WHO GETS TO LIVE, AND WHO DECIDES?

Just a few points to those who really do want information with which to make an informed decision on universal background checks and magazine limitations.

There already is an instant background check in place.  It’s been there for years.  It will tell a gun dealer if a person has a criminal record or is wanted for any felony or even certain misdemeanors.  Certain things, like a history of mental illness, and even certain felony convictions, are not in the data base because of Federal Privacy Laws.  The NRA was the leading proponent of this system, and has been highly critical of the limitations placed on it by pro-crime liberal hacks.  The system is automated and non-prejudicial, though, of course, the algorithms programmed into it are subject to the prejudices of the programmers. 

The problem with a “universal background check” is that it would require private citizens to request the same check that has long been required of dealers.  Part of the security of the IBCS is that a dealer must enter an identification code, or password, in order to access the system. This prevents any random citizen from checking up on his neighbors.  The proposed universal system would eliminate this important protection.  It would also increase, exponentially, the load on the system, and would either paralyze it or require millions of dollars’ worth of expansion and upgrade. That’s one problem.

Another problem is that when a citizen wishes to sell a firearm, and accesses the background check system, the system will then know what kind of firearm that citizen has, including the serial number.  The IBCS was very specifically prohibited from saving or reporting any of the information placed in it because to do so would be, in fact, registration of guns and owners. The government has tried several times to alter the present system so that it would report all sales to a government data base, but has been blocked by the courts.  Of course, that was before the courts were loaded with fascists by our present administration.

Contrary to popular myth, with the exception of machineguns, and certain local restrictions on scary-looking guns, there is no firearms registration in the United States.  Nor is there a requirement for a permit to purchase, except in the well-known gun- and crime-free utopias, like Chicago, Washington, DC, and New York City.  The NRA and all other intelligent organizations that represent the sentient portion of American society have fought tooth and nail against any registration schemes for the very simple reason that they so readily facilitate confiscation.  And before you start howling that no one is suggesting confiscation, wake up and spit out the Kool-Aid. Pelosi, Schumer, Feinstein, and host of other Liberals have pointed out that registration is “not the final answer, but it’s a start.”  They always say that, by the way, immediately before or after saying, in the most whining, petulant manner, “But this is all we want!  It’s only a reasonable measure,” then, BAM!  “It’s just a start toward the final solution.”

Well, there’s only one final solution on the registration road.  Do you see why we are so adamantly against anything that could be used as registration?  And if you think the government can keep such data safe and secure, don’t bother spitting out the Kool-Aid.  You’ve already ingested a fatal dose.

One last reason we resist background checks, though just about all of us have mixed emotions on this one.  Yes, we’d love to see people with a history of mental instability and hostility barred from gun ownership.   But how do you go about doing that?  There’s no way to do it without giving someone – either a doctor or a politician – both groups the very paragons of integrity and common sense, right? – the power to say, “This guy is too friggin’ crazy to have a gun.”  Now, they might occasionally be right; they might spot someone who is too crazy, but so far, they’ve done a piss-poor job of it!  They have released known violent felons back into our society at a staggering rate.  They have had people like Hinckley and others in custody – under evaluation for mental issues and violent tendencies – and turned ‘em loose.   There is no level or organization of government in the US that I would trust with such power.

It is excruciatingly obvious to me and a lot of my friends that the government will use this power to limit the rights of people they don’t like, and again, if you think this can’t happen, keep drinkin’; you’ve already rotted out your brain.  You honestly think these imbeciles can be trusted with that kind of power?  Stupidity must be catching. 

(And just as a throw-away line that ought will keep you awake at night if you have the sense to pound sand down a rathole:  even if you do trust the current administration, how do you feel about the fact that this power will also be given to every administration to follow, including, perhaps, a conservative?  Would you have given this power to Bush?)

Now. Magazines.  First, a magazine has nothing, whatsoever to do with the rate of fire of a firearm.  All it does is hold the cartridges (not the bullets!) in position for the action to pick them up and feed them into the firing chamber.  Except for single-shot arms, all firearms have magazines.  Some hold as few as three rounds, other hold many more.  To change the magazine in a handgun like the Glock, or the Colt Government model takes about a second or so. A double-action revolver can be reloaded with a speed loader in two to three seconds, though some pistoleros can reload their revolvers as fast as anyone can reload a semi-auto. To change the magazine in an AR-15 takes about the same, or, on average, maybe a second more.  But that’s under ideal conditions, not in the stress of combat.

The semi-automatic version of the military assault rifle, such as the AR-15 or the M-4, is light, quick and handy to swing from one target to the next, short enough to use in a confined space, such as a hallway or closet, medium-powered, so there isn’t much recoil, yet powerful enough to stop an assailant (no, assault rifles aren’t high-powered rifles).  With the increase in gang membership in the US, and of roving bands of maggots gone “wilding,” there is an increasing risk of encountering from two to a dozen assailants.  If they are on drugs or liquor, they can be totally unaware of being shot, even repeatedly.  To stop them, you have to deliver a crushing blow to their central nervous system.  Yes, pistols can do this, but a rifle is much more powerful than a pistol, and gives a higher chance of stopping the attack with fewer rounds fired.  (There is no such thing as a guaranteed one-shot stopper, including a 12-gauge shotgun slug.)

In short, the service rifle is an ideal home-defense weapon, especially for those who are less robust, physically, such as the elderly and many females.  But it can be de-fanged.  By limiting the magazine capacity to 10, or even 20 rounds, the user may well find themselves in a position of having to do a tactical (that means ”fast”) magazine change under the most stressful conditions imaginable.  If you think 20 or 30 rounds is enough to handle any situation, ask any Iraq or Afghanistan veteran if they’d willingly go into combat with dinky little magazines, and ask ‘em if they ever saw a drug-laced raghead soak up lead like a sponge and keep coming.  Oh, yeah, and ask ‘em if they ever missed a shot at said raghead that they’d have thought was an easy shot.

You see, even the best shots miss in combat, and bad guys can function with fatal, but not instantly fatal doses of lead poisoning, either of which can require more rounds to do the job.  Now consider the less-than-robust citizen, or the one with no real combat experience, in a life-or-death confrontation, perhaps with loved ones cowering behind.  The citizen fires all ten rounds of his or her government-approved, non-assault magazine, but the maggots are still coming.  Now he or she has to remove the empty magazine, (if you’re in California, you just died) get a grip on the full one, insert it in the well, slam it into place, close the bolt (praying the bolt actually fed the top round!) and resume firing – and all of this in the chaos and terror of a gunfight.  Wouldn’t our stalwart citizen have a better chance of victory (pronounced, “Survival”) if that first magazine had 30 or 40 rounds in it, to start with?  If he or she got the job done with nine, bravo, but if it takes 11, the odds of survival go ‘way down.

In short, restrictions on the type of weapon this citizen may own, or on the magazine capacity allowed, says – and not at all subtly – “If you ever find yourself attacked by more people than you can stop with x-number of rounds, we declare your life forfeit.  You will die, and we don’t give a damn, because when we whined, ‘If it only saves one life…’ we weren’t talking about yours.”

And that, right there, is the summation of the entire gun control debate:  The government is claiming the right to say under what circumstances you and your children will be allowed to live.  Historically, governments have done a lousy job of this.