I hate it when FactCheck.org shows up in my news searches. Because this is fairly typical of the lying SOBs.
A False Claim About H.R. 8 and a ‘Firearms Registry’
A viral meme falsely accuses five House Republicans of voting with Democrats to create a “firearms registry.” The bill in question specifically prohibits “the establishment, directly or indirectly, of a national firearms registry.”
The headline is certainly right: Angelo Fichera is making a false claim. A classic strawman argument. I’m not aware of anyone claiming that HR 8 would create a firearms registry. We correctly note that it would enable the creation of such.
For Angelo and his fellow short-bus riders, I’ll explain.
HR 8 would expand preemptively-prove-your-innocence (PPYI) checks to virtually all firearms transactions. It does that by requiring private parties go to a federally licensed dealer (FFL) so that the dealer can process the transaction in exactly the same way that his own transactions are done: boundbook entry, 4473, NICS, fees.
The 4473 is the potential problem, because it’s forever. Even when and if an FFL goes out of business, the stack of 4473s goes to the ATF to be filed.
Fichera knows that, but blows it off, because everyone knows the ATF is forbidden to enter those into a searchable database. Of course, that law got passed specifically because the ATF was caught doing exactly that. And they still do mass photocopying of 4473s during license inspections.
Let’s pretend that HR 8 passes the Senate, too, and Trump signs it. As a result, Trump properly loses the 2020 election to a Democrat who will stab us in the chest, not the back. So at least we can see “them” coming and dodge.
Then they pass another bill repealing the databasing restriction. The ATF issues a Request for Purchase for several thousand document scanners with character recognition, along with thousand of temp hires to hit every FFL in the country for copies of those conveniently collected 4473.
Database.
We had a Dem presidential candidate designated gun control stalking horse, whose main campaign promise was to confiscate every semi-auto firearm in civiilan hands. To do that, the government needs to know who has what and where. If they didn’t know that before, they’ve surely learned from New Zealand’s embarrassing ban attempt.
Universal PPYI, with 4473s is the perfect setup. And the government is well aware of it. Since NICS began, pro-rights people have advocated different systems that would allow background checks, while preventing the creation of a permanent record subject to ATF collection. BIDS: Blind Identification Database System is one of the better suggestions (assuming our rights are going to be violated at all). BIDS still has weaknesses, but those can be fixed.
Legislators and bureaucrats have actively resisted all attempts at switching to a recordless system. Go ahead; tell me I’m paranoid for thinking they want those permanent records.
I wonder how Fichera would like his favored right — the First Amendment — regulated in the same way.
Imagine some congresscritter doesn’t like being ridiculed, and files a bill “prevent verbal violence” by requiring everyone who purchases a computer or smart phone to pass a background check. The transaction would be logged on an FCC form 7734, and will include things like purchaser’s race, and the device’s serial number and MAC. Bill makes it into law, because only someone who wants to verbally abuse children could object.
Then someone else insults Rep. Wilson‘s intelligence (properly, the lack thereof). So she files a bill to collate those 7734s into a searchable database; all the better to track down that mean person.
No doubt Mr. Fichera will be just fine with preemptively proving his own innocence before exercising his First Amendment rights online, and being forced to pay for it. Of course, if he smokes marijuana, or has a felony conviction, or even some misdemeanors, he won’t be allowed to buy that phone. And if he has one, someone may “red flag” him because maybe he’ll slander someone or write a article based on his own… li… oh. Wait.
No First Amendment for Fichera.
Of course, once the Dems are on a roll, they could ban high capacity batteries because no one needs to talk for more than half an hour. And there would be an 8 day cooling off period before you could take possession of your phone or computer, lest some hack writer draft an ill-conceived strawman column on the spur of the moment. Writer licensing (that’s been proposed before).
How about safe storage laws for computers and phones so little children can’t get their hands on them and hook up with an Internet predator? And that’s all the more reason to register devices and owners, right? S0 you can use the MAC to track pedophiles… or annoying journalists who insist on covering embarrassing government screwups.
Heck, maybe they’d even ban those fully automated smart phones suitable only for military communications. Or swapping kiddie porn. Do that for the children.
That, FactCheck and Fichera, is why we object to “universal background checks.” It would enable all that.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
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When I was on the board of a local Second Amendment rights group, I got a call from a very upset, worried and somewhat scared dealer. Seems the BATFE folks had been in to check his books. And photocopied them. All of them. He said there was really nothing he could do about it.
There is a worse case: The Brady Act NICS background check has not prevented a crime or criminal access to a firearm in the history of the act, and it was never intended to. It was intended to sucker firearm purchasers into, first, allowing the federal government to illegally convert the RIGHT to keep and bear arms into a revocable government-issued privilege for which government permission must be granted at the point of sale, and to require the purchaser to give up his 4th Amendment-guaranteed right to be secure from SEARCH in the absence of probably cause of criminal wrongdoing (and a warrant alleging same under penalty of perjury), AND his 5th Amendment RIGHT to DUE PROCESS by conviction in a Court of Law before a right may be taken, AND his right, protected by the 9th Amendment, to be secure from being compelled to give up a right in order to exercise a right, AND his 10th Amendment right to be secure from the federal exercise of power NOT DELEGATED, AND his 10th Amendment right to be secure from State power PROHIBITED TO THE STATES by the aforementioned Amendments. Gun owners need to stand up for their RIGHTS and stop supporting the Brady Act before the Democratic Socialist THUGS use it to destroy our rights altogether.
When I made my first “modern era” firearm purchase (before then it was look, choose your weapon, put some greenbacks on the counter, take the anonymous cash register ticket showing I paid $XXY.ab in cash money for SOMETHING, pick it up and walk out, the only reason the guy might know my name is because we’d introduced ourselves as gentlemen do) I was baffled by all the paperwork, questions, state issued picture ID, all those silly tick boxes….. that was MY part. Then the dealer went to work. Every detail about the thing I was buying, checking the number on the receiver, the tag, the carton it came in, A full dossier. Hey, WAIT JUST A MINUTE, why do they want all THAT information, th “backgound check” is supposed to be to decide whether I am the prohibited person, what I’m buying was an irrelevant detail.
Then it hit me..they are recording WHAT I am buying along with the fact it is ME buying it. How stupid do they think we are out here>
Any attempts to deceive us into believing they are NOT wanting, and desparately trying to, build a gun registry should be met with derision and scorn. .