November 19, 2014 In the News

Shawn Vestal: Gun Rights Activist Takes Aim at Nonexistent Wolf

Shawn Vestal of The Spokesman-Review writes:

How many uncles will have to hand guns to their nephews without being prosecuted for it, how many patriotic neighbors, sharing guns and apple pie over the back fence, will go completely unarrested, before it’s clear that the opponents of background checks were, once again, as always, crying wolf?

There is no wolf. But that doesn’t matter – didn’t matter before the election and doesn’t matter now and it won’t matter next time.

The criers will not be denied their wolf.

. . .

No one is – or ever was – going to arrest anyone for handing someone else a gun. No one is – or ever was – going to arrest anyone for loaning a friend a gun. No one is – or ever was – going to arrest family members for sharing guns while hunting, or gun-safety instructors for passing a gun to a student.

That was never, ever the case, and the people who suggested it was were either lying or woefully misinformed by people who were lying or so devoted to crying wolf that they simply did not care whether there really was one.

I-594 requires background checks for gun sales or transfers online or at gun shows. This is a mere expansion of the background check system that is already in place to the zones that have been, effectively, a black market.

Read the full column here.