Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Why the Instant Background Check is a Bad Idea

Congress has legislation before it to expand the Instant Background Check, aka the Brady Law.

Rather than expand the program, it should be abolished.
I agree, Mr. Pratt.

Now what is your plan for making that happen?

"Majority rule democracy"? Lobbying? Writing more essays?

Do you think it is more likely that rollbacks will happen all at once or in steps? You guys at GOA dismiss BIDS and I understand your reasons completely, and cannot argue with the purity of your position. But what I'm not seeing is an alternative.

I'm not trying to be a pain with this, I'm serious and sincere. You're the national gun rights leaders. Lead me.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As Russ Howard, my friend and co-creator of BIDS, has noted many times: BIDS gives up no new gun rights ground, and it takes back much lost ground. Our rights were not not legislated against in one instant, and anti-rights legislation will not be wiped out in one instant. So we must wipe it out piece by piece, and BIDS destroys big pieces. The NRA is not interested in BIDS or other decisive actions because the NRA is not interested in ending the gun rights war because that would put their multi-million dollar empire out of business. Google "Robert A. Levy: Should Congress" (with quote marks)to see how the NRA is AGAIN trying to undermine a potential Supreme Court case in our favor. As for GOA, refusing the "great" BIDS can do because it isn't "perfect" is foolish. Perfect can be achieved later, but only if we are willing to at least fight for great.

Anonymous said...

"Rather than expand the program, it should be abolished."

Wow. Why didn't I think of that? The genius of it! Why take back a giant chunk of rights and eliminate registration when we could just ask them to drop the whole background check system? If everyone in the gun rights community writes their legislators today, I'm sure that instead of EXPANDING background checks and registration, they'll instead see the wisdom of letting gun stores sell to convicted murderers. Easy Sale.

End Sarcasm...

They're considering EXPANDING the background check / registration system and we offer nothing but outright repeal or status quo as an alternative. Does that really seem like a good strategy? To me it seems like a strategy to lose, a strategy facilitate THEIR incrementalism. Our side should have gone on the offensive with something like BIDS. I don't get it.

Russ Howard