Universal Background Check
A Failed New York Solution...
to a Problem Maine Doesn't Have
Moms Demand Action, the New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun astroturf organization, is pushing a referendum to outlaw private transfers of firearms. They’re shipping out-of-state money and people into Maine to put their measure on our ballot, and buy themselves a law on our books.
This confusingly-written and ambiguous law would criminalize ordinary and traditional behavior, like selling a gun to a friend, or loaning a gun to a neighbor to go hunting. In order to comply with the law, you and your friend or neighbor would have to go to a licensed dealer, fill out Federal paperwork, undergo an FBI background check, and pay a fee before you could turn over your firearm. But, wait! That’s not all. You’ll have to do it all over again before your gun can be returned to you. And if the FBI background check makes a mistake and denies or delays you, as it does over 60,000 times a year to law-abiding citizens, you may not get your gun back.
"Hang on", you say, "I heard the law has exceptions for hunting and for family members. This won't affect me."
Those exceptions aren't what they appear to be; you won't be able to loan a gun to a friend or neighbor to go hunting. The loan can only occur while you are hunting, in the field. Anything else is a crime.
Family exception? Maybe not, depending on your family. Great-grandparents/great-grandchildren aren't included. Neither are unmarried people living together, even though the law purports to have an exception for "intimate partners" -- but the definition of intimate partner is flawed, and includes no one.
And, incidentally, without even saying so, this law completely outlaws adults over 18 years of age and under 21 from purchasing a handgun, by requiring all transfers to go through licensed dealers -- who are forbidden by Federal law from selling handguns to those under 21. Young adults will have their rights ripped from them. Don't for a moment think that this is an unintended consequence; it's a stealth ban, maliciously included.
And those are just a few examples of the glaring flaws in this horrible legislation. As a Citizen Initiated bill, it must be passed exactly as written -- there is no mechanism to make corrections before passing it into law.
While the anti-gunners say this law is needed to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, the Federal government’s own data shows that few criminals obtain guns through private sales; far more acquire them through background-checked dealer sales, by sending a person with a clean record to buy the gun. The real reason Bloomberg wants this law is that it is the key step toward mandatory gun registration. In fact, there’s no way this law can be enforced without gun registration.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that Universal Background Checks are a good idea -- it is a law designed to fail, in order to justify the next step on the anti-gunner’s agenda: universal registration.
It’s a failed New York solution to a problem Maine doesn’t have.
Help us defeat this flawed bill and leave governing Maine to Mainers, by making a donation to UBC Bad For ME
Contributions may also be sent by mail to:
UBC Bad For ME
205 Church Hill Road
Augusta, ME 04330
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Resources
BDN Editorial:
"Studies have indicated that most of guns used in crime are acquired illegally. Forcing lawful gun owners to register their firearms will have no effect on this problem.
This referendum is not about safety, it is about power and control."
-- Stephen C. Smith
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"I ran the UBC proposal by an Assistant District Attorney. His response: 'Such a mess!" He agrees that simply loaning a friend a rifle for deer season without getting a background check would be illegal for both parties involved. That's coming from one of the guys that would prosecute under the proposed law."
-- Central Maine Police Officer
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