As long as there is not registration involved I can't really get excited about background checks. I don't want to sell to a felon at any rate. Background checks for in family transfers would be the height of stupidity.
What I do have concerns over is the taxing of a right - if its ok to put a tax on bearing arms, then its ok to demand an ID that might cost some money to get to avoid voter fraud.
However, the thing that I see that most violates our rights of all proposals is the bans etc that try to restrict the arms most pertinent to the intent of the 2nd Amendment, from possession by the citizens that were meant to be armed as a deterrent to abuse by their own govenrment.
HAHA. So now that ALL firearm transactions will have a paper trail -- which means they can all be traced back to a specific buyer -- it doesn't bother you? Have you gave the time to any actual thought about the consequences of such a bill?
Currently FFLs have to keep ALL form 4473s for twenty years! We don't have registration, but they could very easily go into EVERY FFL in the country and determine where ALL of the new firearms that have been sold over the last twenty years have went to. What is nice is that most free states still allow the private transfer of firearms, so that new gun you bought at the FFL can be sold if no longer wanted without a paper trail.
I prefer to buy my firearms through private transfers for this very reason. And, if this would become law, we could no longer say we sold our firearms IF they came looking for them, because then we would have committed a crime and we would still end up arrested.
This bill could have severe consequences if enacted into law. The Federal government has NO business putting their nose into a private transaction between two people who live in the same state! This is just another attempted over-reach of Congress' authority! I do NOT and will NEVER support background checks for private transfers!
There is more to this than stopping the sale of firearms to convicted felons! Anyone here with an ounce of logic knows we can NEVER stop a criminal from obtaining the tools of his trade! If they know where all of the firearms are, then they know exactly where to come looking for them. I'm one of those that believe we should learn from history so it isn't repeated; and we have ALL seen firsthand what this type of legislation leads to!