Green means go, and putting the brakes on felons

Green Stripe and the Charleston Massacre

I’ve been advancing an idea for a universal background check system used in firearms transfers. This is a system that could not be used as a defacto gun, or gun owner registration scheme. That alone means that Bloomberg’s minions don’t like it. This concept could be used in private and commercial firearms sales& transfers without having to involve a federal firearms licensee. It doesn’t need an internet connection or a smart device would be required. Even the average Joe can judge if the prospective buyer is legal, or a prohibited person. The system is as simple as a colored stripe on the driver’s license or non driver’s ID.

Green= GO!, Yellow= SLOW DOWN. No stripe means the person has to use the federal background check system through a gun shop.

This proposal would be phased in over a period of about 7 years as people renew their driver’s licenses. It works much like the standard background check you go through to get your state issued carry permit. By default, whenever the state issues, or renews your drivers license, or non-drivers identification card, they would run another background check to see if you are a prohibited possessor as defined under current federal law. Your license would include a green stripe at the top or side indicating you are in compliance with firearms purchase standards if everything checks out, and you are over the age of 21. Those over 18, but under 21, those who have had their rights restored, legal resident aliens, and others who are legal to possess& purchase firearms, but might have some restrictions, or might need to provide additional supporting documentation would have a yellow stripe indicating generally legal, but slow down& take a closer look.

A number of conditions make a person ineligible to purchase a firearm. A person may not legally possess a firearm if they have been convicted of a felony, have a misdemeanor domestic violence charge, have been adjudicated as mentally incompetent, have been found guilty of a crime by reason of insanity, or if they are in the country illegally. Ideally, these folks would have a red stripe on their license, however the Supreme court has held that it is unlawful to identify felons, as it would be a scarlet letter. So instead they would have a plain old drivers license with no stripe.

What about those who object to having a stripe on their license? They can opt out of the green stripe system. They would be precluded from private firearms sales. They would require a background check at the time of sale and the FBI would have a record of the gun transfer.

What happens if you’ve been convicted of a crime? Whenever you are arrested for a serious crime, such as a felony, you are normally taken into custody. You are arraigned and have a bail hearing. Upon posting bail, the court takes your drivers license. If it had a green or yellow stripe, then they punch a hole with a special punch, and possibly emboss it with the seal of the court to indicate your rights have been suspended.

Suspended! That’s outrageous! I have a right to keep& bear…

Yes you do, but the moment you are indicted for a felony, or any other disqualifying offense, you are already prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law. The same process could be applied to a person involuntarily committed to an asylum.

Once the charges are sorted out, you are in 1 of 3 categories. You could be acquitted, found guilty& incarcerated, or found guilty of a lesser charge and out on probation. If you’ve been acquitted then the state restores your ID at no charge to you. If your convicted or plead down to probation, then sorry. You are in the prohibited class until you can get your rights restored.

How would this prevent a gun registry? The answer is simple. If you screen the majority of adults, then you are going to have a sample of potential gun owners so large that trying to identify the actual gun owners would be near impossible. The government is left looking for a needle in a haystack. As the line from the kids movie goes, “If everybody is special, then no one is special.”

If the drivers license is NICS compliant, meaning if it has a green stripe, then the driver’s license holder is exempt from the federally mandated background check at the gun shop. Even the widow can tell a stripe from no stripe if she is selling off her late husband’s collection to a friend of the family.

How would this “Green Stripe” background check system have changed the outcome in Charleston? The Bowl-Cut bad guy had been arrested and charged with felony drug possession. This case was not yet resolved. That made the murderer a prohibited person. Had the Green Stripe card system been in effect, the driver’s license would have been punched before the murderer was released from jail. The store where the murderer later bought the gun would have immediately known something wasn’t right. They would have known even though the arrest record had not caught up with the FBI database.

Is this system fool proof? No. We keep breeding better fools.

Is it possible to somehow cheat the system? Maybe, but that person is already violating multiple laws and it’s not likely one more will deter them. This system could give honest citizens a way to screen criminals in private firearms transactions, and if the federal laws were changed, could eliminate the 4473. Possibly eliminate the need for a carry permit, which would make the ability to lawfully carry available to more honest citizens who either refuse to pay to exercise a right, or refuse to register as one who carries. It does so without giving an inch to the anti-gun ideologues who want a national register of firearms & firearms owners.

PS, this is written to apply to current laws, not to laws that would exist in a more perfect world.

Despite billionaire bucks, gun control measure loses ground – Seattle gun rights | Examiner.com

Despite billionaire bucks, gun control measure loses ground – Seattle gun rights | Examiner.com.
From Workman

BUSTED! Bloomberg Group says only 14% of Mass Shootings Occur in Gun-Free Zones – BuzzPo

BUSTED! Bloomberg Group says only 14% of Mass Shootings Occur in Gun-Free Zones – BuzzPo.
Herr Bloomberg is stretching the facts more than a little

Q and A with Alan Beck

The following is the exchange with Alan Beck, the counsel of record on a legal challenge to Hawaii’s very restrictive carry laws.  The case he argued before the 9^th circuit court of appeals was heard the same day as the now announced Peruta carry case.

AP:  MR Beck, you are the counsel on a case pending decision before the 9th circuit court of appeals, Christopher Baker v. Louis Kealoha. The oral arguments were heard the same day as another case where the decision was recently announced, Peruta v. San Diego.
 Can you give me a thumbnail description of your case, and do you have any thoughts, comments, or observations on Peruta, and how it may affect your case?

BECK:  Baker primarily focused on Hawaii’s handgun carry statute (134-9). The Ninth Circuit’s analysis in Peruta will be applied to the City and County of Honolulu or the State of Hawaii as a whole via Baker. Baker also challenged Hawaii’s complete ban on electric guns and the carry of batons. These issues are unique to Baker and Peruta’s holding has no bearing on them.

AP:  What is the current state of firearms ownership& carry in Hawaii? Is there currently any form of carry that is legal& available to the people of the state?

BECK:  Hawaii is a complete ban on the carry of handguns.  As there are no active permits, no guidelines as how one would issue a permit and the handful of permits rumored to have been issued in the history of the state were issued based on cronyism. Whether permits actually were issued is a subject of speculation as no evidence as ever been produced that a County (island) has issued. 

AP: Do you have any other cases that you are working on? What issues do you think are ripe for strategic litigation?

BECK:  I am working on two other Second Amendment cases and one First Amendment case which is of interest to Second Amendment supporters. Up on appeal to the Ninth is Young v. State of Hawaii which asks the Court to define the extent the Second Amendment protects the carry of rifles, shotguns and knives for the Ninth. It also argues how and why magazines and ammunition are protected by the Second Amendment. Additionally the constitutionality of short barrel shotguns and short barrel rifles is argued. 

I am a friend of the Court in Fisher v. Kealoha which ultimately argues the burden is on the government to show a person has been convicted of domestic violence. The Court has ruled in our favor on that issue and the case is awaiting a full trial as the Court asks Mr. Fisher to show he no longer suffers from alcohol issues. 

Finally I am working on a first amendment case which will defend the right of Ares Arms to maintain a sign which advertises their business and their fidelity to the Second Amendment. National City (where the store is located) is demanding that the store tear the sign down.  

 

AP:  SCOTUS just denied a petition for cert for 2 challenges of provisions to the Gun Control Act of 1968, do you think those challenges were well structured, or should they have focused on a different aspect of the GCA68?

What effect do you see your case& Peruta having on carry in other venues in the nation, Guam for example? Do you see this case increasing the likelihood of SCOTUS granting cert on the carry case out of NJ; DRAKE v. FILKO?

BECK:  Peruta has created a Circuit split which means a carry case will likely be granted in the near future. Prior to the Peruta ruling I would have guessed Drake would not be granted cert. Now I believe it will be due to the Circuit split. 

The territories are an interesting story. Guam actually has constitutional carry laws due to virtually unrestricted open carry. However the North Marinas Islands (Saipan) and America Samoa both has complete bans on even handgun ownership 6 years post Heller. SAF via its member Gray Peterson and its attorney David Sigale is planning a challenge to Saipan’s laws alongside local counsel. I am planning a challenge to America Samoa’s laws which will likely be filed subsequent and independent of that case. Donation to the Saipan project via SAF will expedite both cases being filed. As these are the last two places in the nation with complete bans on handguns (along with most rifles and shotgun) this is a worthy cause which I hope the various individuals involved will be able to address soon. 

AP: you mentioned a first amendment case, If I understand the outline of this case, there was an existing commercial building that has been standing for over 100years, with a billboard on top of said building since the 1920’s, which predates the city’s sign regulations by quite a bit. This was a selling point for when your clients purchased the building. Shortly after the new owners moved in, they papered the billboard with a graphic showing an AR-15, which resulted in a nastygram from the Mayor’s office instructing them to remove the sign within a very short period of time.

 

While I am not a lawyer, to me this seems problematic on many levels.

 

To be continued. . .

Unlisted numbers

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/register
1reg·is·ter
noun \ˈre-jə-stər\
Definition of REGISTER
1
: a written record containing regular entries of items or details
2
a : a book or system of public records
b : a roster of qualified or available individuals
3
: an entry in a register
—-snipped—-
Origin of REGISTER
Middle English registre, from Anglo-French, from Medieval Latin registrum, alteration of Late Latin regesta, plural, register, from Latin, neuter plural of regestus, past participle of regerere to bring back, pile up, collect, from re- + gerere to bear
First Known Use: 14th century
2register
verb

: to record information about (something) in a book or system of public records

: to put your name on an official list

: to show or record (an amount, value, etc.)
reg·is·tered reg·is·ter·ing
Full Definition of REGISTER
transitive verb
1
a : to make or secure official entry of in a register
b : to enroll formally especially as a voter or student
c : to record automatically : indicate
d : to make a record of : note
e : perceive; also : comprehend
2
: to make or adjust so as to correspond exactly
3
: to secure special protection for (a piece of mail) by prepayment of a fee
4
: to convey an impression of : express
5
: achieve
intransitive verb
1
a : to enroll one’s name in a register
b : to enroll one’s name officially as a prerequisite for voting
c : to enroll formally as a student
—-snipped—-
Examples of REGISTER

He registered the birth of his child.
She registered her new car.
The car was registered under my name.
The company registered its trademark.
Only 32 cases of the disease have been registered.
Did you register to vote?
She is busy registering the students.
Roast the meat for two hours or until the meat thermometer registers 140 degrees.
an earthquake that registered 6.3 on the Richter scale
The team finally registered a victory after losing three games in a row.

First Known Use of REGISTER
14th century
Related to REGISTER

Synonyms
inscribe, list, matriculate, enroll

Antonyms
delist

There is much discussion taking place in and about CT regarding a law enacted last year requiring the registration of modern sporting rifles. 50,000 law abiding gun owners stood in line to put their names, addresses, firearms, and serial numbers on that list. As if, the mere presence of those names on a piece of paper would have somehow prevented the unspeakable evil that took place in New Town. Any rational person can plainly see the fallacy in that logic. Now there are as many as 350,000 who instead have opted for privacy and chosen to keep their names, addresses, firearms, and phone numbers unlisted.

For generations, registration of privately held arms has been the holy grail of collectivists who only have “The best interests of society” at heart, because, “If it only saves one life” it’s all worthwhile. Only to say when enacting that measure, that it is not nearly enough, and that more must be done to solve the problems of gangsters, the criminally insane, and suicide. But “It was a good first step”.
Looking back through history, what happens when privately held arms are no longer unlisted? It happens regular as clockwork, those lists become a door to door guide of where to go to collect& confiscate that which the collectivists find threatening.

Registration is ALWAYS a precursor to confiscation, as it is impossible to collect what you don’t know exists.
Has this happened in the US before? Yes, many times. For instance, we have seen registration followed by confiscation in New York City, and California in the last few years, as a matter of fact, we have seen it in the past few weeks in NYC, where a compliant law abiding citizen registered an arm that fell within the law, then the collectivists moved the goal post and what was once safe, is now out of bounds. And that citizen now has X amount of time to move, transfer out, hand over, or destroy that property.
Setting the second amendment aside for a second, this practice trashes the 4th,5th& 14th amendments.
Resulting in unreasonable searches& seizures, a taking of one’s property without due process, or just compensation, depriving one of the privileges& immunities of citizenship.

There doesn’t even have to be a change in law for registration based confiscation. A couple years ago, Parts of Canada had horrific flooding, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police ordered the evacuation of a town, while the people were out, the RCMP commenced to kick in doors, ransack homes& torch safes in order to seize privately held rifles& shotguns. Why? to protect them of course. Nevermind the fact that Canada had scrapped their long gun registry prior to that incident. Once registered, it is almost impossible to get unlisted.

What about backdoor registration? There is that potential, even though there is supposed to be no federal registry of firearms (excluding class 3 items regulated under the NFA34) there are 2 potential avenues of backdoor registration in the current system. The first being form 4473. this is the piece of paper you fill out whenever you acquire a firearm from a licensed dealer, it lists your name, address, SSN and driver’s license number, it also lists the make, model, caliber, and serial number of the firearm. How could this be misused? Well, the dealer retains the 4473 in his acquisition& disposition records, aka Bound book until he ceases to be a dealer, then he either forwards those records to the person buying the business, or hands them over to the BATF. What good will a record of a rifle sale that took place 10 years ago do? Good question. I have spent some time pondering this& I really cannot think of any good reason to retain these past 10 years, after all, if someone lied on the 4473, and committed perjury, the statute of limitations would have expired. Could it be used to prove ownership? Possibly, but there is also a strong likely hood that the firearm may have been sold& resold several times. As a matter of fact, I remember reading a study some time back that the average time-to-crime for guns recovered from criminals is 15 years, so how great is the probability the records are stale& of no use? Could the BATF possibly get the records sooner? Maybe. I have seen anecdotal reports of BATF examiners taking high-resolution photos, or photo copying the bound book, in violation of the law& regulations, but when a business is completely at the mercy of the bureau that both makes& enforces the laws and grants the license by which they operate, it creates a disincentive to protest.

Are there other ways a backdoor registry could be compiled? Yup, the database. When this first went into effect the computer records were retained for 6 months, for “Back up purposes” which alarmed folks in Congress who then modified the statute to require all data from approved background checks be destroyed within 24 hours, but how can we really know those records were purged as required by law? Good question. We have to trust that the govt will not misuse those records. Not very comforting is it?

Just how could a background check database be abused? look for this example,

“But the bottom line is that the state must try to enforce the law,” The Courant concluded, calling on the state to use the “background check database” to identify who has not obeyed, and to go and get them.

. Does this betray the actual intended goal of their push for universal background checks? or is it merely wishful thinking on the part of collectivists?

This all goes to underscore the point of avoiding registration at all costs, for after all, if the Jews had not registered their arms, Krystallnacht may well have had a different ending.
Stay Unlisted my friends.

Hello world!

At the prodding of a friend I have finally sat down to try set up this blog.