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Virginia's gone, man. For Virginians, all that's left to do is to vote, pray, and fund the grand ballroom for their newest litigation-legislation waltz. I took a peek at /r/VAguns not long ago and they're well into non-compliance bravado. I can't say I'd be any better in their situation, but the reality of becoming a criminal is less than romantic.
I've been meaning to ask, did you read friend of The Motte BJ Campbell's "After Action Report: Bridging the Divide"? He participated in an experimental parley with firearms, firearms policy, and gun violence experts, and they created a document which I read at the time but do not recall liking very much. From his summary:
It's not the first time he's written about this, but universal background checks are one of the "common sense" solutions that could work to target violent criminals.
That all sounds fine to me. Could work. Could. Unfortunately, this is will be too juicy of a weapon to go to waste, which means I can't trust the terms and conditions will change, and this makes it as good as any other fantasy solution. We could place the UBC servers in Próspera, Honduras, or carve out another semi-sovereign microstate that only ceremonially answers to the US government . A start-up is chartered there with a sole purpose of running each US state's UBC system uniformly and acceptably. From there, a council of a dozen AI agents could respond to and consider any changes future USG law or decree creates with a heavy weights towards saying, "No, 100 years has not passed."
Other than the whole rights being rights issue, the trust problem is tricky.
What better way to rebuild trust than limit one's own policy in one's own states to only the most effective bits? As a pragmatic framework for antigun states this could be net positive for gun rights. The major caveat is that it doesn't change the incentives that push politicians to chase the dragon on this issue, disband Brady, or have a chance in hell.
Read my post down a ways for why "universal background checks" are not going to work even in the slightest. They won't be enforced against the only population that needs them.
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Those people deserve every law they get. They sounded happy to get their guns grabbed, lol. I wish California would just go ahead and snatch 'em all.
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My issue with background checks and sanity checks is that they really are easy to put things on the record, and hard to get them off, such that unless the law allows for a statute of limitations, something that you did or were treated for 25 or more years ago will still show up. That DUI at 18 might, unless the law limits the ability for a felony to remove your gun rights, mean 65 year old you cannot have a gun. Nor does the system have any way to tell the difference between a violent criminal act and a white collar crime. A guy who robs a store is probably a poor risk for legal carry, however I sincerely doubt that someone cooking the books is therefore going to go out and knock over a convenience store.
I agree, but I think there's a deeper issue here, which is that for the most part, the proponents of background checks aren't actually seeking to strike a reasonable balance between individual liberty and public safety. Their revealed goal is a complete ban on private ownership of firearms to be accomplished by incremental steps.
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