Sneaking a ton of stupid under the radar

Wal-Mart recently announced they were making some changes in the way they handle firearm sales in their stores across America.

Usually when Wal-Mart does something across all their stores, others follow suit. So when Wal-Mart makes changes to the way they handle firearms, you can bet these changes are going to be on a politician's desk for a larger scale push before the end of the week.

Among the "new and improved" changes are...

"* Expanding background checks of employees who handle guns and expanding inventory controls."

Well, yes, that actually is a good idea. Every employee selling firearms needs to be "clean" in my opinion. When I get to the point where I need to hire staff, I'm doing a full background check on them as well. But that last section - "expanding inventory controls". What exactly were they doing before though? Ballpark-guessing how many firearms were in inventory? This is Wal-Mart. They should have barcoded everything for instant access. If I can do that, they should be able to!

Unfortunately, the stupid comes in pretty fast afterwards.

Another change is...

"* Creating a record and alert system to record when a gun sold at Wal-Mart is later used in a crime. If the purchaser of that gun later tries to buy another gun at Wal-Mart, the system would alert the sales clerk of the prior buy and could refuse to make the sale."

Um... no.

Lets say Fred goes in and buys a .38 revolver. A month later, Fred's home is robbed and the thieves make off with the .38.

Wal-Mart is going to ban him for that?

In a more pleasant scenario, what if Fred just sells it at a gun show? Or on the side to a friend? Is it fair that forever and ever Fred is still red-flagged as the owner of the .38 in the Wal-Mart system, even though the firearm has long since left his possession? Where is the follow through to make sure Fred's liability ends when the firearm is no longer is in his possession?

But wait! There's more!

"* Retaining the recorded images of gun sales in case law enforcement wants to view them later as part of an investigation."

Um... hell no.

I'm never a proponent of law enforcement "fishing expeditions". And this sounds like the great lakes of fishing trips. Having a film of everyone who buys a firearm opens a pandora's box of interpretative wrongdoing. Who will define who looks "shady"? Or "that fellow looks like he's up to something!"

Now if that recording is used in conjunction with a legal warrant obtained concerning one particular individual, that's a different story. That's fine and dandy. But I don't think the "dragnet" approach, as the new and improved change is worded, is a good idea.

Finally, this one takes the cake...

"* No Sales Without Background Check Results. Participating retailers would prohibit sales based on "default proceeds," which are permitted by law when the background check has not returned a result within 3 days."

Wait a minute. This is a Federal law you fellows are overriding here. Federal. Law.

The ATF says it is perfectly legal to transfer a firearm to an individual if the vendor has not heard back from the NICS operations center in 3 days. Usually the NICS operations center will call me back in 10 minutes on a "delay". I've never had to wait more than 2 hours for an answer on any case.

But the three day law has been implemented by the ATF as a valid, permissible number of days a vendor and customer need to wait for a response. On every 4473 background check form, there is a section where you fill out if the NICS call comes in after the three day period as well.

If you want to change the law, go to congress. Amend the laws as they stand. Do it in the daylight for everyone to see. Pushing things through the back door only for certain stores to abide by is not only underhanded, it shows what kind of weasels are sneaking around to get their personal agenda through.

Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns is sliding a lot of grade-A stupid underneath the public radar. They're just getting started with Wal-Mart, and I will not be surprised if soon they start to "request" changes across the board in all states to support their views.