A BIDS Clarification

I received the following clarifying points on the Blind Identification Database System (BIDS) from Russ Howard and Brian Puckett in response to my recent "Talkin' to America" interview with Aaron Zelman of JPFO:

From Russ Howard:

Good article in Guns Magazine - and JPFO interview. Thanks for bringing it up again when no one else will! A few key things I'd like to emphasize. Not that you don't already know...

1. The government doesn't need to establish a registration system. It already has one, with national lists. Private dealer lists are de facto national registration lists. In that regard, NICS is a dangerous red herring. Keeping names through NICS would be a convenience for the government over the existing national registration system, but the government can already get the names from dealers when it gets the will. Until dealer lists are discontinued and destroyed, we have national registration. If any group knows the historical danger of de facto registration via privately held state-mandated gun owner lists, it's JPFO.

2. Full implementation of BIDS implies timely destruction, soon after BIDS passes, of all private dealer records that identify gun buyers. Currently, dealers that go out of business are required to turn over their lists to the government. Waiting for a dealer to go out of business to require list destruction would be unreliable as the dealer would likely be bankrupt, dead, disabled, etc., and the lists of those dealers who don't go out of business would always be available for confiscation. As long as dealers keep gun buyer identifications, we have national registration. As Brian Puckett notes (see email below), "There is no point in keeping one branch of the government from compiling a list of gun owners if other branches are doing that exact thing". Likewise, there's no point eliminating lists directly held by the government without eliminating indirectly held lists that can become directly held at any time. It's lame to fight the former while ignoring the latter, perpetuating the myth that we don't already have registration.

3. In re: "We think just deleting GCA 68 entirely is preferable to gutting it via BIDS"... Of course, that's our preference too. Anyone who knows us should know if we could eliminate GCA 68 by snapping our fingers, it would be gone. We don't want to save GCA 68 with BIDS, we want to eviscerate it.

But just deleting GCA 68 is not going to happen - certainly not in one fell swoop. So why not at least use BIDS as a persuasive hammer to beat the enemy over the head, and use it to expose the key goal of those who push registration via background checks? A pro forma argument might go something like ...

"Registration does not have to be an intrinsic aspect of background checks. The law could be changed so that a dealer could check to make sure a buyer is not a violent criminal without the government ever knowing who is buying guns, and without the creation of lists of gun owners. If you want background checks for crime reduction rather than as a vehicle for registration for the purpose of eventual confiscation, and if there are viable ways for dealers to avoid selling to criminals without building de facto registration lists of decent citizens, then why insist on coupling background checks with registration? The anti-gun crowd insists on marrying background checks and registration because it's really about registration and confiscation for them, not crime control."

BIDS is not a compromise. It doesn't give up something in return for something else. It gives the enemies of freedom nothing, while taking a lot back.

BIDS isn't just incremental. It totally guts the most dangerous aspect of GCA 68, and it's self-reinforcing. It largely eliminates the gun grabbers' incentive to defend the surviving sections of GCA 68. It essentially repeals GCA 68, but the name would live on, like a hollow tree ready to fall over in a high wind.

From Brian Puckett:

[G]un buyer checks are not going to be repealed unless we have a change of government, or the Supreme Court starts adhering to the written constitution, or the public starts thinking its a good idea for paroled murderers to walk into stores and buy guns. This will not happen any time soon, if ever. BIDS will eliminate all the bad parts of background checks, since the government doesn't perform them and therefore doesn't know who's buying a gun. If the entire proposal is accepted, all dealer forms would be destroyed..., AND the government would destroy its ongoing compilation of gun owners via surrendered dealer form 4473's.

As noted in the proposal:

(a) Elimination of current records.

One purpose of BIDS is to eliminate possible gun owner registration via NICS background searches and associated records. If that goal is valid, then it makes no sense to continue other methods of gun owner registration. Therefore any requirement that dealers enter the names of gun buyers on firearm transaction records (such as BATF Form 4473, or state Dealers Record of Sale forms) should be halted. There is no point in keeping one branch of the government from compiling a list of gun owners if other branches are doing that exact thing.

In keeping with the overall goal of eliminating gun owner registries, ideally every gun owner's name would be deleted from every existing state and federal electronic registry, and from every paper record in federal, state, or private hands.

At a time when there are those in government coveting an expansion of NICS to include a full-blown database registry, it's not unfair to ask why the major gun groups--who have known about BIDS for years--refuse to explore its potential. If the only place you hear about it is via a humble blog like this, get ready for more infringements of your rights.