The laboratory is Chicago

[Francis Marion]

38. Background check parameters have to be compatible with rights and freedom.

If a background check:
Allows a gun into the hands of taxpayers who votes-
Restricts ownership to some solely as a result of due process of law-
Comprises the sole and voluntarily complied-with extent of gun control-

Then such a structure could be a good thing. Note the aspect of voluntary compliance by The People.

And if such a law was written to state that the check process shall be in no way construed to make 'The Right of The People to keep and bear arms' into a privilege,, if background checks comprise a process which The American People have willingly and voluntarily agreed to abide by, we could have something really helpful. Such a policy would deserve, and get, moral force and popular support.

But gun control proponents, we suspect, won't leave it there. They'll go next onto bans, prohibitions, punitive taxation. And no system we can devise will be free of defect, on any side of this argument.

The corrosive danger of gun control must be considered, however. Once the Right of The People is treated as a privilege, once we allow institutional gatekeepers to say who may and who may not- for any or for no reason- own a gun, then a foundational aspect of Our Freedom rests on the chopping block, with (fill-in-the-blank-politician) standing by sharpening a meat cleaver.

The code- the Bill of Rights- just does not allow for such treatment. The Bill of Rights says 'hands off,' to the institutions, no debate or qualification. They just have no charter to harm the rights of the American People, rights they swore an oath to protect.

So if the American people decide that The Institutions may limit their gun rights any way Institutions choose, the right isn't a right any longer. It's been changed into a privilege. This is why gun owners are very jealous and suspicious of gun control proponents. They mistrust gun control's degrading, diminishing effect upon our Rights.