How about banning criminals in law enforcement and school administration like these two? Seems like a more worthwhile idea as opposed to banning guns.
Posted on 04/28/2018 12:11:13 PM PDT by Simon Green
Jon Stokes has a post up at Politico this morning, A Gun Nut’s Guide to Gun Control That Works. He’s noted the post-Parkland climate that’s seen states like Vermont and Florida put new restrictions on firearms purchasing and ownership, as well as proposals to repeal the Second Amendment or outlaw all semi-auto firearms and is proposing a fix. A grand bargain that’s designed to satisfy both gun owners and gun controllers by getting each side to give up something.
His big idea: create a federal gun owner’s license that would enable anyone who goes through the process to possess semi-automatic firearms. Once you’re licensed, you no longer have to undergo a background check when you buy a gun. Private sales included. No matter where you live.
A federal license for all semi-automatic firearms would rest on two simple and well-defined concepts, one technical and one legal:
1) A “semi-automatic” firearm is one that fires a single round for each pull of the trigger, automatically reloading in between each shot until the ammo is depleted.
2) “Possession” is a legal concept from the drug war that implies that a person has a contraband item “on or about one’s person,” or has “control” over the item, perhaps by having it in a motor vehicle or in a home.
Because both of these things—“possession” and “semi-automatic weapons”—are easy to define, they’re easy to regulate.
Combine these two concepts with a thorough but reasonable vetting process, and you have the makings of a straightforward, effective system for keeping the most lethal class of weapons out of the hands of bad actors, while simultaneously lifting the burden of arbitrary weapon bans and federal red tape from law-abiding gun owners.
Don’t want to submit to federal licensing? Fine. You can still buy and possess bolt action rifles and revolvers, but would have to fill out a 4473 for each purchase. He’s a little fuzzy on the status of lever action rifles and pump shotguns, but swing with it for a minute.
If you weren’t a license holder, then simple possession of any semi-auto weapon would be a felony. Don’t have one on your person, or in your car or home. As for taking possession of the types of guns you could have without a license, then it’s universal background checks and FFL transfers for you—basically the status quo, in most states.
In exchange for this new regime, all states will have to drop their “feature-based” bans on guns like AR-15s, “high capacity” magazines and the like. In other words, If you live in Pennsylvania and drive across the Delaware with an AR or a 17-round magazine in your trunk, you won’t be risking a few years in jail. If you’re hired by a California-based company and need to relocate, you can take your AK and and your full capacity G17 with you.
What if you own semi-automatics now, but don’t want to go through federal licensing? Again, he’s fuzzy, though he throws out a possible three to five-year “grace period,” during which you could presumably sell or, uh, turn in your semi-auto guns (barring any unfortunate boating accidents, of course).
Gun controllers would give up their state and locally-based gun control laws. All legal firearms would be legal in all 50 states. But the anti-gun side would get, effectively, universal background checks. A full-blown, probably TSA-Pre-level check for the federal semi-auto license, and standard NICS checks on all firearms sales, including private sales, for non-licensed individuals.
Stokes leaves much left to be decided.
There are a lot of important details to be worked out, like the status of pump-action and lever-action guns, or the specific requirements for getting a license and keeping it current, or due process requirements for restoring a revoked license. Gun control advocates might want any gun that can fire without reloading included in the licensing regime (pump- and lever-action guns), and gun rights advocates might want current federal restrictions on suppressors and short-barreled rifles dropped. These types of issues could surely be ironed out, as long as we can agree on the basic framework of trading all federal and state bans and registries for a national semi-auto licensing regime.
Oh, and about the requirement for that federal license . . .
Yeah, we’re going to fight over that. A lot, probably. But that fight would be way more reality-centered and sane than our current fights over pistol grips and barrel shrouds and telescoping stocks.
I’m not sure where that optimism comes from.
What about New Jersey’s ban on hollow point ammunition? Dunno. That would have to be “worked out,” too. Would SBRs and suppressors be de-regulated? Dunno. Maybe.
What if President Shannon Watts pushes through a may-issue regime, effectively putting an end to anyone obtaining a federal gun license?
This would be a concern, but it’s already a concern. We may have to rely on the courts for protection. The gun control side is mistaken if it thinks it’s going to immediately begin to dictate entirely new terms of American gun ownership unilaterally in November. President Donald Trump is in the process of packing the federal courts with conservative judges, and he may get another Supreme Court pick before he leaves office. So even if gun controllers can get Congress to move their way, there’s no guarantee that new laws will survive the inevitable court challenges. (Justice Clarence Thomas recently hinted that he thinks state and local assault weapon bans are unconstitutional.) Plus, there’s no possibility of a gun registry under this scheme, so no matter how bad it gets there’s even less of a threat of confiscation than there is under the current system.
I’m not sure that relaying on the courts will give gun owners much comfort.
Methinks that, despite an admirable effort, Stokes has drastically underestimated both the vehemence with which the pro-gun side will resist any federal-level encroachment on their rights (the slippery slope) as well as the intransigence of the gun controllers’ desire to hang onto their strict prohibitions they’ve put in place in states like California, New York, New Jersey and Maryland.
Plus, even assuming this or a similar grand bargain can be struck, the next time an Adam Lanza or a Nikolas Cruz does what it is they do, all bets will be off. Whether or not the shooter was federally licensed, you’ll hear all the same calls from all the same people to rid America of the scourge of these weapons of war.
Or am I too cynical?
No . freaking . way !
NO NO NO NO NO. You have transformed a right into a privilege. YOU DO NOT NEED GOVERNMENT APPROVAL TO EXERCISE A RIGHT. If you have to get approval then it isn't a right anymore. When I was growing up you could order firearms through the mail. Way less violent crime then than today. It shows just how far into the filth of progressivism this country has sunk when someone on a conservative board espouses gun control.
Simpler:
US citizen? Check.
Within these United States, its territories and protectorates? Check.
Second amendment applies.
If this were a game show, the originator of this “great idea” would hear a buzzer, receive some Lee stick-on nails, and be escorted to the studio exit.
Having to apply for a license to exercise a right.
Yeah.....no.
How about banning criminals in law enforcement and school administration like these two? Seems like a more worthwhile idea as opposed to banning guns.
Yep, ban revolvers, lever-action rifles/shotguns, bolt action rifles, pump-actions rifles/shotguns. And then muzzle-loading guns and bows and arrows. Whoops forgot to include crossbows.
Federal camel’s nose under the tent.
You’re making a lot of assumptions I never intended. I’m not sure I implied them. Maybe later when I have time I will expand.
What comes to mind; “Shall Not Be Infringed”. Clearly a Federal Registry will further weaken our right to own firearms. The ruling establishment wants to confiscate all the firearms and those listed in a federal registry will be where they start.
NO NO NO NO NO. You have transformed a right into a privilege.
The 1934, 1968, and 1986 gun control acts have already done that. The situation above would be an improvement on the status quo, unlike the proposal in the OP.
YOU DO NOT NEED GOVERNMENT APPROVAL TO EXERCISE A RIGHT.
Try telling that to a gun dealer the next time you go into a gun shop and try to buy a gun from him without an NICS background check. Let me know how it works out.
That chit ain’t happening is my attitude.
““Besides, those who have a CHL are not required to go through a background check anyway.””
“In Florida we do. Eight bucks worth. Which state are you in?”
Texas. We can walk into a store, select a gun, pay the money and then walk out with it. Of course we have to produce our CHL.
In spite of your deliberate misunderstanding of my post I’ll explain again. we have a God given right to self defense reiterated in the constitution. The so called Brady instant background check changed that already. What you espouse is another step further down the road to a totalitarian state. We should be working to repeal this garbage not make it more efficient.
A “semi-automatic” firearm is one that fires a single round for each pull of the trigger, automatically reloading in between each shot until the ammo is depleted.
This would also apply to a double action revolver. Any single shot rifle or pistol. Foolish.
More like a plan that he fancies sounds benign enough to get gun owners to bite so the slope can be slowly greased.
Government Permission....
The Brits tried.
FU John Stokes.
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