Emphasis on ‘tries.’ It wasn’t that hard to suss out, bless his heart. Essentially, Tim Kaine wants to make private gun sellers as criminally liable as licensed gun sellers, without giving the former the tools to do the job:
While current federal gun law imposes a criminal liability only on those institutions with authority to conduct criminal background checks, Kaine’s bill does no such thing.
Instead, Kaine’s proposal criminalizes a private individual’s failure to conduct a federal background check while refusing to give that individual the right to conduct the federal background check in the first place. Kaine’s office confirmed that his bill does not give private individuals the authority or ability to conduct federal background checks in order to avoid the federal criminal liability imposed by his proposal. Federal law currentlyrestricts NICS access to FFLs or state law enforcement agencies.
I swear, somebody should do a memetic study to determine whether having the gun-control meme in your head causes long-term cognitive damage. As gun-control tactics go, this was remarkably unsubtle and crude. Not to mention utterly unworkable, but that’s par for the course.
Moe Lane
PS: Seriously, Senator Kaine: make an appointment with your neurologist. If you don’t have a neurologist, get one. I’m being perfectly serious, here.