The NRA claims that widespread gun ownership is not a substantial risk to people generally.
If this is so, there's a way to structure the law based on that "truth" and to resolve the political standoff over universal background checks.
Make background checks mandatory by federal law in all cases. But, like the "mandate" in Obamacare, there is no enforcement mechanism. That is, you are instructed to get a background check even when transferring your gun to family or friends but if you think it's a safe transfer, you can ignore the requirement, no harm and no foul.
However, if the transferee incurs criminal liability say, by a robbery.
Or if the transferee incurs civil liability, say, by firing into the air and shooting someone by accident.
Then you, who decided on your own hook that the transfer was safe, decided that you were not externalizing a threat to the commons for your own convenience....you have joint and several liability for the results of your error.
What could possibly go wrong?
Tony Hillerman used to say there’s more cultural distance between city folk and country folk than between non-Indians and Indians. The categories overlap substantially.
Most Indians remain country folk. The government tried to replicate the great migration of African-Americans to the cities, but Indians kept returning home.
So most of us don’t get heated up about firearms. A rifle is as normal as a chainsaw and just as dangerous.
Because the Bill of Rights does not govern Indian land, tribal governments could ban firearms without regard to the Second Amendment, but because of the rural character of the cultures, there is no enthusiasm for doing so. This in spite of homicide and suicide rates that are often much higher than the surrounding states.
The NRA would say that if you make firearms unavailable to suicidal persons, they will find some other method. While that’s a logical argument, the data go the other way. Gun control can in fact move the suicide needle. The data on homicide are less clear, but firearms do make homicide more efficient.
On Dec. 14, 2012, a crazy man entered an elementary school with a knife and stabbed 22 children and one adult. Fatalities: zero.
On the same day, another crazy man entered an elementary school with a rifle and opened fire on 20 children and eight adults. Fatalities: 26.
Having owned firearms all my adult life, I never expected to have a beef with the NRA. The NRA represented safety courses and shooting competitions.
So I was a little surprised during one of my elections when the NRA wanted me to sign on against a bill banning ammunition that would defeat “bulletproof” vests (the makers don’t call them “bulletproof” because they’re not).
I’d never seen a deer wearing a vest, and most of the humans who wore them were cops, people I knew in my daily life. So I was in favor of making the vests closer to bulletproof by limiting ammunition.
Then there are high capacity magazines. Where I come from, if you need 30 rounds to accomplish your purpose, there is something wrong with your purpose or your marksmanship.
Then there’s the NRA claim that putting red tape around gun sales would not save lives.
The machine gun, by Thompson or Browning, used to be the weapon of choice for criminals in big cities. Machine guns are not outlawed—just stiffly taxed and regulated—and since that became the case, you don’t see fully automatic weapons used in crime.
Then there’s the NRA’s opposition to taggants in explosive powder, which can trace it back to the maker and the batch and therefore when and where it was sold. The following arguments support their position:
1. It would make powder more expensive.
2. It would not deter bomb makers because they could easily make their own powder.
3. The taggants sometimes incinerate at high temperature.
4. You can't stop anybody crazy enough to make bombs.
These arguments sound familiar, but I'm just finding out about making bombs as a civil liberty. I'm from the generation that considered five bucks to blow at the fireworks stand a treat.
I’ve parted ways with the NRA, and I no longer consider it a tenet of American exceptionalism that we have the best armed wingnuts in the world.
If it’s true that guns don’t kill people but people kill people, why not keep guns away from known crazy people and criminals? That’s the law now if you buy your gun from a licensed firearms dealer.
The only law to come out of the massacre of schoolchildren was not directed at guns, but rather at criminals and crazy people, closing the twin loopholes of gun shows and internet sales.
The GOP filibustered this measure, as they filibuster everything in the Obama years, and so 54 to 46 was not enough votes.
The NRA told us that background checks would do no good at all.
OK, lets take them at their word.
Make gun owners share both civil and criminal liability for any misuse of their guns, including by family and friends, but make it a complete defense to liability that the transfer was done with a background check, which should be both fast and free.
If background checks are useless, what could possibly go wrong? The NRA wants to shift all the risk of firearms away from the people amused by firearms and toward the public.
They claim the risk is trivial. If that’s so, why should gun owners worry about sharing it?