In the spirit of my previous observations, where I commented “there are only two reasons for a national gun registry: taxation and confiscation,” Senator Reid has rammed through proposed legislation to do just that.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) wants to tax your gun rights. His new legislation charges you a fee that is in essence a federal tax on selling or giving away your firearm, and he lets Attorney General Eric Holder decide how big that tax will be.

Senate Democrats Charles Schumer of New York, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Barbara Boxer of California have introduced a raft of gun control legislation (S. 374, S. 54, and S. 146, respectively). Senator Leahy, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, rammed the legislation through committee in record time—not even bothering to issue the customary committee reports to explain the bills—and Reid combined the bills into a single gun control bill (S. 649). Firearms owners across the country and others who care about their right to keep and bear arms should keep a close eye on the Reid legislation. Your rights are under attack.

[ … ]

Title I of the Reid gun control bill purports to “fix gun checks.” The proposed “fix” in section 122 of S. 649 is to take away an individual’s right to sell or give away a firearm to another individual unless, in most cases, the individual (1) uses a licensed importer, dealer, or manufacturer to make the transfer of the firearm and (2) pays a fee to that importer, dealer, or manufacturer to make the transfer. The individual transferring the firearm is not actually receiving a service; the federal government is receiving the service. The service the government gets is a background check on the intended recipient of the firearm, because the law requires the importer, dealer, or manufacturer to run the recipient through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

Forcing the individual to pay for the government-mandated service, which is in fact a service to the government, is in essence a federal tax on the individual. And the amount the individual pays as a fee is not limited by the legislation; section 122(a)(4) of the Reid bill enacts a new section 922(t)(4)(B)(i) of title 18 of the U.S. Code to grant to Attorney General Eric Holder the power to set the maximum fee by regulation.

Thus he gets it all – a national gun registry, almost omniscient state knowledge of the whereabouts of firearms for legal owners, and taxation of our property.  And on top of that, Eric Holder gets to set the fee schedule.  Again as I have observed, so-called assault weapons are irrelevant to the progressive.  A national gun registry is the touchstone of success.

What could possibly go wrong?  Their only mistake is in assuming that gun owners will willingly acquiesce to this tyranny.  On that account, this might not turn out like Reid had hoped.

I wouldn’t otherwise link claptrap like this, but since it’s with the Washington Post it gets a nontrivial amount of traffic.  It’s important to deal with it.

Senators Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee all appear set to mount a filibuster to prevent any Obama gun control proposal of any kind from being debated on the Senate floor — on Second Amendment grounds. Senator Paul went on Fox News last night to explain his thinking.

In the process, however, Paul inadvertently made an important concession. Here’s what he said:

“I haven’t heard one proposal from him or Harry Reid that would have saved one life. And I’m all for saving lives….We plan on making them have at least 60 votes to pass any legislation that may abridge the Second Amendment. So we will fight tooth and nail, and use every parliamentary procedure to stop that from happening. We have a lot of things on the books that the president says he wants to enhance, many of these could be enhanced without any legislation. Background checks already do work. We already have rules that say mental health statistics need to come from the states to the data bank.”

I’d advise Senator Paul against claiming improving background checks would not save lives or prevent mass shootings. A better background check system very well may have prevented the Virginia Tech massacre. Data collected by the pro-gun-control Mayors Against Illegal Guns suggests that states with better background check laws show a lower murder rate of women, fewer suicides, and less gun trafficking. Now, maybe you don’t trust MAIG’s data. Shouldn’t the possibility that expanding gun background checks could save lives — which Paul himself says he wants — be enough for him to actually give the idea serious thought?

It’s also important that Paul claimed that current background checks “already do work.” Here’s why: He’s effectively allowing that the current background check law is not a threat to people’s Second Amendment rights. The current compromise on expanded background checks being negotiated would simply expand the current system to cover most private sales. It would maintain the prohibition against any national gun registry. It would maintain the current system of record keeping — in which dealers keep records of sales, and the feds destroy any record of a valid gun transfer within 24 hours. By Paul’s own lights those things, in the context of the current law, are not a threat to Americans’ constitutional rights. There is no logical way, then, that the new proposal threatens them, either. This is an important concession.

Keep that in mind as you read Senator Lee’s deeply strange and hallucinatory argument against the proposal. Lee claims it would require a national registry to work (it wouldn’t) …

Let’s deal with this is four categories.  First, Senator Lee’s argument is only deeply strange to the author because he hasn’t taken the time to study people who are smarter than he is if he lives a thousand lifetimes.  Dave Hardy has an article Mr. Sargent needs to read.

Second, Mr. Sargent does in fact point to a larger problem with the opposition that Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are mounting to gun legislation.  It troubles me that they are discussing “improved” background checks as a cure for anything, much less crime.  We have made it clear from the outset.  No new gun laws.  Not a single one, and it’s high time for the Senators to hear the message.

Third, I agree with Mr. Sargent in his demurral over “improved background checks.”  He doesn’t believe it will save lives or prevent shootings for the same reason that I don’t believe it.  It won’t, and the mental health professionals have told us so in the clearest possible terms.

But fourth and most important, while planning his logical coup against Rand Paul, Mr. Sargent has opened a logical hole in his own arguments and divulged the secrets of the gun control lobby.

While pointing out that “improved background checks” won’t have the desired effect on crime, he has informed you of his presuppositions.  Criminals don’t uniquely and solely suffer from mental health problems.

Crime is a moral choice, and there is no justified reason to claim that while “improved background checks” won’t help the situation, universal background checks will.  To assert that would require Sargent to believe the following: (a) no crimes are committed by people who suffer from mental maladies (since mental health checks won’t accomplish their desired end), or otherwise (a1) those who suffer from mental maladies obtained their firearms illegally, and (b) all criminals obtain their firearms legally.

Proposition (a) is demonstrably false, and acquiescing to (a1) would undermine his acceptance of proposition (b).  Proposition (b) also entails the acceptance of the notion that only previously convicted felons will commit felonies in the future, also a demonstrably false proposition.

Mr. Sargent has a world of logical problems, but it’s because he knows that this isn’t about crime.  Other statists have told us what a national gun registry is all about and how important it is for their world view.

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence.

Unfortunately, right now we can’t. The political will is there, but the institutions are not. Honestly, this is a good thing. If we passed a law tomorrow banning all firearms, we would have massive noncompliance. What we need to do is establish the regulatory and informational institutions first. This is how we do it.  The very first thing we need is national registry. We need to know where the guns are, and who has them.

I have told you not to trust the Leviathan, and I have explained why.  Fortunately, while Mr. Sargent finds the weakness in Rand Paul’s argument, he divulges the secret weaknesses of his own.  Again, this isn’t about crime – it’s about a national gun registry.  There are only two reasons for a national gun registry: taxation and confiscation.  Both would be unconstitutional and immoral.

Soon to the report – but first a little story.

Once upon a time some teenagers were racing hot rods down Ocean Drive in Myrtle Beach, S.C.  Tourists were hit by one of these kids, and so the townsfolk came together and decided that something must be done to make things safer.  The decided on a plan, and even had a real time, in-situ display of their new ideas for the voters before the town voted on it.

They all got together that day and after speeches about “caring for the children,” and waded into the ocean, each participant having another participant (they called him their swimming buddy) within 20 feet of him, both to the right and left.  No one, according to the new ordinance, would be allowed to swim in the ocean, night or day, without buddies within 20 feet.  It would all be monitored by cameras and enforced by newly hired police officers.

Some of the townsfolk objected that no one could ever swim again because the line of buddies would never end since a person would have to be flanked on both sides, and thus the stipulations could not be logically met, but the participants told the objectors to “shut up, just because.”  Others objected that this all had nothing whatsoever to do with High School kids racing hot rods on Ocean Drive, but the partipants and local politicians all told them to “shut up, just because.”  And besides, “think about the children.”  And then, “shut up.”

I hope that this little parable has been a useful introduction to what seems to be coming down the road.

No surprise but newsworthy insofar as I think this is the first time a Republican as prominent as McCain has talked openly about some new form of gun control passing Congress. If you’re not sure what he means when he refers to the plan Coburn and Schumer are working on, read this. They’re going to close the “gun-show loophole” but carve out exceptions for family transfers and maybe for people who’ve already been vetted for concealed carry. How many votes will there be for that? Well, they’ll start at 58: Coburn and Mark Kirk are part of the group that’s working on a compromise bill and McCain’s already hinting that he’s a yes, so add those three to the Democrats’ 55 (no Dem would dare oppose a measure that might complicate Obama’s “Republican obstructionism” message on gun control). Collins and Murkowski are always gimmes on big bipartisan initiatives too, so there you go — 60 votes for cloture, although there’s bound to be many, many more than that. Follow the last link for your reminder that expanded background checks is the one gun-control measure that polls fantastically well across party lines. Even Lindsey Graham, who needs to protect his right flank in case of a primary challenge in South Carolina next year, is open to some form of new background checks albeit not the Democratic plan. You might see a majority of House Republicans vote no, partly as a symbolic rejection of further gun-control regulations and partly to distinguish themselves from the squishy RINOs in the Senate for the benefit of red-district voters, but it’s going to pass that chamber too with bipartisan support. When push comes to shove, I think Boehner would rather violate the “Hastert Rule” and push this thing through with mostly Democratic votes than risk handing Obama a potential weapon for 2014 by rejecting something that even many Senate Republicans support.

Regular readers know my view.  Universal background checks are a pretext for and necessary prerequisite to a national gun registry, and a national gun registry is a precondition for gun confiscations.  Furthermore, none of this has anything to do with the shootings that have been in the news lately.  And finally, we’ll see how that exception goes where they want to carve out provisions for transfer of firearms to children.  Give it some time – it will turn totalitarian because that’s the way totalitarian systems work.

But remember this fact about the entire conversation.  None of this is related to the antecedent events.  The only clear-cut and logical legislative action I support is abolishing gun-free zones.  Everything else is just a smoke screen.

In response to Wayne Lapierre And The Apocalypse, Dave Hardy writes as follows:

Here are my own thoughts. A ban on private sales will be unenforceable in the near future, since guns being found will have been initially sold before its effective date, and thus a lawful private transfer before the ban went into effect cannot be ruled out.

But even after, say, ten years pass, the ban will still be unenforceable in practice unless Congress also either:

1) Enacts national firearm registration, requiting FFLs to report all sales so they can be placed in a national database, and requires such reporting backdated to the effective date of the private sales ban, or

2) Makes firearm possession illegal, period, providing for a defense if the gun owner can prove they bought the gun before before the effective date of the ban, or bought it from an FFL after the ban.

Visit Dave’s site for the rest.  He is making a legal and technical point, one that I have seen before.  Perhaps he’s right, but be warned.  First of all, I am concerned about prosecutorial overreach and discretion.  But second, holes in any universal background check law can be plugged in the future once the basic framework is constructed.

Finally, here is the most serious warning.  I work with the federal government on at least a semi-regular basis, and when not, I am doing things that follow federal regulation, even though highly technical (the specific nature of what I do is not the subject and won’t be discussed).

For most people who never work with federal agencies and departments, ignorance is bliss.  But for those who do, they know that the nasty little secret about the federal government has to do with lawmaking by regulation.

Laws are passed by the Senate and Congress.  But after laws pass, thousands of lawyers inside the beltway go to work writing regulations based on those laws, or not, using the law as a pretext for further regulation that Congress didn’t specifically intend.  At times, Congress has even had to pass laws undoing regulations because the regulations don’t meet the intent of the law, and yet the executive branch won’t stop enforcing that regulation (or class of regulations).

Regulation is passed merely by entering them into the federal register, allowing a waiting time for public comments (which are nothing but a chance afforded to the authors of the regulations to ignore them or write sarcastic rebuttals), and then after the waiting period, it takes on the force of law including prosecution, fines and imprisonment for failure to follow them.

This happens every day, all over the nation, and in the DOT, NRC, EPA, DOJ, ATF, DHS, and other departments and agencies that the reader cannot even name and didn’t know existed.  Any law giving the executive branch the authority to further regulate firearms will be an opportunity for abuse, overreach and exploitation.

Take it from someone who has seen it.  Don’t trust the Leviathan.  It is a monster and it has monstrous intentions.

Via Instapundit, Joe Manchin in his words:

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Monday that he opposes an assault weapons ban.

Speaking on MSNBC, Manchin, who has an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association and in December called for federal action to reduce gun violence, said he thinks there’s a better way to reduce mass shootings without introducing new restrictions for gun owners.

“I do not support an assault weapon ban because the definition of assault weapon is still hard to come by,” Manchin said. “So I am not going to comment on people’s legislation. I do not support that approach right now.”

Manchin is part of a quartet of legislators working to tighten background checks required to purchase a gun. The other members of the group are Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.).

Of course, the fact that the definition of assault weapon is itself defined in the legislation (an example of circular reasoning) is a ridiculous reason for not supporting it.  But of course, Joe is lying.  The real reason that he isn’t supporting a new AWB is because it cannot pass.  The real reason he should oppose it is because it is unconstitutional and immoral, though Joe isn’t too worried about trivialities like that.

What Joe is doing is working with totalitarians to enact universal background checks, thus setting up a national gun registry.  I expect this out of Joe.  I am saddened to see it out of Eric and Paul.

From site meter, DNC visit on Eric Cantor and universal background checks.

The communists are a hard-working bunch, no?  The GOP?  Well, they’re just a cowardly, bleeding, pitiful bunch of ne’er-do-wells who want to be loved.  And the Dems smell their blood.  Call your Congressmen.  Call your Senators.  Tell them that gun owners have a long memory, and even longer reach.  Tell them what their sell-out will cost.

Prior:

Paul Ryan Caves On Universal Background Checks

Cantor Caves On Universal Background Checks

Washington Post:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said this week that he is open to closing the loophole that allows weapon purchases at gun shows without a background check.

In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published Tuesday, Ryan said gun show loopholes are a “very reasonable” issue and that it’s “obvious” it should be addressed.

“I think we should look into someone who is not legally allowed to buy a gun going to (a show), buying one, and let’s figure that out,” he said. “I think we need to find out how to close these loopholes and do it in such a way that we don’t infringe on Second Amendment rights.”

You go ahead and “look into that.”  I think we should look into booting your cowardly ass out of Congress.  The phrase gun show loophole is an invention by the statists.  What they really want, and what you’re agreeing to, is universal background checks and a national gun registry.  These are evil things, and with everything I’ve got I will defend the right for grandfather to bequeath his rifle to his grandson under the Christmas tree without asking the communists in Washington about it.

I have the same counsel for you that I had for Eric Cantor.  Tread carefully, young man.  We’re watching.

From CNN:

The number two House Republican said Tuesday that he supports beefed up background checks for gun sales, an indication of where potential gun control legislation could be headed on Capitol Hill.

Rep. Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, told CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash that a system put in place in his home state of Virginia following the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech could be a model for a nationwide measure.

He said that model ensured mental health information was linked to databases used in background checks during gun sales.

“I think that we can take a lot of lessons from what Virginia did and put it in place at the federal level, because there are a lot of states that aren’t doing what Virginia is doing to try and beef up the database for the background checks to make sure that we actually can do something that does have a chance at reducing the likelihood and hopefully eliminating it from happening again,” Cantor said.

Mental health checks are the great red herring in this whole discussion, and won’t accomplish anything in the way of enhancing public safety.  Furthermore, mental health checks are a minor part of Obama’s overall plan.

The most significant part of Obama’s plans is the universal background check.  As I have pointed out, universal background checks are the way to develop a national gun registry, a national gun registry (and in fact, all gun control) is the action of a wicked government, and a national gun registry is only a pretext for and necessary prerequisite condition for gun confiscations.  Cantor is talking past you in order to hide his real intentions concerning Congressional plans to cave on gun control.

Mr. Cantor, listen very carefully.  We all know you want to be President.  You are about to do something that will (a) not gain you any leftist votes, and (b) lose you the GOP nomination.  If you grease the skids for Obama’s national gun registry plans, you will be a pariah.  Oh, you may keep your little post and stay snugly ensconced in the House, but your plans for national prominence will be finished.  We gun owners don’t forget.  Ever.

Tread carefully.