background checks

What’s Really in the Universal Background Check Bill

March 1, 2019 by GregC

Listen to “What’s Really in the Universal Background Check Bill” on Spreaker.

This week, the House of Representatives passed legislation requiring universal background checks for any gun purchase, but one of the leading defenders of the second amendment says there a whole lot more in the bill than meets the eye.

Universal background checks sound simple. The idea is that if you want to buy a firearm, you must go through a background check to make sure you don’t have a criminal record or present a threat to those around you. But Gun Owners of America Legislative Counsel Mike Hammond says there are all sort of transfer provisions that could turn any gun owner into a lawbreaker.

“If you transfer a gun to any other person for as little as a second and you don’t come with an exception, you are a criminal and can be put in prison for up to a year.

“So if you sell your gun to your son for a dollar, you’re a criminal. If you give your gun to your stepson, you’re a criminal. If you hand your gun to your neighbor to look at and go into the kitchen for a paper towel, you’re a criminal. If you go hunting with a friend and hand him your gun and he doesn’t have a hunting license or is a veteran with PTSD, you’re a criminal,” said Hammond.

“It’s simply an effort to make gun ownership so full of trap doors that no one wants to own a gun because every time you handle that gun or hand that gun to someone, you basically risk going to jail,” he added.

Hammond says no mass shooter in 20 years would have been stopped by this legislation. He says law-abiding Americans are the only ones who get stopped from buying guns with a background check.

“Most people who walk into gun dealers and fail background checks, their overwhelming reaction is absolute surprise. They’re people like veterans, people who haven’t paid traffic tickets, people whose psychiatrists have turned them in, people who had no idea in the world that the convolutions of federal law would prohibit them from purchasing a firearm.

“The murderers, on the other hand, just get their guns on the street,” said Hammond.

Listen to the full podcast to hear more of Hammond’s analysis of the House bill, why he thinks the legislation is already dead even before getting to the Senate, and what he thinks Democrats would push for if the universal background check bill ever became law.

Crippling Iran Sanctions, Gun Control vs. Facts, Blankenship Won’t Go Away

May 21, 2018 by GregC

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for inflicting punishing sanctions on Iran, making it clear the Trump administration does not think the Iranian regime can be partners on anything. They also sigh as the gun control movement tries to advance its agenda again after the Santa Fe High School shooting, even though their proposed legislation would have done nothing to prevent this horrific shooting. Jim also asks why so few are interested in finding out why teenage boys are now lashing out and killing people when they are bullied or rejected by girls. And they discuss Don Blankenship’s pathetic attempt to keep running for U.S. Senate in West Virginia despite getting thrashed in the GOP primary and a West Virginia law that prevents losers in primaries from running again in the general election.

What ‘Solutions’ Will Stop Mass Shootings?

March 6, 2018 by GregC

Gun control activists and a growing number of Republicans insist something must be done to address gun violence but one of the leading researchers on guns says the data prove the gun control proposals getting discussed will not stop future atrocities but ideas getting shouted down by Democrats and the media would make a difference.

More and more Republicans are urging action by Congress, from universal background checks to denying people on the No Fly List from purchasing guns. Some aren’t even sure what they want but insist something needs to get passed and President Trump needs to lead on the issue.

“You have an obligation to give us a package to consider, regarding school safety and guns. You did a good job talking in front of the country about the problem,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

“Propose something, Mr. President, and I think Republicans have an obligation to work with Democrats to make it law if we can,” added Graham.

Crime Prevention Research Center President Dr. John Lott has studied gun and crime data for decades. He is not impressed by the generic demand for action.

“I’m very frustrated by this whole debate myself. What makes me even more frustrated is the fact that the types of solutions that are being offered have really nothing to do with stopping these types of mass public shootings,” said Lott.

Lott then took aim at ideas like expanded background checks and banning so-called assault weapons, explaining why he thinks they would’t work.

“The number one solution that Democrats go to all the time are the background checks on private transfers of guns. If that type of law had been in effect, it wouldn’t have stopped any mass public shooting this century or even years before that. And yet they keep pushing it,” said Lott.

He says the statistics on “assault weapons” are also unconvincing.

“To go and ban guns based on how they look really never made much sense to me and there’s a lot of academic research that shows that it had no impact on these types of crimes,” said Lott.

Many conservatives recoiled last week when President Trump seemed warm to ideas ranging from raising the minimum age for purchasing rifles to expanded background checks and possibly even portions of an “assault weapons” ban.

Lott says people need to remember how Trump approaches policy and adds he will not judge Trump until he sees concrete proposals.

“I don’t put too much weight on any one part of the conversation. I want to see what comes out in the end, but Trump is a very practical person. You can’t go and argue with him, I don’t believe, just saying this is a right.

“I don’t think that’s the way he thinks about things. He wants to know what will work, what will stop these types of things,” said Lott.

Lott is very pleased Trump seems to be on board with allowing teachers and staff voluntarily conceal carry on school property. He also applauds Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., for introducing legislation to repeal the federal gun-free zones.

He says the research shows those zones are magnets for deranged killers.

“I don’t know how somebody can get around it. You read the diaries, you read the other statements these killers leave, they’re very explicit on why they picked the targets that they do. Over 98 percent of the mass public shootings since 1950 have occurred in places where guns are banned,” said Lott.

Politicians in both parties recoil at the idea of teachers and school staff voluntarily carrying guns, with some preferring armed security instead. Lott says that’s not nearly as effective.

“Putting somebody in uniform is like putting someone there with a neon sign that says ‘Shoot me first,'” said Lott. “If it’s concealed (on staff or teachers), the attackers won’t even know who they have to worry about. It takes away the strategic advantage that these killers have.”

But is there any evidence that arming faculty and staff will work?

“It varies a lot across states but there are 25 states that allow staff and teachers to carry to varying degrees. There’s never been an attack at one of those schools,” said Lott.

Of course, mass shootings don’t only happen in schools, and Lott says concealed carry is also the best defense of those settings as well.

“We have 17 million Americans in this country who have a concealed carry permit. They’re at the malls. They’re at the restaurants, at the movie theaters, at the grocery stores. You have no clue whether somebody next to you has a concealed carry permit or not.

“If you take out California and New York, over eight percent of the adult population in the rest of the country has a concealed carry permit. It’s very likely when you’re just going around that there are people there who have a gun. You’d only know if something bad happened,” said Lott.

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Trump Embraces Dem Gun Plans, Hicks Hits the Bricks, Economy Booming

March 1, 2018 by GregC

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America unload on President Trump for even saying he wants to see most aspects of the Democrats’ gun control agenda in a comprehensive bill and for apparently having little regard for due process rights. They also discuss the resignation of White House Communications Director Hope Hicks and how the West Wing seems to be in a constant state of turnover. And they close with good economic news, as new reports show wages rising – especially for low-income workers – and that the number of jobless claims filed last week were the fewest since 1969.

Gun Lobby Fires Back

February 28, 2018 by GregC

Gun control activists and members of both parties are rolling out legislation to tighten gun laws, but gun rights groups say those proposals would do nothing but open the door to more gun control efforts.

House Democrats are pushing the most aggressive proposal, calling for a ban on most semi-automatic weapons, specifically if they have detachable magazines or can hold more than ten rounds.

Florida’s Republican Gov. Rick Scott is asking state lawmakers to raise the minimum age for buying a rifle to 21 years old. There is a bipartisan bill in the U.S. Senate that would do the same. Senate Republicans are also advocating for expanded background checks.

President Trump has, at times, embraced both increasing the minimum age to buy rifles and universal background checks.

But Gun Owners of America Legislative Director Mike Hammond says all of these ideas would fail to address the reasons for mass shootings and only serve to restrict the freedoms of law abiding Americans.

While Democrats and the media often portray semi-automatic weapons as the reason for the high casualty counts at many shootings, Hammond says they are also the weapon of choice for many millions of gun owners.

He says semi-automatics make up a bigger percentage of the 300 million guns in this country than most people realize.

“Of those, there are probably 10 million AR-15’s. They’re the most popular gun in the country. I would guess that if you added other semi-automatic rifles like AK-47’s, you’d probably have 20 million of the households. And if you start adding semi-automatic handguns, who knows where you are? Fifty million or a hundred million,” said Hammond.

“Basically you’re taking off the market a substantial portion of the guns which are in private hands in the United States,” said Hammond.

Hammond says gun control advocates target semi-automatic weapons because of how they look.

“They are demonized because of cosmetic features that make them look like something else. Also, they’re demonized by this false narrative that they’re somehow a military rifle.

“I was in the military. I was issued a fully automatic M-16. I wouldn’t go into battle with a semi-automatic firearm. So the exercise is to use fraud in order to ban the most popular gun in America,” said Hammond.

Hammond and his allies are frequently confronted with the question of why anyone would need a semi-automatic firearm. He says history provides examples, including Korean grocers who protected their stores and their homes above those stores during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

“They stood on the roofs of their grocery stores, showing their nasty semi-automatic firearms so anyone who wanted to burn down their store and their home could see it. As a result of that, they saved their lives, they saved the lives of their families, they saved their homes, they saved their stores,” said Hammond.

As for the bipartisan push for raise the minimum age for buying any firearm to the age of 21, Hammond says it’s just a slick move to advance more gun control legislation. He says the law, 18 USC 922 (b) (1), only refers to buying guns from a dealer.

“It wouldn’t solve a single thing. The next day the gun controllers would be back to us, saying, ‘Well, sure they can’t buy semi-autos from dealers, but now we need to ban their purchase from gun shows. Now we need to ban their purchase on the internet. Now we need to enact the sort of universal background checks which Congress considered and rejected in 2013 after Newtown,'” said Hammond.

“What it would do is just open up a whole bunch of trap doors for the gun controllers to come and make a series of successive demands, claiming that what we did accomplished nothing,” said Hammond.

As for universal background checks, Hammond says those are just a way for the government to barge into every gun owner’s life.

“They mean that you can’t buy a gun anywhere in America unless the government approves the sale,” said Hammond.

He says this can take various forms, using the example of rural neighbors. Under universal background checks, he says those neighbors might have to drive hours to find a gun dealer who can do the background check and charge whatever he wants for performing the service.

In the bigger picture, Hammond fears the government would use that information to build a national gun registry.

“Currently, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is going around in connection with its annual inspections and photographing gun records. We suspect its making those photographs into the beginnings of a national gun registry.

“If everyone has to sell their guns through a dealer, that means every transaction has one of those gun records. And that means that everyone is going to be in that universal gun registry,” said Hammond.