By Cabell Heyward
While waiting in a doctor’s office recently, I read an article about two weeks old in a major news magazine.
As a gun owner and enthusiast, I was interested in the writer’s point of view on the current controversy regarding the Second Amendment and the many proposed changes in our laws regarding purchasing and owning firearms. The columnist admitted being on staff with a left-leaning magazine as well as a political analyst for a television network (with an unfortunate reputation for not finding political “balance” in reporting and programming.) On the other hand, this lady grew up in and is endeared to a part of our country well known for a natural appreciation of the Second Amendment, part of a culture that takes for granted the need for several ready firearms in every household.
After relating some incidents in her own history which seemed to support the need for defensive guns followed by discussion of the current issue in some detail, the writer then set forth her own personal position on each of the major ideas about curbing gun violence: she joins the group who press for an immediate federal banning of bumpstocks, high volume magazines, the qualifying age of buyers of semiautomatic rifles (which would include the whole family of “assault rifles), to be elevated to 21, and strict federal background checks on would-be buyers. To a great many people, 97% according to some national survey, the “universal background check” is soundly supported.
We already have background checks in Virginia. A licensed dealer who holds a Federal Firearms License, communicates via computer to some agency in Richmond, information on my full name, age, address, place of birth, U.S. citizenship, height, weight, ethnicity (twice, to make sure that “white” doesn’t include Hispanic), together with a battery of questions, in writing, on two forms, in which I also relate my mental, medical, military and court histories as well as my signature and initials added to one of the questions. These federal forms are retained by the dealer, subject to inspection by a federal agency, but some of the· information is typed into the dealer’s computer, along with numbers from my driver’s license, which had to be inspected along with other identification. Buyer pays a small fee to the dealer in connection with this. Worse- but here is where the public doesn’t seem to appreciate the National Rifle Associations’ reluctance to endorse “strict background checks”: the dealer tells the people in Richmond the make, model, caliber and serial number of the gun that I am attempting to purchase. Since I appreciate the beauty, mechanical ingenuity and history of many guns, I own several, which means that the government in Washington and Richmond knows in detail everything about me and the guns purchased through a dealer here in Virginia, or in any other state where I may have been resident at one time. (A Virginian cannot buy a gun out of state without the dealer in that state shipping the gun to a FFL dealer in Virginia who can then deliver it. The selling dealer charges a fee for the paperwork and trouble, as does the receiving dealer here. Typically, that is an extra $50 for both ends.
A future “Strict background check” implies something like the above for a private sale. If I want to sell a deer rifle or a target handgun, or any gun, to my neighbor, my cousin or to a friend, the two of us would have to appear before someone with access to the “agency” in order to supply the required information to satisfy the check. Who supervises the paperwork and retains it for possible future inspection? Those who are so violently against private ownership of guns as well as those who support the background check idea often pinpoint the “gun show loophole” in which a private individual can rent a table, display his or her personal property, and sell a gun to an individual previously not known to the seller. I have witnessed many such transactions and seen the parties execute a bill of sale with full particulars but, of course, nothing about buyer’s history. But it is interesting to note that, present at the last several gun shows I have attended, there was a uniformed Virginia State Trooper, with a computer in touch with Richmond, whose role was to submit buyer’s name, and particulars to the check when requested.
What exactly is my information and the details of the gun I wish to buy checked against? Are criminal records, other court records, driving history, military record, patient histories from psychiatric facilities, etc. so well codified that my name or some other personal feature instantly signals a red flag? If I were to buy an assault rifle (legal definition still eludes us) or something with too much magazine capacity, would the data base ring a bell?
I have been a member of the NRA for many years and understand plainly their attitude regarding assault weapons, large magazines and other questions- give an inch and the government will take a mile. Anyone who has been awake for the last several decades can attest to the popular distrust of government on any level, especially the federal bureaucracy. As the writer of my waiting room article said, she didn’t want to “surrender her individual liberties to a government that failed at so many pivotal points of the Parkland tragedy.” If Congress ever decides to do anything at all about “background checks” it must first design a reasonable system that is quick, practical, not burdensome and expensive for licensed dealers, private sellers and buyers, but, above all, does not collect unnecessary detailed data, neither on the buyer or the gun he wishes to own.
