One which I’ve asked before.
How? In this case, how will sheriffs enforce the universal background check law, Balderas?
New Mexico AG says sheriffs must enforce gun control law
New Mexico’s attorney general says law enforcement agencies must enforce a new law expanding background checks to nearly all private gun sales and that they could be liable for damage claims if they don’t.
Short of a deputy witnessing a transfer as it happens, I don’t see how it’s enforceable on law enforcement.
Deputy: “Hey, citizen. I see you have a gun. Did you do a background check before you got it?”
Citizen: “Deputy, you know I’ve had this revolver for eight years.”
Deputy: “Oh. Yeah.”
Or maybe it would go like so:
Deputy: “Is that a new gun? I don’t recognize it. You do your background check?
Citizen: “Screw that. I bought it from Joe Blow on March 7, 2019, before that dumbass law got signed.”
Deputy: “Oh. Yeah.”
For that matter, what’s the probable cause to investigate in the first place? Merely that an officer doesn’t recall seeing a particular person with a specific firearm before?
Deputy: “Nice rifle. Just get it?”
Citizen: “Yep.”
Deputy: “Do a NICS check first?”
Citizen: “Yep.”
Deputy: “Can you prove it?”
Citizen: “Can you prove I didn’t? I went through all four pages of that BS law, and nothin’ says I gotta keep paperwork for ya.”
Deputy: “Who ran NICS for you? I can check the dealer’s records.”
Citizen: Damned if I remember. Nothin’ says I gotta have a perfect memory either.”
Or maybe Joe Citizen bought it from Dad, or his brother. And neither kept anything but a receipt… dated 3/8/2019. Or undated. Or nothing at all; it isn’t required.
Even if a deputy witnessed a private transfer, say… at a gun show, since that’s where victim disarmers think criminal buy their guns…
Deputy: “Hey, you didn’t do a NICS check!”
Citizen: “Don’t gotta. He’s my uncle; ‘immediate family member’ as specified in the constitutional abortion.”
Deputy: “Can you prove that?”
Citizen 2: “Can you prove I’m not? Ain’t like the law requires me to carry around a marriage certificate showing I’m married to his maw’s sister.”
Deputy: “We could subpoena that.”
Citizen 2: “Did I mention that it was a common-law marriage in New Hampshire?”
I suppose if the authorities had doubts, they could confirm the transaction with the seller… who has every reason to verify the buyer’s claim since the law makes both parties criminals if they didn’t conduct the check.
I don’t think Senators Martinez and Wirth thought this through.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
(More Tip Jar Options) |
It would seem to me that the citizens should back up their sheriffs and deputies. Kill the enemy to protect the protectors….
“Laws do not persuade just because they threaten”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
A certain percentage of these exchanges will end in “Bang”. Some of those outcomes, blithely described on the Tee-Vee as, “Officer Involved Shootings”, will end in a mundane NOT being the one shot. LEOs familiar with the Constitution, their Oath, and the Laws of Nature, know this. I must say, it is interesting to see the politicians increasingly at odds with their “muscle”. More to come.
I figure that most police officers will tend to look the other way and only use the law for when they arrest someone on a drug offence and find a gun in the car and want to drop more charges on to them. To go our looking for guns to try and trace down, and catch people who failed to do the proper background check, is like a cat chasing it’s tail in a circle.
I could be wrong, and they might have pressure from up top, in fact they probably will, but the effort won’t be worth the return.