Posted on 12/03/2003 6:08:19 AM PST by TastyManatees
Closing Gun-Control Loopholes
The Supreme Court Monday refused to hear a legal challenge to California's ban on assault weapons. The decision sends another powerful signal to those who would use the Second Amendment as an argument for the rights of individuals to own guns, including the National Rifle Association.
Surely the right to keep and bear arms, outside a militia, shouldn't include Uzis, AK-47s, and similar assault weapons. The high court's decision should also firmly set Congress on course to renew the federal ban on assault weapons when it expires next year.
But when it comes to keeping guns out of criminal hands, there's still much more work to do.
For instance, among the myriad provisions in a giant $373 billion omnibus spending bill currently before Congress is a rule change regarding gun-owner background checks. It would have the federal government destroy the record of a background check on a gun buyer within 24 hours - instead of the 90-day rule now in effect.
Keeping such records for only one day would deprive law-enforcement officials of a valuable tool to track individuals, including potential terrorists, who may have slipped through the Justice Department's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
It's very difficult for gun-rights advocates to make a strong argument against 90-day rule. A General Accounting Office report last year found 228 guns mistakenly sold to NICS- approved buyers over a six-month period - guns that law-enforcement officials later had to retrieve using NICS information. And the problems were discovered only after 24 hours had passed. Extend that statistic to a year, or five years, and one can more easily see the ironclad importance of the 90-day rule.
Gun-control opponents have long raised privacy concerns about the 90-day rule. They also argue that other tracking methods are available, such as checking the paper records of the information gunstore owners transmit to NICS. But that's often a cumbersome and time-consuming process: Criminals routinely use fake IDs and aliases, and frequently switch locations to elude detection.
If an approved gun-purchaser turns out to be a terrorist, time becomes even more critical.
An even more egregious problem concerns the Justice Department's narrow interpretation of the 1993 Brady gun-control law. If an individual who's on the FBI terrorist watch list somehow clears the NICS background check and is able to buy a gun, Justice's interpretation prevents counterterrorism officials from seeing those records.
Clearly, if a suspected terrorist buys a gun, other law-enforcement officials should know about it.
By reading this propaganda drivel, am I to now understand that the Christian Science Monitor opposes the right to own firearms?
Christians will continue to exist only if they are properly armed to defend themselves against Muslim radicals. The leftist agenda, which apparently you choose to condone, will not rest until all American are disarmed.
If this (disarmanent)is allowed to continue, you'd better trade in your copy of the Bible for a copy of the Koran.
Any other thing they say at this point, compared to the Second's clear wording (and the explanation of that wording by the Founding Fathers in the Federalist Papers) is not only nonsensical, but smacks of idiocy.
We get the same crap, over and over: "It doesn't mean Uzis or AK-47s" (Why not? It doesn't exclude them, and , being military weapons, they are CLEARLY protected by it), it "doesn't confer an individual right" (when ALL the other Amendments in the BOR do just that).
If they do not like an Amendment (and I am speaking to ALL antis out there), they are free to attempt to repeal it. Other than that, they are operating far, far outside of the Constitution. The selfsame Constitution, BTW, that they claim should be interpreted as liberally as possible.
The "honest" ones do, but ALL the gun-grabbers know that such a repeal is not the will of the people, and will never happen, so they are using the "death by legal precedent" approach, eliminating the Second Amendment one legal fiction at a time.
Pecking away at people's rights sure hasn't been doing the Antis any favors lately.
Shouldnt you also wait a little longer until all the police, secret service, and the body guards of politicians and rich people also turn theirs in too?
Gee, ya think?
I'd put that pearl of wisdom right up with what bears do in the woods, and the Pope's religious preferences.
And if they did so, you would still have the Natural Right of armed self defense. Nothing would change except that the government would be even more inclined to abrogate your Natural Rights under color of law.
The BOR grants no rights. It merely acknowledged that human beings are by birth the holders of certain Natural Rights.
Their last stumbling blocks are people like us who will NEVER give up without a fight.
Closing Gun-Control Loopholes
There is no loophole.
Surely the right to keep and bear arms, outside a militia,
It's not outside a militia. Check your history.
shouldn't include Uzis, AK-47s, and similar assault weapons.
Yes they do. Military weapons, and I'm talking about the automatic and burst versions, the real ones, not the copycats.
The high court's decision should also firmly set Congress on course to renew the federal ban on assault weapons when it expires next year.
My vote depends on this, Bush.
But when it comes to keeping guns out of criminal hands, there's still much more work to do.
Yeah, there is.....keep the violent felons locked up.
It would have the federal government destroy the record of a background check on a gun buyer within 24 hours - instead of the 90-day rule now in effect.
Isn't that ALREADY LAW?
Keeping such records for only one day would deprive law-enforcement officials of a valuable tool to track individuals, including potential terrorists, who may have slipped through the Justice Department's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
How so?
It's very difficult for gun-rights advocates to make a strong argument against 90-day rule.
I have a very good one. Two words. Prior Restraint. 4 more. Innocent till proven guilty. 5 more. None of government's damn business.
A General Accounting Office report last year found 228 guns mistakenly sold to NICS- approved buyers over a six-month period - guns that law-enforcement officials later had to retrieve using NICS information.
228 out of over how many? Few million? I went through NICS this year. How many others did?
And the problems were discovered only after 24 hours had passed.
What were the problems?
But that's often a cumbersome and time-consuming process:
Life sucks, get a helmet.
Criminals routinely use fake IDs and aliases, and frequently switch locations to elude detection.
If I was a crook, I'd steal the guns or buy them on the street. No trail whatsoever.
If an approved gun-purchaser turns out to be a terrorist, time becomes even more critical.
I don't want a terrorist out on the street, PERIOD.
Clearly, if a suspected terrorist buys a gun, other law-enforcement officials should know about it.
They do. I'm sure of it.
Ladies and gentlemen....we have a winner!!!!
A fact to often forgoten by those in the media and politics.
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