So it turns out that pro-gun proponents don't really support background checks after all

[rrneck]

43. That's an interesting question.

Keeping records on felons is fine I guess, but are we really just keeping records on felons? The assumption is that guns get transferred from legal owners to illegal owners, right? New guns already require a background check, so we're talking about transfers between people who are not dealers. So half of every illegal transfer would require a non felon, who would ostensibly have to become a felon at the moment of illegal transfer. You can't really expect a law to work unless it has teeth, and teeth presume prosecution. Prosecution assumes proof in a court of law. Proof assumes documentation of transfer.

But what are we documenting? What is being registered? We are documenting something that happens between two people - the transfer of a firearm. That's a relationship, and I'm not enthused with the documentation of that particular relationship. I know that lots of things that get transferred between people are documented (insert car analogy here), but guns are personal items that occupy a different cultural space than almost any other piece of property.

So to answer your question, no, I can't think of a way to register firearms with which I am comfortable. Unfortunately, when I ask my fellow Democrats here on DU to explain it to me, the only answer I seem to get is "I'm not a lawyer" or "there's no way to convince you" or some other such excuse.

That's not to say that I want bad guys to have guns. What I want, but I don't think there is a way to get, is a means to adequately separate guns and bad guys without seriously eroding law abiding citizens civil rights or their privacy. Furthermore, efforts to do so seem to me to be a dangerous distortion of liberal ideology to no good end.