Ballot Questions -- State 1. Background checks for all gun transfers -- NO
Submitted by Carson Now Reader on Mon, 10/31/2016 - 8:58am
Digest and arguments:
http://files.constantcontact.com/d2820800501/c76d91ef-30c6-4744-833a-727...
Actual text:
http://carson.org/home/showdocument?id=51136
First, let's begin with the simple fact that all gun control measures, actual or proposed, are prima facie unconstitutional. Why? Because the Second Amendment plainly says "… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Second, like all gun control attempts, this proposal suffers from a list of findings (Section 2, paragraph 3, 4, 6) that are contrary to well known facts. The biggest whopper of course is paragraph 7; it's not the people of Nevada who are proposing this, the proponents are outsiders paid by a left-wing NY billionaire.
Third, the proponents of gun control laws -- and therefore the victims of gun control laws -- have the problem of foreseeing and regulating behavior. ALL relevant behavior. Of course that's an impossible task; you can't foresee all possible behavior, but it does not stop them from trying. Just look at how they try to account for all instances of a "transfer" from one person to another (Section 5, 6, 7).
And therefore all sorts of difficulties arise which put the actors participating in the regulated behavior into an area of uncertainly that only extensive and expensive litigation can resolve; in this case at the risk of arrest, fines and jail time. Who'd want to risk that? And that's precisely the point: to make the actor decide to forego the act, rather than risk the consequences and expense of finding out whether the act is legal or not.
Case in point:
Initiative Section 5. The provisions of NRS 202.254 do not apply to:
5. A temporary transfer of a firearm to a person who is not prohibited from buying or possessing firearms under state or federal law…
6. A temporary transfer of a firearm if:
(a) The transferor has no reason to believe that the transferee is prohibited from buying or possessing firearms under state or federal law;
(b) The transferor has no reason to believe that the transferee will use or intends to use the firearm in the commission of a crime;
HOW would I know that, for sure, about anybody? It's not exactly a detail about one's life that one goes around publicizing. The only way to be sure, even in the middle of the dire emergencies acknowledged in these sections of the ballot initiative, is by stopping, going to a federally licensed gun dealer, and running a background check. Yes... while the bad guys are shooting at you.
And of course this is the fundamental problem with all gun control laws. They have nothing to do with guns, gun control, or public safety. The real target is a person's god-given right of self-defense. When seconds count, the police are minutes away. They arrive in time to scrape your carcass off the floor, then investigate. Just ask all those dead people in Chicago, how gun control is working for them. (You should not have any trouble finding them; some have voted, for many years after dying.)
The authors of the Bill of RIghts got it right: "… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Not by law. Not by executive order. Not by the federal government. Not by state government. Not by local government. Not by anybody.
Note a subtle difference in terminology in the Amendments. The First Amendment starts with "Congress shall make no law…" Everybody else can (and does), but Congress cannot. But in the rest of the Bill of Rights the governmental entity is not specified, which means that NONE of them can infringe on these fundamental rights.
