The federal government can surreptitiously track phone calls to protect us from terrorists, but the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is barred from tracking gun sales and gun crimes, and if pending legislation supported by the gun lobby passes, police agencies will not even be allowed to share this information with one another...Three letters, all calling for exploitation of NICS capabilities to "insta-register" gun owners.
While the gun lobby groups argue among themselves about whether proposed changes will help or hurt, the alternative of having a system that records no personally-identifying information on completed transactions goes ignored, except for on a few obscure blogs like this one that most gun owners will never see.
And the damndest thing is, the major "gun rights groups" evidently want it that way.
For those who say BIDS won't work, Russ Howard passed along an excerpt from an email he received:
For what it is worth, Russ, Joe Olson and I did a BIDS-type background check, electronically, for Minnesota and got it implemented in the early 90's. Then, of course, NICS came along and superseded our system. BIDS is something to pursue, because it works so well. Instead of checking and approving everybody, you run the check for the 2% who are a "problem" as defined by the law, leaving the other 98% alone. Too simple.
David Gross
"Too simple," indeed.