Firearms Regulations

[LaserGuy]

Legally purchased firearms are statistically extremely safe, and that's not the route most criminals use to acquire them.

Virtually all guns used in crime started out as legal guns at some point, rather by definition. I suppose it's possible that there's some criminal enterprise is just straight up manufacturing their own, but it's probably easier just to buy them via a proxy.

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdfif you'd like to look at how crime guns are acquired.

So according to the stats here, ~60% of guns used in crime were purchased through legal channels and acquired either directly or second hand by the criminal. Of the illegal acquisitions, while they don't provide data on where the street dealers/fences get their guns in turn, but I think it's safe to assume that at least some of these were also legal purchases one or two steps transactions removed from those individuals. Only 10% of guns used in crime are stolen. It's too bad that there isn't a system where we can track who owned a particular gun at a particular point in time. That would go a long way to figuring out where black market guns are coming from.

[edit]Late edit to clean up quotations

[Tyndmyr]

It's likely that most guns were, at some point in their history, purchased legally. This is true of basically anything, though. A car used in a crime was purchased legally at some point, very few criminals will make their car from scratch.

But if the point of criminal acquisition is not at the store, then further regulations involving the store will matter little. If civics are being stolen, there's little point in going after the Honda dealer.

Gun traces are already possible, and we can(and often do) have crime guns traced back to their store of origin. The big trend here is that guns tend to be sourced from stores fairly close to high crime areas. It's useful for prosecuting straw purchases and the like.

[Soupspoon]

https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-h ... gun-2016-8

[EdgarJPublius]

I'm not sure I would have a problem with the idea of digitizing the existing records into a searchable database, or even centralizing the dealer's records into the database (if nothing else, it would take the burden off the individual dealers, and a 4473 'web form' could facilitate a non-burdensome system for conducting background checks on private-party sales)
It would be nice if the government put more effort into best practices for security and accessibility to its databases that contain sensitive information first though.

[Tyndmyr]

I'd love if there was, say, a phone number or web page one could go to in order to do a background check.

You wouldn't have to make it mandatory, but it'd give a private seller an option to check, for free, and quickly, if a potential buyer were sketchy. If those caveats were in place, it would allow a concerned seller an easy option to make a call. It'd also allow a great deal more transparency in other respects. If one believes they were barred wrongly, they could neatly check and challenge it without having to attempt to purchase a firearm.

The concern about keeping a master list of who owns what guns is a confiscation concern, but keeping a list of people who ought not have guns is not. The latter list can be kept in a database and made easily accessible with no actual firearm concerns.

I'm okay with the kafkaesque method for gun traces, given that it does work, and the many attempted uses of better systems for confiscation or banning. It's a bit stupid that we have to resort to such a system, but it appears to be about as advanced as we can have without someone attempting to turn it into a system for getting rid of guns.

[ucim]

I'd love if there was, say, a phone number or web page one could go to in order to do a background check.

You wouldn't have to make it mandatory, but it'd give a private seller an option to check, for free, and quickly, if a potential buyer were sketchy.

This would also be useful to see if a prospective date were sketchy, or a prospective tenant, or a job applicant, or an insurance customer...

No, I can't see any downside.

Jose

[EdgarJPublius]

The ideas I've seen proposed would have safeguards against abuse. Mainly that it would require consent of the person being checked, and that the result would be 'pass/fail', no other information would be communicated to the seller besides whether or not the buyer is legally able to purchase a firearm.

[ucim]

The ideas I've seen proposed would have safeguards against abuse.

Are these safeguards easy enough to remove? Suppose we got an administration that was racist, autocratic, anti-science, gratuitously cruel, anti-consumer, and headed by a five-year-old? Nah, that'll never happen. Oh yeah, we're talkin' about mah guns. What if [gasp!] a Democrat got into office???

I see the appeal, and perhaps a very limited version could be a good idea. But maybe I'm a bit jumpy, because it looks a lot like a camel's nose.

How would a potential gun-buyer appeal a "fail" result, and on what grounds?

Jose

[EdgarJPublius]

The whole thing is basically just a layer of technological abstraction on top of the existing NICS process. The buyer still fills out a 4473, just digitally, that generates a token they can give to the seller who then can use it to verify the pass/fail status of the buyer.

Mal-actors wouldn't be able to perform arbitrary background checks unless they had enough information about the target to fill out 4473, in which case there's already way more obnoxious things they can do.

'Fail' results would similarly be appealed the same way current NICS denials are. Only you wouldn't have to chance a felony charge just to find out if you can legally buy a gun or not, you could just background check yourself (before you background-wreck yourself).

[ucim]

I suppose that could work.

Jose

[Tyndmyr]

I'd love if there was, say, a phone number or web page one could go to in order to do a background check.

You wouldn't have to make it mandatory, but it'd give a private seller an option to check, for free, and quickly, if a potential buyer were sketchy.

This would also be useful to see if a prospective date were sketchy, or a prospective tenant, or a job applicant, or an insurance customer...

No, I can't see any downside.

Jose

Presumably, like a credit check, it would require authorization from the person the check is being performed on. That's already part of the firearms check. There's no particular reason to change that.

It's just making it available for private sales in a convenient fashion.

The ideas I've seen proposed would have safeguards against abuse.

Are these safeguards easy enough to remove? Suppose we got an administration that was racist, autocratic, anti-science, gratuitously cruel, anti-consumer, and headed by a five-year-old? Nah, that'll never happen. Oh yeah, we're talkin' about mah guns. What if [gasp!] a Democrat got into office???

I see the appeal, and perhaps a very limited version could be a good idea. But maybe I'm a bit jumpy, because it looks a lot like a camel's nose.

How would a potential gun-buyer appeal a "fail" result, and on what grounds?

Jose

This is sort of a problem with many lists nowadays, but knowing you're on the list is a necessary first step. It's like a terrorist watch list. If you don't know you're on it, your ability to challenge it is not great.

Being able to check one's own status seems reasonable, and I don't see where it potentially leads to firearm confiscations. That's the camel nose we're generally worried about, but it's not necessary to even include the serial number of a firearm in order to check if an individual is restricted, so we don't need a gun registry to get a check on the individual.

I agree that we ought to have a solid legal way to challenge errors in any such list, but transparency helps that, not hinders it.

[Quizatzhaderac]

I've been thinking that maybe there should be a federal law that says that state and local governments can make gun registries, but that a registered gun is legal (for that owner) and is grandfathered past any future regulations. Basically saying that states can't confiscate guns if they registered them or only found out about them from a registry.

I'm not actually concerned with confiscation, but I do dislike chicanery. I also think forcing a divorce between registration and confiscation would help increase the sense of good faith in debate on the issue. Although, I guess this does have the problem that there exists the potential for the federal government change the law and confiscate.

Presumably, like a credit check, it would require authorization from the person the check is being performed on.

I'd also say that it should also be illegal to have as part of an employment check, unless the job actually involves firearms. Likewise with applying for a tenancy or as a customer of insurance or financial services. These situations typically don't involve a meeting of minds, so refusing to authorize much be about the same as failing the test.

[Tyndmyr]

I've been thinking that maybe there should be a federal law that says that state and local governments can make gun registries, but that a registered gun is legal (for that owner) and is grandfathered past any future regulations. Basically saying that states can't confiscate guns if they registered them or only found out about them from a registry.

I like the principle there, but I'm not sure it would assuage gun owners fears as a whole. After all, a future government that had the necessary pull to pass a law confiscating guns would also be able to negate any such grandfathering law. Thus, I'm not sure it provides protection in a practical sense. It may help on a state level. That said, we have a lot of present and past battles over such things, so the mere existence of a law, or even constitutional protection, doesn't entirely overrule state control.

For instance, if you're following the Defense Distributed case, they've had a string of victories on constitutional grounds. However, this doesn't stop more anti-gun states from filing suit. I don't think they have any reasonable chance to win against DD, given that the federal government lost, but the endless series of suits can effectively prevent them from actually exercising their constitutional rights for...well, the foreseeable future, probably. Still going on right now.

I'm not actually concerned with confiscation, but I do dislike chicanery. I also think forcing a divorce between registration and confiscation would help increase the sense of good faith in debate on the issue. Although, I guess this does have the problem that there exists the potential for the federal government change the law and confiscate.

Yeah, the divorce of these things would be good. At an objective level, a pen and paper filing system is dated and irksome. It'd be nice to be able to use something less awful. I'm not quite sure how you can guarantee such a divorce. Perhaps you could have some tier of law that's harder to change than other law? Constitutional amendment is probably the best we got there. An expanded second amendment clearly delineating rights might be of some use in the modern day.

Presumably, like a credit check, it would require authorization from the person the check is being performed on.

I'd also say that it should also be illegal to have as part of an employment check, unless the job actually involves firearms. Likewise with applying for a tenancy or as a customer of insurance or financial services. These situations typically don't involve a meeting of minds, so refusing to authorize much be about the same as failing the test.

That seems reasonable. On grounds not restricted to firearms, even. Just general privacy principles suffice to explain it. I'd be okay with limiting required tests to things with some job justification as a general rule. Checking to ensure that a prospective tenant pays rent and isn't an arsonist is reasonable, but we wouldn't want folks to deny housing based on religion or what have you.

Avoiding such consequences is helpful to keep people from avoiding such checks. Don't want to stigmatize people doing the right thing and buying guns legally, getting mental health help, and so on.

That said, I'm okay with businesses, etc deciding not to allow firearms. So long as it's fairly posted, cool. That's registry-agnostic, and doesn't require anything from the state. Your business, your rules.

[SecondTalon]

I've been thinking that maybe there should be a federal law that says that state and local governments can make gun registries, but that a registered gun is legal (for that owner) and is grandfathered past any future regulations. Basically saying that states can't confiscate guns if they registered them or only found out about them from a registry.

There’s nothing preventing State or local governments (other than the State) from creating registries.

The various bans apply to guns sold thereafter by gun dealers, and the last major ban involved machine guns - which are perfectly legal to own (assuming you jump through all the hoops)

They’ve not done it for fear of it assuring that they lose the next election, and their replacement(s) just undo what they’ve done - and then some.