Responses go to: laramie.stroud_hc@house.texas.gov
I submitted the following:
Dear Representative Darby,
It is my understanding that the recent mass shootings have spurred a long overdue consideration of means to solve not only these singular tragedies, but also the more frequent acts of violence which plague many communities. There are many who feel that more stringent controls on the use and sale of small arms could serve both purposes. As a physician in the largest trauma center in Texas and one of the largest in the US, I am observe and attempt to mitigate the terrible cost of violence on a daily basis. As an avid shooter, I am also familiar with the deep mistrust that many Texans feel toward expanded background checks, or the so-called "gun show loophole".
The opposition to background checks strikes many as odd, particularly given the number of Texans who voluntarily submit to background checks far more onerous than the NICS in order to purchase class III weapons such as suppressors or to obtain Licenses to Carry a Handgun. My own opposition to many of the proposals for universal background checks mirrors the feelings of many of our fellow Texans in reflecting suspicion not of the law itself, but of the several and serious threats to our right to keep and bear arms that such a law would certainly lead to. Specifically, universal background checks are intended to require that all interpersonal transfers of firearms proceed through FFLs so that an NICS background check is performed, thus ensuring that no prohibited person obtains a weapon unlawfully. Such a statute would defend only against those transfer wherein a law-abiding selling might otherwise have unknowingly sold a weapon to a prohibited person only to be alerted by the failed NICS check. The predictable failings of the statute would then provoke calls for firearm registration in order to better "enforce the laws that we already have."
Thus, the clear implication of required universal background checks is firearm registration, which many including myself, see as a prelude to selective or general confiscation based upon the recent occurrence of that exact pattern in the Northeast and California. Thus the near universal approval of measures to prevent prohibited persosn from obtaining firearms is nullified for many who value the right to keep and bear arms by our suspicion that universal background checks will begin an inexorable journey to firearm confiscation.
Fortunately, I believe that this impasse is both unnecessary and harmful to the interests of all parties, in no small part due to the universal desire to reduce gun-related violence. If gun-rights advocates' opposition to universal background checks is viewed through the lens of our actual concerns related to eventual registration and confiscation, measures to keep guns from dangerous criminals could garner not only acceptance but support from Texans who own and enjoy firearms. Years have eroded trust on both sides, but acts of good faith toward shared ideals can rebuild what was lost.
To this end, I propose the following. The NICS desperately needs up to the day information on who they are to prevent from obtaining firearms, and that is to be addressed separately. Firearms rights organizations are broadly supportive of the NICS system with the provision that it not be used as a shadow database of firearms owners. Thus, I propose the following: independently at the state level and nationally in the form of advocacy, work to make the NICS list of prohibited persons a public, online, searchable database of all persons prohibited from owning or purchasing a firearm. Once this database is working and avaiable, then enact laws which severely punish the act of selling a firearm to any purchaser whom the seller knew OR REASONABLY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN was prohibited from buying a gun.
Such a tool would empower individuals, the vast majority of whom have no desire to contribute to gun related violence, to avoid firearm transfers to prohibited persons. The penalties would dissuade some unscrupulous individuals from conducting such illegal sales. The proposal will not dissuade straw purchases or gun runners. It will not thwart purchases by people who possess realistic fake identification. It will not prevent purchases by those would have not yet shown themselves to be dangerous criminals. But within that spectrum of circumstances, the proposal would strongly address the far more common situation: law-abiding or at the very least law-fearing individuals mistakenly selling firearms to criminals that they could not or were not sufficiently motivated to detect and avoid. The latter circumstances which would escape the purview of the proposal are already felonies and thus deeply tied to better enforcement of extant laws. Crucially, this proposal would address the same set of circumstances as a Universal Background Check law.
Texas is a gun-friendly state yet extremely safe state. Our communities are over-represented in list of large US cities with the lowest homicide rates as their citizens freely and safely keep and bear arms. But we can do better, and a comparatively low number does not reduce the individual or corporate tragedy of preventable deaths. Serious issues demand rational action, and in representative government that always demands compromise. I submit that any compromise requires an understanding genuine concern for the goals and concerns of all involved parties. In this case, I maintain that Texas could provide a model for legislation which compromises to the benefit of all.
Sincerely,
xxxxxxxxxxxxx, MD
