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The sensitive gun topic

Gun show bill needs work
by Alan Korwin, Author
The Arizona Gun Owner’s Guide

Maybe it would be a good idea to close down gun shows instead of merely closing the gun-show loophole. A lot of people I know think so.
But Congress and the public should make that choice consciously, not get stuck with it secretly by a deceptively crafted bill.
As currently written, the so-called gun-show loophole is the most minor aspect of the McCain Lieberman gun-show bill (S.890). The news media has reported on the bill widely — haven’t any of the reporters actually read the thing?
Our representatives could have closed the loophole, short and sweet. Instead, the bill’s 3,900 contorted words would accomplish very different goals.
1. Gun shows are outlawed without prior federal permission.
2. All vendors, not just gun vendors, must be pre-registered. If I were to sell my gun-law books at a gun show without being federally registered, I could be imprisoned, and the gun-show operator could go to jail too.
3. Everyone who attends must be centrally registered, whether they buy anything or not. We’re talking about millions upon millions of federal records annually, only on the innocent.
4. Massive new bureaucracy is created because all shows and their exhibitors must be registered 30 days before the show, then again 72 hours before the show, and again five days after the show. That’s in addition to anyone who walks in.
Isn’t this supposed to be about requiring background checks? What’s going on here? None of this even deals with the criminals for Pete’s sake.
It’s so bizarre that many people don’t believe it, so I posted the technical details and citations on my website, gunlaws.com. The most astonishing part was discovered by attorney Michael P. Anthony, my collaborator on the unabridged guide, “Gun Laws of America.”
Here’s the real hidden Catch 22. If a gun-show operator allows even a single unlicensed gun vendor to attend the show, federal agents can lock up the operator. They have a ton of extra money in this bill for exactly such enforcement.
If any person attending the show offers (not even sells, but offers) a gun to anyone else at the show - even a gun they don’t have with them - they become, by definition, an unlicensed vendor, and everyone is subject to arrest and imprisonment - the seller, the buyers, AND the gun-show operator. You don’t even need a prohibited possessor (a criminal) involved. No operator is going to run a show exposed to that kind of legal risk.
To protect against this, the only way a gun-show operator can safely run a show, is to pre-register everyone in attendance AS A VENDOR, not just as an attendee. That means personal ID and centralized registration at pretty much the level an FFL (licensed gun dealer) must endure.
The McCain-Lieberman gun-show bill, advertised as a way to prevent a criminal from avoiding a background check, is instead a sneak attack on freedom and the very existence of gun shows. That’s no way to run Congress.
It’s my belief that reporters have an ethical duty to clarify the situation, and to call these senators to task for their actions. Which would be worse - the senators don’t know what’s in their own bills, or that they knew all along and didn’t say?

McCain gets worse everyday.  He messed up and went against his core voters and it's going to cost him in 2002.  Here's to McCain [-!-]