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this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2024
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"Universal" background checks are a terrible idea that sounds pretty good at first glance. The only way they could be reasonably implemented is by assuming a check was performed until conclusively proven that it was not.
For example, I was once surprised to realize that the serial number on the gun I had been carrying for several weeks did not match the serial number on my purchase records. Turns out that I had inadvertantly swapped my Glock 17 for my brother's identical Glock 17 at the range at some point.
My brother and I had conducted a transfer without a background check. A completely inoffensive, functionally irrelevant transfer, but a transfer nonetheless. To actually be considered "universal", the kind of "transfer" we performed would have to be unlawful.
I can provide dozens of examples of guns innocently trading hands without actually constituting a sale. Suffice it to say, inoffensive, usually temporary exchanges of possession between trusted individuals comprise the overwhelming majority of all transfers. "Universal" (Mandated) background checks just cast FUD on these innocent exchanges.
We already almost have a near-universal background check system, which would effectively criminalize all transfers to prohibited persons, without criminalizing any inoffensive transfers. We have already banned transfers to prohibited persons, but that ban is not effective, because it can only be enforced in cases where the transferor "knew" or "should have known" the transferee was a prohibited person.
The problem is that there is no system in place for the transferor to actually know. NICS is not available to the general public. So, any transferor can just claim "I didn't know, and couldn't have known", and he is exonerated.
Implement feasible, publicly-accessible access to NICS, and that transferor can no longer make that claim. He could have known, and he should have known, so whether he actually knew the buyer was a felon is irrelevant. The state merely needs to prove that if a background check had been done at the time of transfer, it would have flagged the buyer.