For Publication, 753 Words
November 12, 1998
One-time North American Serial Rights
Copyright 1998 Alan Korwin
Not-for-profit circulation approved.

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by Alan Korwin

As Congress was closing a few weeks ago, the Smith Amendment was going to force the FBI to obey the gun laws that protect Americans. Now it's old news. It basically failed in its mission. Gutted in a secret committee meeting that Newt Gingrich had the audacity to call a triumph for democratic process, the FBI and ATF regs were not visibly affected by the Senate's attempt at control. The Brady Law and McClure Volkmer Act protections are being ignored. Ignored.

Final FBI and ATF regulations have been issued. I'll have them up on my website shortly after you get this, at http://www.bloomfieldpress.com 

AND YOU SAW IT FIRST HERE--I have posted a SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM OF THE NICS SYSTEM you can look at or download.

Although no gun dealers I've spoken with have seen the NICS User Contract or been formally notified yet (11 days past the deadline), both the Justice and Treasury Departments are taking the position that, since they published their final regulations in the Federal Register on Oct. 30, they have met the deadline.

The official take is that all dealers have been properly notified, and NICS will start on time. This of course is nonsense. The intent of Congress was to give dealers 30 days notice to prepare--and to sign up--but it's simply not an issue for the people in charge. How the government will register them all in the 11 business days remaining is beyond me.

Rumors are swirling about late starts, six-month delays, and what would happen if NICS is late. Clearly, Brady lapses on Nov. 30, that's statutory. But the Clinton administration has been known to push the envelope on what's legal, so anything is possible. I mean, after all, it's against the law to record your name and address but they're doing it anyway. Why should they stop at anything else.

Content of Regs

The final regs require a NICS check for redeeming a pawn; do NOT require a NICS check for return of your own repaired or replaced firearm from a licensee (such as a manufacturer or gunsmith); do require a NICS check for return of your own gun left with a dealer for sale on consignment.

Names and addresses of all retail buyers will be recorded for at least a year, and then maybe for less time, at FBI discretion. They are doing this "solely for the purpose of satisfying the statutory requirement of ensuring the privacy and security of the NICS and the proper operation of the NICS." They call it a "countervailing statutory requirement," and have decided to record you slobs, instead of countervailing the other way, to defend your rights and treat you with respect. But rest assured, "The FBI will not establish a federal firearms registry." It says so right on page one, next to where they describe how they record you.

The illegal gun tax everyone was so fired up about was dropped, when the FBI got 47 million tax dollars in cash, instead. I'm still reading the regs and I'll put a full review on our website when I'm done, will let you know when it's up.

And the latest

The hot button right now is Clinton's announcement (in his radio address of 11/7) that he intends to undo gun shows somehow. He's on a roll with this whole Brady thing. He's asked the Justice and Treasury Departments (the agencies running NICS in violation of law), to recomend executive action (not legislation) that he could take to stop gun shows. Sarah Brady mentioned flea markets. The headline, Clinton Tightens Brady Gun Law, somehow missed the fact that the president can't change the law all by hisself.

His statement that the Brady law does not currently apply to gun show purchases is an outright lie. Of course it applies. Any illegal gun dealing he's refering to is, you know, illegal. Any people involved are subject to immediate arrest. Do they know of such crimes? Are they making arrests yet?

In his speech, Clinton admitted attending gun shows "I have visited and enjoyed them over the years," he said. (It's not known if he ever met Timothy McVeigh, also a gun show attendee.)

This has nothing to do with gun shows folks. He's after private transfers of firearms among law-abiding individuals. If he can do that, regulate private sales of merchandise without an act of Congress, then the impeachment process is complete, and he becomes all-powerful. (Politics works, just not the way you think it does.) Don't forget that all firearm transfers related to criminal activity are already totally illegal, and that law enforcement, not new laws, are what it takes to stop them.