Senators Strike Deal On Background Checks

"SENATORS STRIKE A DEAL ON BACKGROUND CHECKS: A Senate aide tells ABC's GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS that Sens. Joe Mancin, D-W. Va., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., have reached deal to expand background checks to gun shows - all commercial sales. The deal will be announced at press conference later this morning. Gun show sales will be conditioned on same background checks and paper record keeping requirements currently applied to retail sales. There will be some exemptions for sales between family members, and short-term hunter to hunter loans If deal holds, likely to pass by fairly wide margin in the Senate."

If this passes, I'll be pretty upset. I feel like our legislature is failing us.

From the Politico piece on the deal:

The Manchin-Toomey agreement would close the so-called “gun show loophole” by requiring that background checks are conducted on all commercial gun sales in the country, according to a fact sheet of the bill obtained by POLITICO from a representative of one of the gun control groups involved in the talks.
...

However, person-to-person sales — the “friends and neighbors exceptions” would not be subject to a background check.

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Isn't thiis already the current state of affairs in some places (at least in Virigina it is, AFAIK), i.e. background checks when dealing with a commerical entity and none when dealing with private individuals? What am I missing?

The news is reporting like this is a new thing. Commercial sales are already subject to BG checks. Internet sales already go thru ffl for BG checks. There has to be something in there that we haven't seen or read.

I'm waiting to see what this is supposed to change. FFLs already have to do background checks, at gun shows and anywhere else for that matter. What is this supposed to accomplish that isn't already being done?

This is probably one of those "common sense" bills that will gain support since it's pretty much all in practice already, then they will try to sneak in amendments hoping the majority won't notice.

From what I have read, the Manchin-Toomey changes will be offered to the current bill as an amendment. The current bill is horrible. The Manchin-Toomey amendment is billed to be "better".

Toomey put this blurb on his website:


That's a pretty long bill of goods... I want to see the actual text before I make a call.

Some of these items will appeal to some gun-rights folks, and would appear to be thrown in to sweeten the deal.

One of the biggest sticking points I would have with these features concerns the felony/prison term for someone who does keep illegal records. So what. Selling guns to Mexican drug cartels is just as illegal, and it's the same Justice Department who will decide who to prosecute for breaking this law as they DIDN'T for that one. Penalties are meaningless if they are "enforced" by dirty cops.

Also, I'm tired of being taken for a sucker that there is no record keeping. If the government isn't keeping records, then prove it, by REMOVING the Serial Numbers from the Background Check form! Remove the temptation to sin, by not giving them the forbidden fruit that they are supposed to throw away...

TFred

while securing certain aspects of 2nd Amendment rights for law abiding citizens

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Gee, thanks for your benevolence Senator Toomey!

Family transfers and some private sales (friends, neighbors, other individuals) are exempt from background checks

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"Some" private sales?

TFred said:

Also, I'm tired of being taken for a sucker that there is no record keeping. If the government isn't keeping records, then prove it, by REMOVING the Serial Numbers from the Background Check form! Remove the temptation to sin, by not giving them the forbidden fruit that they are supposed to throw away...

TFred

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Great point, hadn't thought of that angle before!

About that "family, friends, and neighbors" exemption vs. gun show sales:

There's an old saying, "Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet."

Who's to say a person can't meet a vendor and quickly become friends? That's happened to a family member of mine a few times.

I like to meet new people and learn things along the way, and if a friendship comes from that, cool.

No sarcasm meant, but this sounds like an amendment built on the Honor System.

Using Tapatalk. Please forgive any grammatical errors.

From that text the only thing I would not be ok with would be the mental health part. Mental health really needs to be strongly defined before I would be ok in allowing it to restrict a persons rights. Nearly all Americans suffer from some sort of chemical imbalance and many take anti-anxiety medication, but this is no way should be able to be used against someone, or else it effectively becomes nationwide gun confiscation.

I am against all government meddling in people's rights! I am against background checks, they do not work, they cost tax money. The whole thing is a control scheme no matter how it is packaged.

WalkingWolf said:

I am against all government meddling in people's rights! I am against background checks, they do not work, they cost tax money. The whole thing is a control scheme no matter how it is packaged.

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This.



It is a control issue for this gov. Dangerous either way its packaged. We don't need more laws. We need less. This administration and even representatives we have voted for are dangerous and out of control. I think the NRA's interesting metaphor of plucking feathers sums it up. We will continue to allow this gov. to do the things it does until we just have nothing left, and then do nothing at all. Tyranny has many names. One is Obama. Another is Harry Reid.

The new restrictions they want to add are surprisingly a moot point. Internet sales already require a background check (at the point of delivery - but I wonder if that will add a check at the point of purchase, in which case it is redundant.) The only thing it restricts is private transfers between persons who don't meet certain criteria, but those purchases are a small percentage of firearms transactions. (Not saying it isn't an infringement, just saying it isn't a huge impact).

While the portion about explicitly prohibiting a gun registry sounds nice, laws can be changed or repealed at the next crisis, so that doesn't make me feel any better about this.

One part I did like - if I read it correctly - is to expand federal protections for persons traveling through stricter jurisdictions if they stop for gas or stay overnight while passing through in a general sense.

It also seemed to void the need for background checks for any person who has a state CC license who buys a firearm from a dealer. Don't know if that applies to private transfers (which kinda voids the whole point of what the antis are trying to do - if so, great!)

What I am gathering is that if this passes at all, there are enough additions to make it appear like a pro-gun bill. As I have stated already, the restrictions the bill seems to want to impose are almost a moot point. (I wonder if the definition of neighbor also applies to room mates and persons who aren't family members but are living under the same roof).

Additional info from GOA

Additional info from GOA. Copied below in full, at their request.

TFred

Senator Toomey Betrays Gun Owners
Wednesday, 10 April 2013 15:42 Written by Gun Owners of America

Urgent action required. It is urgent that every gun owner call their Senators today and demand that they oppose the “See a Shrink, Lose your Guns” sell-out bill that is being authored by Senators Pat Toomey (R) and Joe Manchin (D) - but which also has Chuck Schumer’s fingerprints all over it. Call immediately at 202-224-3121.

See a Shrink, Lose your Guns. The anti-gun "ranters" have spent the last week telling us that Republican Senators can’t filibuster Harry Reid’s gun control bill; that they can’t cut off debate to a bill they haven’t seen yet. “Let the bill come up,” they say. “We need to see the bill” before Senators can vote against cloture to proceed to it.

Well, we’ve seen the Toomey-Manchin-Schumer sell-out, and it’s worse than the Feinstein gun ban, which will reportedly be tied to it and offered simultaneously in a Senate procedure known as an “amendment tree.”

Toomey and Manchin will claim that their bill only covers “gun show sales” and Internet sales. But if you’ve ever talked about your gun and /or let it be known you’d like to sell or buy a gun on the Internet, this language covers you. If you advertise your gun in the church bulletin and the bulletin is put on the Internet, you’re covered.

The only exemption is for sales that are sold exclusively by word of mouth. The increased number of background checks would likely exacerbate the system breakdowns (inherent to NICS) which have shut down gun shows over and over again. It would mean that Americans who were illegally denied firearms because their names were similar to other people's would effectively be barred from owning a gun. (We would never tolerate such delays for voting rights or other freedoms that we are guaranteed.)

And for those Republicans who think they’re going to be able to offer their useless amendments, guess what? Reid is reportedly going to use a procedure to block out all amendments (called an “amendment tree”). And there are plenty of Senators standing in line to make sure that the Senate doesn’t give “unanimous consent” to let those Republicans offer their amendments.

So if you live in a rural area, you’re effectively barred from selling or buying a gun - or it at least becomes very, very difficult.

Incidentally, the Toomey-Manchin-Schumer “national registry” language is full of holes. There will be a national gun registry as a result of this sell-out.

But that’s not the worst part. Under an amendment in the bill to HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), you could have your guns taken away because your private shrink thinks you’re “dangerous” and could send your name directly to the FBI Instant Check system.

Did you think it was terrible that 150,000 military veterans had been added into the NICS system because they’d seen a VA shrink about their PTSD? Well guess what? Now it’s going to happen to the rest of the population ... by the millions!

And the next step, of course, will be to begin to sue psychiatrists that don’t send every single patient’s name to the Instant Check system, and to make sure that their lives are ruined if they don’t send a patient to NICS and anything goes wrong.

The bottom line: “See a shrink; lose your guns.”

All of this will reportedly be on an amendment tree with the Feinstein gun ban and magazine bans.

Repeal of gun owner protections. In addition, Toomey no doubt unintentionally agreed to repeal one of the most important protections for gun owners that was included in the 1986 McClure-Volkmer Act - the provision that would allow you to take an unloaded, locked-up gun through states like New York without being stopped. Under a new subsection (c), the Toomey-Manchin-Schumer bill would require you to “demonstrate” to the satisfaction of New York police where you were coming from and where you are going to. And, if you don’t do that to their satisfaction, they can arrest you.

Please keep in mind, nothing in this bill would have stopped Newtown dirtbag from killing his mother and taking the firearms that she owned and perpetrating the horrible crimes that he committed.

Nothing is this bill would actually make children safer at schools. There is nothing that will actually keep bad guys from stealing or illegally acquiring guns, but there’s plenty that will threaten our gun rights!

ACTION: Contact your two senators immediately. Tell them the “see a shrink; lose your guns” sellout is even worse than the Feinstein gun ban which will reportedly be on the same amendment tree with it. Distribute this alert far and wide.

Time is short, so if you call - at 202-224-3121 - you may click below to see the pre-written letter and use the contents to help direct your comments.

acmariner99 said:

Internet sales already require a background check (at the point of delivery - but I wonder if that will add a check at the point of purchase, in which case it is redundant.)

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I was wondering about that.

More coverage, from WaPo.

TFred

Interesting excerpts:

The amendment to the guns legislation already proposed in the Senate would not cover private transactions between individuals, unless there was advertising or an online service involved.

Under the terms of the Manchin-Toomey deal, all background checks would be conducted by federally licensed gun dealers, who would need to verify the validity of a purchaser’s gun license and record that a check was performed. Background checks would need to be completed within three days, except at gun shows, where they would have to be completed within two days for the next four years, and then within 24 hours. To avoid processing delays, the FBI would be required to complete background checks requested at gun shows before those requested elsewhere.

A precise list of which transactions would be covered by the background-check deal was not immediately available. One person familiar with the discussions said the proposed legislation would likely require background checks on all advertised transactions, including those posted on Internet sale sites. It was unlikely, the person said, that sales conducted through an individual, private e-mail exchange would be governed by the new deal. But, he added, it is impossible to say with certainty until legislative language is announced.

Under the Manchin-Toomey deal, records of the newly covered transactions would be kept by federally licensed arms dealers, according to a person familiar with the agreement. Currently, licensed arms dealers keep records of gun sales that take place in gun stores.

TFred said:

under the terms of the manchin-toomey deal, all background checks would be conducted by federally licensed gun dealers, who would need to verify the validity of a purchaser’s gun license and record that a check was performed.

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A WHAT? Is this going to introduce the requirement for a license to purchase a gun now? [ Yes I realize I should have posted that in this thread rather than the Other ]

When do they start handing out First Amendment Licenses? How about 4th amendment licenses or 5th amendment licenses?

TFred said:

...Also, I'm tired of being taken for a sucker that there is no record keeping. If the government isn't keeping records, then prove it, by REMOVING the Serial Numbers from the Background Check form! Remove the temptation to sin, by not giving them the forbidden fruit that they are supposed to throw away...

TFred

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Serial numbers are not included on any federal background check form. It is on the 4473 which is not a background check form. None of the information sent to the FBI for a background check includes any information about the gun except whether it is a handgun, a long gun, or something else.

This is not to say that I don't advocate for the removal of the serial number from 4473's, or even advocate for the elimination of the 4473 altogether (I do). I just want to make sure there is precise information out there.

The precisely correct information is that the serial number is on the 4473, which is retained by the FFL for 20 years, and is only turned over to the ATF if the FFL goes out of business before the 4473 is twenty years old. The serial number is not part of the background check, which is an FBI function, not an ATF function.

No compromise. Call your elected officials and urge them to stop this bill.

eye95 said:

Serial numbers are not included on any federal background check form. It is on the 4473 which is not a background check form. None of the information sent to the FBI for a background check includes any information about the gun except whether it is a handgun, a long gun, or something else.

This is not to say that I don't advocate for the removal of the serial number from 4473's, or even advocate for the elimination of the 4473 altogether (I do). I just want to make sure there is precise information out there.

The precisely correct information is that the serial number is on the 4473, which is retained by the FFL for 20 years, and is only turned over to the ATF if the FFL goes out of business before the 4473 is twenty years old. The serial number is not part of the background check, which is an FBI function, not an ATF function.

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ATF has released an electronic Form 4473. I could not find the .pdf version on their website any more.

If you think I or any other half-thinking person will believe that nobody else will see or store these serial numbers, well your assumption strains the bounds of credulity.

We aren't all geniuses, but we aren't stupid either.

TFred

So, has anyone actually seen the real wording of the bill? They throw around a lot of bits like "internet sales" and "gun show sales," but what the heck are they actually regulating and how the hell do they plan to implement it? It all looks like the typical, closed-door, bait-and-switch political games of unrepresentative politicians.