PA to Consider Replacing PICS with NICS

[knight0334]

If I'm not mistaken FOAC are the ones pushing this the hardest, supposedly in the name of PA gun owners.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And with this being Pennsylvania, I'm sure it will still have potholes.

[JenniferG]

This would stop the illegal registration of firearms that has continued to this day under the name "Record of Sale". I'm all against having to be approved by the very government that I'm supposed to defending myself against under the Second Amendment. Which reminds me that anyone like Hillary Clinton and the tyrants that support her want to use this very systems to take your guns away from under the guise of Universal Background Checks. I don't know why the NRA let or anyone for that matter went along with this crazy idea that the government needs to approve of you buying a firearm under the stupid and useless Brady Law. I fought against that so hard and the guys running the NRA at that time caved and here we are today.

[LBaker]

What people here aren't seeing is all of the fuck ups made by PSP who feel they are above the law. Like shutting down gun dealers because they supposedly have not turned in their PICS fees even though they can produce the canceled check. Think I'm kidding. It happened to a dealer while we were at the capitol for the rally last week. These things aren't taken lightly. There's plenty of reasons for getting the PSP out of the gun business. Remember when PSP required SS numbers now it's voluntary. Guess what, they still get them contrary to a federal court order through penndot. So if penndot goes down so does PICS. Oh and I guess we're all good with over a thousand people with PFAs against them that are still able to buy guns across state lines because of PSP fuck ups.

It's easy to sit here and armchair quarterback. Let's see some of you all start taking the phone calls every time PICS goes down and dealers are losing their ability to conduct business. Not to mention us losing our rights at the will of some. Do you REALLY think it's just coincidence that PIC goes down so often when there are big shows. I have a bridge for sale for those who think so

[LBaker]

And for those in the know... What happens under PICS if someone goes to buy a gun and falsely is denied if he decides not to go through with the sale and doesn't challenge the denial? And I have to respectfully disagree about the 3 day deal. If the government can't prove you should be denied you should proceed with the sale. The burden is on the government not the citizen. Last time I checked the was still the US with a constitution. Innocent until proven guilty and all that jazz. Whatever happened to "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"?

[GunLawyer001]

And for those in the know... What happens under PICS if someone goes to buy a gun and falsely is denied if he decides not to go through with the sale and doesn't challenge the denial? And I have to respectfully disagree about the 3 day deal. If the government can't prove you should be denied you should proceed with the sale. The burden is on the government not the citizen. Last time I checked the was still the US with a constitution. Innocent until proven guilty and all that jazz. Whatever happened to "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"?

OK, lots of flag-waving there, and an open question, but only one real point that I can see, and that's based on a half-truth: the "3 day deal" isn't about whether the govt can prove that you should be denied, it's about whether you should jump in with both feet inside of 3 days.

Let me focus very narrowly here on just that one "benefit" under NICS, since you raised it.

What happens is that PICS or NICS gets a flag in the records, maybe there was 3rd degree misdemeanor conviction of some flavor of assault or battery 30 years ago, but not details. They don't have enough info to deny you, but they have a reason to suspect that you are prohibited, and they need the full info to issue an opinion. If you punched your neighbor, you can own guns, but if you punched your wife, you can't (thanks to a a federal law).

The govt keeps working at the case after 3 days. So the systems sends off a fax or a snail mail to the county clerk in Mayberry, who will eventually get around to digging up the records from microfiche, and make a copy, and mail it off to PICS or NICS. In some cases, this will be proof that you were convicted of "misdemeanor crime of domestic violence". In others, just that your neighbor is a jerk who needed a punch.

Now, maybe 4 weeks after you tried to buy a gun, under PICS you get the bad news that you can't take that gun home, or the good news that you're cleared. Under NICS the dealer had the option of completing the transaction after 3 days. Under either system you can be prosecuted for lying to an FFL, but under NICS you can ALSO be charged with being in physical possession of the gun, and there will be efforts made to take that gun away from you, possibly without compensation.

I deal with many people who were genuinely surprised to find out that "that thing from long ago" is a legal barrier to their firearms possession. As long as we have the sets of state and federal laws that arbitrarily strip core civil rights from certain people and allow for further prosecution if they possess firearms, PICS helps to minimize the risk to that percentage of folks who had incidents as teens, or never spent a day in jail and thought the "charges went away". NICS does not.

For a subset of people, the NICS 3-day option is good, if you know to a legal certainty, that nothing in your past is considered a prohibitor. You can take your gun home with you while NICS sorts things out. But for another subset, this could be a disaster, digging the hole deeper and bringing LEO's to your home or workplace. And like I said, plenty of people are honestly unaware of which group they are in.

That's just the 3-day deal. It's like arguing that we're all better off without the expense or weight or burden of seat belts or air bags, without considering what happens if you crash. Sure, most of the time the seat belt just wrinkles your clothes and gets in the way, and air bags have malfunctioned and killed people, and routinely push your forearms into your face when they go off. And they cost 100's of dollars each.

But sometimes there are accidents, and they save your butt. That 3-day option under NICS can really hurt some people, and those people matter, too.

[JenniferG]

Well all this theory about people being denied and I'm sure there have been a few along the road but breaking that illegal gun registration should be the first order of business. If PICS has to be put to sleep to accomplish it so be it. It's illegal and everyone knows it and must be killed. Exclamation point. Why is that difficult? The PA Supreme Court is going to rule against gun owners every step of the way from here on in because gun owners didn't think it was important enough to come out and vote when it really counted. It's time to get the decision about who can buy a firearms and where that information is stored out of the hands of the PA judicial and law enforcement for now. We are on the losing side of that set of circumstances. Now is the time to end this madness of PA law enforcement acting illegally.

[39flathead]

You're also delusional if you think dealers are going to stop charging $5, $8, $10, $15 or $20 PICS fee if they switch to NICS.

Any dealer charging more than $5 for that call is a dealer I'd never spend a dime with.

Well all this theory about people being denied and I'm sure there have been a few along the road but breaking that illegal gun registration should be the first order of business. If PICS has to be put to sleep to accomplish it so be it. It's illegal and everyone knows it and must be killed. Exclamation point. Why is that difficult? The PA Supreme Court is going to rule against gun owners every step of the way from here on in because gun owners didn't think it was important enough to come out and vote when it really counted. It's time to get the decision about who can buy a firearms and where that information is stored out of the hands of the PA judicial and law enforcement for now. We are on the losing side of that set of circumstances. Now is the time to end this madness of PA law enforcement acting illegally.

But, But, But... people have illegal guns with NICS....



PA needs to go with NICS and give exemptions to NICS checks for LTCF holders.
This would push more people to get LTCF's and push the county sheriffs to do their jobs.

[LBaker]

Nothing wrong with flag waiving in my book... LOL The person who is denied under pics and doesn't challenge has now become a felon under the law for every gun he has in his possession. In the eyes of PSP he is a denied person. He's lost his right to own firearms and has a huge legal issue ahead of him.Talk about making lawyers rich...

[LBaker]

Again, this is a right we are talking about. I guess the way things are done in PA are fine with some but we automatically deny after 15 days which is contrary to the federal law. If one doesn't like the law have it changed. We are allowing a government organization to do what they want at will contrary to the law.

[Tootie]

PICS is a waste of money and a joke. The only selling point the PSP has is that we have more PA criminals in PICS than in NICS because they don't report them to the NICS system. So the guy who gets denied in PA because he's on their list can cross the border into any other state and buy without a problem because PSP doesn't report to the NICS system.

Oh yeah we have that 15 day waiting period thing which is BS. If the NICS system would get the funding it was supposed to get 8 years ago it would have all the resources it would need to do all of the checks it needs to do, within the time it is given to do them.

We don't need to spend $10 million a year on a redundant system. That money could be well spent elsewhere within our own State.