"It seems to me sad when … you give a platform to the charlatans. It is doing great damage to the struggle. It sows confusion and uncertainty where there should be no confusion and uncertainty." —Stephen Lewis

all firearms in this state to be sold or transferred through a licensed firearms dealer and provides for a criminal penalty for a violation. On its face it may seem like a "common sense" bill, but the fact is the bill is misleading.



Deception abounds. sponsors and advocates for this bill use the word "background check," subtly implying that all kinds of guns change hands in the commerce stream without checks in place. This bill and its sponsors, subtly imply that all gun owners possess some requisite criminal intent; Subterfuge for the trading in illegal guns. One should drop the words, "Background Check," completely from the dialogue lexicon because it is a phrase co-opted by anti-gun left and I soundly reject it.

There is a bill right now in play. HB 1589 …and amended version. The bill seeks to requirefirearms in this state to be sold or transferred through a licensed firearms dealer and provides for a criminal penalty for a violation. On its face it may seem like a "common sense" bill, but the fact is the bill is misleading.Deception abounds. sponsors and advocates for this bill use the word "background check," subtly implying that all kinds of guns change hands in the commerce stream without checks in place. This bill and its sponsors, subtly imply that all gun owners possess some requisite criminal intent; Subterfuge for the trading in illegal guns. One should drop the words, "Background Check," completely from the dialogue lexicon because it is a phrase co-opted by anti-gun left and I soundly reject it. The problem is this bill, in essence, would require all firearms transfers, be they loans or private sales, to be channeled through a licensed (Federal Firearms Licensed)FFL dealer in order to change ownership and possession. Yes, This bill would require that lending firearms to a friend would require processing through a NICS form 4473 porcess. To lend a firearm to a friend for a deer hunting trip would require processing through NICS! If I wanted to bequeath in my will, a substantial firearms collection to a close family friend, each and every firearm would require a NICS process. The bill is also insidious in that it opens the door to ancillary regulation and restriction in areas not exclusive to NICS processing, nor contemplated in our traditional use of firearms. Under the "exceptions" that is, those places where there would be lawful exceptions, this little new regulation is slipped in. Page 4 Line 24 of the bill states,

(iii) that occurs at an established shooting range authorized by the governing body of the jurisdiction in which such range is located, provided the firearm is kept at such range during the entirety of the transfer. If a landowner wants to invite some friends over for some shooting and can safely do so on privately owned land, this language suggests that the new law will have a mechanism to catch people illegally transferring firearms (handing it over to a friend to try) for no other reason than a Zoning board has not given its implicit blessing to discharge firearms on that parcel of land by deeming it a "shooting range".

Aside from the bills content, there are the legislative findings that are a complete sham. The bill starts off with, "It has been estimated that 40 percent of all firearms are sold in the United States by unlicensed people."

That "fact" comes from a nearly 20-year-old study conducted during the Clinton Administration with a sample under 300…before the implementation of NICS.

The rest of the information listed in the Legislative findings are from the whole cloth of the Brady campaign and Mayors against illegal guns. I am not going to detail here as it is so easy to cross reference.

What bothers me equally is the ignorance and stupidity of some advocating for this bill to be rendered dead. Today, our second amendment rights rely more than ever on truthful, accurate information, not from excited emotional utterances bloviated into a microphone by a well-meaning pro-second amendment enthusiast. Stop guessing! We do not have to guess. We do not have to pad our facts with favorable urban myths. The facts are on our side! I heard a person recently defend non-NICS transfers taking place at Gun Shows saying they are only minimal. Indeed, some firearms are transferred without the NICS process, Antique Firearms. As defined in 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(16) the term "antique firearm" means any firearm manufactured in or before 1898, And modern Muzzleloading firearms with the exception of those that accept interchangeable modern ammunition barrels.