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President Obama Announces Planned Executive Orders for Gun Control
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Not exactly. You're right that the NFA regulates machine guns. It also regulates short barrel rifles, short barrel shotguns, destructive devices (any firearm which fires ammunition greater than .50, shotgun cartridges have a specific exception, and explosives), supressors/silencers/mufflers, and a nebulous category of "any other weapon".
Though it isn't a license that is involved. Rather a $200 tax stamp is required for each transfer of the item ($5 for AOWs).
The license myth came about because manufacturers and dealers who hold their respective FFLs (Federal Firearms License) can pay a Special Occupation Tax, or SOT, that allows for the manufacture and sale of Class II and Class III NFA items. There are a range of different types of FFLs, and three different types of SOTs.
So until the enactment of the 1986 Gun Owner's Protection Act, any newly manufactured machine gun could be placed onto the ATF registry and then sold after an in depth background check, fingerprint, Chief LEO signature, and the procurement of a tax stamp. The 1986 GOPA included the Hughes Amendment (sort of controversial after footage of the vote became widely available) which closed that registry in May of 1986.
So as of now, anyone who could pass a NICS check can purchase a machine gun (Edit: the check for the transfer of an NFA is much more involved than the NICS that is performed when you purchase a non NFA firearm. But if you could pass a NICS you'd likely pass the more strenuous check). But that machine gun must have been manufactured and registered before May 1986, which means the only citizens who can afford most transferable machine guns are the wealthy. Post 86 samples can be manufactured, and in a few cases that may be seen in discovery if Hollis v Holder makes it that far, have been transferred to politicians and donors of politicians on Form 4s (transfers) approved by the ATF.
I think the issue is that "gun show loophole" is a misnomer.
The issue that those who rail against this "loophole" are actually concerned with is private transactions. By federal law all FFL holders are required to perform NICS background checks. Private sellers, that is one that is not engaged in the commerce of selling firearms and is only selling their personally owned firearm, is not YMMV by state because some states require that a NICS be performed for private transfers.
The only problem I have with requiring NICS checks with private transfers is that private citizens are not allowed access to NICS, or relevant state databases in those states that have their own state version of NICS. Thus private citizens cannot perform these checks. Though every private transaction I've witnessed involved a bill of sale and copy of state driver's license, if the seller didn't require a FL concealed carry permit.
There really is already policy in place for BATFE to enforce people "in the business of dealing" firearms who are not FFL holders, and the threshold for meeting this is arbitrary. If the BATFE feels that there are contributing circumstances, one transfer or "sale" is enough to arrest.
Other than that, it is already a crime to knowingly transfer a firearm to someone who is a prohibited person, whether through private transaction or straw purchase.
'Man what did Obama do now. Oh. Huh. Cool.'
People be crazy yo. I expect an uptick of gun related deaths as people fail to properly store their newly acquired guns and accidents occur around the state. Followed by people blaming it on Obama somehow.
I don't really see the order really accomplishing much but I'm glad he made it anyway. I'd rather something than nothing.
All of it seems reasonable. Or is it just that you do not like the conversation that guns are dangerous to communities?
Sorry if this was addressed. This thread turned into a binary conversation quick.
We have made rational laws to reduce gun deaths. We allowed the Assault Weapon Ban to expire, and homicides went down. Many states liberalized concealed carry, and homicides went down. The NRA's agenda has consistently resulted in lower violent crime (though again, I don't credit them with such directly, but it isn't incompatible with lower crime). People can feel free to argue it isn't getting better fast enough, but they shouldn't argue it isn't getting better.
Besides, gun access doesn't explain why our non-gun homicides are higher than some country's total homicides. In those cases, even genie wish effectiveness gun control policy would still leave us at a gap, and I'd rather look at fixing why that is than merely treat symptoms in an expensive and ineffective fashion.
So... maybe treat mental health like this does?
Homicides at an adjusted rate? Because if we're just talking raw numbers then the answer is because Texas is bigger than several European countries and you still have 49 states to go. Lots of people to do dumb shit.
Violent crime continues on it's largely downward trend - the law itself did not appear to impact this trend one way or the other, which experts largely attribute to the narrow scope of the law.
Whether or not 'many states liberalizing concealed carry' or 'the NRA's agenda has consistently resulted in lower violent crime' are claims too vague & vapid to check.
I do fully expect any legislation that has to do with mental illness and gun ownership to be passed in bad faith, in a way that is unenforceable (due to onerous requirements and / or lack of resources). If it happens at all.
When we have people talking about lead or poor mental health care (real problems! Good job) I'm often a bit unsure of their motivations. Especially when they have a tendency to use those 'concerns' to deflect away from the fact that we can do more than one thing, and that the people raising those concerns often advocate directly against better health care or environmental protection in practically the next breath.
At this point, I'm extremely disappointed that this watered down EO that - flip a coin - will probably be overturned by one of the other two branches of government in some way, is the best we have. Still, it's better than nothing.
I am sick of people acting like suicides aren't 'real' gun deaths and like 'black on black' violence is just something that happens to others. Like, really? Gang violence is still fucking gun violence, and gang members are s ti ll citizens (who tangentially have usually been failed repeatedly and overwhelmingly in other ways). Remember that virtually every gun used in a crime in America was manufactured or imported and sold legally to an American.
If illegal guns are the real problem, anything that stops those legal guns from somehow becoming illegal guns like closing the gun show loophole is a win in my book.
Nothing will solve all the problems, but there is so much bad faith coming out of the pro gun side that I've mostly stopped giving a fuck what they say. I know their arguments and the inconsistencies, and at this point it's mostly just silly geese honking over the much more reasonable people (often gun owners and sportsmen) in the center.
The right / NRA has dug their heels in so fucking hard on this, to the extent that they are unwilling to allow a vote for something with 85-90% popular appeal, that they are effectively being boxed out of the conversation at this point so that stuff can be done.
Do you disagree with the specifics of this action? Maybe you should have participated in an actual debate years ago about this and then voted on the version you liked rather than shit the bed and act like petulant children who take their ball and go home every time the conversation came up.
They made their bed. Out of shit, mostly.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Most experts in that field essentially have the same outlook: it is an interesting idea and does line-up as a plausible explanation for an otherwise difficult to explain jump in crime that started in the 1950s, but there is still a lot of missing data points, it is an extraordinary claim that requires more than just mundane evidence to back it up & it has such serious ramifications for the study of criminology (the 50s crime boom is an anomaly in criminology somewhat akin to dark matter in astrophysics - this is not something the field takes lightly!) that any consensus on the causal agent must be grounded on very solid evidence, or we could risk poisoning the entire discipline with bad data for years to come.
I would not be surprised if it does end-up becoming the widely accepted causal agent for the crime boom, but certainly the jury is still out right now & we need much more research to be done,
Whoa hey, it's pretty clear that my agenda has been resulting in lower violent crime.
After all, I was born, then something expired, then crime went down.
Because even if you never once try to buy a gun, your mental health treatment history will be in a database accessible by every fucking WalMart cashier!
Look, I wouldn't oppose a blanket ban on firearms, but I can't get behind this trend to further turn everyone who's ever had a mental illness into more of a second-class citizen.
Or pending, but yes. This is why I do support opening the NCIS more publicly since that would make it much easier for private sellers to actually do background checks, and wouldn't give much if any information out.
And they can't even just look you up. They have to file with the FBI, which charges them a fee.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Don't need to own a gun to be a citizen.
And "disapproved" means you have either a felony on your record or a history of mental illness. Yeah, no stigma there.
One post ago you were saying they can see your entire treatment history. That is still incorrect, and you should reassess.
Also, you could implement the sometimes proposed system where you run your own background check and can print out a certificate that is good for X days; then nobody can know you failed.
Printout a certificate? Sounds easier to counterfeit than anything that has ever been worth counterfeiting.
Yes, you can nitpick the details of it. Some form of secure transmission that you can send to a place you want to purchase guns from without them needing to do any background check, and that allows private transactions to more easily implement a background check.
Making perfect the enemy of good is not helpful
Come on now, surely this certificate would be set up with a code added to the FBI's database at the time the certificate was created so that the cashier can confirm the validity (including the person the code was created for).
Switch - SW-7373-3669-3011
Fuck Joe Manchin
Or a domestic assault charge of any kind. Or a history of violence.
Which, I agree sucks in a general sense, but I don't think sucks nearly as much as people with a disqualifying mental illness or a violent history getting a hold of a gun.
It's just more bullshit from a side that cherry picks and lies about shit. The laws are unneeded, and they can be easily defeated so we shouldn't even have them. You'll note only gun control and video game piracy gets this kind of belief every other crime/rule does not have to meet this standard.
"Speed limits? Please unless you're literally monitoring every car on the road they are totally unforceable!"
pleasepaypreacher.net
The purchaser also needs to fill out an ATF form 4473 before requesting the check in the first place. So even IF that information was provided to the vendor (which it isn't) the purchaser would need to consent to it first.
Not to mention that unauthorized use is a violation of federal law, and someone doing so faces criminal prosecution, civil fines, and loses the ability to use the NICS system (which will put a gun seller out of business).
On top of that, this sort of personal health information would fall under HIPAA - and you don't want to fuck with HIPAA. Someone who would go through the NICS system to find out about your mental health history is taking the most impossibly convoluted path possible.
Seems like a method akin to college transcripts would also work for this.
So what's your solution?
I mean, if you are so concerned about being embarrassed by a cashier at Walmart, maybe you shouldn't buy a gun when you have a felony / history of mental illness? After all, you know you're going to be refused anyway unless someone fucked up.
Here's an idea that should completely alleviate your concerns - let someone see if they are approved / denied on their own. That way, if they are really so concerned they can find out before they get refused in front of that cashier - and, if necessary appeal it independently.
Even then, I'd say that momentary embarrassment outweighs giving a felon or a mentally ill person a gun.
Here are my thoughts on all of this, unwarranted, with the slightest bit of possible tinfoil.
Personally, I like the idea that if you're a patient and you've just been prescribed anti-psychotics or ten doses of lexapro a day to combat manic depression maybe you don't need a gun. I feel pretty strong there that it's a good idea not to give someone with mental health issues a gun. It's a slippery slope even saying that because the fact is we over prescribe the fuck out of some medication these days so yeah, grey area.
Everyone says that doctors releasing that information to the government is a clear violation of HIPPA and not fair, illegal, etc. That seems to be the big rub from what I'm reading. The fact is, when the Patriot Act was formed, it had so many loopholes that it basically gave the government free reign to do whatever the fuck they wanted to do. There were a LOT of downsides to this. I can EASILY see the ACA being modified to re-tool HIPPA laws to help with gun control. It's chocolate and peanut butter. If it's not already being discussed or written up I'd be shocked. That's how I imagine them getting around HIPPA to make sure that people that are deemed too psychologically unstable be allowed firearms.
Moving past that, I LOVE the idea of online sellers and gun shows requiring background checks, although every one of them I've personally dealt with has. I've never not filled out a background check. If anything, I'd like to see it move further so that ALL firearms have to be purchased through an FFL. If you're buying a gun on armslist, background check. I'd like to extend to rifles as well. That's just my .02 there though.
So I'm all for his first two points. Moving further, I'm REALLY GLAD he's going after gun trusts. They're pretty damn shady. They need to go.
I'm also fine with him creating jobs. YAY JOBS!
My only real quip is with the whole "we're going to invest a shitload of tax dollars and work with the private sector to make safer guns so kids can't accidentally shoot them"
I don't think it will work, I think it will be a huge waste of money on the taxpayers with very little contribution from manufacturers, and I think better responsibility from parent gun owners and parents in general is more important than making a gun that's so hard to fire it may not be effective when needed to be.
Overall, I really liked the address and I'm glad steps are being made. I agree with Preacher on the first response to this in that either 1) It'll get shot down and limit executive power in future leaderships, or 2) better gun control. Either way it's win win.
Good job President.
I absolutely do have an idea of what information of mine has been put in to government databases. And if someone has erroneously assigned a felony charge to me I have way bigger problems than not being able to buy a gun that day. And yeah, the government can fuck up. But I'll take the occasional governmental screw up over the government doing nothing at all.
Of course, since a form 4473 does authorize that usage, it's a moot point.
You can safely assume ignorance or malice if someone's citing HIPAA re: firearm background checks.
So, why do you think that? I would imagine that thirty-odd years of conservative propaganda demonizing the government played a role in that.
So what you're saying is no one will ever do anything they know they shouldn't? I don't think that's been proven to be the case at any point since the beginning of time.
If you have no trust in the government than literally any law can be abused or slippery sloped to tyranny, and that sort of thing has no value in real discussion.
Okay, what about if they've determined you are mentally ill? What if this eventually turns out like the no fly list where you can't get answers about why you are on the list or challenge it? I don't trust that wherever things currently stand, or whatever the next piece of legislation happens is where things will stay in the long run. The well of public discourse is poisoned by all of the people that say they would like to do away with guns completely, and support any measure that might ultimately lead to that.
This should be a win for gun manufacturers. I don't think they are villains that just want to create unsafe guns(not that I think you are saying this) there just isn't financial incentive to work on creating safer guns.
The government providing funds to solve this problem is a good thing. We don't know exactly what kind of technology would be the end product or products. Social engineering is one vector to solve this but we can do more.