UK thoughts on the Feinstein Bill

reply to post by Flavian

Oh it gets worse.... It gets a lot worse and in a way I honestly don't think many people are even aware of. If they were widely aware of it, something would be done about it I'm sure.

The NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) system is what the U.S. uses to background check a firearms purchaser. The Department of Justice operates it through the FBI. This, everyone knows...or most do anyway. It's the telephone check that is supposed to give a yes or no instantly on purchase approval.

Well, there are three answers that can return.

#1. Proceed - The gun is good to sell on the spot and, depending on state law, the customer can walk out with the rifle or handgun right there. No wait..no B.S. Just cash, carry and leave.

#2. Denial - Err.... You're on the naughty list and they'll politely tell you once you were denied. I've seen gun store owners get downright nasty with people who wanted to argue. The idea that they even tried to buy with an issue is something many sellers take personally ...and with good reason.

#3 DELAY - HERE is the part I doubt many know or have heard about. Here is the REAL loophole as I see it and what needs closed, if anything. Oh, but Uncle designed this into the system itself....so I doubt they're likely to mention it any time soon. - If you get a Delay, it means it hung up on SOMETHING. No idea what. I get a delay hit every time I buy a weapon. 100%. No exception. In my case, I know why and it's a problem that isn't ...it gets sorted out every time but keeps coming up.

^^ In the case of a DELAY result on the NICS check, this is the procedure, and you're not going to believe it.

If potentially prohibitive criteria exists and more information is required in order to make the determination, the NICS Examiner will advise the FFL to DELAY the firearm transaction and the FFL will receive the following instructions:

“. . .NTN ___ will be delayed while the NICS continues its research. If you do not receive a final response from us, the Brady Law does not prohibit the transfer of the firearm on day/date.”

The NICS Examiner will provide the FFL with the date of the third business day after the firearm check was initiated. Business days do not include the day the check was initiated, Saturdays, Sundays, and any day state offices in the state of purchase are closed. If the FFL has not received from the NICS a final determination after three business days have elapsed since the delay response, it is within the FFL’s discretion whether or not to transfer the firearm (if state law permits the transfer). If the FFL transfers the firearm, the FFL must mark “No resolution was provided within three business days” on line 21d of the ATF Form 4473. It is recommended the FFL record the date provided in the delay response on which the firearm may be lawfully transferred under federal law if a final determination of proceed or denied is not received from the NICS.

Source - FBI NICS Info Site

Yes, that says and it works precisely how you just read that. If I am Delayed and they can't FIND the reason within 3 business days? I get my gun by default. If by SOME chance a Denial cause is found later, I'm supposed to give it back or something...I don't know how that gets enforced as I've yet to hear it happening.

However, of the guns I've purchased retail (4 of them) under the NICS system, I've been delayed all 4 times. 3 times, I got my gun by default on the 4th morning. I never got an answer on those cases. The last one gave me a Proceed by the end of the 2nd day...so it worked out for once.

How's THAT for a loophole though? Forget this "gunshow loophole" B.S. that's about outlawing private sales between individuals...THIS loophole allows someone to buy using the whole system AS designed and still get a gun without a formal approval.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Just wow............

I don't really know what to say to that. If i was a US citizen, THAT is the sort of thing i would be up in arms (no pun intended!) about. I mean, seriously, it makes a mockery of the whole system.

Definite star there Wrabbit. This is the most informative and, frankly, important post on ATS in the last few days concerning gun control. Would give you a hundred stars for that if i could.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Actually, something as simple as an unpaid speeding ticket from another state (which was given out in error in a well known speed trap, we refused to pay out of protest, I could go on, but won't) can stop you from buying a gun, my husband could not buy his until that ticket was paid.

This article sums the whole gun ownership thing in America quite well.

Good luck anyone that wants to ban gun ownership or even tighten the law up.

Originally posted by hotel1

Originally posted by oper8zhin
I am just curious to know WHY THE HELL folks from the UK are so OBSESSED with American affairs? Especially with ALL of the PROBLEMS that the UK already HAS going on over there, why not worry about YOUR OWN AFFAIRS??

In all honesty, the U.S. doesnt give a crap about what YOU all think. We have RIGHTS which is something that you all let yourselves lose. [color=gold]You have NO way of defending yourselves if a gang of thugs enters your living quarters and rapes your wife and daughter while holding you down so that you can watch it happen to your loved ones. Do you enjoy being defenseless? We in America wont be watching a gang of thugs invade our homes and wreck our lives forever.

Other countries would be WISER to keep their ASININE thoughts focused on their OWN countries problems. Besides, the HUGE MAJORITY of Americans do not CARE what other's think about OUR RIGHTS.

PERIOD. Good day.

edit on 17-12-2012 by oper8zhin because: (no reason given)

Did you bother to read, I have friends and relatives that live in the US, It is handguns that are illegal in the UK not all firearms, this forum exists to express, and discuss views for all about topics which concern them. You using the term Asinine and then posting what you did demonstrates the folly, and the ignorance that this site is supposed to deny.

edit on 17-12-2012 by hotel1 because: (no reason given)

Not at all. His responce is clear and worded to understand. The use of the word asinine is fitting.

Originally posted by hotel1

Originally posted by muse7
The Government will not come to anyone's house and ask for the guns.

What they will most likely do is pass legislation that would ban assault rifles, and large magazines from being sold in the future. They don't have to round up anyone, owning an assault rifle will become a felony, If you get caught with one you will face jail time and a fine.

As I said I live in the UK and therefore you are obviously much better placed to predict what will likely happen. Your reply demonstrates what I said I believe to be true about the people of the US, and are why I believe those such as yourself are the voices of reason that will prevail.

Hotel, personaly I think you are a troll. Trolling blood and guts types to come in here and vent. Trolling for HLS of MI or your mum or somebody.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


What Flavian is asking would place far too much power in the hands of mental health practitioners who are already far too eager to pass out pills for what are normal emotional issues to most.
Cuss out the boss at work? - you have a mental health issue and cannot be trusted with firearms.
It's a pandora's box and an open invitation to strip the 2nd amendment rights of far too many people.

You already cannot legally possess a firearm if you are a convicted felon, illegal drug user, past incarceration for mental health issues, on the terror watch list, etc.
Has this worked to keep guns from the hands of criminals and psychopaths?
The answer is self-evident.
Gun laws won't change anything.
We need to change our culture and become a society that nurtures instead of pushing competition. We're looking for external controls for something that's on the inside of us.

Originally posted by Flavian
reply to post by oper8zhin

 

Also, can anybody explain the need to me to own assault weapons? I can understand the arguments for both hunting rifles and hand guns (if properly legislated) but why assault weapons?

I can understand the need for vans and compact cars, but why sports cars? Can you explain the need to own a car that can attain speeds over 80 mph?

The logic applies to many items that people choose to own, but the "assault weapon" is much easier to demonize because it is completely misunderstood by the majority of people. Firearms that can be classified as assault weapons are used in less than 1% of crimes. Why, then, is there a drive to ban this type of firearm? Because they're used in 1 or 2 very highly publicized crimes each year? Strangely, the other 363 days out of the year, the 15 or so MILLION privately owned assault weapons in the US aren't doing anything wrong.

The idea of banning a weapon that is used in a tiny fraction of crime, just because those crimes are more highly publicized, would be legislation based on flash-in-the-pan emotional response instead of logic. Just because you can't see a use for something, doesn't mean there isn't one.

reply to post by Asktheanimals

How do we fix that? You raise the best point about mental health professionals and you're right. They are human like everyone else. They have bias and agendas and pet peeves. They can be petty, mean and vindictive...or maybe they just don't like guns so are on a personal crusade to red line everyone they personally can. OUCH! You make me want to avoid Psychs now...and I gotta take classes from a couple!

Seriously, just how is that addressed because it's a real problem alright? My first thought is to have the mental health dis qualifiers known and well published in advance and as widely as practical. The problem there of course...there is NO way to anticipate everything that could legitimately cause a professional to want to insure a person can't legally get a gun.

I think we all agree we don't want mental health cases with a weapon and we don't want people with violent histories adding legally purchased weapons to it. The potential for abuse you paint a picture of...gives me pause though. It can so easily be abused beyond belief, eh?

Originally posted by Logarock

Originally posted by hotel1

Originally posted by muse7
The Government will not come to anyone's house and ask for the guns.

What they will most likely do is pass legislation that would ban assault rifles, and large magazines from being sold in the future. They don't have to round up anyone, owning an assault rifle will become a felony, If you get caught with one you will face jail time and a fine.

As I said I live in the UK and therefore you are obviously much better placed to predict what will likely happen. Your reply demonstrates what I said I believe to be true about the people of the US, and are why I believe those such as yourself are the voices of reason that will prevail.

Hotel, personaly I think you are a troll. Trolling blood and guts types to come in here and vent. Trolling for HLS of MI or your mum or somebody.

edit on 17-12-2012 by Logarock because: n

Could you please explain to me what you mean by HLS of MI as I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Manners & T&Cs prevent me from posting what I would like to say regarding your mentioning of my Mother.

Originally posted by Logarock

Originally posted by hotel1

Originally posted by oper8zhin
I am just curious to know WHY THE HELL folks from the UK are so OBSESSED with American affairs? Especially with ALL of the PROBLEMS that the UK already HAS going on over there, why not worry about YOUR OWN AFFAIRS??

In all honesty, the U.S. doesnt give a crap about what YOU all think. We have RIGHTS which is something that you all let yourselves lose. [color=gold]You have NO way of defending yourselves if a gang of thugs enters your living quarters and rapes your wife and daughter while holding you down so that you can watch it happen to your loved ones. Do you enjoy being defenseless? We in America wont be watching a gang of thugs invade our homes and wreck our lives forever.

Other countries would be WISER to keep their ASININE thoughts focused on their OWN countries problems. Besides, the HUGE MAJORITY of Americans do not CARE what other's think about OUR RIGHTS.

PERIOD. Good day.

edit on 17-12-2012 by oper8zhin because: (no reason given)

Did you bother to read, I have friends and relatives that live in the US, It is handguns that are illegal in the UK not all firearms, this forum exists to express, and discuss views for all about topics which concern them. You using the term Asinine and then posting what you did demonstrates the folly, and the ignorance that this site is supposed to deny.

edit on 17-12-2012 by hotel1 because: (no reason given)

Not at all. His responce is clear and worded to understand. The use of the word asinine is fitting.

Fitting to which post?

Originally posted by muse7
Having different gun laws for every state just makes it even worse, we should have passed a national ban on every rifle.

Why? It isn't the rifle but the user. A rifle killed those kids like pencils gave the wrong answers on the last SATs.

Drugs are illegal, yet readily available. Laws/bans only enslave the people.

What Sandy Hook needed was more good people armed to confront the nut. When you make large areas w/o protection, wolves will gravitate to those areas. Not many police stations are shut up, but plenty of schools. Wonder why?

Derek

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


good thing bringing up the delay part as not alot are aware of it i get delayed every time but have also always gotten my guns,on to the actualy stopping crazies from getting guns the major hurdle is HIPPA as with that in efect even on a background check if you lie and say you were never instutionalized when you were the fbi has no way of finding out about that due to privacy laws(unless it was tied to a court case),if we are gonna talk about any form of new gun control why not just make it so every one who is forcibly sent to an institution gets their SSN flagged to say they have been to a mental hospital but NOT what the reason was that way privacy would be maintained(mostly atleast) and then the crazies getting LEGAL guns issue would not be as drastic as it would cut down on the number of crazies lying their way on the gun forms thats my hairbrained soloution at least no idea if it would work or even be legal but hey i can try

reply to post by RalagaNarHallas

I think that's a great idea. You don't even need to leave the detail out. NCIC is the National Crime Information Center and in English, it's the FBI's computer mainframe that basically has records on everyone who has a record within 'the system' to be found. The NSA one in Utah will be NCIC on steroids but right now, that's the gold standard for background checking compared to anything else. It's also got very different levels of security on it. My brother in law worked as a dispatcher in a small county out here for awhile and had access to a lower level of it as a routine part of that job.

Lower level wouldn't need to see more than the flag...and NICS would sure hit on an NCIC record, I'd think. So, if mental/psych institutions were just required to report a very basic 1 paragraph bio of inpatients to the NCIC database....those who would need to know detail would have some and everyone else would sure see the flag you suggest.

Hey, that's actually one of the better ideas I've heard!

Originally posted by Answer

Originally posted by Flavian
reply to post by oper8zhin

 

Also, can anybody explain the need to me to own assault weapons? I can understand the arguments for both hunting rifles and hand guns (if properly legislated) but why assault weapons?

I can understand the need for vans and compact cars, but why sports cars? Can you explain the need to own a car that can attain speeds over 80 mph?

The logic applies to many items that people choose to own, but the "assault weapon" is much easier to demonize because it is completely misunderstood by the majority of people. Firearms that can be classified as assault weapons are used in less than 1% of crimes. Why, then, is there a drive to ban this type of firearm? Because they're used in 1 or 2 very highly publicized crimes each year? Strangely, the other 363 days out of the year, the 15 or so MILLION privately owned assault weapons in the US aren't doing anything wrong.

The idea of banning a weapon that is used in a tiny fraction of crime, just because those crimes are more highly publicized, would be legislation based on flash-in-the-pan emotional response instead of logic. Just because you can't see a use for something, doesn't mean there isn't one.

I am sorry but that is a completely asinine argument. Why do you need to own an assault rifle? What purpose does it serve that makes your life complete? I take your point about the low number of crime stats and assault rifles but you haven't explained why you need one. Instead, you have come back with an illogical argument to fudge the issue.

Look, at the end of the day, these are arguments and decisions you need to be having amongst yourselves (rather than with us outsiders). Without any compromise from gun owners, this sort of thing is going to continue - and probably get worse if recent history is anything to go by. Your society so you need to decide how to deal with it. If you are happy to carry on regardless, then so be it. It really wouldn't say much for you as decent humans though if you think this sort of atrocity is acceptable, just in order to keep hold of your guns.

Banning assault weapons will do nothing.

When the lawmakers find that out(they already know that.)they will ban another type gun and that will do nothing ether.
till it become just banning guns because they want to not because its needed

Look at the .50 BMG gun ban in calif.
They had no crimes committed with a 50 BMG weapons but they still banned them. Why because they could, Not because there was a need.

Originally posted by Flavian
Without any compromise from gun owners, this sort of thing is going to continue - and probably get worse if recent history is anything to go by. Your society so you need to decide how to deal with it. If you are happy to carry on regardless, then so be it. It really wouldn't say much for you as decent humans though if you think this sort of atrocity is acceptable, just in order to keep hold of your guns.

That's because the "majority" and I mean 99.9% of legal gun owners are responsible with their weapons. Legislation to ban any weapon is infringing on the rights of those that have not committed anything wrong. Do we need the latest and greatest gun? Not really, but that is our choice to own these if we so desire.

The issue is not the gun. It is a tool being used by sick deranged weirdo's. There are things that can be done without restricting access to firearms to the vast majority of responsible gun owners. Like has been said, Mental health is not even being addressed with these latest atrocities. That is where it needs to start. Knee-jerk reactions only puts a band-aid on the problem and doesn't go after the solution.

I wish I knew a way of properly addressing it. Our society is failing our youth. I don't know if it's technology, ADHD medication, or disassociation to society, but the number of troubled youth is steadily rising. We need to look at how we can help these individuals before they feel their only course of action is to make the front page of the news.

reply to post by hotel1


The second amendment......

well first off it is not directly related to revolt or rebellion. It is for State sponsored militias or other wise founded militias in a second nature, and firstly related to personal protection.

Each state constitution is worded a little more clearer and to the point than the national constitution, so I would read at least one or two state constitutions since that is where the SA was born, and mirrored in the national constitution.

The states reserve the right to form militias and the need for the average citizen to be able to be conscripted into a standing army was important at the time.

Now the first and foremost reason for those provisions still remain as personal protection.

It has nothing to do directly with facing off against the Government. Not at all.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


As you know our government was designed with a system of checks and balances, If you're accused of a crime you're entitled to a trial so that you can clear your name.

What checks are there on mental health practitioners? - their own administration. That's it.
Legal recourse to involuntary commitment takes time and still will leave a mar on your record that would probably prevent one from purchasing firearms even if you are released.

We don't have to theorize about this either - take the case of Marine Brandon Raub:

No direct threats were posted, and posts of this darker nature were a mixture of statements authorities construed as incitements to violence and song lyrics from heavy rock music.

Undoubtedly, these expressions concerned federal authorities, but was detainment for “psychological evaluation” without respect for Raub’s rights to Due Process warranted? Raub has no history of mental illness and a reputation for organizing peaceful political demonstrations.

Classifying dissidents as mentally ill is a timeless art. In the Soviet Union, millions were condemned to “psikhushkas,” or psychiatric prisons, in order to isolate, discredit and destroy dissent and activism. Even in the land of the free, President Wilson sought to silence suffragette Alice Paul through legal declarations of insanity, though thankfully the doctor refused.

U.S. Judge Forrest said "Arresting dissidents without calling it 'arrest,' which is in complete violation of Raub’s civil liberties, combined with the insistence that the federal government has a right to imprison anyone based on suspicion, should scare every American. We are losing this republic and fast.”

Read more: communities.washingtontimes.com...

What if Brandon Raub had no family or friends to publicize his case? No ACLU to provide legal defense? His 30 day "observation" could have easily been transformed in to lifetime commitment.

Checks and balances - anything existing outside of them needs to be addressed to removed unwarranted power.

Originally posted by hotel1

Originally posted by Logarock

Originally posted by hotel1

Originally posted by muse7
The Government will not come to anyone's house and ask for the guns.

What they will most likely do is pass legislation that would ban assault rifles, and large magazines from being sold in the future. They don't have to round up anyone, owning an assault rifle will become a felony, If you get caught with one you will face jail time and a fine.

As I said I live in the UK and therefore you are obviously much better placed to predict what will likely happen. Your reply demonstrates what I said I believe to be true about the people of the US, and are why I believe those such as yourself are the voices of reason that will prevail.

Hotel, personaly I think you are a troll. Trolling blood and guts types to come in here and vent. Trolling for HLS of MI or your mum or somebody.

edit on 17-12-2012 by Logarock because: n

Could you please explain to me what you mean by HLS of MI as I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Manners & T&Cs prevent me from posting what I would like to say regarding your mentioning of my Mother.

edit on 17-12-2012 by hotel1 because: means removed

Oh I see you meant Homeland Security, or Military Intelligence, well I am not a member of either of those organisations. Which is fortunate because if I were I would probably be the sort of vindictive person that would use my available skills, and resources to identify someone that made a disrespectful remark about one of my parents