The lady I wrote about had been Baker Acted. That is pretty crazy. The other guy, as far as I know, had not been Baker Acted, so the range probably would not have been able to stop him. But the range I go to has a big sign on the door, “We reserve the right to deny service to anyone for any reason.” They also make you fill out a form where they ask you if you’ve been declared incompetent or convicted of a felony. They also ask if you’re subject to a restraining order. Of course, anyone can lie about that stuff, and they’d never know. Personally, I would feel a bit safer in the range if I thought they had done a background check on everyone. And I don’t see what the civil liberties issue is, assuming that it could be done quickly.
That's a laugh. The idea of you even being 'in the range' is ludicrous.
If you are that worried about it, don't go to the range. Or the grocery store, movie theater, restaurant or bar. Prohibited persons are armed in all those places.
And I don’t see what the civil liberties issue is, assuming that it could be done quickly.
Shall not be infringed" is pretty easy to understand and it's a Constitutional right, not a "civil" anything.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, November 11, 1755.—The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree, vol. 6, p. 242 (1963).
A version is on a plaque on the Statute of Liberty. "“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
“They also make you fill out a form where they ask you if you’ve been declared incompetent or convicted of a felony.”
IIRC, felons are not required to answer that truthfully because it violates their right against self-incrimination.
It doesn’t work either way. Background checks are a load of bullshit. I’m sick of paying for my respect because Doctor Puerile and Judge Stupid feel that the rights of citizens are less important than liberties for the certifiably insane. It’s bad enough that we have to keep one eye on our neighbors because one of them might actually be crazy. It is an intolerable insult that I must beg some cloistered government minister to let me play with a gun because he can’t keep track of the genuine fruitcakes he’s placed in my neighborhood.
There is no “tell” that can be seen before a person decides to off himself or his neighbor. We have two of them on video, plus the one at ShootStraight in Orlando. I sold ammunition to one of them. Nice, quiet man who asked for a second box of 9mm, left the rented pistol on the counter to go smoke a cigarette, then went back into the range, turned his head sideways so the shot would exit downrange, and killed himself. He even took a gun safety class a few days before he did it.
There are real crazies out there, often thanks to a judicial system that believes society is best served by people like Andrew Goldstein. I need a gun to protect myself from people like David Berkowitz and Charles Manson. I draw the line at convincing some government pinhead that I should be allowed to borrow one once in a while.
They can put up all the signs they like, but that won't protect them in court, if someone they denied service to decides to sue them.
Personally, I would feel a bit safer in the range if I thought they had done a background check on everyone. And I don’t see what the civil liberties issue is, assuming that it could be done quickly.
Errr, the civil liberties issue is the very existence of the background check system, which is a government-controlled list of people the government has chosen to deny Second Amendment rights to. Among other government abuses, veterans who've simply asked for help managing their financial affairs, because post-service stress (often temporary) has rendered them unable to do it themselves, have been pretty routinely stuck on the no-guns list -- permanently. Other people have been put on it for petty violations of *other* countries' draconian gun (and ammo) laws.
The background check system run by the government is absolutely unacceptable. However, any private business should be free to deny service to anyone they don't want to serve, for any reason (including race, religion, disability, etc) -- just as free citizens have the right not to patronize any private business whose' policies they disagree with. I support the right of a restaurant to stick a "no blacks" sign on their door -- but they won't be getting a penny of business from pasty-white me if they do.
Likewise, I support the right of a gun range to make an on-the-spot assessment of someone, and deny them service for any reason, without being subject to expensive lawsuits by people claiming they were "discriminated against". As it stands now -- sign or no sign -- a gun range that denies service to someone they deem unable to handle a gun safely due to, say, a visible tremor, or inability to stand solidly without both arms on crutches or a walker, or inability to hear (i.e. inability to hear urgent warnings shouted by staff), can be sued under the ADA for discriminating against someone with disabilities.
When a gun range can freely set its own terms for service, there is no government infringement of 2A rights involved, and the range staff may well be able to spot people who would be truly dangerous who are not on any database that the background check system uses.