What Lurks Behind “Universal” Background Checks?

House Democrats are making a big play for laws even they admit don’t work. What, then, do they really want?

In January, while the United States government was still partially shut down, anti-gun members of the U.S. House of Representatives decided to focus on gun control rather than ensuring that the country has a functional government.

Arch anti-gunner Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) quarterbacked the effort in her capacity as Speaker of the House.

“[T]oday is … a day of action,” she said at the press conference introducing the 116th Congress’ first major gun control push. “We say enough is enough by finally bringing commonsense, bipartisan background check legislation to the Floor of the House.” As applause erupted, she added, “Isn’t that exciting?”

Joining her in the effort was Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA), chairman of the democrat’s Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. He characterized the day’s proceedings as the culmination of a six-year effort “to find the most efficient and most effective way to help save lives.”

Their first big play was H.R. 8, the “Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019.” The single digit bill number was meant to convey the high priority the Democrat-controlled Congress places on gun control.

The pair also chose Jan. 8 to launch their effort for ostensibly symbolic reasons. This was the date in 2011 when an assassination attempt in Tucson, Ariz. tragically wounded then U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and resulted in the deaths and injuries of innocent bystanders.

Giffords was in attendance…

Yet as infamous and deplorable as the Tucson event was, it was a strange occasion to use to mark the launch of a “universal” background check bill.

The individual convicted of the attempt on Giffords’s life had in fact purchased the firearm he used in his crimes from a federally licensed dealer after passing the mandatory background check.

But then the concept of “universal” background checks has always been a matter of style over substance.

For one thing, the sorts of criminals committing the vast majority of violent crimes in the United States – most of whom are legally prohibited from firearm ownership and know it — rarely obtain crime guns directly from federally licensed dealers (FFLs), who already must run background checks on customers.

Studies by the U.S. Department of Justice – including one released the day after the H.R. 8 press conference – and others have repeatedly shown that criminals usually get the firearms possessed during their criminal acts from family members, criminal associates, the black market, or by stealing them.

This has led experts, including President Obama’s own Justice Department, to explain that “universal” background checks are unenforceable without a comprehensive national registry of firearms.

Universal background checks, while inconsequential to public safety, are a necessary piece of an overall puzzle that will transform the U.S. right to keep and bear arms into a European style privilege reserved for wealthy elite who can afford to comply with burdensome, bureaucratic procedures to acquire a firearm.

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