https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_background_check#Sta...
22 states only - are you sure that “most states” have blocked this?
22 states only - are you sure that “most states” have blocked this?
Personally, I think people should be as free as possible to sell goods privately without the government getting involved. It's not a loophole, it's how things should work.
If you think any of these laws prevent felons and other prohibited persons from getting guns, you must be remarkably unfamiliar with felons, and their willingness to commit felonies. Most felons I know through friends/family have a gun (often stored somewhere plausibly deniable), and it's not a particular secret.
These laws primarily harm law-abiding citizens — who were never the problem in the first place — far more than they restrict prohibited persons from acquiring guns.
The same thing will occur with restrictions on open models, but arguably the results are far more harmful — limiting the technological and economic capacity of the people and countries we have to worry about the least, leaving the playing field open for those we have to worry about the most.
The three major categories of prohibited persons are felons, domestic abusers, and habitual drug users.
Guess what all three have in common?
My point earlier was that people don't neatly sort themselves into "law-abiding citizens" and "felons" until after they've committed a crime. A law-abiding citizen can turn into a felon at any moment.
And, of course, this is in the context of the gun control debate, where you can't issue guns to only law-abiding citizens because you have no clue which of those law-abiding citizens are going to commit a felony and magically become a felon
Of course "a felon has previously committed a felony" is tautological. But "a person who has committed a felony is substantially more likely to commit serious crimes in the future" isn't.
It's a well-established empirical claim, and that's why they're prohibited persons.
As for magically predicting whether someone will become a prohibited person: we can’t, and even if we could, that would mean preemptively restricting a constitutional right.
> These laws primarily harm law-abiding citizens — who were never the problem in the first place — far more than they restrict prohibited persons from acquiring guns.
When you sell a gun to a law-abiding person, you have no idea if that person is going to become a felon or not. There is no hard line between the two, any law-abiding person can become a felon at any point.
This is why the rest of the world restricts people from owning guns.
Of course it's not quite that simple. Among other things, the form to buy a firearm still asks if you are a user of controlled substances, and lying on the form is presumably still a felony.
The opinion is still a fascinating read and IMO a huge step forward.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1234_g2bh.pdf