The House just passed universal background checks for gun sales — again The bill, like all gun control legislation over the past several years, will likely fail in the Senate.
Why would any rational citizen be against this?
The background checks bill would expand federal oversight of gun sales, requiring unlicensed and private sellers to conduct background checks.
While gun sales between licensed sellers and buyers are contingent on the buyer’s passage of a federal background check for red flags like a criminal record or a history of mental illness, unlicensed sellers, including online sales, gun shows, and sales between family members and friends, are currently under no obligation to request a background check.
Under the bill, sponsored by Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA), gun loans for activities such as hunting or gifting among family members are still permissible.
I mean except for the people who do want to sell their guns to criminals and the insane...
4 comments:
People choose absolutism, I think, because they prefer the issue to policy. They want something to campaign on, and it's hard to campaign on relativism. Gun control, like abortion, is one of those issues that was long given over to partisan politics making rational discussion, and compromise impossible.
What matters about wedge issues, isn't the issue, it's whether they serve effectively as wedges. To do that, it helps if they tap into emotion, and most importantly, whether any efforts to deal with them rationally, with mutual respect and in the spirit of compromise, can be blocked.
--Hiram
In a political environmnet where a party with a positive agenda, which requires a consensus to enact, wedges are effective political tools. That's because the building of consensuses requir that people who may disagree with each other have to agree with each other to achieve common goals. They do this by forming coaliions, and coalitions always have cracks, to which wedges can be applied.
==Hiram
One way to deal wtih the issue is to hold gun purchasers responsible for how their guns are used. If their guns end up in the hands of criminals, the original gun owner should be held liable.
--Hiram
I agree totally
None of my gun toting FB friends are offering any argument against this simple topic. :-O
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