Gun dealers who have seen their businesses affected by the new National Instant Check System believe that the system is only making it harder for law-abiding citizens to buy guns while criminals won’t feel government’s tightening grip.
Although the apparent reason for NICS is to prevent criminals from purchasing guns, Henry Cernicek, a gun shop owner in Missouri, doesn’t believe the system will change anything.
“I don’t think it’s going to do any good because criminals don’t buy guns from gun dealers anyway,” he said.
Joe Waldron, the executive director of Citizens’ Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, agreed with Cernicek.
“To buy a firearm from a licensed dealer, you have to present good identification,” said Waldron. “Criminals don’t do that.”
Henry Frank, another gun dealer in Missouri, had even deeper concerns about the system.
“It will become a database for someone to come knocking on your door and take away your rights,” he said.
On Nov. 30, NICS became the final part of the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, requiring that all purchasers of handguns, shotguns and rifles be given a criminal background check before the purchase of any firearms can take place.
Although states have long since issued laws requiring that background checks be implemented on those who wish to purchase firearms, the federal government now wants to take control of this process.
“No matter what it is officially called, this new system that came on-line across the country on November 30, 1998, constitutes a centralized, gun owner registration scheme,” said attorney John Shoemaker, a civil and criminal litigator in Minnesota who also represents gun owners and dealers in his home state.
Charging Attorney General Janet Reno and the FBI with “illegal snooping on law-abiding citizens,” the NRA filed suit against both the attorney general and the FBI.
Speaking about NICS, NRA Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre said, “Janet Reno has turned Congress’ intent to keep records of convicted felons into an Orwellian nightmare of keeping tabs on perfectly law-abiding citizens.
Once a “successful” gun owner has purchased a gun, his or her name will be kept in a government computer database that will be overseen by the Justice Department and the FBI. Although the government has promised the names will be kept in the database for only six months for the purposes of auditing the system, the database has created concerns among many.
“The federal government has no business keeping lists of law-abiding Americans in their federal computers,” said LaPierre. “This is what this case is about; and we will fight for that principle at every turn.”
Waldron says his organization also has problems with the way that NICS has currently been implemented, and one of the things that worries him the most is the gun registry that is to be made by the FBI. He said that, although the NRA is filing a lawsuit against the attorney general and the FBI in an effort to curtail the gun registry, a victory by the NRA would still allow the FBI to create a database on those names that didn’t pass.
Waldron also believes that NICS is unconstitutional.
“I believe that it is beyond the scope of the federal government to regulate the final sale of firearms if it doesn’t cross state lines,” he said.
Commenting on the constitutionality of NICS, Shoemaker said, “It (NICS) puts at grave risk a basic sovereign right of the people to protect themselves.” Shoemaker believes that history teaches us that liberties that are forfeited to central governments are rarely ever seen again as long as the regime is in power.
However, Shoemaker pointed out that an even greater threat is posed by NICS. He said that if the federal government can infringe on a basic, Constitutional right such as the right to bear arms, they can infringe, or totally do away with, any and all of our Constitutional rights. When this happens, the full potential of a Big Brother-type government will be reached. “Either all of the Constitutional rights are going to be respected, or there will be a slow but sure erosion of them all,” Shoemaker said.
“I believe Big Brother is watching through the system,” said Frank. “But I also believe that these steps being taken by the federal government are finally waking America up.”
