As the head lobbyist for Gun Owners of America, I recently had the opportunity to debate the Majority Whip of the Alabama House of Representatives, Rep. Jack Page (D).
If you have never heard of him, please do not ignore what this state version of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has to say.
First of all, the gun control bill which Rep. Page was sponsoring was backed by the NRA. Secondly, the legislation is being promoted all around the country.
You see, Rep. Page was sponsoring an Alabama version of the Brady law. Now admittedly, the bill would do away with the state's waiting period. But that relief is more than overcome by the Brady instant registration check that would be imposed if the bill were to become law.
Rep. Page's Alabama Brady Bill requires the state to share with other federal and state law enforcement agencies "any information in the files of the [Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center - (ACJIC)] which will aid these agencies in crime fighting."
The prohibitions in existing law that keep bureaucrats from storing gun owners' names are not that effective, as we have seen in Ohio, Georgia, Texas and other states.
One of the arguments in favor of passing state versions of the Brady Law is that it is preferable to have Alabama bureaucrats check us out than to have the feds do it. The thinking seems to be that if I am oppressed by somebody with the same accent, it is less oppressive than federal oppression.
But these arguments notwithstanding, it is clear that the states will not be able to "preempt" the feds and keep them from performing background checks on law-abiding gun owners.
The BATF issued proposed regulations for implementation of the national instant registration check in the Federal Register in February of this year. As these regulations suggest, the names of firearms purchasers (both handgun and long-run) must be submitted to the FBI, irrespective of any additional bureaucratic requirements at the state level.
Under these regulations, the feds will give themselves up to three days to respond. Were we not supposed to be getting rid of the waiting period? So much for dancing with the devil.
Moreover, through such computer programs as FIST, the U.S. Justice Department has given software to local law enforcement allowing them to build a data base of gun purchasers. The feds reportedly get monthly reports from local law enforcement agencies on the disposition of Brady checks.
While the local computer is connected to Washington, the federal computer can "lookback" (computerese for looking into the local's computer) and copy the entire data base -- all the names and address and firearms of gun purchasers. The City of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University were caught setting up just such a program and were stopped in court.
But FIST is alive and well and quite capable of supplying the feds with a national registration list.
The BATF has stated in the Federal Register (February 19, 1998) that for the Brady law to work for them, they want the Social Security number of gun buyers in addition to other personal data they are already getting.
They also want to do the instant registration checks on ALL gun buyers (both handgun and long-gun) regardless of whether their state has a state Brady law, and to track all these records with a unique identification number.
In Alabama, the ACJIC has admitted that their unique identification number would have to include name and address, social security number and date of birth. Do they need anything else for a registration list? Does the BATF?
The potential for government officials to register gun owners is, perhaps, the most dangerous threat facing gun owners today.
Sure, there are laws at the federal and state levels (in some cases) prohibiting such practices.
But the reality is that violations occur frequently, and are rarely prosecuted, if at all. The November 7, 1997 issue of The Gun Owners documented some of these very abuses which have gone unpunished. Examples from around the country have clearly shown that officials can, and do, register gun owners with impunity.
Mike Slavonic, NRA Director and Chairman of the Legislative Committee for the Allegheny County Sportmen's League, states that the instant background check with the use of the FIST database could be "our downfall." He notes that,
What most Americans don't know is that once the instant background check goes into effect in 1998 the purpose of Brady could be used to set the stage for national confiscation. Instant check could eventually keep guns out of the hands of everyone by registering everyone who purchases a handgun, rifle and shotgun and who obtained concealed weapons permits in a computerized database.
California's current travail illustrates the way governments use gun registration to violate the Constitution and break faith with the people. "Ugly" guns that were registered in the past are now being confiscated because one state official decided to reclassify as illegal, guns that had been "permitted" to be legal. California is only the most recent example of the bad faith of governments who have the names and addresses of gun owners in their possession. In New York City back in the 1960's, New York City officials made some promises.
They wanted to register long guns over the vocal opposition of the city's gun owners. The city fathers promised they would never use such lists to take away firearms from the citizenry. But in 1991, the city banned (and soon began confiscating) many of those very guns.
The Daily News reported in 1992 the "Police raided the home of a Staten Island man who refused to comply with the city's tough ban on assault weapons, and seized an arsenal of firearms....Spot checks are planned [for other homes]."
Is there not something wrong with this picture? In a country where "We, the people" are sovereign, how do we end up having the servants tell the masters when they can have permission to exercise their rights?
The media would probably understand the Second Amendment problem with the Brady law if the Brady check were expanded to include the First Amendment. Then, before a journalist could get his permit to practice his profession, a faceless bureaucrat would run a background check to see if he were the sort of person considered by the government to be worthy to enter the profession.
As I thought about my pending debate with Alabama state Representative Jack Page on the plane ride to Alabama, a comparison came to mind. Some thirty years ago, black people were considered to be potential trouble makers, particularly if they belonged to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
The state of Alabama wanted the membership list of the NAACP and ended up going all the way to the Supreme Court to get their hands on the list. But, happily, the Court ruled against the state of Alabama and protected the privacy of the names of the NAACP members.
That's the good news. The bad news is that governments in our day increasingly consider gun owners to be potential trouble makers, and so we are seeing the efforts to get our names and addresses regardless of legal prohibitions. At least the state of Alabama was unable to get a chapter of the NAACP to hand over the membership list of the organization.
In our day, there are too many gun owners willing to do what no NAACP member would have dreamed of doing. We are watching gun owners rush to hand over the list of gun buyers which is exactly what they are doing when they support the Brady instant registration check at either the state or national levels.
Every aspect of the Brady law is unconstitutional and dangerous. Congress should act on repealing Rep. Ron Paul's Brady repeal bill (H.R. 2721) and stop hassling the states with ineffective crime-fighting ideas.
In the meantime, smile, because big brother is watching you.