On Background Checks and Gun Purchases

As expected, in the wake of the Navy Yard shooting we see the media and the liberals begin a new drumbeat for more gun laws.  As expected, also, the media and many of the liberals have the details wrong on the shooting but continue to pound away. See this article for example in which California Senator Feinstein goes on and on about the AR-15 "assault rifle." The fact, of course, that the shooter, Aaron Alexis, did not use an AR-15 is irrelevant to Feinstein and others who seem to have pre-packaged statements and stories ready to go blasting "assault rifles" (whatever that is; the definition is rather flexible). Alexis used, it seems, a shotgun, the weapon Vice President Biden has suggested we all go out and buy.

Before we get to the issue of "background checks" one has to wonder about the security arrangements at the Navy Yard. It seems that Alexis had no difficulty getting a shotgun past security, and the "No Firearms Allowed" signs. Once in the Yard, apparently, he was only the non-security person with a gun, was able to use it rather freely, and managed to acquire other weapons from security personnel. That would seem to point to a major problem at the Navy Yard in the way it plans and executes security, and to call into question the "gun free zone" idea. But that's just me; I am just a blogger not even a real media person.

The calls for new restrictions on guns have focused this time on "background checks." That is the new buzz phrase, "background checks." There seem to be a number of proposals on "background checks" and the media provides little in the way of detail. It is just another of those phrases thrown out as a "panacea" for whatever troubles the liberal mind at the time. How these background checks would be done and by whom are matters that are not clear. How would you get around medical confidentiality, for example? The bottom line is that either the proposals are not serious or that they are part of a very serious plan to deny guns to ordinary Americans.

Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis underwent background check procedures that presumably are much more detailed and intrusive than any gun purchase background check. He had at least two security checks and came up clean: all set to go for a "secret" clearance, and employment at US military facilities. This, as reported by no less than NBC, despite Alexis's troubled background, including run-ins with the law over the misuse of firearms, a history of mental issues, and of generally bizarre behavior and statements. It seems a Major Hasan fiasco all over again: the background check mechanism used by the Feds is seriously overwhelmed and broken, probably by both sloppiness and the demands of political correctness.

The people advocating these background checks, such as Feinstein, presumably know all this. What is really at play is using "background checks" as a way to ensure that almost nobody can get a weapon. If Congress is going to act, I can guarantee you there will be either now, or very soon, increased calls for Federal involvement in background checks. There will be a call for a massive Federal bureaucracy to conduct them, and that bureaucracy will move, either deliberately or just because, at glacial speed in performing these background checks, and, if the IRS is an example, will be tempted to use political criteria in approving a gun sale. That, in effect, will bring gun sales to a halt.

Much as we have seen that Obamacare is really just a stepping stone to a "single payer," i.e., Federal level, medical system, the call for "background checks" is really a call for the Feds to decide who can and cannot own a firearm. If you trust the Feds with that sort of decision-making, then support those calls. Do not let yourself be troubled by what is happening with Obamacare, and with the political uses of the DOJ, IRS, and EPA.