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https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/biden-can-act-on-guns-without-congress-and-should/
Biden Can Act on Guns without Congress, and Should
Let me give you an example of exactly how dumb and dishonest our gun-control debate is.
In his dopey candlelight-vigil speech on the issue, President Joe Biden said a lot of dumb things, some of them intentionally and some of them hilariously unintentional. Leave it to Joe Biden of all people to worry about “gum control” — sic — something he has never quite mastered.
One of Biden’s complaints was about the fact that if the federal government fails to complete the background check on a would-be gun-buyer within three business days, then the sale may proceed. (May, not must: It is up to the seller.) That is true. In the overwhelming majority of cases, this is just the federal government being its predictably slow and ineffective self. I have had background checks time-out myself, more than once.
However, in a few cases, a sale that should not have been approved ends up getting greenlighted because the clock runs out. Biden proposes to change the law to forbid that. That probably is not going to happen and definitely should not happen: The deadline was put into the law in the first place to stop the federal government from using bureaucratic delays to create a shadow ban on firearms sales.
Here’s the thing: President Biden could do something about this problem — today — if he wanted to, and he doesn’t need Congress’s approval or any change in the law.
Right now, when the federal government finds out that a sale that should have been stopped has proceeded because of the time limit, it does — this part will not surprise you! — absolutely nothing. Somewhere in some subbasement somewhere in the bowels of Washington, some bureaucrat mutters to himself, “Well, that’s unfortunate.” And then nothing else happens.
These are sales for which people have filed the requisite paperwork at a licensed firearms dealer. That means that we not only have the name, address, Social Security number, and other information about the buyer, we also have the make, model, and serial number of the firearm that changed hands. All it would take would be for someone to go and get the gun.You don’t need Batman to fight that crime — you need a guy with a car and a shoebox.
Sending somebody out to pick up those guns would be a real improvement for several reasons: For one, we’d be taking a gun out of the hand of a prohibited person, which is good in and of itself. Second, in almost every case, a prohibited person who buys from a licensed retailer does so by lying on his application — as Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, pretty obviously did when acquiring a handgun a few years ago. (Hunter Biden is a prohibited person because he is a drug addict, and if he had not lied about that fact on his application, then it would have been rejected.) That means that we not only have the opportunity to take the gun away, we also have the opportunity to arrest the offender for a serious gun crime. Often, there will be at least two charges that could be made: felon in possession (which by itself can bring as much as ten years in prison) and making a false statement to acquire a firearm — a fifth-degree federal felony.
If we wanted to, we could take those guns — and those criminals — off the streets.
President Biden does not need Congress to change the law to make that happen. He does not need Mitch McConnell’s permission. Nobody can filibuster him. All he has to do is pick up the phone or put his name on a memo and instruct the lazy, useless, complacent, feckless, self-serving, waiting-around-for-their-retirements bums who work for him to get off their asses and do the job we pay them to do. You don’t need a SWAT team for this — Skippy the Intern should be able to handle most of this work just fine.
But, of course, Biden will not do what is within his power — and not only because it would mean locking people up for a crime committed by his idiot crackhead son.
Likewise, Biden could instruct the U.S. attorneys — the federal prosecutors who serve at his pleasure — to start prosecuting straw-buyer cases and start putting real federal time on the table for the people who do so much to provide our nation’s career criminals with a steady supply of firearms. But he won’t do that, either.
It is not news that Joe Biden is a dishonest, lazy, conniving partisan coward. That has been clear since the last days of disco. But if there are any intellectually honest Democrats left out there — and if there are, please, stand up and be counted — they should be asking why Biden will not do the things that he can do, especially given the fact that doing these things would put the crosshairs on actual criminals, something we should all be able to get behind.
The numbers are what they are: More than 80 percent of our murderers are habitual criminals with a half-dozen prior arrests, while 0.8 percent of the criminals in custody who used firearms in the crimes that got them locked up got that firearm from one of those gun shows that Democrats are always going on about. If we were serious about gun crime, we would hunt where the ducks are.
But Democrats have no interest in that, because they have an enemies list that supersedes substantive considerations.
So, President Biden: How about we keep our constitutional rights, and you and the people who work for you start doing your goddamned jobs?
There’s your bipartisan solution.
This is a bit of a shock, really. I've never really thought about it, but would have presumed that if a prohibited person fell through a loophole, and purchased a weapon, then the cops would make a beeline to his house, to confiscate the weapon, and arrest that individual.
None of that is happening.
If you slip through a loophole, you keep your weapon. That is so very wrong.
But it does make more statistics to use in the talking points.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @03:15PM (30 children)
Suggesting that a Democratic Party president can unilaterally decide to grab somebody's guns! After the fact! Without due process!
Help, help, the NWO is coming for my guns, I'm being repressed!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @03:37PM (5 children)
This but without irony. We love our govt no-fly and no-buy lists.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @03:42PM (4 children)
Criticize the authoritarian laws all you want, but please don't knee-jerk outta here when I point out that the OP was making a joke about Trump because he was the one that said take the guns first, worry about due process later.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @08:18PM (3 children)
That was on The Simpsons, 20-years ago, too. Connect the dots, and it's beginning to look like the only non-psycho ideas spouted by the left, they stole from FOX cartoon shows.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @02:50AM (2 children)
Such as?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @09:37PM (1 child)
That was on Family Guy. Of course, he ripped it off from The Simpsons.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @10:25PM
Unsurprisingly, we ask "what ideas", and the conservative critic has none. Only that something, something, Fox News, something. And, Runaway is an ignorant moron.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @03:46PM
Not to worry, they'll let Runaway keep his gums.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by NPC-131072 on Sunday June 05 2022, @04:15PM (3 children)
Hello fren,
Runaway may finally be seeing the light. As those of us on the morally and intellectually superior left know, accidental negligence is willful violation [buckeyefirearms.org] but actual willful violation is not. [dailywire.com]
No shortages of cilantro for the ATF Taco Truck. [cbsnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @05:28PM
A Sirius Cybernetics GPP. Looks like the PR blitz was overrated.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Sunday June 05 2022, @06:14PM
Cilantro is also good to make Orcs into a tasty afternoon snack.
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @10:29PM
You cite "Buckeye Firearms", and DailyWire which is Davy Shapiro, the really smart conservative that Fuentes hates. Not really credible sources. Try harder, fren!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Sunday June 05 2022, @05:13PM
Witness the violence inherent in the system!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 05 2022, @08:04PM (3 children)
Now you're just being silly.
If you are a prohibited person, you have almost certainly had your due process. You were prohibited when you were convicted of a felony, or were found to be mentally incompetent, or some such.
The 'loophole' here, is that the system sucks. The system is supposed to return a valid result in 3 days. When the system fails to return a valid result, then the buyer gets his gun. That is by design, not accident. Congress stipulated the procedure to prevent beauracrats from holding sales in limbo for months, or years.
So, when a purchase goes through, then the system finally catches up, it is the system's duty to notify law enforcement, so that the weapon can be recovered.
The system needs to be fixed, so that results are returned in a timely manner, but meanwhile, the system needs to follow up on those sales completed improperly.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Sunday June 05 2022, @08:51PM (2 children)
I wonder if there could be some group that would be interested in exploiting that by ensuring no valid results comes back in 3 days to ensure that people who should not have guns are able to get them. Gee, I wonder who that might be?
Stepping further back, I think that this default of letting people get the guns instead of default of not getting them might also have been part of the scheme. Now I realize that it could be exploited either way. If the default were to prevent the gun sale until a valid result came back, that could be exploited. And you wouldn't like it. With the default being that the gun sale goes through, that is also exploited. The real fix is to provide enough government resources to actually do those background checks if necessary. But I can see that some people are not going to allow that to happen.
I don't have a problem with mentally stable law abiding adults having guns. But the other side doesn't like that for some reason.
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @09:15PM
Now remember, gang, that's how conspiracy theories are born.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 06 2022, @04:12AM
I do believe Runaway had stated in the first place:
If Runaway was right, then it's part of the scheme from the start. And imagine if it had been applied rationally to other human endeavors. We'd have had Keystone XL years ago.
(Score: 5, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 06 2022, @04:31PM (13 children)
Now you're just talking crazy talk!
Everyone is saying that the best plan, the best, everyone is saying, is to take the guns BEFORE the fact!
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by NPC-131072 on Monday June 06 2022, @06:17PM (12 children)
Hello fren,
If only Republicans would listen to those of us on the morally and intellectually superior left. Look at this guy. [nypost.com] Around the same time he allegedly lied to obtain a .38 revolver, he's pictured naked with a Walther 9mm and drug paraphernalia. With that trigger discipline, he's lucky he didn't blow a lung out. [dailywire.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 06 2022, @06:56PM (11 children)
Ah yes, a tabloid story about a guy who holds no public office is the EXACT SAME as a direct quote coming from the sitting President of the United States of America!
Double plus good whataboutism you got there though, fren....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @08:17PM (5 children)
Your silly boilerplate strawman aside, if Trump were still president you would equate him with the tabloids, which sometimes really do have a way of hiding the truth in plain sight. Sure hope you're ready for the Eternal November.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 06 2022, @10:29PM (4 children)
The President of the United States of America has the entire power of the Executive Branch of the United States at his disposal.
Hunter Biden, on the other hand, doesn't even have a laptop!
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @12:06AM
Laptop or no, he still has some influence over his father's "power of the Executive Branch of the United States". Family business
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @01:57AM
Yes, exactly why Hunter is not in jail. Power indeed for those in need, eh?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @07:22PM (1 child)
Loving the replies. I think their main point was to normalize Trump's nepotism; as if any of their Huntergate accusations are comparable to having nearly all your kids work in top White House positions. Republicans, the new Nazis comfortable with lying and cheating in order to win, and with most of the same bigotries. Given the violent rhetoric from rightwing media it is safe to say a 2nd holocaust is very much part of their plan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @08:46PM
Democrats had (still have until January) many opportunities to undo republican policy, they have not, because they don't really oppose them
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by NPC-131072 on Monday June 06 2022, @11:30PM (4 children)
Hello fren,
Do you think the sitting President wants you to "buy a shotgun" [wikipedia.org] like Mark Middleton? [dailymail.co.uk]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @11:42PM (3 children)
Your links don't work.
(Score: 1, Funny) by NPC-131072 on Tuesday June 07 2022, @12:02AM (2 children)
Hello fren,
"work" is not a word those of us on the morally and intellectually superior left are familiar with.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 07 2022, @07:38PM (1 child)
If y'all are so busy working so hard why do you need my blue state welfare?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @10:17PM
Yeah, the conservative narrative has become transparently hypocritical. They need to invent insults to make themselves feel better. Personally I've found conservatives to be the most whiny and judgmental types most likely to cheat anyone and everyone, especially taxes. They are a corrosive influence on a free and just society with only propaganda convincing them otherwise. That is why the PR is focused on making them hate liberals, otherwise they might actually listen to us and vote in their own best interests instead of more tax breaks for the wealthy. Because don't forget that Trump raised taxes on the poorest while lowering them for the rich. Of course then Fox blames Biden, because hypocrisy and lies are their bread and butter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @07:03PM (4 children)
"But it does make more statistics to use in the talking points."
So you admit there are problems, then spin it all as some political game to push a narrative? Thanks for the shill/troll journal which sounds like you care but is really a conveyance for "stop talking about gun regulation." #facepalm
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 05 2022, @07:33PM (3 children)
Scroll up. Read NPC-131072's post. Click the links. Read them. It is a political game. It is no less a political game now, in the US, than it was when Nazi Germany forced all firearms to be registered, then later rounded up those people who were not approved for firearm possession. Think long and hard on the motivations for the ATF's 'Fast and Furious' operation.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @08:03PM (1 child)
Comparing rightwing snowflake conspiracy issues to the holocaust, name a more iconic white supremacist victimhood tactic!
PS: stop sock puppeting
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @08:13PM
"Snowflake" has been re-purposed this year by the left. Last year, it was about leftists who whined about nearly everything, at the drop of a pink knit cap. At least it made sense, then. This year, it is applied to anybody who won't shut up and take their childish left-wing blather.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @10:06PM
Wait, what? Are you finally admitting to being a fascist, and that being the basis of your desire to grab the guns of trannies, lesbians, socialists, trade unionists, women who don't want to be mothers, women who want to be fathers, and of course the Jews, including their space laser, eventually the gay men, probably groomer Catholics, the Irish, Germans, and anybody else you can find mentally ill?
Who will be able to own guns when the Runaway is done?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @10:09PM
The NICS process is complicated for a number of reasons, some of them intentional choices to prevent bureaucrats from building a shadow gun registry.
I'm not saying it isn't posssible to do as your article suggests -- I don't know enough of the details of every law and regulation to be sure one way or the other. But I do know enough to be suspicious of a "plan" so long on handwaving and short on specific detail.
NICS is run by FBI, not ATF.
The FBI only gets the potential buyer's information, but not any information about the gun. The gun's information gets recorded in the FFL's bound book and on the ATF form 4473 (for "tracing" crime guns, which is a farce in itself), which remain at the FFL.
Neither FBI nor ATF has any way of knowing whether a buyer came back to complete the purchase after the 3-day limit, nor do they have any legal basis to demand the FFL notify them. So a substantial amount of effort will likely be spent starting a case, and finding out the guy never came back, or only came back after the "delay" finally became a "deny". You can still go for a perjury conviction in these cases, if you've got the evidence (same as with an immediate "deny"), but you aren't getting felon in possession or recovering the gun, because it never left.
I'm not entirely clear on current procedure, but my understanding is that, after the buyer has had the opportunity to appeal (and either didn't, or lost), FBI refers select cases (those with enough evidence for an investigation -- less than 10% of denials) to the ATF. Lying on 4473 is perjury, and a handful of people do get convicted every year -- but only a handful. The most likely explanation is that the vast majority of NICS "deny" responses are in fact bogus -- someone's name matched a felon, or FBI has a record of a criminal charge, but is missing the corresponding record that it was eventually dropped or acquitted. After all, real felons already know they can't pass a background check, and mostly are smart enough not to try on the off chance they might sneak through on a slow "delay" result.
NICS is under strict privacy laws -- while the strictest parts only affect "proceed" results (information about a "deny" is needed in case of an appeal, and doesn't lead to a registry of legal gunowners in any case), it's not clear whether, and under what circumstances they could share this information with ATF sooner or more frequently than they do. (e.g. before appeal, or regardless of evidence level)
Even assuming the current level of evidence is discretionary, and FBI is legally able to just send all "deny" cases on to ATF regardless, that just pushes the problem down the line. Before you can send the man with his shoebox (and handcuffs) around, you're going to need some actual evidence, rather than "His name is John Smith, and there's a felon named John Smith in the same state" that NICS seems to run on.
Finally, and most worryingly, NICS is subject to a high false positive rate -- some estimates (based on referrals to the ATF) suggest over 90% of "deny" responses are incorrect, but we know for a fact from the FBI's records that of the "deny" results which get appealed through NICS, over 25% get corrected. How many of the others (upheld) are still bogus is hard to say; we know some of them are, because some people take the FBI to court, and win, but most people don't have the time and money to pursue legal action.
And then there's the people we're specifically talking about -- those who received a '"delay" response, and proceeded with the transaction after the three-day limit expired. They don't know (or, likely, care) what answer the FBI finally comes back with, and even if they do find out, they're extremely unlikely to file an appeal in the first place, much less contest it in court, since they already have the gun.
Bottom line, this is already being done in a few cases, and without new laws, I doubt you'll be able to expand that much, and with those new laws (or if I'm wrong and a significant expansion is within executive power), the main effect will be revealing how many people are wrongly being denied their rights by NICS.
(Score: 4, Informative) by dalek on Monday June 06 2022, @01:38AM (10 children)
As an AC noted above, there are very valid reasons why the proposed fix in the article wouldn't work very well.
There is a bill, H.R. 1446 [congress.gov], which would allow 10 days for a background check instead of the current three days. At the end of 10 days, if no determination has been made, the person attempting to purchase a firearm can petition the FBI for a decision. If the petition is made and no determination has been made after 10 more days, the sale can proceed. This bill was voted on in the House on March 11, 2021. Because the period of time for background checks is established in law, Congress must approve changes to the current three day period.
The vote [house.gov] on H.R. 1446 was a party line vote, with two Democrats voting no and two Republicans voting yes. As of May 24 and 25, this bill has been placed on the Senate's legislative calendar. However, based the House vote, there is virtually zero chance of this bill passing the Senate without abolishing the filibuster.
Runaway and his biased source [mediabiasfactcheck.com] omit the fact that there is a bill in the current Congress that would extend the amount of time that federal firearms licensees have to wait before proceeding with the transaction by default. They also omit the fact that the opposition to this bill almost unanimously comes from Republicans.
Because the article's primary claim is misleading and omits key information, and because Runaway does not add additional clarifications of his own, I rate this journal mostly false.
EXTERMINATE
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @04:02AM (1 child)
Then it's a democrat issue, not republican
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @07:18PM
Hmm, apparently democrat moderators don't understand the concept of majority rule. Since they hold the majority in congress and the presidency, they alone, not the republicans, are responsible for what happens there.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 06 2022, @04:26AM (7 children)
Even if we suppose that we actually need a longer 10 day period, what's to keep the FBI from just denying people at the end when they take too long? Or even worse, selectively denying people who petition for a decision? Better to just let the purchase go through.
We have plenty of examples of willful obstruction of human progress by regulators. A lot of that would get nipped in the bud, if the regulator were just cut out of the loop if they dragged their feet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @06:11AM (6 children)
Are those who have such a paranoid distrust of government law enforcement agencies such as the FBI really the sort of people you'd trust with a firearm?
(Score: 3, Touché) by khallow on Monday June 06 2022, @01:31PM (5 children)
What's paranoid about this? The FBI and other US law enforcement agencies earned that distrust.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday June 07 2022, @03:27PM (3 children)
Just look at the disaster that was the Waco incident or other examples. Sure, the people were nuts, but the FBI and ATF screwed things up so much there. That's not the only example. Just one of the things I recently looked at.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege [wikipedia.org]
As a colleague pointed out to me recently. People are allowed to be weirdos in this country. Whether that's weird religious beliefs or other weirdness. Due to the fact that once you "get rid of the weirdos", you're already in a dystopian nightmare. Case in point, see the run up to World War II in Germany.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @07:30PM (2 children)
Which us why conservatives should be working for sane gun regulation with a focus on state-run militias. Liberals by and large don't want to take your guns, and even full auto heavy weapons should be allowed if secured by state sanctioned armories. No you should not be storing a weapon in a residential area that could accidentally fire off half a dozen rounds that go through 5+ walls because your finger slipped. That said I am of the opinion that any government regulation should be paid for by the government, not adding yet more costs to the individual. The individual is already jumping through hoops to meet the requirements.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday June 07 2022, @10:59PM (1 child)
Because state-run militias won't have the same problems that state-run law enforcement has? Not buying that. And what makes present day fire arm regulation insufficiently sane?
And yet, here we are talking about taking away the freedom of hundreds of millions of people because someone reads stories in the news. I agree that liberals aren't trying to take your guns away, but only because allowing such freedoms as firearm ownership is a key part of the definition of "liberal".
It's interesting how similar this is to the trans-hysteria in Runaway's previous journal [soylentnews.org]. I no more am concerned about the small amount of firearm violence (notice everyone blows off drug war violence and suicides) than I am the similarly small amount of sexual assault in unisex UK changing rooms. At some point, if we're going to be rational about this subject, we need a sense of proportionality. And heed the maxim that if we take away freedom every time someone is stupid or evil, then none of us will have it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 08 2022, @09:56AM
I am now afraid of khallow "body-type" violence! He sounds like he is about to pop! This man is going to go before the House Committee on the January 6th insurrection, and try to pretend it never happened, when he is complicit in it, and complicit in Runaway's illicit trade in severed tranny penises. Confess, khallow! Confess!!
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @10:34PM
I have the same feelings regarding khallow. Fool me once, shame on khallow. Fool me twice, well, you're not fooling "W" again!
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday June 07 2022, @02:13PM
I like contactless payment from my smart watch to the point of sale (POS) terminal.
That way the government cannot possibly know what I buy, where and for how much.
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?