The Dangerous ‘Background Check’ Lie

2nd Amendment – R2KBA Authors S.H. Blannelberry This Week

(Editor’s note: The following was syndicated with the permission of Alan Korwin, the author of the article. Mr. Korwin is the author of 14 books, has been invited by the U.S. Supreme Court twice to observe oral arguments and runs the website GunLaws.com. He is also a friend of GunsAmerica.)

Alan Korwin, visit his website GunLaws.com.

Alan Korwin, visit his website GunLaws.com.

A Gun-Transfer Ban For Everytown Means Death To Liberty.

Half the media doesn’t even know it’s deceiving you when it talks about so-called “universal background check” bills. The other half knows it’s lying.

They know this code phrase means a national gun-transfer ban, plus universal gun registration — total government control over all guns held privately in America.

Without total registration, universal background checks don’t work. A comprehensive gun-owner list is the whole point of getting falsely reported “background bills” passed. One man — multi-billionaire former NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg — is pushing the bills and funding operations, with shell corporations, hired hands, advertising, federal cooperation and mountains of his cash.

His goal is to make you subject to arrest if you hold someone else’s gun — a “gun transfer” — with or without a sale, like he just snuck through in Washington State. Sounds impossible but it’s stone-cold true. He did that by deceiving the public with a $10 million false advertising campaign. He told the public one thing, for a law that did something else. When people found out, after they passed it, they were furious. Too late. Let’s do this by example, so you understand what we’re talking about.

Let’s say you buy a Colt Python from some regular Joe at a gun show, or my next-door neighbor, or in a class, it doesn’t matter where. Gun-show loophole is just a buzz phrase the media uses to bamboozle — the proposed bills always cover every inch of the nation.

Loophole is a synonym for liberty. Never forget that. Gun-show liberty. Bloomberg, an anti-freedom bigot of the worst kind, hides behind a privately armed army, assaulting your right to arms, while exercising his. He wants to kill a liberty you currently have, willing to blatantly lie to get his way, spending obscene fortunes to bully us.

But I digress.

Joe says he’s the Python’s original owner, bought it at retail from Tony’s Gun Store (where you shop sometimes) and you believe him. You’ve known Joe for years and he’s always seemed like a right guy. That might all be true, or not, you have no way of knowing. You now have the Python, it’s sweet, no paperwork, cash and carry. That’s got a name. It’s called freedom. Two free people doing business. You don’t even have to buy it — if Joe just hands it to you you’re both guilty under Bloomberg’s bill.

That handoff scares the crap out of the left and gun scaredy cats because both of you might be criminals! And there’s no controls! Joe the criminal could have just sold (or handed) you, the criminal, a stolen gun and the police won’t even know! Everyone in the world might be criminals, selling each other g- g- g- guns!

What they miss of course is if new background checks were required and everyone was a criminal, the exact same deal could take place anyway, without the check, like it does now. Laws stop nothing. Law enforcement does. That’s what’s missing, insiders understand this and the “news” omits it (too conveniently), leaving voters misled. We’ve already made all of those actions illegal — the criminals, the transfer, the sale and the stolen gun. But I digress again.

Perfectly Legal

I’ve just described the private transfer of property between two free citizens in a free country, the same as the transfer of a Bible, gold coins, this publication or any legal property. In most states nationwide this is 100 percent legal. There’s no victim, no one is harmed and no crime is committed. Laws against it would ban liberties most of us currently enjoy, without affecting criminals who do all that now — even though it’s banned. All Bloomie’s new law would do is outlaw you. Anti-rights bigots and ignorami are hell-bent to outlaw these transfers for you.

Getting back to your shiny new Python, since you really have no idea where it’s been, let’s suppose several possibilities.

First, Joe is telling the truth, second Joe got the gun like you just did, from someone he knows (so he really doesn’t know its background), and third Joe stole the gun or it’s tainted in some other way (smuggled, traded for outlawed drugs, used in a crime, etc.) all of which are already highly illegal with harsh penalties. What does all this mean for you, background checks and gun registration? Will new laws requiring more government interference make anyone safer or help stop crime?

Loophole is a synonym for liberty.

Never forget that. Gun-show liberty.

If Joe, the gun and you’re all legal, which is typically the case, no amount of extra government helps anything, but it does raise everyone’s costs, diverts resources away from policing and into record keeping, and eats up time. As long as you use your sidearm righteously, no blood, no foul.

If some new private-transfer ban gets enacted, Joe and you can obey and travel somewhere during business hours, go through the red tape, pay the fees, fill out the papers, clerks in West Virginia (where the sprawling FBI campus for this has been built) enter the records, and nothing changes except — you have the Python, owned or borrowed, and now the government knows it.

There’s only one thing the government can actually do with that information besides store it. They can decide to come and take your Python, now that they know you have it, should they decide to do so. They would have to ban Pythons first though, to make the confiscations “legal.” Sorta.

But if Joe and you decide not to go through the rigmarole and just transact the property, who’s to know? Without a universal gun-registration system in place, the private-transfer background check accomplishes nothing — because there is no way to tell who owned what beforehand. The government obviously needs a list of where America’s 300 million guns are today before the system really works — they even said this themselves. And then, it just identifies innocent people who own property, with no connection to any crimes committed. How does writing everyone’s name on a government list help stop crime? (Hint: It doesn’t.)

How accurate do you think a government record of 300 million guns will be? Guns that look alike, distinguished by tiny characteristics, owned by Americans who want nothing to do with the system, with easily bollixed serial numbers in an obese inventory that’s constantly in flux, run by low-wage dead-end clerks who are tired and waiting for the Friday bell, just like any work force.

In this database — errors are felonies. If the system says Joe owns a Python and he can’t produce it with federal jackboots at his door, that’s a potential crime, and he has some jawing to do. If Joe sends anyone to your door you may admit to having it or deny it or clam up and demand an attorney.

Don’t forget, nobody here harmed anyone, this is a database problem. And I haven’t even gotten up to the part where criminals with guns cannot be part of the system — because they would have to self-incriminate to register. That’s prohibited, since they can’t have frickin’ guns in the first place.

No, the universal-background-check scam has one purpose — to control all of America’s privately owned guns. It has nothing to do with crime, blatantly violates the Second Amendment, is completely beyond any power delegated to government and should be rejected outright as an illegitimate public policy choice in this country.

A Final Thought

Bloomberg, and the leftist approach he represents, is misguided. To prevent criminals from potentially buying guns outside civil controls, they would subject everyone who isn’t criminal to submit to control, drastically reducing freedom. This is unacceptable from the perspective of liberty. Liberty is the higher requirement.

The public is guilty of nothing and cannot legitimately be subjected to such demeaning treatment. To prevent criminals from obtaining guns, they must be caught in possession, as hard as that is, which is why they are — and remain armed — historically, and possessed of other contraband despite laws to the contrary. Burdening the innocent, and drastically curtailing currently enjoyed freedoms will not improve the situation and are intolerable acts.

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  • ROBERT SNIDER September 11, 2015, 10:03 pm

    I AM JUST A LOWLY 37 YEAR OLD MACHINST, BUT I KNOW 1 THING,IF WE DONT GET OFF OUR ASSES THEY WILL TAKE OUR GUNS AND ANYTHING ELSE THEY CAN GET THERE HANDS ON THANKS FOR YOUR TIME

  • vabene August 30, 2015, 11:49 am

    You peoplesre all hyper-vigilant pathologically paranoid loonies. I am a Harvard law grad myself, and don’t remember hearing any of the first writer’s comments in class or elsewhere. The topic never came up during any of my three year in Cambridge.

  • larry mathews August 25, 2015, 2:29 am

    I agree with every one of these people except the one person that doesn’t understand what every one that knows the law and under stands it from the common man view needs to get off his butt and try to read it from the view point of our founding fathers point instead of the professional view point of the paid political hacks that are in congress now and keep the common view, instead of those who pay to keep them in office.

  • bert August 24, 2015, 7:01 pm

    Illinois has had UBC for 18 months and while it has not slowed down the shootings on the south side of Chicago, it has not stepped on anybody or driven up the cost of gun transactions.

  • Mahatma Muhjesbude August 24, 2015, 12:37 pm

    Great article! You’re a true Patriot Mr. B, We all need to spread the world like this before it’s too late. ‘They’. never rest in their attempt to fulfill their disarmament agenda. All totalitarian regimes cannot achieve their goals with a well armed populate. The Framers knew this too well. Thus the only reason for the 2nd/A which guaranteed removing all future debate about all citizens having firearms regardless of back door ‘public safety’ legislation with three simple words: SHALL NOT BE FUCKING INFRINGED! (well, maybe it should have been 4 simple words because they still keep trying and dying to infringe the 2/A)

    Bloomberg’s main strategy at the moment is his anal obsession to prohibit private gun transfers/transactions. Or to ‘close the so called gun show loopholes, an oxymoron of sorts because how could your inalienable right to conduct personal and private commerce be a ‘LOOPHOLE’! The only thing that should be a ‘loophole’ is the one in the noose that some of them need for their treason against the people! So Bloomberg and other ‘billionaire elite’ are backdooring state governments like recently in Colorado by literally bribing corrupt legislators to make anti-Constitution state legislation to require background checks for all sales, commercial or private! I believe more than a few, even some republican states because all it takes is one or two votes to pass, are climbing on board the universal back ground check wagon hauling our liberties straight over the leftist cliff.

    Tony2Wolves has it right, And it’s because most of us just don’t get it yet. And even those who do are too apathetic, lazy, or weak to get off their asses and get proactive. Let me put it succinctly:

    THE REASON THEY ARE MAKING ALL THESE ANTI-CONSTITUTIONAL GUN LAWS AND ADMINISTRATIVE MANDATES (READ ATF DECISIONS) IS SO THAT SOONER OR LATER MOST WELL ARMED CITIZENRY WILL BE IN ONE FORM OR ANOTHER BE CONSIDERED A CRIMINAL OR FELON, THEREFORE NOT ‘ALLOWED’ TO POSSESS OR OWN A WEAPON! THEREFORE AN EFFECTIVE METHOD OF BYPASSING THE CONSITUTION AND ELIMINATING THE CONTROL OF THE GOVERNMENT ‘OF THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE, AND BY THE PEOPLE.

    And with all the spying on us really being used for this disarmament purpose and not to really catch terrorists because ‘They’ need the occasional terrorist act to justify obscene funding for the DHS joke, then it’s a relatively small matter to declare any Law-abiding gun ‘scofflaws’ who are not obeying the mass turn-in orders to be quickly targeted and systematically ‘shock trooped’ for confiscations and arrests. You know, like the real reason Jade Helm exercises are taking place and why Swat Team funding is on the rise.

    Thanks again, SHB, for the article. And Keep up the good work. And Tony2Wolves, check out articles by:
    John Jessup; ‘Overcriminalization, Making Us A Nation Of Felons’ CNN News, July 2012,
    L. Gordon Crovitz ‘You Commit Three Felonies a Day’ Wall Street Journal, 9/27/2009,
    And if you get the chance to pick up the book, ‘Battlefield America’ by John Whitehead, a prominent Constitutional lawyer and Patriot.

    So there’s not many of us yet. But the more we discuss it like this, the more we’ll start to stir. Just like the

    Also, The form 4473 has already been ‘tweaked’ to (wonder who he bribed in the right ‘high places?) twist the ‘administrative’ definition of a ‘straw’ buyer. Apparently there’s a real blurry line of transfer legality that was upheld by a progressive leftist judge as ‘valid’ in that case where the cop bought a pistol with his officer’s discount and turned around and sold it to a friend/relative for a better deal than he could get over the counter. So the cop’s arrest was turned into a conviction.

    The original logic for the ‘straw purchase’ caveat on the Constitutionally illegal background checks and anti-constitutional (violates both 5th and 2nd/As) 4473 interrogation questions was that it prevents legal purchasers from buying for felons who could not otherwise buy illegally. But the recipient for this cop’s purchase was a legal buyer himself. So even if you’re ‘legally blind’, you still can SEE this liberty defiling slippery slope!

    • Steve August 24, 2015, 8:30 pm

      A funny thing is that once one has served time, one is not a criminal. That person has paid of societal debts and is supposed to be a free citizen. A record may be kept, yes. However, that person is a free citizen that is to have full an unalienable Constitutional rights.
      To disarm a person over a past transgression is to make that person a potential victim to a criminal.
      In the past, those who did serve their time and paid off their debts were always allowed to be armed for the defense of themselves and others. They were free under the Constitution.
      After the oppressives, what I call progressives, started getting into politics, they started doing everything in order to subvert and destroy the Constitution as well as the Constitutions of each and every state.

      In the Pennsylvania Constitution, Article 1 Section 21 clearly states as follows.
      The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be
      questioned.
      Yet, laws in Pennsylvania have been passed that wholly violate this article and section. The most egregious being that no one may carry a firearm openly in a city of “first class”, Namely, Philadelphia.
      Let’s face it, philthadelphia, as many have come to call it, is nowhere near first class. Maybe tenth, but certainly not first class.
      Also, the carrying of a blade that is longer than the width of one’s own palm has been written to be illegal too.
      Honestly, this is a disarmament tactic and should be halted all across the country.

      The Supreme Court is stocked with 2 ninnies and 3 outright unConstitutional leftist witches and only 4 who actually have read, studied, and adhere to the Constitution on a regular basis.
      Congress is almost completely filled with selfish, self promoting, bribe accepting, turds that somehow keep getting elected year after year and should really be dragged out of their offices kicking and screaming, be given a full once over by the public, be tarred and feathered, and never be allowed to run for public office ever again.
      Finally, the Executive Branch has a full blown islamo-commie sitting in our Presidential seat that does nothing to stop our real enemies and does everything he can to undermine the efforts of those who are supposed to be our friends. His cabinet is full of selfish like minded individuals who also work to wreak our country day in and day out while allowing real criminals to get away scott free and punishing anyone who dares to stand up to them.

      What the Hell are we all doing sitting on our duffs?
      Why can we not organize against these oath breakers and traitors?
      Scared they will come after us? We outnumber them. Yes, they have the 4th Amendment breaking NSA spying on us. Yes, they bully phone and internet companies to give information without a warrant being presented.
      They still do not outnumber us.
      We surround them. We outnumber and outgun them. They know it and seek to disarm us so we can end up like so many of mao tse tung’s, hitler’s, stalin’s, lenin’s, and pol pot’s victims.
      What are we all waiting for?

  • Winston August 24, 2015, 11:27 am

    The author should write in a more concise manner. His article meanders around the topic and makes it hard to follow by his skipping around with distractions.

    • Veritas August 24, 2015, 5:01 pm

      Limited attention span? Must be a Havard Law School professor.

    • Steve August 24, 2015, 8:01 pm

      I read it all the way through and had absolutely no problems in comprehension.
      Mayhap you need a bit more ritalin or whatever other designer brain stewing drug is out there in order to pay attention.

    • Gregg August 25, 2015, 11:15 am

      I thought it made perfect sense. I understood it and I have had some brain trauma. So the only thing I can figure is you must be one of the ones with the bodyguards to back you up.

      • Really August 27, 2015, 8:55 am

        The goal here is to sway individuals that are on the fence or not sure what they think on the issue. A poorly written piece like this doesn’t help. This is not slander against author or subject but some body telling you a better written article stands a better chance of accomplishing its goal. This is assuming the authors intent is to sway and not just rant with peers and friends.
        For myself I am on the fence. Not about gun registration because that happens with each “new”sale by law but with the back ground check. If I understood the argument here it appears that it would be a wash in the end and why not use it as a bargaining chip to open up more proper freedoms like silencers for everyone or something like that. In my opinion I would like to see some kind of required training, like some require for CC. Scares me folks can purchase a gun and not have any training.

  • Tony2Wolves August 24, 2015, 8:42 am

    Once we allowed the government to take gun rights from anyone, we invited them to take our guns. An example is felons. An unliked segment of society, felons were an easy target for the gun grabbers. There were already laws in place that made it illegal to use a firearm to harm another person that carried life in prison or the death penalty. What good would it do to pass a law making it illegal for a felon to own a gun? If a felon is a habitual law breaker they would never obey a gun law? The only people ever impacted by gun control laws are the good people. Gun control laws treat good people like they are criminals. It was the felons first, then they added some misdemeanors. In California your family can label you a threat and you lose your gun rights for one to ten years. Also how many protective orders are due to the vengeful spouse in a divorce that take gun rights away from an innocent spouse. If you ever took any type of depression medication, even short term, they want your guns. See how they start out with one group most people don’t care for then they add more and more people. The second amendment clearly said any “free man”, (not on probation, parole, or in jail), could not have his right to weapons taken away. When you condone the taking of some groups rights your are telling the government it is permissible to take the same rights from you in the future. What more basic right is there than the right to defend your family, person, and property regardless of past transgressions. The unlawful assault against a felon or his family is no different than an assault against the purest of society so why should a felon be barred from gun ownership especially considering the ineffectiveness of gun control laws. It never ceases to amaze me how most of the gun grabbers have armed security teams or secret service protection. Some of the gun grabbers have carry permits and have used guns to protect themselves and their homes against criminals but they don’t want you to be able to protect yourself. In England you go to prison if you use lethal force to protect yourself from criminals who invade your home in the middle of the night. I mention England’s stance on self protection because it is where the gun grabbers want you legally bound. All societies who have been disarmed eventually end up being the victim of genocide by their government.

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