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Turning Gun Owners into Felons (New bill would make it a crime to “transfer” your gun to a spouse)
National Review ^ | 04/05/2013 | Dave Kopel

Posted on 04/06/2013 10:35:06 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Public-opinion polls about “universal background checks” for gun sales show widespread support. While President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg talk about “gun sales,” the actual legislation moving through Congress aims to regulate far more than sales. It would turn almost every gun owner into a felon. The trick is that the language under consideration applies not only to sales but also to “transfers,” which are defined to include innocent activities such as letting your spouse borrow your gun for a few hours.

Consider, for example, Senate bill S.649, which the Senate will soon take up for debate. The background-check portion of the bill, Charles Schumer’s “Fix Gun Checks Act,” is based on model language that the Bloomberg gun-control lobby is pushing all over the country.

To see how the Bloomberg bill makes felons of people who do not sell guns, consider a woman who buys a rifle when she is 25 years old. She keeps the rifle her entire life. Yet over her lifetime, she — like most gun owners — engages in dozens of firearms “transfers.” She brings the unloaded rifle to a friend’s house, for instance, because the friend is thinking of buying a gun and wants to learn more about guns. The friend handles the rifle for a few minutes before handing it back. Another time, the woman lends the gun to her niece, who takes it on a camping trip for the weekend.

While the woman is out of town on a business trip for two weeks, she gives the gun to her husband or her sister. If the woman lives on a farm, she allows all her relatives to take the rifle into the fields for pest and predator control — and sometimes, when friends are visiting, she takes them to a safe place on the farm where they spend an hour or two target shooting, passing her gun back and forth. At other times, she and her friends go target shooting in open spaces of land owned by the National Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management.

Or perhaps the woman is in a same-sex civil union, and she allows her partner to take her gun to a target range one afternoon. Another time, she allows her cousin to borrow the gun for an afternoon of target shooting. If the woman is in the Army Reserve and she is called up for an overseas deployment, she gives the gun to her sister for temporary safekeeping.

One time, she learns that her neighbor is being threatened by an abusive ex-boyfriend, and she lets this woman borrow a gun for several days until she can buy her own gun. And if the woman becomes a firearms-safety instructor, she regularly teaches classes at office parks, in school buildings at nights and on weekends, at gun stores, and so on. Following the standard curriculum of gun-safety classes (such as NRA safety courses), the woman will bring some unloaded guns to the classroom, and under her supervision, students will learn the first steps in how to handle the guns, including how to load and unload them (using dummy ammunition). During the class, the firearms will be “transferred” dozens of times, since students must practice how to hand a gun to someone else safely. As a Boy Scout den mother or 4-H leader, the woman may also transfer her gun to young people dozens of times while instructing them in gun safety.

Under S. 649, every one of the above activities would be a federal felony, subject to precisely the same punishment a person would receive if he had knowingly sold a firearm to a convicted violent felon. S. 649, like other Bloomberg-model bills, has a few exceptions to the ban on transfers, but none of them apply to the situations described above.

You can make a “bona fide gift” (but not a three-hour loan) to certain close family members, not including aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, in-laws, or civil-union partners.

You can let someone else borrow your gun for up to seven days, but only within your home or its curtilage (e.g., the porch or deck).

You cannot lend your gun to someone on any open space you own. And even your husband can’t borrow your gun for more than seven days.

You can share a gun at a shooting range, but only if the shooting range is owned by a corporation — not if it’s on public lands or on your own property.

You can share a gun while out hunting in the field. But back at the hunting camp, you can’t clean someone else’s gun.

This is not “gun control” in the constitutionally legitimate sense: reasonable laws that protect public safety without interfering with the responsible ownership and use of firearms.

— Dave Kopel is an adjunct professor of advanced constitutional law at Denver University, Sturm College of Law, and also research director at the Independence Institute, in Denver.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: banglist; democrats; govtabuse; guncontrol; gunlaws; obama; secondamendment; tyranny; waronliberty; wewillnotcomply; youwillnotdisarmus
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To: SeekAndFind
"New bill would make it a crime to “transfer” your gun to a spouse"

Will this apply to gay marriages as well, or will they get a special exception for that too?

21 posted on 04/06/2013 12:31:42 PM PDT by Joe 6-pack (Qui me amat, amat et canem meum.)
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To: SeekAndFind
"Or perhaps the woman is in a same-sex civil union"WTF?
22 posted on 04/06/2013 12:42:27 PM PDT by Eagles6 (Valley Forge Redux)
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To: Don Corleone

Jaywalking will get some of us peons in trouble with the law.

23 posted on 04/06/2013 12:44:04 PM PDT by bgill
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To: Joe 6-pack
Will this apply to gay marriages as well, or will they get a special exception for that too?

D*mn fine thinking, J6P.

24 posted on 04/06/2013 12:46:28 PM PDT by Zuben Elgenubi
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To: SeekAndFind

Not one dang inch.


25 posted on 04/06/2013 12:48:52 PM PDT by gitmo ( If your theology doesn't become your biography it's useless.)
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To: SeekAndFind

The Dick Act of 1902-03
All members of the unorganized militia (the people) have the absolute personal right and 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms of any type, and as many as they can afford to buy.

The Dick Act of 1902-03 cannot be repealed; to do so would violate bills of attainder and ex post facto laws which would be yet another gross violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

just saying..pass it around.


26 posted on 04/06/2013 1:03:10 PM PDT by riverss
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To: SeekAndFind
My wife and I have purchased firearms over a long period. We mostly recall who signed the 4473 at purchase, but they are community property and stored together. There isn't an "tranferring" going on. I intend for them to be in my estate and divided between my sons when we pass. This "bill" is an ex post facto attack on my property rights.
27 posted on 04/06/2013 1:20:13 PM PDT by Myrddin
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To: SeekAndFind
For Democrats who are dancing on the graves of Newtown, it's not about safety, it's about gun control.

Soon the propaganda organ known as the media will start regurgitating Democrat propaganda that pooh-poohs these examples saying that the NRA is wicked, right-wing gun-nuts don't wish to solve problems and if we really want to see what's in the Democrat gun bills, well, we'll just have to pass it first to see what's in it.

28 posted on 04/06/2013 1:42:30 PM PDT by VeniVidiVici (Obama's vision - No Job is a Good Job)
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To: SeekAndFind

Doesn’t matter what the law is. If they can invent a charge, they will prosecute you on it.


29 posted on 04/06/2013 1:42:32 PM PDT by I want the USA back (Pi$$ed off yet?)
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To: centurion316
This does not stand a chance in hell of passing. But, I say bring it to a vote without changing a single word or comma. Make them go on record supporting this monstrosity and then shove it back in their faces on election day. Looney lefites from solid left districts will easily win reelection, but the so called moderates will not.

This nonsense is for the Brady bunch, Bloomboob, etc. I doubt even Chuck U expects a vote on it. Chuck U recruited so called moderates for the Senate in 2006! He was the boss of the rat senatorial campaign committee then and maybe in 2008. That was part of their strategy to take over Congress. Chuck U recruited prolife Bob Casey for PA in 2006. Reid won't let this bill have a vote if he thinks it can pass the Senate because it's DOA in the House.

30 posted on 04/06/2013 2:42:56 PM PDT by neverdem ( Xin loi min oi)
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To: pallis

Exactly. I live in a community property state, which means we both have title to any and all possessions we have accumulated. How do these morons intend to get around that?


31 posted on 04/06/2013 3:29:24 PM PDT by cbvanb
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To: SeekAndFind

Every sheriff should do a background check on all local politicians. You never know what the political scum are hiding. Then bust ‘em.


32 posted on 04/06/2013 3:30:54 PM PDT by MasterGunner01
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To: cbvanb

The law is not being enacted for the purpose of being complied with. It is being enacted to be violated.


33 posted on 04/06/2013 3:31:56 PM PDT by sport
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To: SeekAndFind

There will be lots of new felons now as most people will completely ignore this joke of a law.


34 posted on 04/06/2013 5:27:16 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (The murals in OKC are destroyed.)
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To: SeekAndFind
your great grand daddy's shotgun, handed down through the generations is now state property, and you are an enemy of the state if you give it to your son...
35 posted on 04/06/2013 5:52:43 PM PDT by Chode (Stand UP and Be Counted, or line up and be numbered - *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
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To: SeekAndFind

They SAID abortion should be safe, legal and RARE:

What tracking mechanism is there to make sure or even KNOW if it is rare...?

Why aren’t records kept? I mean very confidentially, of course.

But this way we could live up to what was said; permanent records would be kept, and technically they would be the property of the government. And they would be audited, the better to assure that abortion is safe and rare, as advocates said many, many times.

This will please them, and we’d name the auditing group BATF, which would be some acronym starting with “baby”.


36 posted on 04/07/2013 2:04:38 PM PDT by gaijin
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To: SeekAndFind

Someone send this to clueless McCain.


37 posted on 04/07/2013 4:59:52 PM PDT by Red in Blue PA (When Injustice becomes Law, Resistance Becomes Duty.-Thomas Jefferson)
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To: XenaLee
Sooner or later....Big Government will make criminals of us ALL.

Unless we make mince meat out of them first. Yes.

38 posted on 04/07/2013 7:25:25 PM PDT by unixfox (Abolish Slavery, Repeal The 16th Amendment!)
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To: SeekAndFind

This will land up in the courts for certain.


39 posted on 04/08/2013 3:09:41 AM PDT by Biggirl ("Jesus talked to us as individuals"-Jim Vicevich/Thanks JimV!)
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To: Joe 6-pack; Zuben Elgenubi; Eagles6; sickoflibs
Will this apply to gay queer marriages as well, or will they get a special exception for that too?

"Or perhaps the woman is in a same-sex civil union"WTF?

from the article...

You can make a “bona fide gift” (but not a three-hour loan) to certain close family members, not including aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, in-laws, or civil-union partners.

chuck u and blooomers HATE QUEERS... just sayin...

40 posted on 04/08/2013 3:59:27 AM PDT by Gilbo_3 (Gov is not reason; not eloquent; its force.Like fire,a dangerous servant & master. George Washington)
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