Reply #107: A few comments [View All]

You can buy a gun in some places in 10 minutes with no background check. This is BAD. That is one way the bad guys get guns.


True. In most places there is no way for a private individual (not a federal licensee) to check the background of another person to whom he or she wishes to sell a gun. The federal background check system (NICS) is available only to gun dealers.

If every gun was licensed, then if it was used in the commission of a crime, the last person it was licensed to gets busted.

That assumes that a gun and not a suspect has been captured. More often the police capture both, just the suspect, or neither.

Just register the gun so there is a trail in case something happens.

Thanks to the Gun Control Act of 1968 there already IS a trail of ownership: The initial purchaser of a Mystery Gun can always be traced from its serial number to the original buyer (BATF Form 4473). That individual can then be interviewed to determine the next owner, and so on.