Monster Bash: Safety For All Act

20160201 PRA - Safety for All Act

For those of you who haven't followed this act (which includes me, until tonight)
you might want to be aware of some of the proposals behind this monster.

(I'm sure I owe somebody a "Hat Tip" for this, but I got so interested in following the link that I lost track of the ... er ... monster.)

Here is ONE of the provisions included:

(A PDF version is available at smart gun laws)

6. We know background checks work. Federal background checks have already prevented more than 2.4 million gun sales to convicted criminals and other illegal purchasers in America. In 2012 alone, background checks blocked 192,043 sales of firearms to illegal purchasers including 82,000 attempted purchases by felons. That means background checks stopped roughly 225 felons from buying firearms every day. Yet California law only requires background checks for people who purchase firearms, not for people who purchase ammunition. We should close that loophole.

[emphasis added]

So, for the "safety of all", you should not only be required to undergo a background check when you purchase a firearm, but you should also be required to undergo a background check when you purchase ammunition.

(NOTE: The PRA version ends there:  the SMART GUNS LAWS version ends slightly differently:

We should close that loophole so that people who are unable to buy a gun are also unable to buy the ammunition that makes guns deadly. 

The Charleston Loophole:

When NICS cannot respond with a "you can't buy that gun!" decision within three days, the default is to allow the transfer of a firearm.  That's current law.

And that's how Dylan Roof was able to obtain a firearm and kill people with it in Charleston.

This was when the NICS system was only required to vet people who are trying to purchase a firearm.

How many firearms are purchased each year?  Not sure ... but certainly firearms purchases are transacted less frequently than ammunition purchases.

Now the Liberal Nation proposes that we add to the burden of the NICS system to also approve purchases of ammunition?

Madness!

So, will the Liberal Nation tone down their rhetoric to the point where they only require that 'ammunition purchases" be vetted at the state level, rather than the national level?

Unlikely.  State budgets are notoriously thin, and in fact while it was at one time proposed that the majority of NICS checks be conducted at the state level, that pie-in-the-sky dream lasted about ten milliseconds when the states considered how it would affect their budgets ... and their legal exposure when they allowed a purchase which later turned into a tragedy.

TRAGEDY:

That's what we're looking at here, you know.  If a state is required to either allow or deny an ammunition purchase,  it must respond within 3 days, the same as a request to purchase a firearm.  If it denies a request (and cannot deny it within 3 days), and someone dies because the request is denied .. is the state liable?   Perhaps ....

No.  That's not going to happen.

And if it approves a request, and someone dies because the request is accepted?

Hah!

No state in this union is likely to allow itself to be caught in such a no-win legal bind.    (And it's not as if the Federal Government is willing to allow itself to be caught in a Catch 22 situation, either.)  This proposal will never be accepted at the national level.  Nor at the state, county, local or municipal level.  NOBODY wants to be responsible for deciding whether someone should be legally allowed (or disallowed) for ammunition purchases.

Conclusion:
The ONLY outcome of this faulty Liberal proposal would be that the folks who are required to approve or deny such transactions will find themselves at fault because they approved ... or denied ... the sale of ammunition; probably the states, and they would be understandably reluctant to accept the responsibility.

IN THE MEAN TIME, the entire NICS would be so tied up in trying to evaluate 'ammunition purchase' requests that (a) the purchasers AND vendors would be outraged, and (b) the state or feds would find themselves liable for the outcome of denial or acceptance of approval.

And evaluation of requests for firarms transactions would be lost in the firestorm of ammunition purchase requests.

Other than that ... what value is there in vetting ammunition purchase requests?  Except for the validation of anti-gun proponents who what only to make it more difficult for honest citizens to purchase ammunition ....... there is no redeeming value to it at all.

Besides, for many of us .. we load our own ammunition.  Are we looking at future licensing of home reloaders?

That IS the next step, you know.