Bill Seeks to Strengthen Background Checks for Firearm Purchases

Just to be clear . . . Since the article seems to me to be ambiguous:  I don’t speak on behalf of GOA, NRA, GOCRA/CCRN, the National Organization for Women, the Democratic Party, the USY, the ACLU, the AAA  and/or any other organization that I either am or have been a member of (and I am or have at one point been a member of all of the above) except — and then only arguably — twincitiescarry.com, which is only arguably an organization.

Beyond that . . .

As to whether or not the bill would restore rights to veterans, I encourage anybody interested to look at, well, the bill — it’s at http://www.govtrack…. . See if you can find the word “veteran” in there, or the language that would allow veterans — or anybody else — to clear their record via any process other than endless, expensive legal appeals. 

Yup; the bill encourages states to create such processes — but it doesn’t compel them.  And it very much doesn’t take somebody off the list as a fallback if the state fails to do its job.  We’ve had such “encouraging” bills before — google for McClure-Volkmer. 

As I wrote to Mr. Peterson yesterday morning, in response to his request for some clarification:

How does he [the hypothetical boy, referenced in the article] get off the list?  It can’t be the McClure-Volkmer process — that’s already in the law, but Congress has refused to fund it for more than 15 years.  So what is the mechanism?  Section 105 of HR 2640?  What’s the penalty for a state’s noncompliance with 105, and how is it different from the total noncompliance with McClure-Volkmer?  The state is supposed to set up some sort of mechanism for removing him from the list — what happens if they don’t fund that mechanism, just as Congress hasn’t funded McClure-Volkmer?  According to Section 104, the state may lose some Federal money.  But what if the state decides that it would rather lose some Federal money than spend more than that on a Section 105 mechanism?  Or what if the state is, say, Wisconsin where the governor would veto any bill recognizing any form or flavor of rights under the Second Amendment?

I guess he has to stay on the list.  Or, maybe, he can find a lawyer, and sue the state and the feds, and persuade a both a state judge and a federal judge to each issue a writ of mandamus ordering both state and federal authorities to remove him from both the state and federal lists.  He’d have to pay for more than the lawyer, of course; there would have to be that battery of psychiatrists testifying that he was fine, and of course, he’d have to win on appeal, as well, before he’d have his rights restored.

Just how much justice can he be required to afford?

Kate Havelin, of course, misses the point.  There’s no evidence that any “gun control” laws reduce violence one iota.  Don’t take my word for it — I’m just a guy, after all — but look at the CDC study, available at http://www.cdc.gov/m… . Note that, after decades and millions spent in research trying to create a defensible study that would find a single gun law that has measurably reduced violence . . . the CDC has concluded tht there aren’t any — including studies on those gun laws, like HR 2640, which attempt to restrict possession by individuals.  (The CDC, of course, wants more studies.  Good for them.  Let’s see if we can find any evidence that at least some of our thousands of gun laws work before we start adding any more, maybe?)

But, the proponents assure us, this one will be different.  The proponents always assure us of that, just as the proponents of the Brady Law assured us that it if had been in place, James Brady would not have been shot.  They were certainly wrong then — John Hinckley would have passed a Brady check — and they’re almost certainly wrong now. 

Maybe HR 2640 will be that first gun law, the first one that can be shown to have reduced violence. 

That’s not the way to bet, but, heck, maybe somebody will buy me a lottery ticket today, and that lottery ticket will come in. 

I won’t be holding my breath.

Assuming facts not in evidence

The article above states, without comment:

[T]he U.S. House of Representatives voted last week to correct flaws in the federal background-check system…."

 While it may be the opinion of the bill's authors (or of the reporter) that the bill corrects flaws, it is certainly not a fact.

In journalism school, we are taught the difference between fact and opinions, and to carefully indicate which we are reporting.

Presenting opinions in the declarative is generally reserved for, well, opinion pieces, not news stories.

Further, the article states

  A 1968 federal law established that persons with mental illness cannot purchase firearms….

The law, 18 USC 922(d)(4), (see http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000922—-000-.html ) bans the transfer of firearms to a person who

…has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution;

…The words "adjudicated" and "committed" are important. They properly place a high hurdle for the deprivation of fundamental rights — an adjudication or commitment, both of which require findings of fact and entitle the accused to representation.

 The proposed law would lower that standard, and that's not only unfair and wrong, it's unconstitutional.

I'm glad that the Monitor is looking at these issues, but you need to be careful to separate opinion from fact, and to ensure that you if you summarize new or existing laws, you do so accurately. 

Andrew Rothman
BA, Journalism, U of MN
Certified Firearm Instructor (http://www.mngun.com/)
Executive Director,  Minnesota Association of Defensive Firearm Instructors (http://www.madfi.org/)

Guns cause suicide? Havelin suggests that getting rid of guns would stop suicide.  Well, look at Japan, extremely tough gun control, and… one of the highest suicide rates in the world.  Bad and sick people will find a way to do what they want to do.

From the Minnesota Monitor Code of Ethics It’s right here

New Journalist Fellows should:

  * Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.

We’re waiting…

Good intentions. Ms. Havelin is a very nice person who has the best of intentions, however she is naive. We do not share her trust of the government to adminster these things in the manner they are intended, seeing the increasingly Fascist tendencies of the current regime.

Just MORE Problems with the Bill of Rights Our 2nd Amendment guarantees us the right to keep and bear arms. That said, I don’t have a major problem with those that have been ordered through the courts to obtain mental treatment. Once so ordered, that info SHOULD be available to the NICS system (You know, the one that checks people out for purchase of firearms). However, this is a very unstable ground that we tread. Who’s to say that some neighbor with a grievance, doesn’t arbitrarily phone in against another neighbor that just so happens to own some guns. Who’s to say that some person makes a stupid comment and doesn’t get ordered into court for mental assessment/adjudication?? (A recent happening in Pennsylvania). Who makes this determination of who is “mentally defective” and what exactly is “mentally defective”. A fair comparison is that if one places a “normal” person in a room of “abnormal” people, who is “normal” and on what basis is that decision made. No, there is too much room for abuse of the system with these types of laws. Look at the Lautenberg Amendment. It has cost several people their jobs and really hasn’t accomplished much. People STILL die from domestic violence. It just so happens that people that are apt to violate the law will continue to do so.

The failure of the system was that Cho, having been ordered through mental assessment, that the courts were never able to pass this info along to the rest of the system. Had the courts actually made this info available to the NICS, Cho would have probably not been able to purchase his guns legally. However…. would that have stopped a psychopath intent on murder/suicide?? Probably not.  It may have made it a little more difficult to obtain the handguns that he did, but would it have stopped him?? Look at the North Hollywood shootout. The criminals obtained FULLY automatic weapons through nefarious means and went on a drug induced rampage. There are NO laws that would have prevented them from doing this. After all, they were intent on violating the law, in many ways.

No, our problems are more deeply embedded than what we can do by sacrificing essential liberties. We NEED to solve THOSE problems first!! I’ll revert to some logic imparted by Ben Franklin, “those that would sacrifice essential liberties for a little safety, deserve neither”. Our society has become more and more violent with people just not caring what they do to harm others. Heck, just look at the many road rage incidents over the last few years. Would a road rage incident cause a court ordered mental assessment?? I could see where it could. Should an outburst of one’s temper make them forever ineligible to own a gun?? Just think of how many people that fall within the “norm” that would be prevented from owning guns??  There are a lot of reasons I suspect that our morals have changed, but I’ll leave those thoughts and ideas to the readers to make their own interpretations.

Just to be clear . . . Since the article seems to me to be ambiguous:  I don't speak on behalf of GOA, NRA, GOCRA/CCRN, the National Organization for Women, the Democratic Party, the USY, the ACLU, the AAA  and/or any other organization that I either am or have been a member of (and I am or have at one point been a member of all of the above) except — and then only arguably — twincitiescarry.com, which is only arguably an organization.

Beyond that . . .

As to whether or not the bill would restore rights to veterans, I encourage anybody interested to look at, well, the bill — it's at http://www.govtrack…. . See if you can find the word “veteran” in there, or the language that would allow veterans — or anybody else — to clear their record via any process other than endless, expensive legal appeals. 

Yup; the bill encourages states to create such processes — but it doesn't compel them.  And it very much doesn't take somebody off the list as a fallback if the state fails to do its job.  We've had such “encouraging” bills before — google for McClure-Volkmer. 

As I wrote to Mr. Peterson yesterday morning, in response to his request for some clarification:

How does he [the hypothetical boy, referenced in the article] get off the list?  It can't be the McClure-Volkmer process — that's already in the law, but Congress has refused to fund it for more than 15 years.  So what is the mechanism?  Section 105 of HR 2640?  What's the penalty for a state's noncompliance with 105, and how is it different from the total noncompliance with McClure-Volkmer?  The state is supposed to set up some sort of mechanism for removing him from the list — what happens if they don't fund that mechanism, just as Congress hasn't funded McClure-Volkmer?  According to Section 104, the state may lose some Federal money.  But what if the state decides that it would rather lose some Federal money than spend more than that on a Section 105 mechanism?  Or what if the state is, say, Wisconsin where the governor would veto any bill recognizing any form or flavor of rights under the Second Amendment?

I guess he has to stay on the list.  Or, maybe, he can find a lawyer, and sue the state and the feds, and persuade a both a state judge and a federal judge to each issue a writ of mandamus ordering both state and federal authorities to remove him from both the state and federal lists.  He'd have to pay for more than the lawyer, of course; there would have to be that battery of psychiatrists testifying that he was fine, and of course, he'd have to win on appeal, as well, before he'd have his rights restored.

Just how much justice can he be required to afford?

Kate Havelin, of course, misses the point.  There's no evidence that any “gun control” laws reduce violence one iota.  Don't take my word for it — I'm just a guy, after all — but look at the CDC study, available at http://www.cdc.gov/m… . Note that, after decades and millions spent in research trying to create a defensible study that would find a single gun law that has measurably reduced violence . . . the CDC has concluded tht there aren't any — including studies on those gun laws, like HR 2640, which attempt to restrict possession by individuals.  (The CDC, of course, wants more studies.  Good for them.  Let's see if we can find any evidence that at least some of our thousands of gun laws work before we start adding any more, maybe?)

But, the proponents assure us, this one will be different.  The proponents always assure us of that, just as the proponents of the Brady Law assured us that it if had been in place, James Brady would not have been shot.  They were certainly wrong then — John Hinckley would have passed a Brady check — and they're almost certainly wrong now. 

Maybe HR 2640 will be that first gun law, the first one that can be shown to have reduced violence. 

That's not the way to bet, but, heck, maybe somebody will buy me a lottery ticket today, and that lottery ticket will come in. 

I won't be holding my breath.

Assuming facts not in evidence

The article above states, without comment:

[T]he U.S. House of Representatives voted last week to correct flaws in the federal background-check system…."

 While it may be the opinion of the bill's authors (or of the reporter) that the bill corrects flaws, it is certainly not a fact.

In journalism school, we are taught the difference between fact and opinions, and to carefully indicate which we are reporting.

Presenting opinions in the declarative is generally reserved for, well, opinion pieces, not news stories.

Further, the article states

  A 1968 federal law established that persons with mental illness cannot purchase firearms….

<span class=”ptext-2″>The law, 18 USC 922(d)(4), (see http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode1… ) </span>bans the transfer of firearms to a person who

…<span class=”ptext-2″>has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution;</span>

…The words "adjudicated" and "committed" are important. They properly place a high hurdle for the deprivation of fundamental rights — an adjudication or commitment, both of which require findings of fact and entitle the accused to representation.

 The proposed law would lower that standard, and that's not only unfair and wrong, it's unconstitutional.

I'm glad that the Monitor is looking at these issues, but you need to be careful to separate opinion from fact, and to ensure that you if you summarize new or existing laws, you do so accurately. 

Andrew Rothman
BA, Journalism, U of MN
Certified Firearm Instructor (http://www.mngun.com/)
Executive Director,  Minnesota Association of Defensive Firearm Instructors (http://www.madfi.org/)</p>

Guns cause suicide? Havelin suggests that getting rid of guns would stop suicide.  Well, look at Japan, extremely tough gun control, and… one of the highest suicide rates in the world.  Bad and sick people will find a way to do what they want to do.

From the Minnesota Monitor Code of Ethics It's right here

New Journalist Fellows should:

  * Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.

We're waiting…

Good intentions. Ms. Havelin is a very nice person who has the best of intentions, however she is naive. We do not share her trust of the government to adminster these things in the manner they are intended, seeing the increasingly Fascist tendencies of the current regime.

Just MORE Problems with the Bill of Rights Our 2nd Amendment guarantees us the right to keep and bear arms. That said, I don't have a major problem with those that have been ordered through the courts to obtain mental treatment. Once so ordered, that info SHOULD be available to the NICS system (You know, the one that checks people out for purchase of firearms). However, this is a very unstable ground that we tread. Who's to say that some neighbor with a grievance, doesn't arbitrarily phone in against another neighbor that just so happens to own some guns. Who's to say that some person makes a stupid comment and doesn't get ordered into court for mental assessment/adjudication?? (A recent happening in Pennsylvania). Who makes this determination of who is “mentally defective” and what exactly is “mentally defective”. A fair comparison is that if one places a “normal” person in a room of “abnormal” people, who is “normal” and on what basis is that decision made. No, there is too much room for abuse of the system with these types of laws. Look at the Lautenberg Amendment. It has cost several people their jobs and really hasn't accomplished much. People STILL die from domestic violence. It just so happens that people that are apt to violate the law will continue to do so.

The failure of the system was that Cho, having been ordered through mental assessment, that the courts were never able to pass this info along to the rest of the system. Had the courts actually made this info available to the NICS, Cho would have probably not been able to purchase his guns legally. However…. would that have stopped a psychopath intent on murder/suicide?? Probably not.  It may have made it a little more difficult to obtain the handguns that he did, but would it have stopped him?? Look at the North Hollywood shootout. The criminals obtained FULLY automatic weapons through nefarious means and went on a drug induced rampage. There are NO laws that would have prevented them from doing this. After all, they were intent on violating the law, in many ways.

No, our problems are more deeply embedded than what we can do by sacrificing essential liberties. We NEED to solve THOSE problems first!! I'll revert to some logic imparted by Ben Franklin, “those that would sacrifice essential liberties for a little safety, deserve neither”. Our society has become more and more violent with people just not caring what they do to harm others. Heck, just look at the many road rage incidents over the last few years. Would a road rage incident cause a court ordered mental assessment?? I could see where it could. Should an outburst of one's temper make them forever ineligible to own a gun?? Just think of how many people that fall within the “norm” that would be prevented from owning guns??  There are a lot of reasons I suspect that our morals have changed, but I'll leave those thoughts and ideas to the readers to make their own interpretations.