My message to the gun-grabbers is this (and before you attack it, give it some real thought):
“We hear often about ‘compromise’ in politics. Usually, liberals mean that conservatives surrender by a smaller amount than liberals had hoped, and liberals give up nothing other than the pace at which their liberal agenda advances.
So here’s a real compromise. You want all gun sales to be subject to a background check? OK, let’s say that no one can buy a gun unless they can prove they are legally qualified (old enough, not criminally disqualified).
This hard-nose gun rights extremist could live with that IF...
Only if you would agree not to collect any data on purchases. It would be like buying a bottle of booze. I show ID, the clerk checks it, records no data, and away I go. It could be my high-security driver’s license, with no gun-prohibition endorsement. If I ever became disqualified, the first thing they would do is confiscate my old license, and issue one with a gun purchase prohibition.
There would be stiff penalties for seller violations, including stings of gun shops, gun shows, and want-ad sellers who did not ask for and verify a qualified ID.
Now, with this compromise, you’re ensuring that EVERYONE gets “carded.” Which is not now the case. That’s what you gain. What you lose is the ability to collect data on every gun owner, including what models and serial numbers of guns we purchase.
But what use to you is that anyway, except to ban and then take away our guns.
You gain the benefit of keeping guns out of the hands of the unqualified, and we gain insurance against gun confiscation and subsequent tyranny. But you and your politicians never intended that, did you, so you’re really giving up nothing, right?
And the only reason we fight to keep check-free private sales is so we can know that the tyrants to be know that there are millions of guns that they have no ability to confiscate.
Remove that fear of confiscation, and we will agree to a requirement that everyone be carded when they buy a gun.
Oh, and in case you were curious, I have sold guns privately, unable to even make a free phone call to verify my buyer wasn’t a criminal. If you really care about keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, you’d have a line I could call to find this our (without revealing whether a gun was actually purchased - I’d ignore that, because I want one more gun taken outside of your confiscation database.)”
(And because they’d never go for this, don’t hate me for proposing it, because all it really does is reveal their true agenda).
I think the Framers had it right:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
I also think I understand your idea and the reason you propose it.
Which I'm sure they're on record claiming isn't what they want anyway. So if you figure out a way to give them what they CLAIM they want without also giving them what they CLAIM they don't want, it puts them in a bind. What can they say? Good work!