How Michael Bloomberg Is Twisting The Gun Control Debate In The Evergreen State Washing-con
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One way scam artists make money is by peddling mislabeled goods. The label on the can says “Wild Alaskan Salmon,” but what’s really inside is codfish from a filthy breeding pen in China, plus some food coloring.
Selling mislabeled goods is illegal, but there’s nothing illegal about mislabeled laws. Michael Bloomberg knows that difference, and he is exploiting it.
Right now in the state of Washington, Bloomberg is pushing a November ballot measure that is promoted as being about background checks for private sales. But it is really a law to criminalize most gun owners, including those who never sell guns. If passed, the deceptive Bloomberg ban for Washington state is then going to become the national model, to gradually be imposed on gun owners nationwide.
Bloomberg plans to run a similar ballot measure in Oregon in 2015 and in a dozen or more states in 2016. One of them is Nevada, where the 2016 campaign is already in progress. Bloomberg’s Nevada operation calls itself “Nevadans for Background Checks” and is operated by Melissa Warren, the managing partner at the Faiss Foley Warren Public Relations & Government Affairs lobbying firm.
Bloomberg and his minions claim they are just promoting background checks on private sales. But as usual, they are lying.
One way to tell that Bloomberg is selling a mislabeled law is to read the actual proposal. In this case, it is 18 pages long. It would only take a couple of pages to require background checks on private sales of firearms, if that were all the law did.
Instead, the law is a comprehensive scheme to criminalize the normal use of firearms, thus turning most gun owners into criminals, from whom firearms can be confiscated.
When Washington voters cast their ballots this fall, here is what they will see:
“Initiative Measure No. 594 concerns background checks for firearm sales and transfers.
“This measure would apply the currently used criminal and public safety background checks by licensed dealers to all firearm sales and transfers, including gun show and online sales, with specific exceptions.
“Should this measure be enacted into law? Yes [ ] No [ ].”
What the voters won’t see is what I-594 really does.
I-594 expands the Washington state government database on handguns and handgun owners. Currently, it includes handguns bought at retail and their buyers. If I-594 is passed, it will include almost every handgun owner and borrower since, if you borrow your grandfather’s handgun for the weekend, you’ll be required to be listed in the database.
It’s not as if the database on handgun owners accomplishes any good. Currently, database entries are backlogged by nine months, and I-594 would aggravate the problem.
Interestingly, the Facebook page of Washington’s anti-gun lobby, the misnamed “Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility,” dishonestly calls concerns about the database on gun owners a “myth.”
I-594 is actually far more repressive than even the notoriously severe gun laws of California. There, private sales of firearms must be routed through firearm dealers, with the sales processed just as if the dealer were selling a firearm out of his own inventory—including all the same paperwork, with the dealer having to keep a permanent record on the buyer.
But California has exemptions for firearm loans. You can loan a firearm for up to 30 days to someone you personally know. You can loan a licensed hunter a long gun for the duration of the relevant hunting season. You can let a friend hold your gun in his hand while you’re teaching your friend about gun safety. Not so under I-594.
How much will it cost to loan a gun to someone under I-594? You would have to take the gun to a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) for processing, and the FFL can charge essentially any fee he or she wants to charge. Typically, FFL fees for processing private transfers (e.g., interstate sales between private individuals) are about $35 to $50, because of the time involved in filling out the paperwork and the legal danger to the FFL if there are any errors in the paperwork.
Then, when your friend is ready to return the gun to you, you both have to go back to the FFL and pay for the processing of another transaction.
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