Below is a post my liberal, hunting friend made on Facebook and I would appreciate it if those of you who are gun owners would way in seriously on his ideas:
Let me preface this by saying that IF I were, for whatever reason the person who had to say "yes" of "no" to using the "no-fly list" as part of the background check for purchasing firearms, I would most likely say "yeah sure" and hope that the list was being built in a responsible way.
The problem, though, is we have NO IDEA how this list is being made, and what is being asked here is to curtail Constitutionally protected rights without due process. At which point we are side-stepping both the 2nd and 14th Amendments. (Our friends at the ACLU agree that there is a problem here: https://www.aclu.org/…/until-no-fly-list-fixed-it-shouldnt-…)
"BUT GUNS!" you'll say.
Yes, people do horrible things with guns.
We can't just say "but guns!" every time someone wants to enact questionable laws just like we, as liberals, called bullshit on "but terrorism!" every time Bush and the Republicans tried to do something similar.
The real statement here is "BUT (I don't care about) GUNS!" and that is fine, but you can't really be suggesting we subvert due process and the rule of law because you don't care about guns.
I'm going to guess that if you remove firearms from the equation, you're going to see a very different attitude, from the same people, towards curtailing constitutional rights based on names being included on some clandestine list.
Liberals, for the most part (myself included), didn't like the idea of the no-fly list as a concept when it simply involved not flying. (Your right to fly on an airplane, in case there is any question, is not mentioned in or protected by the Constitution.) So, I think its weird that suddenly, because guns, these concerns have vanished. Suddenly, this is not only a good list, it should be used to curtail rights.
Look, I HATE invoking the Constitution when discussing firearms because I think it is generally a lazy way to make a point, but in this instance, it CLEARLY demands we discuss the constitution.
Oddly enough, and it makes me question my own judgement, the NRA proposed the most reasonable way of handling this: When someone who is on the no-fly list attempts to purchase a firearm, they are stopped from doing so, they are then flagged and it prompts an investigation and if it turns out everything was on the up n up that person gets removed from the list, gets to go buy the firearm he or she wanted and everyone is happy.
Or, maybe it doesn't work out that way. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered because the Orlando shooter was investigated twice and neither time did they come up with anything that alarmed them.
Only in retrospect can we really say "he shouldn't have been allowed to buy those guns". Only now do we know that those investigations returned the wrong results, but we're still not sure why. And I'm not sure that we could, without knowing what we know now, have justified barring him from purchasing firearms.
Hell, if anything, it would be easy to push back against that suggestion and say "he was investigated twice and they didn't find anything". If they had, then logically, he would have been charged.
But he wasn't because they didn't.
(follow me here)
How many of us well meaning, civil rights/liberties championing,#NotAllMuslims tweeting liberals would rush to the defense of an American man of Middle Eastern descent being denied his Constitutional rights after being twice investigated without having been found to have any terrorist ties?
Be honest with yourself here, forget what we know he did and think about this in the abstract. You would view such a thing as a true injustice -- you would see this as a clear sign that his co-workers were bigoted, probably Trump supporters(!), who didn't like him because of his ancestry and the government was placating their paranoia about scary men of middle eastern descent.
Really let that whole scenario roll around in your head for a few minutes. I'll bet a solid 50% of my friends would, at a minimum passively express irritation with such a thing, even if you don't care about guns.
Now, lets jump back to today, where we have a lot of details, even if his exact motivations are still unclear.
Even if universal background checks that cross referenced no fly lists had been in place it would not have stopped him from purchasing anything. He, based on reporting was not on the no fly list, after all, he had been investigated twice and charged zero times. Even if special licensing would have been required, he likely would not have been prevented from buying them because of the nature of his job. He seems to have been licensed in every way the state requires. And had there been more requirements, there is little reason to think he would not have gone through the process to acquire those licenses as well.
So, what is my point?
Well, my point here is not to say that nothing can be done, it is to say that we shouldn't simply do things for the sake of doing them. We shouldn't allow emotions to override clear thinking and good judgement, we shouldn't dismiss ideas because of who they come from, or what team suggests them. We need to focus on effective change.
▻ If we want universal background checks to work, we need to close up loopholes that allow private sellers to legally sell to any dumb person with enough money in their hands.
There is no reason for it to be easier to buy a firearm from a stranger in a parking lot than to buy one from a licensed dealer. We should require that private sales be processed through licensed dealers the same way a purchase FROM that licensed dealer would work. Background check, applicable waiting period, etc... It opens up a new revenue stream for licensed dealers, and it safe guards the seller by preventing him from inadvertently selling to someone who is forbidden from owning a firearm, or from being a suspect if the firearm they sold is used in the commission of a crime.
And I am not suggestion some national gun registry, just a simple check that says as far as the government is concerned everyone can own what they are attempting to purchase, just like the one that is in place now, but better.
If the "no-fly" list is used in conjunction with this, we need to make sure that we all understand how and why people are added, we need a method of redress, and when someone on that list attempts to purchase a firearm, they are flagged, and an additional investigation is preformed. They, though, should not, in the absence of being charged with a crime, be barred from ownership if the subsequent investigation yields nothing.
▻ We should prohibit high capacity magazines. 5? 8? 10? Whatever the experts think is best. Sure it is a hassle to reload magazines, but it is a much bigger hassle to stop the bleeding and stabilize a shooting victim.
We can offer exceptions for competition shooting, and federal licenses, but I see no reason for me or anyone else to personally own 20, 30, 100 round mags. We can all deal with the mild inconvenience. (more on that here:http://thoughtcatalog.com/…/i-am-an-ar-15-owner-and-ive-ha…/)
▻ Universal and comprehensive licensing. This is obviously easier said than done, and there are constitutional implications that need to be addressed, but you should be required to prove competency to acquire a licenses for, at the very least, certain types of firearms or to carry under certain circumstances. I'm not saying we even put an undue burden on people, but it shouldn't be easier to get licensed to carry a concealed weapon in public than for me be licensed to ride a motorcycle to work.
I think a tiered classification system for firearms is both Constitutional and reasonable. All guns are lethal, but they are not all the same.
▻ High Schools should teach basic firearm safety. This is not likely to prevent mass shootings, but it would reinforce respect and safety for firearms. If we want to prevent gun deaths, doing what we can to eliminate carelessness from the equation is vital. And one simple way to do that is to teach children, rather than scare them about guns. If a child finds a gun, in the woods, in the house, etc... clearly the first rule should be don't touch it, but we need a second and third rule, so if the first one is ignored, they should know how to endure the gun is safe, how to clear the chamber, how to remove the mag, trigger finger discipline. This both better ensure that they can confidentially handle the weapon, but also better ensures someone else doesn't come along and do something stupid.
▻ Anyone, parent, relative, stranger, etc... whose negligence is shown to have lead to someone's death should be held criminally and civilly liable.
If you leave a loaded gun on the table where a child can reach it and that child kills themselves or someone else, you're responsible. Yes, I'm sure you're already dealing with a lot because your son or daughter is dead, but that is YOUR fault, and you should be held responsible.
▻ Dedicate some of those resources spent on drug enforcement on cracking down on the illegal firearm trade. Crack down on straw man buyers/sellers. Instead of cracking down on people for pot, crack down on people who are willfully selling firearms on the black/gray markets and don't give a shit about where those guns are going.
▻ Provide funding to the CDC for research into gun violence, how to reduce it, and how to prevent it. If we are going to accept that firearms are a part of our society, that there is a "gun culture" then we need to invest in real research, and right now the funding necessary to conduct it is almost nonexistent. That needs to change, otherwise we're just throwing things at the wall and hoping they work, and that is NOT how I want to see legislation enacted.
This is by no means a comprehensive list, but I do think it is a reasonable jumping off point - one that balances the need to retool our laws while protecting rights that, no matter what you think of them, are, as far as the courts are concerned, protected by the Constitution.
Then again, maybe I'm wrong about all of this. I am, after all, a non-expert.
Let me preface this by saying that IF I were, for whatever reason the person who had to say "yes" of "no" to using the "no-fly list" as part of the background check for purchasing firearms, I would most likely say "yeah sure" and hope that the list was being built in a responsible way.
The problem, though, is we have NO IDEA how this list is being made, and what is being asked here is to curtail Constitutionally protected rights without due process. At which point we are side-stepping both the 2nd and 14th Amendments. (Our friends at the ACLU agree that there is a problem here: https://www.aclu.org/…/until-no-fly-list-fixed-it-shouldnt-…)
"BUT GUNS!" you'll say.
Yes, people do horrible things with guns.
We can't just say "but guns!" every time someone wants to enact questionable laws just like we, as liberals, called bullshit on "but terrorism!" every time Bush and the Republicans tried to do something similar.
The real statement here is "BUT (I don't care about) GUNS!" and that is fine, but you can't really be suggesting we subvert due process and the rule of law because you don't care about guns.
I'm going to guess that if you remove firearms from the equation, you're going to see a very different attitude, from the same people, towards curtailing constitutional rights based on names being included on some clandestine list.
Liberals, for the most part (myself included), didn't like the idea of the no-fly list as a concept when it simply involved not flying. (Your right to fly on an airplane, in case there is any question, is not mentioned in or protected by the Constitution.) So, I think its weird that suddenly, because guns, these concerns have vanished. Suddenly, this is not only a good list, it should be used to curtail rights.
Look, I HATE invoking the Constitution when discussing firearms because I think it is generally a lazy way to make a point, but in this instance, it CLEARLY demands we discuss the constitution.
Oddly enough, and it makes me question my own judgement, the NRA proposed the most reasonable way of handling this: When someone who is on the no-fly list attempts to purchase a firearm, they are stopped from doing so, they are then flagged and it prompts an investigation and if it turns out everything was on the up n up that person gets removed from the list, gets to go buy the firearm he or she wanted and everyone is happy.
Or, maybe it doesn't work out that way. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered because the Orlando shooter was investigated twice and neither time did they come up with anything that alarmed them.
Only in retrospect can we really say "he shouldn't have been allowed to buy those guns". Only now do we know that those investigations returned the wrong results, but we're still not sure why. And I'm not sure that we could, without knowing what we know now, have justified barring him from purchasing firearms.
Hell, if anything, it would be easy to push back against that suggestion and say "he was investigated twice and they didn't find anything". If they had, then logically, he would have been charged.
But he wasn't because they didn't.
(follow me here)
How many of us well meaning, civil rights/liberties championing,#NotAllMuslims tweeting liberals would rush to the defense of an American man of Middle Eastern descent being denied his Constitutional rights after being twice investigated without having been found to have any terrorist ties?
Be honest with yourself here, forget what we know he did and think about this in the abstract. You would view such a thing as a true injustice -- you would see this as a clear sign that his co-workers were bigoted, probably Trump supporters(!), who didn't like him because of his ancestry and the government was placating their paranoia about scary men of middle eastern descent.
Really let that whole scenario roll around in your head for a few minutes. I'll bet a solid 50% of my friends would, at a minimum passively express irritation with such a thing, even if you don't care about guns.
Now, lets jump back to today, where we have a lot of details, even if his exact motivations are still unclear.
Even if universal background checks that cross referenced no fly lists had been in place it would not have stopped him from purchasing anything. He, based on reporting was not on the no fly list, after all, he had been investigated twice and charged zero times. Even if special licensing would have been required, he likely would not have been prevented from buying them because of the nature of his job. He seems to have been licensed in every way the state requires. And had there been more requirements, there is little reason to think he would not have gone through the process to acquire those licenses as well.
So, what is my point?
Well, my point here is not to say that nothing can be done, it is to say that we shouldn't simply do things for the sake of doing them. We shouldn't allow emotions to override clear thinking and good judgement, we shouldn't dismiss ideas because of who they come from, or what team suggests them. We need to focus on effective change.
▻ If we want universal background checks to work, we need to close up loopholes that allow private sellers to legally sell to any dumb person with enough money in their hands.
There is no reason for it to be easier to buy a firearm from a stranger in a parking lot than to buy one from a licensed dealer. We should require that private sales be processed through licensed dealers the same way a purchase FROM that licensed dealer would work. Background check, applicable waiting period, etc... It opens up a new revenue stream for licensed dealers, and it safe guards the seller by preventing him from inadvertently selling to someone who is forbidden from owning a firearm, or from being a suspect if the firearm they sold is used in the commission of a crime.
And I am not suggestion some national gun registry, just a simple check that says as far as the government is concerned everyone can own what they are attempting to purchase, just like the one that is in place now, but better.
If the "no-fly" list is used in conjunction with this, we need to make sure that we all understand how and why people are added, we need a method of redress, and when someone on that list attempts to purchase a firearm, they are flagged, and an additional investigation is preformed. They, though, should not, in the absence of being charged with a crime, be barred from ownership if the subsequent investigation yields nothing.
▻ We should prohibit high capacity magazines. 5? 8? 10? Whatever the experts think is best. Sure it is a hassle to reload magazines, but it is a much bigger hassle to stop the bleeding and stabilize a shooting victim.
We can offer exceptions for competition shooting, and federal licenses, but I see no reason for me or anyone else to personally own 20, 30, 100 round mags. We can all deal with the mild inconvenience. (more on that here:http://thoughtcatalog.com/…/i-am-an-ar-15-owner-and-ive-ha…/)
▻ Universal and comprehensive licensing. This is obviously easier said than done, and there are constitutional implications that need to be addressed, but you should be required to prove competency to acquire a licenses for, at the very least, certain types of firearms or to carry under certain circumstances. I'm not saying we even put an undue burden on people, but it shouldn't be easier to get licensed to carry a concealed weapon in public than for me be licensed to ride a motorcycle to work.
I think a tiered classification system for firearms is both Constitutional and reasonable. All guns are lethal, but they are not all the same.
▻ High Schools should teach basic firearm safety. This is not likely to prevent mass shootings, but it would reinforce respect and safety for firearms. If we want to prevent gun deaths, doing what we can to eliminate carelessness from the equation is vital. And one simple way to do that is to teach children, rather than scare them about guns. If a child finds a gun, in the woods, in the house, etc... clearly the first rule should be don't touch it, but we need a second and third rule, so if the first one is ignored, they should know how to endure the gun is safe, how to clear the chamber, how to remove the mag, trigger finger discipline. This both better ensure that they can confidentially handle the weapon, but also better ensures someone else doesn't come along and do something stupid.
▻ Anyone, parent, relative, stranger, etc... whose negligence is shown to have lead to someone's death should be held criminally and civilly liable.
If you leave a loaded gun on the table where a child can reach it and that child kills themselves or someone else, you're responsible. Yes, I'm sure you're already dealing with a lot because your son or daughter is dead, but that is YOUR fault, and you should be held responsible.
▻ Dedicate some of those resources spent on drug enforcement on cracking down on the illegal firearm trade. Crack down on straw man buyers/sellers. Instead of cracking down on people for pot, crack down on people who are willfully selling firearms on the black/gray markets and don't give a shit about where those guns are going.
▻ Provide funding to the CDC for research into gun violence, how to reduce it, and how to prevent it. If we are going to accept that firearms are a part of our society, that there is a "gun culture" then we need to invest in real research, and right now the funding necessary to conduct it is almost nonexistent. That needs to change, otherwise we're just throwing things at the wall and hoping they work, and that is NOT how I want to see legislation enacted.
This is by no means a comprehensive list, but I do think it is a reasonable jumping off point - one that balances the need to retool our laws while protecting rights that, no matter what you think of them, are, as far as the courts are concerned, protected by the Constitution.
Then again, maybe I'm wrong about all of this. I am, after all, a non-expert.
