Thanks for giving me this info! I'm sorry I'm late in answering, but I have a couple of follow-up questions, if you don't mind.
From the article:
3. Expanding the background check requirement, especially if it is coupled with "improved" databases, compounds the injustice of disarming millions of people who pose no threat to others but are nevertheless forbidden to own guns because they use illegal drugs, overstay a visa, were once subjected to court-ordered psychiatric treatment, or have felony records, even if they have never committed a violent crime.
Why should people in the US illegally (visa overstays) be allowed to buy guns? Or felons -- I thought that was pretty well accepted? Or crack-heads (yeah, the changing attitudes about marijuana complicate this)? Mental illness and medication is currently up for discussion, I thought.
4. Expanding the background check requirement is not the same as actually compelling people to perform background checks for private gun transfers. Many gun owners will balk at the inconvenience and expense of finding and paying a licensed dealer who is willing to faciliate a transaction....The federal government has no such registry either, so how can it possibly hope to track transfers and make sure background checks are performed? Even with hefty criminal penalties, widespread noncompliance is a certainty.
I know people don't want to have to go through a broker to sell their guns; but I really don't see that as an excuse -- especially if we don't want felons, visa overstays, crazy people, drug addicts to own guns. Why would anyone be okay with selling a gun to an illegal alien? Or someone who just got out of prison for beating up his neighbor and now wants revenge? John Hinckley Jr. is now out of stir; would it be okay to sell a gun to him? Why isn't that irresponsible?
As I just read on another thread, aren't the serial number-owner records kept by gun dealers effectively a national registry that can only be accessed by the ATF? If private sales go through a dealer/broker, the records would be updated.
Consider:
Transfers don't just involve sales, they involve something so simple as giving a gun to your grown son, or leaving a collection to relatives in your will. Every time a gun changes ownership, that is a transfer. Every firearm transferred legally from ancestor to progeny would again have to be paid for (transfers through an FFL aren't free, simply because of the bookkeeping involved). Some are more reasonable than others, but for an extensive collection, this adds a lot of time and a fortune in compliance costs. Other than motor vehicles and real estate, no other class of property is subject to that sort of restriction, and motor vehicles and real estate are registered in a government database. Make of that what you will, but considering that when a FFL dealer goes out of business (for whatever reason), those Form 4473s are surrendered to the BATFE, and those, in aggregate, or more likely, in some more convenient form, constitute a database. Keeping in mind that the possession of firearms is an enumerated, protected, right, to "not be infringed", this is a violation of the letter and spirit of that protection.
TO reply to another question you had about NC, and the sheriff permit, Here in ND if you have a CCW permit you do not have to go through the NICS check. Dealers run them anyway, but it is presumed if your ND CCW permit has not been revoked that you have already been thoroughly checked out by the State Bureau of Criminal Investigation. That isn't needed to purchase a handgun, and to some extent we have Constitutional carry within the State, but the CCW permit does put you on the "good guys" list.
Otherwise, you go to the dealer, fill out the Form 4473, go through the NICS check, and purchase your handgun, often within an hour.
