WE MIGHT SUPPORT BACKGROUND CHECKS IF ...
Part 2
In the March/April issue, we looked at reasons to support our countrymen on the other side of the aisle — the ones screaming for more and improved background checks on gun transfers. If certain reasonable, common-sense measures were met, we might. Might. Conditions that would help make background checks do the things we all want, namely, disarm criminals, reduce crime, keep guns out of the hands of mass murderers and insane people to, you know, make society safer.
Unfortunately, the overall picture didn’t look too good when we looked. It suggested background checks, as they currently stand or would be re-configured by the loud voices, are aimed at the innocent. They seem simply incapable of performing such Herculean feats as affecting criminals, crazies, Congress and tyrants, all virtually immune to statutory control. Let’s keep looking, maybe we overlooked something. When we left off:
We might support background checks if — they weren’t collecting names of more than 12 million innocent Americans every year.
From every perspective this appears to be a primary function of the background check system, built for a quarter-billion dollars and operating on a sprawling campus in Clarksburg, WV by the FBI. Every year, the names and identifying information of these millions of Americans, pursuing their fundamental constitutional rights, pass through the hands of government agents.
If you know your American history, you know the core purpose of the Second Amendment — the justification for an armed republic — was balance of power. They’re armed, we’re armed, it keeps the peace. In every place you look where genocide has occurred, the massacres define an unarmed public. Not here. Well, there were the American Indians. And blacks in the South. But we discount that, don’t we?
When we find a way to conduct background checks without gathering names and addresses of the armed public, so only criminals are identified and stopped from retail purchases, we might support that. And there is a way of course, but the loud voices object strenuously for reasons seemingly obvious — they want the list of names. The BIDS program (Blind ID System), where the FBI sends its list of bad guys to dealers (like wanted posters), instead of dealers sending their daily list of customers to the federal police force — would get the job done. And for a lot less money.
If …
We might support background checks if — people with murder in their hearts were affected by paperwork in buildings.
This is so typical of liberal thinking. Because liberals believe they are law abiding, they believe everyone will follow laws once enacted. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many liberals drive too fast, smoke some pot or drink and drive, fiddle with their taxes, purloin once in a while from their employers including time, just like the rest of us. Turns out some are even wild-eyed felons. Why on earth do they believe gun laws against buying guns would stop murderers from murdering?
What about typical conservative thinking? Because conservatives lean logical, at least usually, they believe liberals will follow logic too (ha!). It’s the same mistake. If the death penalty or life in prison doesn’t prevent murder, a background check surely lacks muscle.
We might support background checks if — we could get Muslim jihadis under control with it, but evidence shows that’s not only impossible, it’s ridiculous.
Religious fanatics of any kind — driven by zealotry and adherence to particular readings of their religious doctrine, are impervious to retail roadblocks. Guns are smuggled, stolen, legally bought, straw bought, as widely available as trucks, drugs, airplanes and all other tools of jihad. The head-in-the-sand notion that better checks will in any way affect jihadism is barely worth arguing. Background checks v. jihad is a non-starter.
My friends on the left tell me there are only a few of these religious miscreants, and they don’t represent mainstream Muslim thought or actions. Maybe that’s true. Critics have their doubts, because there are too many “few.” The non-partisan Pew center says only 10 percent of Muslims are radicalized. That’s about 130 million.
Hiding it by calling a jihad warfare assault “workplace violence,” or incessantly questioning a jihadi’s motives fools no one but those who seek to be fooled. Observing jihad criminals shout religious mantra, slaughter infidels with trucks, knives, bombs or guns, get widespread publicity through the “news” — these do not argue for more checks.
And …
We might support background checks if — there was some reasonable way to get off the list if you shouldn’t be there, and find out if you’re on it in the first place.
What possible reason could the FBI, government and officials at every level have for denying you an opportunity to find out if you’re on the FBI’s list of people who can’t purchase a firearm? It’s your record, isn’t it? Anything happening in your past getting you listed is something you must already know about, right? Why can’t you look yourself up somehow? Do you really have to attempt to buy a firearm and then find out the FBI says no, so now you’re at risk of having committed a felony? “Why am I denied?” is a too-familiar refrain at gun counters. John Lott’s research shows over 90 percent of turndowns are false denials. These are guaranteed rights we’re talking about.
Is it possible, as some critics suggest, the FBI won’t tell people why they’re denied, because the FBI doesn’t know? The NICS Index (the banned list) is large and incomplete — it’s just used, and don’t question the man behind the curtain.
To be continued.
Alan Korwin’s website features books and DVDs on state and federal gun laws for the public. Visit http://www.GunLaws.com/.
