I will be floored if a politican comes out and says instead, "I am for regulating all private sales of firearms through licensed dealers."  At least that chap is being honest.  He'll get rightly trounced at the polls for attacking our basic right of private property ownership, but at least he'll be remembered for his honesty.

I won't hold my breath for that one coming from any professional politician.  Having worked for enough of them on the Hill, they know better than to speak the truth if they want to keep getting elected to a U.S. public office.

As mentioned in earlier posts the term ?gun show loophole? seeks to demonize private firearms transactions that occasionally and unsurprisingly occur when gun owners congregate at a gun show. Throw in unsubstantiated references to terrorists obtaining weapons via hypothetical private transactions and you have yet another instance where anti-gunners seek to abrogate second amendment protections in a sky-is-falling extra-constitutional manner.

Out of curiosity, if candidate Kaine is elected governor, will his legal litmus test continue to be ?it didn?t do any harm?? The recent Center for Disease Control report said the ?assault weapon? ban didn?t do any good, either. One would hope some seeking to be Virginia?s chief executive would support laws that are effective, and shun ones that embrace semantic foolishness while accomplishing nothing at all.

1 - Less than one percent of criminals get their guns at gun shows. Therefore, the likeliness of conducting background checks on private transactions at gun shows preventing a crime is slim to nonexistent.

2 - Federally licensed gun dealers already perform background checks -- regardless of whether they sell their products from their store or at a gun show. It's the law. And if they want to keep their license, they will abide by it.

3 - What Mr. Kaine and other gun grabbers are really after is private transactions. They want to institute what amounts to a de-facto registration for private party sales.

4 - What these people are also after is gun shows. Their clamor for background checks is, in fact, a gradual step toward shutting down gun shows altogether. According to a 2001 article by Bob Templeton, a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Arms Shows, "In order to obtain new guns from manufacturers and wholesalers you must be a federally licensed firearms dealer. Individuals may not, under any circumstances, obtain new guns for resale from these sources. This leaves only the few collectors and individuals who may sell used guns from their personal collections as the persons who will be impacted by this proposed law. It is simply the first step in the liberal Democrat agenda to require the defacto registration and, ultimately, licensing of all gun owners. ..."

Further, Templeton makes a valid point when he asserts that there are considerable and very real privacy issues involved when you begin forcing individuals to check up or spy on others.

Believe it or not, most of the people you will find selling guns at gun shows are federally licensed gun dealers. They engage in gun sales as a business, and they must perform the prerequisite background check at a gun show, much like they would in their store.

There IS no such thing as an "unlicensed gun dealer." A private collector selling one of his rifles to a friend is doing so absolutely legally. He is not required by law to have a federal firearms license.

Likewise, as researcher David Kopel points out, "...if a gun collector dies and his widow wants to sell the guns, she does not need a federal firearms license because she is just selling off inherited property and is not "engaged in the business." And if the widow doesn't want to sell her deceased husband's guns by taking out a classified ad in the newspaper, it is lawful for her to rent a table at a gun show and sell the entire collection."

In other words, the claim that criminals are purchasing guns from people who aren't supposed to be selling them in the first place is absolute bunk.

It's illegal to sell a weapon to a terrorist or a criminal. That's the kind of thing that will get your FFL taken away in a jiffy and have you sitting around a prison cell hoping that Bubba won't make you his date for the evening. What YOU're proposing is that everyone is presumed guilty until proven innocent. You want every person who decides to exercise their fundamental right to make a purchase treated like a terrorist until they can prove otherwise. How unAmerican of you!

As for Clinton's 1994 ban:

1 - According to the National Institute of Justice, "...we cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation?s recent drop in gun violence."

2 - An earlier National Institute of Justice report confirms that "The ban has failed to reduce the average number of victims per gun murder incident or multiple gunshot wound victims."

3 - Clinton's "crazy gun law" banned weapons that were used in so few crimes, that they literally entered the realm of statistical irrelevancy. In 2001, a Bureau of Justice Statistics study showed that about 2 percent of federal and state inmates even owned a military-style semi-automatic gun.

What Democrats like Tim Kaine fail to realize is, by definition, criminals do not obey the law. Ergo, any law he passes making it more difficult for the people to exercise their Second Amendment right, will affect the law abiding and do nothing to stop crime.

Going back to that Bureau of Justice Statistics study I mentioned earlier, if Mr. Kaine had any common sense at all, he'd realize a few things:

1 - In 1997, fewer than two percent of criminals bought their guns from a gun show or flea market. (You'd think that if these places were such a criminal's wet dream, more of them would be out there purchasing guns by the bushel.)

2 - About 12 percent bought their firearm at a pawn shop or a retail outlet

3 - Over 80 percent obtained their weapon illegally.

So, tell me again how limiting our freedoms will reduce crime?

Those of us who think the second tenth of the Bill of Rights means what it says have seen our share of candidates who claim second amendment bona fides whenever an election nears?witness John Kerry?s camo clad goose hunt, et al?but who don?t have much of a gun rights record otherwise. A cogent response regarding ?assault weapons? would do much to establish his pro gun veracity. Or lack thereof.

I?ll close by noting that candidate Kilgore had a booth at the recent gun show at the Dulles Expo Center, while Mr. Kaine did not. Also, while I saw an NRA booth I did not see one for the American Hunters and Shooters Association. I suspect it speaks volumes when folks supposedly supporting gun rights fail to stand before the scrutiny gun owners would be sure to display at a gun show.

Why would you need to "CYA" if you were not regularly selling guns to people whose backgrounds are in question? What's the danger of taking a few minutes to run the name of the purchaser through NICS? How would you feel if you were the guy that sold a Bushmaster to the next DC sniper? Would the fact that you had your CYA form make you feel any better?

I've had the opportunity to discuss this issue with Tim Kaine and here is how he explained it to me, a gunowner. His support for background checks for all gun sales at gun shows involves assisting law enforcement in their efforts to enforce EXISTING LAW. It's true felons, wife beaters, others are prohibited by law from acquiring guns. But in the "quasi-commercial" setting of a gun show where a federally licensed gun dealer must perform a background check and "hobby" dealers don't, common sense tells us that in order to fully enforce EXISTING LAW Virginia should require background checks for all gun sales at gun shows. This is the law in 3 out of 5 of the top gun show states, and it makes sense.

Advocates of private-sale background checks also fail to point out that private sellers cannot make background checks of potential buyers.  This is something that is exclusively limited by law to federally licensed dealers.  So if a private seller wants to have a background check made he or she must first go to a licensed dealer, transfer the firearm to him ? at least on paper, and then have the dealer make the sale to the buyer.  This of course will involve additional cost, time, and trouble ? and it is unlikely many if not most private sellers will put up with it.  They can simply go outside and do the dealing there.

Felons seldom worry about laws, and quite frankly they don?t have to.  At least they don?t unless they get caught.  Background checks on private gun sales is yet another warm & fuzzy feel-good idea that won?t really make a difference.  Think not?  Well in Michigan they require a police-issued purchase permit for all handgun sales ? those made by licensed dealers, and those made by private parties, at gun shows or otherwise.  This law has been the books since the middle 1930?s and there is no evidence that it has had an impact so far as preventing felons from getting guns is concerned.

Mr. Kaine is welcome to both his opinion and position on this issue, but I wouldn't bet that he will be the next Governor.

On Tim's web page, he states "Tim Kaine strongly supports the Second Amendment. As the next Governor of Virginia, he will not propose any new gun laws."  How does conform with your desire to take away my right to sell my guns?  Is your proposal somehow not a new gun law?

He also states "Both the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of Virginia guarantee that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."  What does he mean by the people?  Do you subscribe to the idea that most Democrats seem to spout that somehow "the people" means something different in the 2nd Amendment than it does anywhere else in the constitution or the Bill of Rights?

Finally, he states "In addition, the Virginia constitution also protects the right to hunt. When that tradition came under attack by animal-rights groups, Tim Kaine helped defend the constitutional amendment in court." Do you agree with this?  If so, what is your opinion on the hunting bans in Fairfax and Alexandria and Arlington Counties (its illegal to discharge a weapon, hence no hunting) and the similar ban Chesterfield County is seeking to implement?  Do you oppose those restrictions? Does Tim (I've asked a lot of his campaign staff, no one wants to even touch the issue - why?)

There is no such thing as an unlicensed firearms dealer.  You are either an FFL holder or you are not.  You either sell firearms for profit or you do not.  If you do, you better have an FFL or your gonna be spending a lot of time with the bootie bandit.  If you don't, then you are not eligible to receive an FFL.

If you are a firearms dealer you are required to conduct the background check wherever you sell a gun - be it in a store, in your home, or at a gun show.

What you are seeking to do when you harp on and on about closing the gun show loophole is actually regulating private sellers looking to maximize the return on an investment, or simply not to loose their shirt. 

Let me give you an example of how the real world works, since you gun banning Democrats seem to have left it long ago. 

The last new gun I purchased cost me over $700 (lets kill another myth right here, guns are EXPENSIVE!!! You people - and Tim Kaine is responsible for this - managed to generally price the poor people living in areas where they have a real need for self protection - out of the market by eliminating cheap guns).  If I wish to get rid of it I have a few options. 

First, I can sell it to a dealer who will pay me $300 for it and then turn around and resell it (after conducting a background check) for $600 (Though expensive, guns retain a surprising part of their value).

Second, I can sell it to a pawn shop who will pay me $100 for it and then turn around and resell it (after conducting a background check) for $600.

Third, I can turn it in at a gun buy back event to Tim Kaine and the Richmond Police Department or Sarah Brady and the Commie Mommies for $50 in donated Target Gift Cards (which don't allow change to be given back, and lose their value if I don't use them within a year).  Tim Kain and the Richmond Police or Sarah Brady and the Commie Mommies will then turn around and sell my $700 gun to a gun dealer for $300 (using that profit to further erode my civil rights - they only melt down the worthless guns). The gun dealer will then resell it (after conducting a background check) for $600 (sometimes they sell it to national distributors who simply act as a middle man between Tim Kain and the Richmond Police or Sarah Brady and the Commie Mommies and the eventual gun seller).

Finally, I can sell it privately for $500-$600 by posting an ad in the paper (but only where Sarah Brady and the Commie Mommies haven't shut that avenue down); posting a notice at a gun range or on the internet; selling it to a friend; or going to a gun show where I can meet potential buyers.

As a private citizen, I am not a gun dealer let alone an "unlicensed gun dealer", in fact I am not eligible to become a gun dealer unless I have the intent to actually engage in the business and then do so once granted my license.  Yet, for some reason, you want to restrict my rights (through making gun ownership unaffordable) by preventing my access to a marketplace of buyers and artificially deflating the value of my gun (and often times putting the lost profit right in the bank account of Tim Kain and the Richmond Police or Sarah Brady and the Commie Mommies).

Thats what the so called gun show bills are seeking to do. Regulate non dealers.

How can Tim Kaine or any Democrat ever hope to convince America (or simply the citizens of Virginia) that they aren't after their guns when every false gun concern they raise is tied directly to the ultimate goal of eliminating gun ownership in America (see the statements of Diane Feinstein and the founders of the Brady Campaign/Million Mom March - formerly known as Handgun Control Inc.)  ?????

I just noticed that right before I wrote "If you say NO, then you have recognized that having been to prison does not invalidate the Bill of Rights for that person," I had switched the meaning of NO from a pro-rights to an anti-rights stance.  It's hard to see such errors trying to edit a long post in a tiny little box, I suppose. 

First of all, Article II of the Bill of Rights clearly states that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  Requiring people to prove their lack of convictions before purchase of a gun is an infringement.  It's also a prior restraint.

It is bad enough we have to do background checks when buying from an FFL (licensed firearm dealer).  FFLs have the easy capacity to do the unconstitutional background checks, at least.  Private citizens, who are legally allowed to sell their privately-owned guns as long as profit is not the motive, have never been subject to this, regardless of where they sell their guns.  (Aside: It's not a loophole-- it is a little bit of liberty left that the government hasn't yet managed to crush.)

As such, a proposal to extend the unconstitutional infringment to private citizens, who have no ability to do background checks (do you know how to do one?  Of course not-- you don't have a Federal Firearms License) is a very bad thing for the few people out here who still think the Bill of Rights means something.

Similarly, opposition to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms act is a very bad sign in a politician. The law would not, as you erroneously say, protect dealers who commit an actual tort from being sued.  It would protect Glock and other gun manufacturers from being sued because Chicago is overrun with criminals using stolen Glocks to terrorize helpless Chicagoans. 

These suits are an abuse of process.  The people that are perpetrating lawsuits of that sort know that the suits are without merit-- they just want to bankrupt the gun manufacturers with the legal costs.  This has to stop.  This bill is the chickens coming home to roost over these abusive suits. 

This is really quite simple to us Constitutionalists.  A right is a right.  Rights  are not subject to prior approval from the government (those are called privileges). 

Rights even exist for ex-cons.

Would you support the arrest of an ex-con for saying that he does not support the Bush Administration?  Or for worshipping at a mosque?

Do you think that a person that has gone to prison in the past should still enjoy the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, right to a speedy trial, right to a trial by jury, the right to confront his accusers, the right to not be compelled to incriminate himself, the right not to be coerced into confessing, the right to legal counsel?

If you say NO, then you have recognized that having been to prison does not invalidate the Bill of Rights for that person.  It's still valid when the person is released.  And that is true also of Article II, even if the courts and legislators have ignored this (as they do most of the Bill of Rights). 

Even gun haters should fully support the Article II rights of gun owners, because a precedent that the Bill of Rights can be ignored will (and has) spread to rights that these gun haters do wish to express.  The many infringements on Article II of the Bill of Rights have paved the way for abominations like the USA PATRIOT act, the McCain-Feingold "Campaign Finance Reform" act, et cetera).  You can't ignore one part of the Bill of Rights and expect the rest of it to be respected.

As for having the police destroy records of background checks:  the sole purpose of such things is to ensure that the purchaser is not a prohibited person.  Once that has been established, the record has no further use, and should be destroyed *immediately*. 

As another commenter has noted, failing to do this amounts to gun registration, and time and time again, registration has been a prelude to confiscation.  And since it would be the police that carry out this confiscation, they *are* the enemy *in that regard*.

Considering that the primary reason for Article II of the Bill of Rights was to give the people the means to mount an armed insurrection against a tyrannical government, it seems rather idiotic to suggest that allowing the government to compile a list of which guns are owned by which people would be Constitutional.

It is a stupid, pointless, unworkable, and dangerous strategy to try to control gun crime by means of controlling the guns.  That strategy has resulted in the deaths of many thousands of Americans, who were not allowed the effective means of self-defense, and who were fooled into thinking the government could or would protect them.  It cannot, and will not, ever work. 

The only way to control gun crime is to put the gun criminals where they cannot commit gun crime (a place popularly known as "prison"), and perhaps to work on solving the sociological causes of gun crime (also known as "the real problem").

Gun crime was much less of a problem back when anyone could slap some greenbacks on a counter and walk out the door with his gun, without ever having revealed his name.  It's not at all about the availability of guns.  It's about the social acceptance that some people have that it is okay to kill people that you don't like. 

Over and over, it has been one "reasonable" gun control measure after another.  While none of the measures by themselves equated to "taking away our guns," each one of them gets us one step closer, and gets people that much more used to having their rights infringed.  When the one "reasonable" step fails to have any positive effect (and it will), another will be proposed, and another after that. 

Bit by bit, the march of "reasonable" measures continues, until you have the situation seen in Washington, DC, where the guns have pretty much been banned. It's called incrementalism, and the anti-gun side has been doing it for decades.

We gun owners have seen the slippery slope too long to continue to dismiss it.  That is why we oppose every gun control measure from a practical standpoint.  None of the measures is going to do anything to stop crime, or to do anything other than getting us closer to confiscation.  The Clinton Department of Justice could not even cook up the research to show that its own gun control measures had reduced crime. 

From a Constitutional standpoint, it is even easier-- what part of "shall not be infringed" don't people understand?  What part of "prior restraint" don't they get?  What part of "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" are they having trouble with?

Are you aware that there are a huge number of gun owners (who vote) that despise the NRA as much as the gun banners do-- because they do not consider the NRA to be a pro-gun organization?  Many of us consider the NRA to be too anti-gun for our liking.  I am an NRA member, but I do not like how they support some gun control. 

I like liberty; I like the Bill of Rights.  And I am a one-issue voter-- it's all about gun rights.  If there was ever a choice between two candidates, one pro-gun and one slightly more pro-gun, the slightly more pro-gun one wins. In this case, Kaine loses.