My point is that this is exactly what this bill is about - enforcing the laws we currently have. It's already illegal for a wife-beater, or a person that the courts have found to be mentally ill and a danger to himself or others, to buy and own a gun, and it's also illegal for anyone to sell a gun to such a person.
This bill does not expand the scope of who is and isn't allowed to have a gun, it is designed to capture the information about existing "prohibited persons," as they're called, that is currently not consistently included in the NICS database.
If you have a philosophical objection to the very concept of background checks being required in order to buy a gun in order to screen out criminals, abusers, and the mentally ill, then that's fine, but if wishes were rifles the beggars would shoot, so to speak.
No I don't particularly have a philosophical objection to the government taking some steps in seeing that people who quite obviously should not have guns do not have them. There is an obligation of the government to protect that safety of the people.
But just the collection of that information on the populace at large can have alternative usages. Much the same as the collection of DNA can have alternative usages beyond that of identification.
But since we are on the subject, you say that the government should be able, via background checks, to screen out criminals from owning a firearm. What is your definition of a criminal?