Fix NICs Act..

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Bruenor
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Fix NICs Act..

Post by Bruenor »

As far as legislation goes, if this sticks strictly to ensuring information that belongs in nics gets put into nics. I guess it's not so bad.
I guess we have to wait and see what the actual legislation looks like.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/senat ... le/2640857" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., appear to be near a deal that would improve background checks on gun sales.

The legislation, which is expected to be officially unveiled Thursday, would encourage states to bolster the National Instate Criminal Background Check system to certify all background check information is uploaded, according to NBC News.

The bill, known as the “Fix NICS Act,” would provide options to assist uploading required records, such as requesting federal agencies and states create plans to upload and verify criminal and mental health records that would prevent inappropriate purchasers from buying a weapon.

Additionally, the legislation would provide incentives for states who follow the uploading requirements, such as grants. Conversely, incentives such as withholding political appointees bonuses would be implemented to agencies who fail to comply.
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Re: Fix NICs Act..

Post by Javelin Man »

Watch for an amendment to be slipped in which requires all gun sales to go through this, a de facto universal background check bill without it being said.

So, be diligent.
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Re: Fix NICs Act..

Post by Brian D. »

They don't need more Acts, they need action! Some of these agencies have been given financial and other assistance more than once, to bring their records up to speed. The money then gets spent elsewhere, without any repercussions--other than those negatively impacted by criminals that shouldn't have been loose, of course.

And as we've seen again lately, the military may be the worst offenders of all.
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Re: Fix NICs Act..

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Problems With Background Checks

A. God-given rights are unalienable

* The Declaration of Independence says that people are “endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights.” This means that government cannot in any way infringe, delay or deny a God-given right that belongs to law-abiding citizens. Background checks for firearms purchases, however, force good people to prove their innocence to government bureaucrats, thus giving the government the power to arbitrarily deny honest citizens their right to protect themselves.

B. Background checks invite official abuse

C. Criminals easily bypass background checks

D. Background checks can (and do) lead to gun registration

E. Gun registration can (and does) lead to the confiscation of firearms

F. Courts have ruled that prior restraints on rights are unconstitutional

G. Would we tolerate background checks on other rights?
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Re: Fix NICs Act..

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Both the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) support the bill.

“The National Rifle Association has long supported the inclusion of all legitimate records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). While federal law prohibited the Texas shooter from possessing a firearm, he was able to pass a background check because the Air Force failed to transfer his conviction record to the FBI," NRA's Executive Director Chris W. Cox told Townhall. "We applaud Sen. John Cornyn’s efforts to ensure that the records of prohibited individuals are entered into NICS, while providing a relief valve for those who are wrongly included in the system. The NRA will continue to support efforts to make the background check system instant, accurate and fair, while protecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners."

SNIP

The NSSF also applauded Cornyn's bill.

"We commend Sen. Cornyn for his leadership to encourage state and federal agencies to enter all applicable records in the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)," Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the NSSF Lawrence G. Keane said. "This legislation will provide states with the necessary resources to promptly and efficiently provide disqualifying records to NICS on those who are prohibited under current law from possessing firearms. Federally licensed firearms retailers rely upon NICS to prevent the sale of firearms to prohibited persons. This legislation will fix NICS so that background checks are accurate and reliable."
Image

Gun Owners of America (GOA), on the other hand, oppose the bill. The group's Chairman, Tim Macy, penned an open letterto Sen. Mitch McConnell, which said helping tweak the NICS would be giving gun control advocates a win.

"GOA opposes the background check system because prior restraints should not be placed on law-abiding gun owners who wish to exercise their Second Amendment-protected rights," GOA's Executive Director Erich Pratt told Townhall. "We also oppose putting more names and more information into NICS because the more information that gets added the more data that can be used to deny law-abiding gun owners."
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Re: Fix NICs Act..

Post by JediSkipdogg »

I'm confused on the GOA stance. So they would rather have people unknowingly in illegal possession of firearms because the data isn't recorded properly? If I'm convicted of DV I'm disqualified whether or not the info is in the system. I've yet to see a defendant win because "I purchased it from an FFL and they (NICS) let it go through."
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Re: Fix NICs Act..

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JediSkipdogg wrote:I'm confused on the GOA stance. So they would rather have people unknowingly in illegal possession of firearms because the data isn't recorded properly? If I'm convicted of DV I'm disqualified whether or not the info is in the system. I've yet to see a defendant win because "I purchased it from an FFL and they (NICS) let it go through."
Winning doesn't happen because there are so few prosecutions
March 2013 "Of approximately 80,000 in 2012 that were denied (a gun) because of a background check … only 44 people were prosecuted for that," Ayotte said during the February 19 meeting.

"That surprised me," she said. "I want to look further at what we’re doing in terms of enforcement."

If Ayotte’s numbers are right, the nation’s .055 prosecution rate doesn’t make for a very good shooting percentage. So, we decided to run the numbers ourselves.
Oct 2016The audit released last month of how well the FBI is handling background check denials by the Inspector General’s Office in the Justice Department was designed to “focus on how the DOJ handles” denials. What it revealed was unsettling: "We found that the number of NICS [National Instant Criminal Background Check System] denial prosecutions has dropped substantially since 2002, when 166 subjects were accepted for consideration of prosecution. Between 2008 and 2015 … the USAO [United States Attorney’s Office] accepted for consideration of prosecution 254 subjects … less than 32 subjects per year."

In other words, since 2008, while background checks have been soaring, the number of those being prosecuted for failing the check has dropped by 80 percent!
NICS is not for prosecution, it's for persecution. Why should anyone want to strengthen it? It's largely avoided by the criminal element and simply jams up FFLs and the law-abiding.

Certainly it isn't being abused, right?
A federal lawsuit challenging the use of background check data on firearms sales in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s terror database since 2004 argues the practice is illegal.

The lawsuit, now in the U.S. 2nd Circuit, alleges that the government abused its access to information given by potential gun buyers to conduct background checks by comparing it to the terrorist screening database. In sum, that the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center has no legal right to access the personal information on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ gun transfer forms.

For over a decade, the FBI’s background check system used for gun transfers, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, has been compared against the Known or Appropriately Suspected Terrorists file, a subset of the Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB.
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Re: Fix NICs Act..

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False denial's will take a person anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to clear up.
What could possibly go wrong.....
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Re: Fix NICs Act..

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I'm not talking about winning a NICS prosecution. I'm talking about winning a weapons under disability prosecution. It doesn't matter what NICS has, the FBI has, BCI has, etc. What matters is once someone has a disqualifying offense, they are disqualified. I once assisted in having a felony OVI stand based only on finding enough prior OVIS on a clerk of court website.
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Re: Fix NICs Act..

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bignflnut wrote:
Problems With Background Checks

A. God-given rights are unalienable

* The Declaration of Independence says that people are “endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights.” This means that government cannot in any way infringe, delay or deny a God-given right that belongs to law-abiding citizens. Background checks for firearms purchases, however, force good people to prove their innocence to government bureaucrats, thus giving the government the power to arbitrarily deny honest citizens their right to protect themselves.

You have an inalienable right under the First Amendment not to believe in God or a Creator.
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Re: Fix NICs Act..

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JediSkipdogg wrote:I'm not talking about winning a NICS prosecution. I'm talking about winning a weapons under disability prosecution. It doesn't matter what NICS has, the FBI has, BCI has, etc. What matters is once someone has a disqualifying offense, they are disqualified. I once assisted in having a felony OVI stand based only on finding enough prior OVIS on a clerk of court website.
With a bright defense attorney, that will work only if you can establish that all the convictions were counseled, or there was a written waiver of counsel. It's amazing how many courts fail to document that.
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Re: Fix NICs Act..

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Werz wrote: You have an inalienable right under the First Amendment not to believe in God or a Creator.
That's like breathing while denying the existence of air. One can do it, but it's self-defeating and discredits the messenger.
The term "unalienable rights" should, in every instance of its use, be read as meaning God-given, unalienable rights, because the only basis for considering them to be unalienable is the fundamental and uniquely American concept of their Divine origin--that Man possesses them solely by reason of endowment by his Creator. Unless considered to be of Divine origin, these rights cannot properly be classified as being unalienable. They are then subject to being considered as mere conditional privileges granted by government. In such case, there can be no moral or constitutional basis for objecting to their violation, by government or by others, such as exists in the case of God-given rights as protected traditionally by the American constitutional system; such government-granted privileges are not comparable in dignity with God-given rights.
What is America if not a concept? What is it that people defend with their lives?

Pride seems to precede a fall once again, as the American Reckoning continues.
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

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"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
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Re: Fix NICs Act..

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bignflnut wrote:
Werz wrote: You have an inalienable right under the First Amendment not to believe in God or a Creator.
That's like breathing while denying the existence of air. One can do it, but it's self-defeating and discredits the messenger.
The term "unalienable rights" should, in every instance of its use, be read as meaning God-given, unalienable rights, because the only basis for considering them to be unalienable is the fundamental and uniquely American concept of their Divine origin--that Man possesses them solely by reason of endowment by his Creator. Unless considered to be of Divine origin, these rights cannot properly be classified as being unalienable. They are then subject to being considered as mere conditional privileges granted by government. In such case, there can be no moral or constitutional basis for objecting to their violation, by government or by others, such as exists in the case of God-given rights as protected traditionally by the American constitutional system; such government-granted privileges are not comparable in dignity with God-given rights.
From the same 1963 tome by the author quoted above:
The fundamental principle underlying the traditional American philosophy is that the Spiritual is supreme--that Man is of Divine origin and his spiritual, or religious, nature is of supreme value and importance compared with things material.
***
It excludes disbelief in--even doubt as to the existence of--God as the Creator of Man: and therefore excludes all ideas, theories and schools of thought--however ethical and lofty in intentions--which reject affirmative and positive belief in God as Man's Creator.
Yeah, pretty clearly contrary to the First Amendment. Some of us believe in the whole Bill of Rights.
"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life."
-- Robert A. Heinlein, Beyond This Horizon
"Remember that protecting our gun rights still boils down to keeping a majority in the electorate, and that our daily activities can have the impact of being ambassadors for the gun culture ..."
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Open carry is a First Amendment exercise.
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Re: Fix NICs Act..

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Werz wrote:
The fundamental principle underlying the traditional American philosophy is that the Spiritual is supreme--that Man is of Divine origin and his spiritual, or religious, nature is of supreme value and importance compared with things material.
***
It excludes disbelief in--even doubt as to the existence of--God as the Creator of Man: and therefore excludes all ideas, theories and schools of thought--however ethical and lofty in intentions--which reject affirmative and positive belief in God as Man's Creator.
Yeah, pretty clearly contrary to the First Amendment. Some of us believe in the whole Bill of Rights.
I believe you found that quote here under point 5. Hamilton Abert Long believes that what he has stated gives rise to the entire Bill of Rights. He's laying the philosophical foundation for the 1st Amendment and others. He's displaying the well, where the Liberties we enjoy spring from. He finds no contradiction in binding Congress from making an official religion (as this was the reason for fleeing their former Homeland) and believing in a Law-Giver outside of humanity. In fact, he insists on both.
The Constitution's first eight (Bill of Rights) amendments list certain rights of The Individual and prohibit the doing of certain things by the central, or Federal, government which, if done, would violate these rights. These amendments were intended by their Framers and Adopters merely to make express a few of the already-existing, implied prohibitions against the Federal government only--supplementing the prohibitions previously specified expressly in the original Constitution and supplementing and confirming its general, over-all, implied, prohibition as to all things concerning which it withheld power from this government. Merely confirming expressly some of the already-existing, implied prohibitions, these amendments did not create any new ones. They are, therefore, more properly referred to as a partial list of limitations--or a partial Bill of Prohibitions--as was indicated by Hamilton in The Federalist number 84. This hinges upon the uniquely American concepts stated in the Declaration of Independence: that Men, created of God, in turn create their governments and grant to them only "just" (limited) powers--primarily to make and keep secure their God-given, unalienable rights including, in part, the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. As Hamilton stated, under the American philosophy and system of constitutionally limited government, "the people surrender nothing;" instead, they merely delegate to government--to public servants as public trustees--limited powers and therefore, he added, "they have no need of particular reservations" (in a Bill of Rights). This is the basic reason why the Framing Convention omitted from the Constitution anything in the nature of a separate Bill of Rights, as being unnecessary.
It's interesting to have this conversation at Thanksgiving as the Mayflower Compact gets its most views around this time of year. Binding themselves under a covenant seemed to be akin to a "mission statement" in today's corporate world, giving the group direction and explicit purpose for suffering the travails of the days and months to come.
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Re: Fix NICs Act..

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bignflnut wrote:
Werz wrote:
Yeah, pretty clearly contrary to the First Amendment. Some of us believe in the whole Bill of Rights.
I believe you found that quote here under point 5. Hamilton Abert Long believes that what he has stated gives rise to the entire Bill of Rights. He's laying the philosophical foundation for the 1st Amendment and others. He's displaying the well, where the Liberties we enjoy spring from. He finds no contradiction in binding Congress from making an official religion (as this was the reason for fleeing their former Homeland) and believing in a Law-Giver outside of humanity. In fact, he insists on both.
In fact, the insistence is what runs afoul the First Amendment.
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