|
|
Alternative to background
checks pushed
Pro-gun authors' proposal removes
current firearm-registration risks
By Jon Dougherty
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
Two pro-firearms authors have developed
what they say is a new method of
preventing criminals from purchasing guns,
while protecting lawful gun-owners from
the possibility of eventual gun registration
or bans.
Brian Puckett, founder of Citizens of
America -- a California-based pro-gun
organization, and Russ Howard, a past
director for the National Rifle Association
and founder of Citizens Against Corruption,
have developed a new system that would
"replace the existing firearm purchase
background check system with an identity
search/firearms disability check that
eliminates the risk of gun registration
inherent in the current system."
Currently, gun buyers are subjected to
NICS -- the National Instant Check System,
operated by the FBI via its West Virginia
facility -- that immediately informs a gun
dealer whether a customer is wanted by
police, has a criminal record that would
prohibit the purchase of a gun, or is
prevented from owning a gun for other
reasons.
But Puckett and Howard have come up with
a different system they call "BIDS" -- Blind
Identification Data System -- which
purports "to eliminate gun owner
registration while continuing to provide for
a system to prevent illegal gun sales by
dealers."
"In BIDS, the word 'blind' refers to the fact
that the government cannot detect who is
attempting to buy or has bought a firearm
and thus cannot add this person's name to a
registry of gun owners. Nor can gun dealers
randomly view a list of persons who have
been denied the right to buy, own and use
firearms," the authors said in a published
report about the new program.
The report calls the NICS system "deeply
flawed" because it "provides the means for
the government to create and update, with
relative ease, an illegal registry of firearm
owners."
FBI officials say gun buyers are not kept in
a permanent database or registry, but
despite that, the BIDS system, the authors
argue, would alleviate that possibility for
good, should lawmakers ever attempt to
force the agency to record gun buyers and
transactions in a permanent database.
Also, the authors said, "Gun owner
registries have already been created in
certain states (Illinois and Pennsylvania,
for example) and the federal government
continues to compile a microfilmed list of
gun purchasers via surrendered Form
4473's."
The BIDS system, the report said, uses
computer and Internet technology to allow
firearm dealers to determine whether or not
a potential buyer is prohibited from
purchasing a firearm, but without the
government ever knowing the potential
purchaser's name or whether or not he
actually bought a firearm.
"Historical records, such as The Federalist
Papers, clearly show that the Second
Amendment is intended to stand as a
bulwark against establishment of a
tyrannical American government," the
report said. "It is elementary that the spirit
of the Second Amendment opposes the
establishment of federal or state registries
of gun owners, which would greatly
simplify confiscating guns or rounding up
gun owners by such a tyrannical
government."
Also, the report cites federal law, which
prohibits government collection of gun
ownership information.
Section 926 of the 1968 Gun Control Act,
the authors quote, says: "No such rule or
regulation prescribed after the date of the
enactment of the Firearm Owners'
Protection Act may require that records
required to be maintained under this
chapter or any portion of the contents of
such records, be recorded at or transferred
to a facility owned, managed, or controlled
by the United States or any State or any
political subdivision thereof, nor that any
system of registration of firearms, firearms
owners, or firearms transactions or
dispositions be established. ..."
Also, the authors said the so-called "Brady
Law," which codified the NICS system,
also prevents firearms transaction and
ownership records from being permanently
catalogued in a database:
Section 25.9(d) -- The following
records of state and local law
enforcement units serving as
POCs will be subject to the
Brady Act's requirements for
destruction:
(1) all inquiry and response
messages (regardless of media)
relating to the initiation and
result of a check on the NICS that
allows a transfer that are not part
of a records system created and
maintained pursuant to
independent state law regarding
firearms transaction; and
(2) all other records relating to
the person or the transfer created
as a result of a NICS check that
are not part of a records system
created and maintained pursuant
to independent state law
regarding firearms transactions.
The authors of the report said that as
currently established, the National Instant
Check System (NICS) requires anyone
trying to purchase a firearm from a licensed
firearm dealer to submit his or her name to
the government and then undergo a
background check. A record of the check is
submitted electronically by the gun dealer
and is recorded by the FBI, which
administers the NICS system.
"Thus, anyone who has submitted to a NICS
check can be presumed to own a gun if he
or she passes. If so desired, the actual sale
can be verified via a gun dealer's Form
4473 records," said the report.
Worse, "there is no way to prove that NICS
records are ever being completely purged.
Sworn testimony from government officials
to this effect is meaningless because no
official can personally monitor his purview
24 hours a day," the report said.
And, the report said, "there is an obvious
loophole to the 'no records' rule built into
the Gun Control Act of 1968: The federal
government is allowed to take possession
of the records of gun dealers who close
their businesses. Thus, the government has
already compiled a massive list of gun
owners dating back to 1968."
The BIDS system, however, works on a
different principle, the authors said. At its
"heart" is "an encrypted database of all
persons who are prohibited from owning,
using or purchasing firearms."
The BIDS database would be supplied to
all licensed firearm dealers, who would
store it in a dedicated BIDS computer or
computers. Firearm dealers would verify
the prospective gun buyer's driver's license
or state-issued ID and enter name, date of
birth, and state ID number into their BIDS
computer. The computer would then search
the encrypted database for a match, the
report said.
"If there were a match, the computer would
display that name and associated
information, and the prospective buyer
would be prohibited from making the
purchase. If there were no match, the
computer would display a message stating
that fact, and the sale could proceed," the
authors said.
And, to prevent misuse of information in
the BIDS database, and to comply with
existing privacy laws, the database would
be accessible only to licensed dealers who
were given the access key.
Furthermore, records in the database would
be individually encrypted so that a dealer
could not peruse them at will.
"In other words, no records would be
viewable unless it were the result of a
particular name/ID match," said the report.
In order to comply with various state and
federal privacy laws, the authors said the
BIDS system would not divulge the
particular reason why a person was
prohibited from owning a gun. At most, the
author's report said, the system could give
out the "nature" of the prohibition, "such as
lifetime prohibition" of firearms
ownership.
"To complete the BIDS system, additional
peripheral laws will be required in order
to protect the government and its agents,
firearm dealers and gun buyers," said the
report. "If desired, BIDS could be phased
in as NICS was being phased out."
The authors argue that the cost of the system
would be minimal because much of the
infrastructure -- under the current NICS
system -- is already in place. Some critics
have said that the BIDS system could be
easily bypassed by gun dealers and
therefore would be difficult for the federal
government to monitor for compliance. But
the authors said the current NICS system is
also subject to similar discrepancies.
"Under either NICS or BIDS, it is easy for
a dealer to buy a used gun from an
individual, not enter it into his inventory,
and then sell it to someone else without
ever filling in any government papers," the
report said.
And, the authors note, most gun dealers
subject all customers to NICS checks and
would likely do so under BIDS, to avoid
legal pitfalls and to prevent criminals from
gaining access to firearms.
Overall, "if fully implemented, BIDS
would be more effective than NICS in
halting firearm sales to firearm-disabled
persons, but BIDS would not have the
terrible ingrained flaw of NICS, which is
that it facilitates the creation of a national
registry of firearm owners," the report
concludes.
"BIDS does not provide a truly
constitutional arrangement, i.e., no
background check prior to exercising a
constitutionally protected right. We remind
readers that no background checks are
required for purchasing cars, knives,
flashlights, tools, rope or other items
commonly used in committing crimes, none
of which items, unlike firearms, have
constitutional protection regarding their
ownership and use," said the report.
But it "does take a huge stride toward
halting the ongoing rapid formation of a
national registry of firearm owners, which
the authors perceive as the greatest and
most pressing danger to exercising the right
to keep and bear arms," the authors said.