Motives Behind ‘Model Gun Background Check System’ Go Beyond ‘Commonsense Safety’

USA – -(Ammoland.com)- “As federal lawmakers seek to improve record reporting to the federal background check system after a Texas massacre highlighted the risks of missing records, Pennsylvania offers a potential roadmap,” NBC News “reports” in a scarcely-disguised advocacy piece. “The state has spent the last six years aggressively overhauling records reporting, hunting down reporting gaps like the one that let [Donald Meyer Jr.] buy a gun and modernizing the technology they use to keep guns out of the wrong hands.”

But Meyer’s not the one who killed his 12-year-old daughter. A law enforcement officer did, his bullet going through Meyer’s arm and killing the girl. Without second-guessing Constable Clark Steele’s decision to fire his weapon at an alleged armed threat resisting an eviction notice, Jeff Cooper’s basic rule to “Always be sure of your target” (including what is behind it) seems not to have influenced that outcome.

What would have, at least according to the gun-grabbers, would be requiring even more names to be reported into a “prohibited persons” database. Everywhere. In Everytown. Case in point:

“The PICS system is strong — it’s a model for this country. Every state should strive to do as well in record reporting as they do,” said William Rosen, the deputy legal director at Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that advocates stricter gun control.

So much for the “home rule” argument the gun-grabbers drag out every time something with the potential to reduce infringements is proposed.

Putting aside (but only for a moment) very real concerns about delegated Constitutional authority, prior restraint infringements, denial of full due process, unjust punishments for minor squabbles, “professionally” biased mental health dragnets, false positives, and the disconnect between millions of attempts to break “the law” with only a handful of prosecutions and convictions, there’s one other real world reality being ignored: Allowing free access to society for anyone who is a proven (beyond a reasonable doubt!) danger to others guarantees those others will be at increased risk. Simply put, anyone who can’t be trusted with a gun can’t be trusted without a custodian.

You can see it for yourself in a place where the Everytown-lauded “model for this country” is in full effect: Philadelphia homicides are up 14%.

So obviously, if PICS can’t do the job on its own, those backing “gun control” will need to impose further restrictions. And when those fail to work, demands will be made for more.

Here’s what’s really going on per parties with a disarmament dog in the fight:

• • The National Institute of Justice “Summary of Select Firearm Violence Prevention Strategies” concluded “Effectiveness [of ‘Universal Background Checks’] depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring gun registration…”
  • Sen. Chris Murphy referred to current “Fix NICS” efforts as “baby steps” that could end up being a “breakthrough piece of legislation.” Once that beachhead has been secured (and not just without a fight, but with the full cooperation and approval of ostensible “gun rights leaders”), the gun-grabbers can move on to their next objective, and the next…
  • “Slippery slope” paranoia…? Not according to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who not only admitted that was the plan, but added “I certainly hope so.”
  • And what’s at the bottom of that slippery slope?  Again, accusations of paranoia and ridiculing assurances that “No one wants to take your guns” aside, prominent cheerleaders for citizen disarmament have let their intentions be known, declaring “existing laws” are not enough, the Second Amendment should be repealed, and the ultimate answer is confiscation.

If they could control all the guns (and of course they can’t), no one thinks it would end there, do they?

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.

In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.