Et Tu NSSF?

NSSF. That’s the National Shooting Sports Foundation. They want you to support a few bills which could be coming up in the house judiciary committee this week. One of them is HR 1415 which is being called the National Instant Check System Improvement Act of 2005. This is how the NSSF promotes the bill on their legislative action page:

"Improvements to NICS is critical in helping ensure the safe and expeditious transfer of a firearm"

I'll get to the point; it's bullshit. All this will do is open up more records for inclusion in the NICS system. In other words they're hoping that more folks will be disqualified because of Lautenberg, mental health records or possibly because they're being investigated for "terrorism".

The last part may leave you in the cold. Here's where I get that from:

"...and (3) the Secretary of Homeland Security to make available to the Attorney General records relevant to a determination that a person is disqualified from possessing or receiving a firearm and information about a change in such person's status for removal from NICS, where appropriate."

I can only assume that this is an effort to grease the wheels of that "terrorism watch list' being made at least a temporary disqualification. Why else would the department of Homeland Security be involved?

GOA has some thoughts on this bill as well. A very interesting point from that GOA link:

"...And did you know that veterans who have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder have been deemed as mentally "incompetent" and are prohibited from owning guns under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(4)? Records of those instances certainly exist; and, in 1999, the Department of Veterans Administration turned over 90,000 names of veterans to the FBI for inclusion into the NICS background check system."

I have no idea what those dumbasses at NSSF are up to. I'm hoping someone mentioned that the last attempt to disarm a vet who had a rough time in a war turned into three movies for Sylvester Stallone. :)

Really though - what the hell are they selling us out for? They have some other gun related bills that they are pushing but I don't see any great benefit in trading this for them. There are some minor to medium improvements here & there but I can't see anything worth them pushing this anti-gun bullshit on us.

If you're still up in the air then allow me to introduce guilt by association. Here's the list of co-sponsors.

Conyers, DeGette, Dingell, Kucinich & Moran to name a few. The sponsor is McCarthy herself.

If a bill was proposed to repeal the NFA, GCA, Brady/NICS, Hughes Amendment to the FOPA & Lautenberg Amendment & had those names attached then I'd hesitate in supporting it. Those people are not the friends of gun owners. I cannot imagine them purposefully doing anything to benefit us except if they all committed suicide & that'd be an unintentional benefit.

The bill on its merits seems dangerous in a few different ways. The list of folks sponsoring & co-sponsoring the bill seems to verify that initial impression. These folks ain't looking to do gun owners any favors.

Thing is - well I know why the NRA sells us out (a renewed "assault weapons" ban in exchange for the Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, the GCA which was basically trade protection for the domestic firearms industry, etc...) but I can't figure out the NSSF's angle on this. Maybe they have some deal going on that we don't know about. Perhaps they think this will net them the other gun related bills they want to see passed. Maybe they're really that out of touch with us gun nuts. Hell, maybe they just want to keep axe murderers from buying guns.

Whatever their reasoning this isn't a good bill. If they wanted to improve the NICS they'd repeal it. If for some Locke forsaken reason repeal was not a legitimate option then replacing it with the B.I.D.S. system would be more tolerable (though I'm still looking for moral & constitutional justification for needing permission from the government to purchase the object of an enumerated Right).

In any case & whatever their motives may be HR 1415 is not a good idea. So don't fall for efforts to gain your support for it. & double check anything the NSSF tells you from now on.

Thanks to Gun Law News for the pointer.

Posted by Publicola at June 13, 2006 05:23 AM | TrackBack