A Second Amendment group is warning gun owners that a "massive gun control bill" is now working its way through Congress -- and is surprisingly close to becoming law.Why doesn't that surprise me?
Gun Owners of America also admits that it is the only national pro-gun group to oppose the "NICS Improvement Act of 2005" (H.R. 1415)....
Okay with NRA
The National Rifle Association takes a less ominous view of the bill.
"This bill...would improve availability of criminal history and other records for conducting background checks on firearm buyers," says an analysis on the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action website.
Still, missing from the debate is a system proposed years ago that would allow for checks without identifying individual gun owners. Did you know such a proposal existed?
I thought not.
It been ignored by the major gun groups.
The Blind Identification Database System, or BIDS, was developed by my friends Russ Howard and Brian Puckett. Note that they are the first ones to admit that no prior restraint is constitutional, and that background checks are ineffective at keeping guns out of the hands of "prohibited persons" (as if there is government authority to prohibit or put prior restraints on anyone who is not incarcerated).
But what BIDS would do is reduce the amount of infringement the government is currently forcing on us, and preclude them having a registration list of identified gun owners as NICS provides.
Anyone who has read my work knows I prefer no system--my long-stated position is anyone who can't be trusted with a gun can't be trusted without a custodian. But I have also long admitted I am a minority, and stipulate that those who tout the benefits of incrementalism view people like me as unrealistic "absolutists" (hell, an NRA rep once warned people that Brian and I were "wild-eyed extremists"!)
So here's my challenge to the majority: Why not BIDS? So far, the only objection I've heard is "it's not politically feasible."
Yeah, I guess if all the major gun groups are going to suppress it from the debate, that's probably correct. Let's just all give up before we even engage. That'll win back our gun rights.
Click on the BIDS link above and save your own copy of this proposal.
My guess is only a few gun owners will even take the time to read the whole thing. Which brings me back to the start of this post--I still need to work on "Profiles in Apathy."
10 comments:
So, you are not behind BIDS? Or you are because it's better than what we have?
I don't know if this is the way to go if we want a true practice of the Second Amendment. Say we support it, any other liberty-minded, or later, if it succeeds, attempts to re-establish our Second Amendment would be discounted, would it not?
Or do you think a step by step process is best?
You know more than I.
Stan, I don't believe in prior restraints or "prohibited persons" who are not in custodial care. That said, BIDS removes the identification of individual gun buyers from the record, so it is really a rollback of infringements, albeit admittedly not a complete one.
But it's really not up to whether or not I agree with it--the challenge is for the incrementalists who say we need to gradually take our rights back--this would undoubtedly do it--so there is no reason why they should not back it, and they are the vast majority of gun activists.
But they won't. Most will not read this post, those who do will not share it with others, and this will be one more avenue left unexplored--even though the "gun rights" groups are wll aware of it.
Think of it-- an end to federal registration data via the background check--that's a sea change. And no one will hear of it, and the ones who do won't particularly care.
I fear things will need to get much worse before people are motivated to change. I wonder once the need for urgency strikes how many will just fold out of hand. We can't do the simple, safe and easy things. What will become of us if things get truly arduous and the existing danger is unmasked and unleashed?
I'll study it, and post on it.
I've had time to read only a few pages, but I can see that BIDS is an improvement. I'll support it. I can write Voinovich and DeWine and Kucinich, for all the good it will do, but I'll do it anyway. Better men than I pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor; I suppose I can afford to waste an hour.
To stan's first post: I don't think it precludes or discounts a thing (incrementalism doesn't preclude being ready for the worst, either). Precedent: Remember the California assault weapon ban and registration, "cross my heart and hope to die stick a needle in my eye we'll never ever try confiscation?" Remember Dan Lungren, a few years later, when he was thinking of running for guber?
I'll post about BIDS before the month is out. My four readers need to hear about it.
I've just started reading this because I wanted to be sure I would have plenty of uninterrupted time to focus on it.
Right now my questions is: What's up with KABA removing it from their archives? Are they just as wishy-washy as the NRA, or is there some other reason?
AlanDP--per Russ Howard:
"Alan Gottlieb, on the other hand, said it was a 'a really powerful idea', but we should keep 'discussing it among ourselves' and 'keep it low profile so the enemy won't know what we're doing'. Sure. To my knowledge, BIDS has never even been discussed in the 'Gun Rights Policy Conference' or SAF's 'Policy Journal'. Apparently, BIDS was such a great idea that gun rights leaders must never openly discuss it or even know about it, unlike the thousands of other gun rights policies and strategies publicly discussed at SAF's annual conference at the Circle-J Ranch. Maybe that's why Gottlieb eliminated the proposal from KeepAndBearArms.com along with many other important articles. Apparently it's a top-priority, top-secret project, scheduled for launch at just the right time, so secret and important that gun rights policy types must forget it ever was mentioned. Apparently the conference is just a smokescreen to throw the enemy off, and nothing of any real importance is discussed there. The real strategy cannot be trusted to GRPC participants."
That just doesn't make sense. How are they ever going to get support for it if they don't let gun owners in general know about it?
It does seem like a big improvement over NICS, to me.
"How are they ever going to get support for it if they don't let gun owners in general know about it?"
They're not.
Starting to make sense now?
Looking at it ... one could even remove the need for a govenrment based server ...
Use something similar to freenet, with the feds adding to the prohibited persons list with digitally signed documents.
Each gun dealer keeps a BIDS-net server that acts as a peer-to-peer member of a distributed database.
All of the dealers' PCs carry the load ... one server going down has little effect.
You know ... states could use this for CCW issueance, and then use it for background checks ... and force the feds into it.
This post is buried now, but I plan to post on it soon and will continually post on it. I asked Sen. Hatch in person about the 20,000 gun laws, he said he was "against gun laws". We'll see how he takes BIDS on a weekly basis until I'm satisfied. Same with Sen. Bennet, Congressman Matheson -yeah right, and Cannon. Stay tuned.
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