After thinking about this NICS deal, and how it seems to be playing out, I’ve decided that it’s not really much to get worked up about at this point, either for good or for ill. The Democrats had a chance to build some trust and rapport with the shooting community, after years of sticking it to us, and they are failing.
While I think this deal does some good things, this was a good opportunity for the Democrats to address some real issues with the system, and help allay some of our long time concerns with it.  I’m not going to demand the Democrats dismantle all federal gun controls, make it legal for me to own a machine gun, or anything like that. I know what the political realities are. But there are some very legitimate issues in regards to the mental health and misdemeanor prohibitions, just in regards to language and rule clarifications, that I think could have been addressed here, that were not. Taking this in combination with Carolyn McCarthy being sponsor of this bill, they have slapped us in the face.
Am I going to pull out all the stops to oppose this bill? Well, not unless they tack on something more onerous to it. As it stands now, it’s not a bad deal, it’s just not nearly as good as I think it could have been. Am I mad at the NRA? No. I think the bill could have been a real problem for us, and they at least managed to turn it into something that’s, even if only minimally, a good deal. Am I convinced the Democrats have finally given up on gun control and are now our friends? Not by a long shot. If the Democratic party wants to impress folks like me, who certainly have no love or affection for the Republican Party, they are going to have to work a lot harder than this.
The Brady’s have put out a press release making it sound like it was all their idea and they had influence in it. They convieniently ignore that McCarthy was sidelined and it was written by Dingell and the NRA.
Poor babies. It must be painful to have become superfluous.
They didn’t sideline her very well, apparently, because she’s sponsor of the bill now.
One clarification.
If you qualify for ownership of a handgun, it is (most probably) already legal for you to own a machine gun under existng laws.
We don’t need to wish for what we already have; or ‘ask’ for help we don’t need.
Only if you pay your NFA tax and have tens of thousands of dollars to burn on one of the few machine guns that are legally transferrable to civilians. If you want a new machine gun, you’re out of luck, because they’ve been illegal to register for civilian transfer since 1986.
So in effect, they are only legal under very limited circumstances.