Attribute to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise

Sometimes we still get carried away, listening to and believing what the ruling class says. I don't know why.

Lately they've been saying they want universal background checks, and advancing various half-assed justifications to promote that. We tend not to believe the justifications (if we have half a brain); but for some reason, accept the premise.

They don't want background checks. It's clear. If they really wanted them, they would do this: have the FBI publish the list of prohibited persons online, and let sellers download and look in the list to see if the prospective buyer should have a gun. It would be easy and free, and because an actual service is provided, at no cost, the sellers would actually use it without need to threaten them with penalties. There are various technical means (having to do with encrypted files) to prove that the check was made, but all such information would remain on the seller's computers rather than in a centralized database.

That's of course the drawback to this plan! It doesn't matter that it would fly through Congress without opposition, and actually be used more than any other alternative. It's no good—from the rulers' point of view—precisely because no information goes back to the government.

The rulers don't give a rat's ass about background checks, despite all their soothing lies. They want registration. The proof of this statement is that they could have background checks easily, if that was all they wanted.

A couple of points in the above need clarification.

First, of course the whole concept of "prohibited persons" is bogus. It's already tyrannical that government is keeping such a list. Now, they will say that it's to protect us from crazies with guns, but what sane person worries more about the occasional crazy with a gun than he worries about government with a list? About government with jails and thuggish cops? I'll take crazies any day, the same way I live with the possibility of being struck by lightning. Government "protection" is an oxymoron. But in the above, I simply took "prohibited persons" to be a given in order to prove my point that the ruling class does not want background checks. That's not to say I think there should be prohibited persons; I don't think so.

Second, because I say background checks without gun registration is possible, it's not the same thing as saying I think there should be background checks of any sort. Even though this type of background check would be far less objectionable than a centralized database, it is still an imposition, an infringement. I am an anarchist; I don't need no stinking laws! All I need is voluntary associations.

To continue on, the proposed "background checks" a.k.a. registration are actually not a heck of a lot different than we have now, if you think about it. The 4473's are already a form of backdoor registration. Yes, certainly, you can sell the gun unpapered to someone else, and yes, the 4473's remain in the hands of the dealers (until they go out of business)—but think about it some more:

1) If in a confiscation, they come up to you and demanded your guns, are you seriously going to say you lost them all in a boating accident? Yeah, that'll fly... Keep in mind it is illegal to lie to the minions, although it is normal practice for the minions to lie to us. All they have to do is catch you in one lie. A search of your house, after you lie to them, is all they need.

2) Does it matter whether the government knows where each particular gun is? I don't think so. All they have to do is find out who filled out a lot of 4473's. Doesn't matter if you sold some of the guns; they still know what house to raid. They don't care where every gun is, as they can never know—not with 300 million guns circulating.

3) If BATFE decides to go fullbore with scanning the 4473's in gun dealer records, who is going to stop them?

4) Then there is NICS. Again, they already know who the gun nuts are, without any work—most of them anyway.

If it's true that "background checks" a.k.a. registration is hardly different than what they already have, then why are they pushing it so hard?

Although this is certainly speculation, I can imagine two reasons. The first is legislative momentum. They have been set back in the last couple of decades and they want to turn that around.

The second reason is that, what they are really shooting for, is fear and self-enforcement, I believe. They want us to fear them. They want gun ownership to become even more inconvenient, not worth the bother and the worry. It's just another way of getting that boot on our neck.

I wouldn't be too impressed with the notion that, with "background checks" a.k.a. registration, private sales are now going to be captured. Again, they already know who the gun nuts are. And a lot of people are going to sell guns on the black market in any case, so they can only capture a portion of that traffic.

Fear is what they are shooting for. Control exercised by the victim's own mind. The remedy is to recognize this, and to get control of your fear. I think this is similar to the fuss about drones. I don't really expect to see a drone outside my bedroom window some day. I think the main point of drones is that they are something more to fear. The same goes for surveillance cameras. Fear and self-repression are the primary aims.

It's not so much their knowing who has the guns, but the actual confiscation which is the real line in the sand, isn't it? Only then will we truly be in a hot war.

By the way, a lot of confiscations have already taken place. Something to think about...