Why Do Gunners Oppose Universal Background Checks?

Tom Sheppard

5/4/2020

Supporters of the Second Amendment, often referred to as “gunners” or pro-gun rights advocates, often come out in opposition to a common-sense gun reform called universal background checks.  

Why?

As a law-abiding gun owner the term “universal background check” seems to mean, you check the background of every gun owner to make sure they aren’t criminals or mental defectives.  After all, no one wants to be “that guy” who sold a gun to the whack-o who killed a bunch of children at some school.

So, why would anyone oppose universal background checks?

To understand the resistance, we need to pull back the covers on this particular bed and see the little bed bugs crawling around between the covers waiting to bite us.

Those supporting this common-sense gun reform are often referred to as anti-gun, anti-gunners, gun-banners, or just banners.  This various names reflect the belief that those supporting gun control laws have as their ultimate aim the banning of all gun ownership by private individuals.  

To be fair, not everyone lumped into the gun-ban group wants that.  Regardless of the benign motives some of some gun-control advocates, history definitively shows that preventing the general populace from having access to weapons is a generally effective method of ensuring that they cannot overthrow a government, no matter how corrupt, predatory, or despotic it may be.  

Ancient history shows that feudal lords maintained power over their subjects and their serfs, despite their despotism, because they could afford arms and armor. If they found a peasant with an unauthorized sword or armor they killed him or her.  One of the privileges of being knighted was the freedom to carry a sword anytime you wanted.

In more recent times, the American Revolution got kick started when British troops marched from Boston to Concord with the intent to confiscate guns and ammunition being stored there by the colonial militia. The British wanted to confiscate these weapons and ammunition in order to keep the colonists under the rule of King George.

Modern history has also shown that first controlling, and then confiscating private firearms has been effectively used by several despotic regimes to control their populace.  One of the best know examples is Nazi Germany.  However, this also is a hallmark of the Soviet Union, Castro in Cuba, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, and Chavez in Venezuela.

For many gunners, nearly any gun-control law is seen as part of the slippery slope that leads to gun confiscation.  Because of that, some gunners reflexively oppose universal background checks as part of that slippery slope.

I consider myself a reasonable person.  I try to see things from viewpoints other than my own and recognize that at times, I might be guilty of being short-sighted or reactionary.  When I first heard the term universal background check for gun purchases, I thought it sounded reasonable and was supportive of the notion.  As I continued to see strong opposition to it from some other gun owners, I decided to look a little closer to see why some seemed so adamantly opposed.

Universal background check laws are designed expand the existing requirements beyond commercial firearms sales to regulate 100% of private firearms exchanges.  By private, I mean between you and your cousin, you and your neighbor, and even your yard sale (or classified ad sale).

Today, there are both federal and state laws which heavily regulate the sale and transfer of firearms handled by licensed firearm dealers.  To buy a gun from a gun store or manufacturer, whether in their storefront or at a gun show, you have to pass a federal background check.  This sort of transaction is what most of us are thinking about when we hear the term universal background check.

Universal, in this case, really means universal. 

Universal background checks would make you a felon if you gave a gun to your brother or to your adult child.  It would make it a felony for an estate to allow heirs to inherit firearms from their parents.  In both cases, the transfer of the gun cannot occur without the execution of a federal or state (or both) background check.  This is true even if the firearm is an antique flintlock that no longer works but which has been handed down through your family since Revolutionary War days.

Not only is it incredibly intrusive to authorize the government to get in the middle of private, non-commercial, firearm transfers it also sets an incredibly horrible precedent for our economic freedoms in general.

If the government can make you a felon for giving away a gun, or selling it to someone you know, without first going through the government for clearance, they can make you a criminal for anything and everything you sell or give away.

The Yard-Sale Felony Caper

In most neighborhoods during the Spring and Fall in most parts of the US on any given weekend you can find dozens of yard sales, garage sales, and “tag” sales happening throughout your town.  Maybe you have hosted more than one yourself.  Probably, you have visited more than one.

In many cases the adage applies that the difference between a yard sale and garbage collection is how close the items are placed to the curb.  Regardless of this, often one person’s trash is another’s treasure.

Now, imagine that some agent of the Internal Revenue Service is tasked with showing up at each yard sale, monitoring the transactions and making sure that not only are sales taxes collected on each sale, but the transfers themselves are recorded and your yard sale earnings are properly recorded for reporting on your income tax.  And, if you aren’t doing all that at your yard sale, that government agent simply calls the police who come to your yard sale, arrest you and all your family who are helping in the sale, and then confiscating all the stuff you were trying to sell.

You and every member of your family are now economic criminals.  Because this involved federal taxes, you are now indicted felons.  When you get convicted – and you will be convicted because you were blatantly guilty – you are now convicted felons.  Even if you never serve a day in jail your life and that of each member of your family are now changed forever.

Note: If you can afford a good lawyer, you might manage to avoid getting convicted.  If you can't afford a good lawyer, then kiss your "law abiding citizen" moniker goodbye forever.  You are going to become just another felon.  Your public defender is unlikely to prevent this.

As a convicted felon you will never be able to hold a job anywhere in the financial sector, at all.  No bank, insurance company, or finance company can hire you because you cannot be bonded – insured against financial misconduct.  And that is just the tip of the iceberg.  Just ask any convicted felon how hard it is to find a really good job, or any job, after they get out of jail.  One reason for criminal recidivism is that it is incredibly difficult for a convicted criminal to ever make an honest living.  Your yard sale did this to you, and to all your children as well.  That felony will follow them for the rest of their lives.

Universal tax collection, like universal background checks makes millions of ordinary citizens into criminals.  Even today economists refer to the “gray market” and the “black market” economic activities within the US and other countries.  The gray markets are un-taxed transfers of legal goods between private individuals in non-commercial quantities.  The black market is based on either commercial volumes of business of lawful goods, or when the products are illegal.

I know this yard-sale-felony scenario sounds crazy.  However, it is a logical next step after the government turns your Uncle into a felon for giving you your great grandfather’s pistol without first registering the transfer with the government and running a background check on you.

I believe that the common-sense gun reform of universal background checks is a nice sounding wrapper on a big candy-coated bar of dung.  Currently we have both federal and state laws which require licensing for firearms dealers, and which require them to run background checks on everyone who buys a gun from them.  Common sense says that is universal enough.  Extending the requirement for background checks to private, non-commercial gifting, inheriting, or sale of guns is not common-sense, and it will inevitably lead to much worse things.

FYI- According to the laws today you are supposed to report the money you earn from your yard sale along with your other income on your tax returns.  However, today there aren't any federal agents looking to lock you up for failing to report the $532.18 you recouped for selling your old junk, outgrown clothes, and that ready to did lawn mower you sold at your last yard sale.

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Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

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