Bill to put background checks on private gun sales hits snag
OLYMPIA, Wash. -- A new poll shows a vast majority of Washington voters favor background checks for gun purchases. However, a state bill to put background checks in place has hit a snag at the state legislature.
The vote could come up later Tuesday night or over the next few days, but gun rights advocates still are not on board because of the state's list of gun purchases.
The fear is that this will ultimately lead to gun registration.
As gun sales surge along with applications for concealed pistol licenses, proponents of background checks have been getting closer to getting a vote on the state House floor.
They'd like to get more support, or at least no opposition, from gun rights leaders. But opposition still looms due to the state database that tracks pistol sales. Second Amendment advocates want the state tracking system eliminated. But the Association of Sheriff's and Police Chiefs were there in force supporting both background checks and keeping the Department of Licensing list.
"We use it every day to make sure the right people have guns and the wrong people don't," said the association's Don Pierce. "And we don't support doing away with that particular file."
The chiefs and sheriffs say that file can help solve a crime and reunite a stolen gun with it's rightful owner. State Representative and Seattle Police officer Mike Hope said nearly half of felons in prison say they got their guns through private purchases, currently not covered by background checks.
"So we want to make sure we prohibit felons and the mentally ill from obtaining guns," Hope said.
But fellow Republican and sheriffs deputy Brad Klippert fears this will all lead to gun registration. And only law-abiding citizens will follow this if it becomes law.
"And those people who are purchasing guns illegally on the black market and committing crimes against their fellow citizens are not going to obey this law, just like they don't obey the ones we have now," Klippert said.
But a new Stuart Elway poll shows that 79 percent of Washington residents favor background checks in all gun sales.
The bill's chances of passing in the state House are said to be quite well, but its fate in the State Senate is less certain.
The vote could come up later Tuesday night or over the next few days, but gun rights advocates still are not on board because of the state's list of gun purchases.
The fear is that this will ultimately lead to gun registration.
As gun sales surge along with applications for concealed pistol licenses, proponents of background checks have been getting closer to getting a vote on the state House floor.
They'd like to get more support, or at least no opposition, from gun rights leaders. But opposition still looms due to the state database that tracks pistol sales. Second Amendment advocates want the state tracking system eliminated. But the Association of Sheriff's and Police Chiefs were there in force supporting both background checks and keeping the Department of Licensing list.
"We use it every day to make sure the right people have guns and the wrong people don't," said the association's Don Pierce. "And we don't support doing away with that particular file."
The chiefs and sheriffs say that file can help solve a crime and reunite a stolen gun with it's rightful owner. State Representative and Seattle Police officer Mike Hope said nearly half of felons in prison say they got their guns through private purchases, currently not covered by background checks.
"So we want to make sure we prohibit felons and the mentally ill from obtaining guns," Hope said.
But fellow Republican and sheriffs deputy Brad Klippert fears this will all lead to gun registration. And only law-abiding citizens will follow this if it becomes law.
"And those people who are purchasing guns illegally on the black market and committing crimes against their fellow citizens are not going to obey this law, just like they don't obey the ones we have now," Klippert said.
But a new Stuart Elway poll shows that 79 percent of Washington residents favor background checks in all gun sales.
The bill's chances of passing in the state House are said to be quite well, but its fate in the State Senate is less certain.
I've never been polled, how do they know the 'vast majority' of voters favor background checks? I don't support it.
Self defense is an inalienable right, like everything in the Bill of Rights. If you read the preamble to the Bill of Rights it says exactly why these are all inalienable rights.
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.
THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.
ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.
I have a serious question: Â What's so bad about gun registration?
@lun4m0n0 Here's a serious answer: Will criminals register theirs? Do you think they pay full retail and will go in front of the cops to do paperwork? Who will this legislation affect? Certainly not the crooks.
@lun4m0n0 The government does not need to know who has guns they know they take them. that is why. Don't like guns don't buy one. just don't deny the right to others. And why are democrats socialist so afraid of guns? hell the democrats murder over hundred thousand babies a day in the USA. I guess sucking a unborn child in to vita mix is ok but shooting some is bad? go figure
@lun4m0n0- "What's so bad about gun registration?"
answer; NOTHING ! Â
the pro-gun looney-tunes want you to think we're 1938 NAZI Germany - how Real is that !!
@Torqputty somebody has two browser windows open......Hahahahahaha
@dg54321Â @lun4m0n0 - lun - im sure if you come with beers in hand n looking like that photo - All the boys would be willing to show you their guns !!!
@lun4m0n0 @dg54321 @Cheetoh734 @Torqputty Anything discussed over beer is better than online. I find it amazing that I can talk to someone in person and be in total agreement but have the same conversation online and get into a flame war in zero time flat just because of the lack of person to person interaction.
@dg54321 @lun4m0n0 @Cheetoh734 @Torqputty Things can definitely get heated online.  It's easier to have a conversation like this over beer than over a computer.
@lun4m0n0 @dg54321 @Cheetoh734 @Torqputty If you truly are your own person than I apologize, but spend some time here with some of the more dishonest posters and you will understand how suspicion is easy to come by. Making multiple handles to post under is just the kind of tactic I would expect out of some here, like "torqputty". I am open to true discussion with someone with an opposing viewpoint, but only if they are open to actual discussion and not just a pi$$ing contest. I have yet to find an anti-gun poster that falls into the category of being capable of adult debate.
@lun4m0n0" pro-gun looney tunes "Â
what do you call folks that think we're in 1938 Germany - Sane ?
btw lun - in their Reality, the fact that you even asked a serious question and dared gave references automatic makes you a gun grabber - anyone that has an opposing opinion is a Troll !!
@dg54321 @Cheetoh734 @Torqputty Don't worry, I'm me.  And I won't refer to people as pro-gun looney tunes (for example).  It's hard to have a serious conversation when you call people names.
@Cheetoh734 @Torqputty The only thing that makes me think I might be wrong is that the new poster has FAR better grammar and spelling skills than the current troll. But maybe that's part of the act....
@lun4m0n0 There is a myriad of posts below that explain this. Registration, throughout history, both ancient and recent, has proven that registration is a precursor to confiscation. They have to know who has the guns and where they are before they can take them away. See Australia and the UK for just two recent examples of how this works. The people allowed registration to take place then within a few years, laws were passed stating that guns were to be confiscated. Since the government knew where the guns were, they simply came and took them. Now the only people with guns in the UK and Australia are the criminals, and they have free reign.
@dg54321Â @lun4m0n0Â Â I did a little research:
Murder rate
US: 4.8/100k
Australia: 1.0/100k
UK: 1.2/100k
Violent Crime Rate
US: 6.47/100k
Australia: 1.14/100k
UK: 1.57/100k
Maybe well thought about gun registration and gun control is a good idea. Â And that starts with background checks, right? Â Why wouldn't we want to do a background check before anyone buys a gun?
@lun4m0n0Â @dg54321Â 1996 Australia used it's list of registered semiauto hunting rifles to confiscate all those weapons.
Since the gun ban took effect in Austrilia, their violent crime rate has increased over 42%
@lun4m0n0Â @dg54321Â The only way to effectively administer independent gun sales background checks is through gun owner registration. Right now, it is easy enough for them to check to ensure that licensed dealers are following the rules. You do have to be licensed to sell guns retail. The background check is done and the information is released. Every time I buy a new gun, I submit to the same process regardless of how many times I have purchased from that store. If you implement this law, the only way to enforce it is to register the guns and owners so you can track the trail of ownership. THIS is what the objection is. I dont know about you, but I certainly do not feel I should be registering my grandfather's gun or need to do a background check when I transfer the weapon to my grandson. So it ends up being a "feel good" law that has no way of really being enforced and will have zero impact on the availability of guns to felons and others that should not own guns. A national data base enables the government control over what was promised in our constitution to be outside of government control as part of our unalienable rights. I can guarantee you that the Australians are cursing themselves right now for seven kinds of fools for allowing the government to take their freedoms away...
@lun4m0n0 @dg54321 The bill is disingenuous...People are already voluntarily doing background checks at gun shows. What they want to limit is us transferring firearms between legal gun owners, because they can't track it. That's not paranoia, its whats real. None, literally none, of the parts of this bill will have one iota of impact on people willing to violate the law, they are already violating the law and they will continue to do so...Â
@lun4m0n0Â @dg54321You are playing with statistics. Look at the increase in violent crime rates between the US and countries that ban guns, right after they ban the guns. There is a huge spike in the rate.Â
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=17847
@dg54321Â @lun4m0n0Â Wait, what? Â So, another serious question... Â If you already have to get a background check at a gun show, then what is this law for? Â Seriously. Â I thought this law was to clear up the "gun show loophole." Â Or am I confused.
@Exiled_Patriot @dg54321 115,000 babies killed each day?
@lun4m0n0 @dg54321 personaly I would rather do something about the 115,000 babies killed in america each day. I guess maybe if we shot them then maybe there would be a out cry.
@lun4m0n0 @dg54321 um try to use the numbers correct. Us homicide rate is high it includes police shootings and justifiable homicides to remove those and we are below the UK.
@dg54321 -Â " if I wanted to gift my gun to my child when they turn 21, I would have to do a background check on my own family. "
doesn't the 5th Amendment apply here ? and how is anyone outside your family gonna know unless you tell them ? are they having random gun ID checks at the gun range ?Â
btw - good response on the gun show comment - at least your doing your homework in addition to being paranoid !
@lun4m0n0Â @dg54321Â Felons do not buy their guns from people who do background checks!!! come on people!!
@lun4m0n0 @dg54321 See, that's more misinformation. You DO have to do a background check at a gun show, to buy anything. In this state at least. WAC enforces that rule statewide, and they are the only player here for gun shows. They are also trying to eliminate private transfers with this law, meaning if I wanted to gift my gun to my child when they turn 21, I would have to do a background check on my own family.....this is just ridiculous. And it won't stop crime. The fact that there is already defacto registration of pistol purchases from an FFL doesn't make it right or correct. It should be done away with. If there was an easy, free way to run a NICS check as an everyday citizen, without the firearm information, and no information was kept by the government, I would support that. But anything that registers X gun to Y person is a registration database and ripe for abuse by an overcontrolling government. I would never support a law that included provisions for storing that information.
@lun4m0n0Â @dg54321Â You do...You have to go through a background check to be a member of WAC, and you can't buy at shows without a member badge...There are background checks at gun shows. The only way around this is "parking lot" deals which would happen anyway...
@dg54321Â @lun4m0n0Â Personally, I would like to do something about the 8k to 11k deaths per year from guns. Â Background checks to keep felons from buying guns seems like a great place to start. Â I already have to get a background check if I go to Wade's, why not if I buy one from a gun show? Â That seems perfectly reasonable. There's no registration, no confiscation, no one taking your freedoms. Â They are just trying to keep guns out of the hands of felons.
@kam90 @dg54321 Law abiding citizens can't exercise their 2nd amendment rights in New York city if that what you're referring to. The number of hoops, rules, regulations, licenses, and fees makes it uncomfortable to say the least, impossible for most. Did someone ring the Obama campaign office/moveon.org/brady organization dinner bell? All of the sudden like 4 people citing the exact same sources and trumpeting the exact same copy and paste rhetoric showed up at the exact same time...Coincidence?
@kam90 - "You already have to register a gun to yourself"Â
i wonder why that Fact slips by the gun nuts !!
@dg54321 anti gun trolls? sounds more like you're a pro gun troll by your over heated reaction and your accessory quote from King Leonidas in your icon. History doesn't guarantee anything other than that it happened not that it will happen again, You already have to register a gun to yourself in other states such as New York and they've had that law on the books for a while and still no seizure or confiscations other than illegally held weaponry.
@lun4m0n0 @dg54321 I get very frustrated when uninformed people attempt to take away my freedoms in the name of some imaginary safety. Educate yourself, learn history and then get back to me. On the very page you listed, it shows that (despite your cherry picked "statistics") the US is still a very safe place to live. We have the 2nd highest gun ownership per capita in the world, yet we are 28th on the violent crime list. If the over 300 million guns in circulation were really a concern, one would think we would be up in the area of, oh, Yemen for violent crime and murder. We aren't. There are, depending on who you believe, anywhere from 8K to 11K gun-related deaths per year. That includes accidents, suicides, self defense related shootings and even POLICE shootings. The "statistics" are skewed, and unfortunately there is no way to honestly view the real numbers, because everyone doing studies on this is biased one way or the other. But logic tells us that, again, if gun ownership was a problem, with over 300 million guns owned by private citizens, blood should be running in the streets. It isn't. The only shootings you hear about on regular occasions are gang related. They will not be stopped by any of the proposed legislation. For the umpteenth time, it will only harm law abiding citizens by enforcing a defacto registration, leading to confiscation in the future. It has happened time and time again. To think it cannot happen here is foolish and short sighted.....at best.
@dg54321Â @lun4m0n0Â Easy there turbo. Â It was a serious question, because to me it doesn't make sense. Â I am a gun owner, but I also think with that right comes some responsibility. Â Here's where I got the murder rate stats:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
The violent crime stats came from the FBI and the UN. Â
Oh, and I get very frustrated that we can't even have a conversation about what to do about guns without people FREAKING OUT.
@lun4m0n0 @dg54321 Oh, I see. So you WEREN'T asking a serious question. You just wanted to hear yourself talk. Well, carry on then. Because I notice there is no source in your so-called "statistics" that have been seen on KOMO forums before, and have been proven to be blatant lies, time and time again. In fact, I somehow doubt you are really a "new" poster on here, but just another moniker for one of the anti-gun trolls that have been thoroughly routed previously and now think a new user name with a picture of a girl attached to it will get different treatment. Hint: it won't. (Especially since the post was made about half a second before "torqputty" liked it. Not hard to figure out if you have a functional brain.)
@lun4m0n0 In literally every case historically registration leads to confiscation or compulsory "buy backs" which is confiscation with compensation. It is the first step if someone wanted to trample people's 2nd amendment rights. You can't take it away if you don't know where it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORt_k7LjGDg
The only thing Dr. Paul trips up on here is to say the Constitution gives us rights....the Constitution doesn't GIVE us rights, it just affirms the rights we ALREADY HAVE. Just a slip of the tongue. As he (and our founding fathers) says, if we give up our rights in the name of safety, we WILL lose both and gain nothing, while those in high places will simply gain power because of our ignorance and apathetic nature.
@dg54321Â Said it pretty well and too the point... there is no cop on every street corner to protect us - so we have the right to protect ourselves... and.... if a gun is misused it needs to be handled in the COURTS!
Oh the sheeple.....No need to be led the the slaughter, they run full steam to it. Very disturbing.
- if lawmakers fail to pass this Bill, we'll just take to the voters - No Problem !!Â
@TorqputtyGood luck with that, once people realize this law would actually ban all private sales through impossible requirements, the people will vote it down.Â
@NW-Economist - " Stuart Elway poll shows that 79 percent of Washington residents favor background checks in all gun sales.'
@TorqputtyIt's a ban if they tell you you can only have a private sale with a background check and then make it impossible to get that background check. You must not be the sharpest crayon in the box....
@Torqputty @dg54321 @NW-Economist Riiight......you're pro-2A like I'm pro big government. Which is to say, not at all. You aren't fooling anyone. Anybody pro-2A would know better and would never promote such a dangerous idea as universal registration.Â
@Fantastico OMG that again !!
@dg54321 @Torqputty Easy to fix an election when you don't have to prove you're a citizen of this country to vote.
@dg54321 @NW-Economist - Lets be Clear and get this out of the way - I am Pro 2nd Amendment !!!
@dg54321 - DG - You get too upset and so easily - Now run along please !
@Torqputty So you admit you don't know anything about what you are ranting about. The only person appearing upset is you. We are just stating facts....something I know is anathema to you.....
Dang, I broke my promise to stop poking the troll.....
@NW-Economist - I love you NRA typse - you get so upset with opposing opinions !! - No i dont know if i can check it for $20 and stay profitable - doesnt mean this Bill "sneak attempt to ban all private firearms" - Thats simply NRA Paranoia!
@NW-Economist @Torqputty When you buy a gun from a dealer, the cost of running the NICS check and maintaining their system is factored into the sale price of the firearm. It costs the dealer money to keep running background checks through this system. This is part of why an FFL transfer costs you money; the dealer isn't making a dime on the gun itself so they have to recoup their costs for running the NICS check on a shipped gun.
@Torqputty @NW-EconomistSee? You know nothing about this. You aren't a licensed dealer. The licensed dealers have something called business overhead and it functionally costs them more than they can make for doing those checks for only $20 or less, so therefore they literally can't do them or their business will suffer and die. The cops are forbidden to to them for this purpose.
Educate yourself about the bill before you shoot your mouth off.Â
@dg54321 - Good - go away with your Nonsense - if you cant keep up then shut up !!
@Torqputty @dg54321 Well I'm glad you just came out and admitted that you are, indeed, one of those people who gladly sells their freedom for imaginary safety.
I'll stop feeding the unintelligible troll now.....
@NW-Economist - No Problem - I'll do it for you for $20 !!
@Torqputty @NW-EconomistEven if that were true, that's not what this bill does.
This bill tells people they can have a private sale if they get a background check. Then it tells them that the two ways to get a background check are at a dealer or the police for no more than $20. Dealers have testified that they won't do it for $20 or less and the bill doesn't force them. Police are forbidden from using the NICS system for private background checks by federal regulations.
So this bill tells people they can only have a private sale if they get a background check, but there's no way to get a background check.
This bill is a sneak attempt to ban all private firearms sales in WA.
@dg54321- and the "useful idiots"will give background checks all it needs to pass - ur Awesome !!
@Torqputty @dg54321 No, I knew with fraudsters in the right places it wasn't hard to buy the election. That and "useful idiots" gave Obama all he needed to "win" the election. But do try to stay "on topic".
@dg54321 - i suppose you're one of those that thought Romney would win the Election !!
@Torqputty @NW-Economist Perhaps you missed the myriad of posts exposing the Elway group for the fraud it is. Not that it matters with your willful ignorance. It will never pass. Even if it did it would be largely ignored. It's quite pathetic that you say the same things over and over and refuse to even TRY to come up with something other than the oft-debunked lies people like you try to spread.
%s