Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Arizona Senator Jeff Flake to consider "Universal Background Checks"


Freshman Senator from Arizona, Jeff Flake, appears to be bending from pressure in the media to "do something" to infringe on Second Amendment Rights. Given the rumors about Senator John McCain, one wonders if John may be giving his younger colleague advice. On Sunday, 20 January, this was published in the Arizona Republic:

Echoing many of his lower-chamber colleagues on Friday, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said he likely would have a hard time supporting a new federal ban on “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines but suggested there may be common ground on universal background checks.

“I’ve always said we’ve got to do a better job of keeping guns out of the hands of those who shouldn’t have them,” Flake said. “There have been some technological issues with gun shows, and you want to make sure that people can legally buy guns for protection or recreation or collection without untimely delays. But I think technology has moved so that we can better deal with that issue and have broader background checks.”

Requiring the 99 percent who are law abiding to jump through hoops in order to try to keep the 1 percent who are dangerous from aquireing firearms has always been a losing proposition. It is a failed paradigm that should be abandoned. It has always been a path meant to end with registration so as to enable confiscation.

Jeff Flake has an A rating with the NRA. It is time for his constituents to remind him that they do not need, nor does it serve the public, to suffer further infringements on the Second Amendment with "universal firearms registration" I mean "universal background checks", which are designed to end up at the same place.

What does work are projects to make sure that those who are prohibited from having firearms do not have them. That has been tried and does work. Limited resources should be applied to that effort, not the irresponsible and ineffective idea of establishing dangerous bureaucracies to check on millions to catch a few irresponsible individuals.

Link to Republic article

Link to ineffective results of background checks

Dean Weingarten

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