Gun News Daily

If criminals are buying guns on the streets with no background checks, does it make sense that you and I go through the process of a background check just so you can get an official stamp of approval from the government? It makes no sense whatsoever.

9-18-09 - In Part II of this series we took a look at the 4473 DROS form and found that it really serves no purpose. It doesn’t prevent criminals from obtaining firearms. In fact, the 4473 is an incredible waste of time with absolutely no purpose.

We also pointed out if the only two organizations that care about the 4473 DROS form are the ATF and dealers, why bother with it? After all, it was politicians who mandated it, and prior to the 4473 form the ATF could have cared less. In fact, no one cared that there was no 4473 form. It’s nothing more than an effort to convince citizens that if a 4473 form is filled out, that we’re somehow safer for it, when in fact, it does nothing of the sort.

But, how does the ATF find out if someone is dealing guns illegally if they can’t go back to the dealer and find the person that purchased the guns in the first place? My answer to that would be: Who in the hell cares?

Look, if someone wants a gun in this country, in any state, in any city, regardless of how strict local or state gun laws are, they’ll get one. A 4473 doesn’t stop criminals from obtaining guns. Do you think criminals go to the store and fill out a 4473? Most don’t bother, and those that do are denied the purchase through the background check. What do they do next if they’re intent on buying a gun? They turn to the black market.

And yes, in case you’re wondering, the background check needs to go away as well. Those few criminals dumb enough to go to a gun store and go through the background check very quickly find out that background checks aren’t required when buying guns on the street in the black market. So the question is, why should law-abiding citizens be subject to background checks? What’s the point of it all? If criminals are buying guns on the streets with no background checks, does it make sense that you and I go through the process of a background check just so you can get an official stamp of approval from the government? It makes no sense whatsoever.

Government is the cause of black markets

Whether guns are restricted due to regulations, excessive litigation, or law enforcement intervention, or all of the above, it matters not. The price will rise. Government has driven the price up far beyond the cost of production or inflation. It has become quite lucrative to get into the business of selling guns illegally. Government has created a black market. In response, the government increases spending on law enforcement resources that didn’t exist prior to the restrictions to try and stop crimes that didn’t previously exist. But, the fact that prices have shot up dramatically doesn’t deter criminals. That’s why there is a black market.

We know there has been a concerted effort to price guns out of the reach of the common man in the belief that if they are too expensive, poor people will not have access to them. And, as everyone knows, at least politicians believe this, poor people are the cause of crime. Ergo, high priced guns, equals reduced crime. The only problem with that theory is it also spawns another form of crime and that is the theft of firearms from homes and gun stores.

There was a time when most gun owners didn’t have a safe in their home. They kept guns in the closet or in a glass cabinet to show them off. Why not? The theft of guns prior to all the laws and restrictions over the last 40 years were quite rare. You could get them at a reasonable price almost anywhere. Why would criminals want to be burdened down carrying around a bunch of guns when there were a lot of other items in a house that had more value? It’s a different story today. We now have criminals who specifically target the homes of known gun owners. Theft of firearms feeds the need for low cost firearms in the criminal underworld. Prior to all the restrictions, criminals just purchased them legally.

The end result is that nothing has changed prior to or after all the regulations and laws, other than more gun crimes. If criminals want a gun, they get one. It’s that simple. You have to be a complete buffoon to not be able to buy a gun in the black market today. The only difference is we keep several thousand government employees on the payroll at $800,000,000 a year to chase down newly created “gun” crimes. And, we’ve created a whole new field of criminal expertise which revolves around the theft and trade of guns.

Despite all this, there is a side benefit. We keep a lot of lawyers employed defending and prosecuting all the new gun laws. And that’s important to the gun-banners in congress, the majority of which are Democrats. And, if you don’t know yet, one of the primary donors to the Democratic Party are the lawyers and the legal industry. Attorneys know which side their bread is buttered. As long as we have Democrats making laws, we have new laws being churned out left and right, just waiting to be broken by otherwise law-abiding citizens. And those people need attorneys, lots of them.

The system feeds on itself, but the people who started the mess and continue to feed the system are politicians who pander fear to Americans that if guns aren’t controlled, we’ll all end up in the streets shooting one another. Utter stupidity, don’t you think?

The stupid part has happened before

It’s like the prohibition era early in the last century. Prohibition was not a shining moment in our management of the constitutional amendment process. The Eighteenth and Twenty-first Amendments stands as permanent reminders of political stupidity. The results of prohibition are a lesson in how people react to restrictions when they simply don’t want to play the game.

We didn’t have “rum runners” prior to prohibition. We didn’t have neighborhood “speakeasies” that operated illegally to provide citizens with illegally manufactured booze. An entire underground industry was spawned when alcohol was constitutionally banned in this country. Millions of people were employed to illegally manufacture, transport, sell and offer at retail a product that one day was perfectly legal and had been for thousands of years, and the next day was not. The money was so good, neighborhood police were paid off to look the other way. That’s the nature of a black market. It not only creates illegal activities, but spawns political corruption. Local and federal law enforcement geared up to fight illegal booze. But it didn’t work.

Prohibition was eventually repealed some 13 years later. Law enforcement spent the vast majority of their time chasing down moonshiners and busting the local speakeasies time and time again. They came to the conclusion that it can’t be stopped. It is one of the few instances in history where a law was willingly reversed because it was impossible to enforce. The people of the country defiantly ignored it and were not about to stop drinking alcohol because of something as minor as a constitutional amendment for crying out loud.

The same thing applies to guns. Guns aren’t going away and neither will crime. Murder existed prior to guns. It will exist long after we are all dead and gone. As long as human beings exist on the face of the earth, crime committed by criminals against law-abiding citizens will continue. Today they shoot people. Yesterday that stabbed them or put an arrow through them. Before arrows and spears they clubbed them to death. Prior to that they used stones and bashed the side of their heads in. Criminals have been around since the beginning of human existence. After all, the first recorded murder was the son of Adam and Eve, when Cain murdered his brother Abel.

If somehow government actually managed to eliminate all firearms, an impossible task, do you think for one minute that criminals will go straight and suddenly crime will evaporate to nothing? History would say no.

So, how do we fix this mess we’re in? That will be the subject of my next commentary.  Go to Part IV

If you missed them, these are the links to Part I, and Part II