it would seem to mean that if I want to sell my gun to somebody for cash, say in my garage sale, I can't.  I'd have to get my hands on an application that the potential buyer has to fill out, then I'd have to submit it to the Federal Government.  After some indeterminate time period, certainly well after my garage sale has been closed down, the bureaucracy will come back to me to let me know whether I have their permission to sell the gun to my garage sale customer.  Why am I guessing that answer might be "No" regardless of the applicant?  So presumably at that time I would track the buyer down, collect the cash, and hand over the gun.  If he's still interested by that time, that is.

What if I go ahead and sell the gun to my garage sale customer and ignore the new law?  How will the Federal government find out I broke their law by selling my gun without their background check?  If they do find out, will they send me to prison?  Even if the buyer would have passed the background check easily and has never used the gun for any illegal purpose?

Just the fact I don't know the answer to those questions makes me very uneasy.  I'm not happy with the idea of having to cut through a mountain of red tape just to sell an old shotgun to my neighbor, and I'm certainly not happy with the possibility that there might be somebody from the government slapping handcuffs on me and hauling me off to jail for skipping some silly red tape.

There's also a lot of talk about keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally disturbed.  New York is already doing it.  So how exactly do you define "mentally disturbed"?  If somebody's received counseling for depression, will they be disqualified from owning a gun?  If somebody got a prescription for a anti-depressant or some other psychotropic drug, does that disqualify him from owning a firearm?  What if someone's merely talked to a counselor or therapist at some point during their lifetime? Many atheist liberals call us Christians are mentally disturbed, so would their fellow travelers in the bureaucracy deny us on that basis?

Where does it all end, and who decides, and what are the criteria?

Therefore my message to Congress is this:

Please don't allow anything the Democrats so desperately want you to pass related to gun control.  There is nothing good that will come of this.