GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, OR DO THEY?

[HairOfTheDog]

HOTD, Actually licensed dealers are required to keep 4473 in house for either 20 years or the life of the business, which ever comes first. At the 20 year mark we are allowed to pull any 4473 that is over 20 years and destroy them.

Thank you for confirming, that was my understanding. The same requirements could easily be applied to private sellers/gifters who would typically have many fewer records to maintain.

I can understand your concern about transferring firearms, I really can.

Your concern too, right?

During the course of our discussions over the last couple of months, I've understood that you also feel that guns getting into the wrong hands is the real safety concern which needs to be addressed.

I just don't feel that it is going to work unless the entire NICS system is overhauled. I feel there should be a way for private citizens to do a call in when conducting private sales. Possibly a web site where the citizens can do the NICS check and print a copy of the results for their records. Then require them to keep records for 20 years , just like we as federally licensed dealers are required to do. That way the private sales would not be subjected to the ever increasing costs of filing paperwork and doing background checks through licensed dealers. I know that is taking money out of my pocket but I just don't feel someone should be charged a extra 60 bucks when selling a $100 firearm.

I agree that the administrative/cost burden should be minimized as much as possible for both licensed dealers and private sellers/gifters. Your suggestion for making NICS web-based with an electronic record maintenance feature is a good one which would benefit licensed dealers and private sellers alike.

At present, we don’t know the logistical details for private transaction background checks since those haven’t been released. If, in fact, we’re both correct in assuming that initially similar cost and record retention requirements to what licensed dealers bear will be placed upon private sellers, I don’t find that unreasonable. I definitely don’t consider those requirements (nor the fact that NICS is not yet web-accessible) valid reasons to continue exempting around 40% of all gun transactions from pre-transfer checks which help keep guns out of the hands of felons, the mentally ill, and those with dishonorable discharges.

Bottom line:
I find it illogical for some in the NRA and on the pro-gun side to continually claim support of existing background check laws because they help to increase public safety, yet object to a law which would extend the same requirement to private transactions in order to achieve the same goal (on a larger scale) using the same system. That makes as much sense to me as gun control advocates proposing laws to ban the sale of specific guns based upon how they look (and/or how they were used by unqualified gun owners) even though those specific guns function in the exact same fashion as other guns which would not be banned.

I really appreciate your insight, F.U,. and get a lot of food for thought from our exchanges. We seem to share the same or similar views on many of the issues surrounding gun control. The universal background check requirement may be one point where our opinions simply differ.