It is not inconvenient to get a simple background check for a gun purchase. It takes mere minutes unless one is on the list of prohibited purchasers. Those folks should be inconvenienced. And, of course, the 5 day waiting period for gun purchases disappeared after 5 years of the Brady Law’s existence as a compromise in the original bill. One does need to ask what the hurry is when buying a gun. Sometimes my husband and I shop around for cars or mattresses or other furniture or desired items for days and weeks before we actually buy it. And then it may take a few days for delivery. A gun is designed to kill another human being. What’s the rush?
Well that sentiment has been ruled unconstitutional in California!
A federal judge in California has struck down a law that requires a 10-day waiting period for gun purchases, but only for current gun owners who have already passed a background check and those who have a permit or certificate of eligibility to own a gun.
Eastern District of California Judge Anthony W. Ishii said Monday that the waiting period provision violates the Second Amendment rights of those who have already been approved to own a gun. This includes those who have previously undergone a background check and own a gun, people with concealed-carry permits and people who have a state certificate of eligibility to own a gun.
First-time gun buyers would still be subject to the waiting period, which Ishii emphasized in his ruling.
“Given the nature of the challenges made, the Court emphasizes that it is expressing no opinion on the constitutionality of the 10-day waiting period in general or as applied to first time California firearms purchasers,” he said.
It, at it’s core is a stupid law. If I own 5 guns already, and want to buy a new one, what exactly is the waiting period going to accomplish!
Of course the argument that first-time buyers need a few days to cool their heels is pretty dumb too. It wasn’t like the guy who stabbed three, and shot three in Santa Barbara was somehow deterred by the waiting period. According to his diary he went MONTHS while owning the guns and knives to execute his deadly plan.
Really there are few cases where somebody buys a gun in the spur of the moment to do something horrible. Generally a lot of planning goes into these things, and a 10 day waiting period is just another factor. Still when somebody is in a dangerous situation where they NEED a gun, but hadn’t thought about it before, those 10 days could be deadly for them.
But of course anti-gun people have NEVER been interested in public safety, otherwise they’d be pressuring states with restrictive carry laws to relax them, or go Constitutional carry, since it’s been working really well for Chicago!
Nope, they just want to restrict rights because they hate guns, and hate gun owners, and “Public Safety” is just a canard they can float to attempt to make them appear like they aren’t total ogres.
And the guy who shot up Virginia Tech waited an extra month so he could buy a second handgun!
And I IRRC he kept the pair of them in his dorm room (against school policy, of course) for a while after that, until he deemed the time right.
That’s what it is all about. She wants you to think she means prohibited persons. But she means all of us.
The waiting period sounds almost unobjectionable until you examine what’s actually in its workings. The waiting period presumes–what?– already existing specific criminal intent among an unknown subset of handgun purchasers who are otherwise eligible to purchase handguns. Is that the idea? If that’s the idea, how is a purchase delay for eligible purchasers going to affect that specific criminal intent, if at all? Won’t the purchaser just delay his criminal action? If the waiting period supposedly addresses opportunistic crimes or crimes of passion, doesn’t having to break away from the criminal opportunity or lovers’ quarrel for a mad trip to the gun shop pretty much dampen the sudden-onset criminal intent? I don’t know. I just don’t trust the anti-gunners/anti-freedom people, and believe they’re “staging” either a gun grab, or big money settlement.
“A gun is designed to kill another human being. What’s the rush?”
If you justifiably have to kill someone, you generally need to do so right now.
California’s 10 day waiting period was a huge pain in the ass for me. One time I bought a Spanish Mauser at auction. I was physically there, and it sure would have been nice for me to bring it home. No, I had to come back in 10 days. But the problem was I was going to be out of town. The auction house (which carries an FFL) was not open on weekends. The law is more than just waiting 10 days. You have to pick it up within 30 days, or the transaction is nullified and you have to start all over again (repaying all the fees). I wasn’t going to be in town anytime within those 20 days when they would be open. So I had to call around to different FFLs 500 miles away where I was working and arrange to have the gun shipped there. Not only did I have to leave work early to pick it up, but I had to keep a hotel room an extra night because I could get fired for bringing a gun to work in the trunk of my car. I’m sure those antis would flip over my “storing” a gun in a hotel room with only a “no service please” sign between it and the housekeeping staff. Had the job site not been in CA, it would have even been more tricky as by law the FFL has to be in my state. By the end of the day, the fees and costs tripled the price of the gun (I did win it for a good price though). To top it all off, I already had a Czech Mauser at home. What is so freaking wrong with me taking it home that day?
Never thought of that. I’ve certainly bought several long guns from FFLs in other states. Some of them MANY hours from my home that I just happened by and decided to kick a few tires, and found a gem on their shelves.
A 10 day waiting period for a gun I bought hundreds of miles from my house is a HUGE burden.
“It is not inconvenient to get a simple background check for a gun purchase. It takes mere minutes unless one is on the list of prohibited purchasers. ”
She’s not counting the time it takes for both parties to drive to an FFL here. She has been very opposed to any suggestion of DIY checks where you don’t have to visit an FFL.
Also remember what happened under the Clinton Executive order to shut down most “Kitchen Table” FFLs. Don’t think that’s not one of the antis hole-cards when making a play for “universal background checks”. With one stroke of the pen, half the FFLs in America vanished. There is no reason why some other anti-gun president could sign an executive order demanding the ATF enforce some capricious safety standard, like banning any FFL that doesn’t have a vault door to the shop floor, or maybe forcing FFLs to check IDs of all shoppers before they enter an area where guns and ammo are. Who knows, dream up any bit of nonsense that could be argued at making FFLs “Safer” and suddenly you might have to drive HOURS just to get to a valid FFL who can access the NICS system.
Also the 10 day wait was very inconvenient during the Rodney King riots where scared suburbanites and city dwellers rushed to buy a gun and ran up across the 10 day wait I believe was signed into law in 1989 if memory serves.
Pingback: Episode 2 | Gun Blog Variety Cast