The Futility of Gun Control, Part I

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This is the first in what’s intended to be a series of posts on the futility of gun control in the United States. The reasons I’ll be exploring are largely technological, with a bit of social commentary thrown in. These posts should be weekly. Prepare to be amazed at the absurdity of what will be exposed.

Please remember that I Am Not A Lawyer. I’m writing as a layperson, albeit one who reads voraciously. As someone who enjoys shooting sports and does not own an “assault weapon” (*spits*), I still find much of the firearm law in our country to be ridiculous – probably because it’s written by people who, by and large, don’t know anything about guns.

The subject of gun control has been bothering me for quite awhile, in part because of the vast misrepresentation of basic facts by mass media.

This isn’t a surprise, really – I’ve long since concluded that the media isn’t capable of presenting unvarnished reality. (That goes for pretty much every media channel in existence.) Why? I’ve been involved in activities and events that were later reported on by newspapers, and found myself saying, “Huh? Is that what they got out of it?” Heck, even reading reporting on me publishing my own books made me wince at inaccuracies stemming from interview questions asked of me.

I don’t attribute this misreporting to malice. Rather, I think it’s a function of human nature. Anyone examining a situation brings his own biases and assumptions, which can radically affect how he views a situation. For media, it’s even worse, because they report on huge varieties of topics, and lack comprehensive understanding if most (if not all) of them. Ignorance + biases + assumptions = slant, even if they have no intention of doing so.

(Sometime this week, I’m hoping to write a post on the popular Internet meme of “Fox News sued in the Supreme Court for the right to lie to its viewers.” It’s so wildly incorrect it makes my head spin, but I understand how people can buy into it because that’s how it was reported at the time by the local papers.)

A big focus of this series is going to focus on the technological advancements that have made gun control ineffective, but I want to start with the infamous “gun show loophole.”

Key terminology to know here: FFL, or Federal Firearms License. It’s the certificate from the federal government indicating that you, as the holder, are permitted to commercially manufacture arms or ammunition, or engage commercially in the interstate or intrastate sale of firearms.

Currently, federal law prohibits the sale of weapons across state lines without an FFL.

For example, if you’re a private citizen, Jake Buck, living in Fargo, ND, you cannot sell your old 30-06 rifle to your best friend, John Doe, residing across the state line in Moorhead, MN, without using an FFL as a transfer. However, you could sell it to his sister, Jane Doe, who resides in Grand Forks, ND, without involving an FFL, because it didn’t cross state lines.

How does a transfer with an FFL work? In the case of a face-to-face transfer, the FFL records the pertinent information on the firearm and calls into NICS for a background check. (NICS is the National Instant Background Check System, and is not available for private use for gun sales – only FFLs.) Assuming it comes back immediately clean, he transfers the firearm and pockets a fee for himself charged (usually) to the buyer. Finally, he files the filled-out-form in his private records, which he has to retain forever – and should he go out of business, his records must be sent to BATF. Here in North Dakota, that fee seems to range from $20-$30.

If the check comes back with a denied, there is an appeals process. I have been witness to this secondhand (not involved in either end of the transfer) – in that case, after two weeks of appeals, his transfer was approved.

So, let’s back up a bit and talk about the “gun show loophole.”

It’s important to note that there is no “gun show loophole,” just as there is no “Internet sales loophole.” Both of these refer to private sales.

Under federal law, any person can transfer a firearm to another person without a background check or FFL involvement if the firearm does not cross state lines. Hence, in our example above, Jack Buck can sell his rifle to Jane Doe without a problem.

The “gun show loophole” and the “Internet sales loophole”, therefore, are about private sellers working with a buyer to sell a firearm.

However, an FFL must run background checks and file paperwork for all sales, regardless of interstate or intrastate transfers. A large majority of the sellers at gun shows are FFLs, as it’s a great way to get product in front of buyers without trying to lure them to a shop. All these FFL transfers at a gun show proceed through normal channels, including background checks and paperwork.

So, the “loophole” refers to people who aren’t in the business of buying and selling firearms for a living.

I can’t find my reference right now, but it’s also illegal to sell a firearm to someone you believe cannot legally acquire one. (E.g. if you’re selling a gun to a private individual, and he mentions he just got out of prison, you have a legal responsibility to end the transaction. I believe – as I said, I can’t find a reference at the moment.)

FFLs also cannot complete a transaction legally if they believe it’s a “straw purchase” – a buyer who is purchasing the gun specifically to sell to someone else. As far as the ATF is considered, that is perjury on the form 4473, since it specifically asks who the firearm is for.

Various states have attempted to close this “loophole” with more or less success, depending on the locale. If in doubt, check your state laws – there’s no uniformity.

In decades past, while gun-grabbers weren’t happy about private sales, they were easier to ignore; print media for classified ads limited the reach of transactions. Then the wild world of the Internet came along and made all sorts of connections possible that previously weren’t. Facebook is the most obvious example, with an unknown number of groups available for people to buy, sell, and trade guns. Dedicated sites like GunBroker.com and ArmsList.com popped up and prospered, specifically dedicated to brokering transactions. And suddenly the world got a lot smaller and a lot easier to find any particular gun.

So what are “universal background checks”? In short, it means that even private sales would need to involve an FFL. You want to sell your old Glock 9mm to your brother? Go visit a dealer, pay the fees, and get the background check.

Final food for thought:

Are universal background checks on private transfers constitutional? This is not a question I’ve ever seen posed (which is interesting, given the number of legal sites I read regularly), and I don’t know of any court cases on the subject, but it may be worth considering:

Let’s start with noting that our rights to keep and bear arms are guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment. Now remember that, under any background check scheme for private sellers, we would have to pay an FFL to run a background check and complete the appropriate paperwork for the federal government.

By contrast, compare the right to vote. The 14th Amendment first established a right to vote, the 15th established race could not be a factor, the 19th said the same for sex, the 24th nixed poll taxes, and the 26th lowered the voting age to 18. Note the big one? No poll taxes! You can’t have to pay to vote.

But Casey, you protest, the 24th Amendment specifically nixed poll taxes! It’s not comparable!

Ah yes, but the 24th Amendment only applies to federal elections – not state elections. In fact, the Supreme Court ruled poll taxes were unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause! (Which does raise the question of whether the 14th Amendment was actually necessary; the Supreme Court appears to do whatever the hell it wants anyway.)

Under this logic, laws against voter ID have been challenged repeatedly in federal court. In broad strokes, unless voter ID was available fairly easily and at no cost to an interested voter, such laws are struck down; if the state government bends over backward to make it available, it’s constitutional and not considered a poll tax.

That seems pretty weak, you might say. I mean, I see your point, but it seems a stretch.

That’s okay, because I’ve got a second example.

Church.

Under the 1st Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof[…]”. Philosophically speaking, taxation has been recognized as the power to destroy; until the 1950s, churches were tax-exempt, but in the 50s their status was codified in IRS code. (This is based on a loose and fast reading of history; finding something unbiased on the subject is difficult at best.)

In general, the Supreme Court has used a three-part determination:
1.) Does the statute have a secular purpose?
2.) Does its principle effect inhibit or advance religion?
3.) Does it foster excessive government entanglement with religion?

In general, most lawmakers steer wide of taxing churches for reasons 2 and 3. (Plus, the bad PR.)

Would universal background checks to constitutional? Are background checks on any private transfers constitutional? After all, it involved the inconvenience of travel, plus paying private fees, all to exercise a constitutional right!

As I’ll note in all of these posts, ‘I Am Not A Lawyer.” (IANAL for future reference.) Take this with a grain of salt. If nothing else, it’s fun food for thought.

Natural Born Thrillers returns!

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Natural Born Thrillers, a limited-time offer made around Christmas of 2013, has returned for a short time in iBooks!

Apple is promoting box sets in iBooks. Don’t miss out on Natural Born Thrillers for just 99¢ – less than you spent in the soda machine!

For less than a dollar you get eleven novels, including my own Dead Man’s Fugue – plenty of reading material for your buck. If you have an iPhone or iPad, don’t miss out on this deal.

 

Purge

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It takes far too long to clean out a thousand spam bots. Hopefully the new anti-spammer plugin does its job better than the old one!

Filing off the serial numbers

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Let’s start this with a statement: the title of this post in no way references firearms. ATF, FBI, etc – you can sit back and breathe a sigh of relief. I know none of you wanted to visit North Dakota.

There’s a dirty little secret about fiction writing: what’s released to the world, what’s in your hands, sometimes isn’t what was written.

Fiction often starts out as something else. The most famous example I can think of, off the top of my head, is Fifty Shades of Grey. (No, I haven’t read it. No, I don’t intend to read it. No, there are no copies of it in my house.) Fifty Shades actually started out as fanfiction of the Twilight series. (Another set of books that have no home in my abode.) It wasn’t until the serial numbers were filed off that it was published as a perfectly legal, very lucrative book.

Dead Man’s Fugue and the upcoming sequel, Contract Hunt, both have some heavy filing marks. Characters in particular were derived from a variety of sources. (People whose characters are “re-imagined” pretty much all know about it.) And you know what? It works!

Fanfiction isn’t a bad way to start in this business – just make sure you’ve got a good file, or at least some heavy-duty sandpaper, so you can turn it into something salable.

And thus ends my random thought on writing after a very unproductive day.

The world spins on

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Thirteen years have passed since the attack on New York City and Washington, DC by Islamic terrorists.

I was a junior in high school at the time. I remember exactly where I was on the road when I heard on the radio that a plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York. I thought it was pretty odd, but the details were light, and in my mind I chalked it up to an accident involving a small aircraft.

By the time I made it to my first-hour class, that was clearly not the case. More planes hijacked, more crashes, more death.

The day was a blur of sorts; in only one class did we actually focus on schoolwork (math). For the most part, we listened to the news, talked quietly, prayed.

I also remember, late that night, crawling into bed and wondering if perhaps the whole thing had been some fevered nightmare. Maybe I would wake up the next morning, it would be September 11th, and no great tragedy had occurred, some 3000 American lives had not been lost.

I was wrong.

My wife has told me once that September 11th makes her feel old. Not because she’s particularly old – she’s two years younger than I am, and I haven’t even hit 30 yet. No, she feels old because of her students at the high school. For those of us who are old enough to have clear memory, there was a “before” and “after” – and the “after” made the world seem much darker and more dangerous. Illusions were destroyed, veils cast down – there was no denying there is plain evil in the world.

For those kids, though, there’s not really a “before”. They don’t have a concept of how the world changed for Americans on September 11th, 2001.

But it’s also important not to get caught up in the past. The world continues to spin on, and we can’t afford to be endlessly caught in the immediate aftermath of an attack thirteen years ago. It’s not healthy to fixate on a single point in time, and not allow growth, context, and understanding.

In the months following 9/11/01, many Americans would have rejoiced had Osama Bin Laden been immediately found and shot by American forces. But by the time the SEALs caught up with him and put a bullet in his brain close to a decade later, I couldn’t find any note of celebration in myself, because it wouldn’t make a difference. The fighting would go on, the terrorism would continue, the Middle East would continue in its terse infighting. There was no closure.

Never forget, but move on as well – the world keeps spinning.

Turning a corner

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Given that I’m a week into September and haven’t written anything substantial in quite a while, I felt the need to write a public-facing post here.

Guilt can really send someone into a spiral.

It’s not that I feel guilty about life in general. I have a wonderful wife that I spent quite a bit of time with. I have the best son ever in the Peanut, and I never feel like I don’t get to spend enough time with him. I spend time volunteering for projects with my church. I helped my brother pour a concrete slab and start framing out a new garage. I’ve switched over to baking all our own bread, rather than buying from the store. (The wonderful wife still does virtually all the other cooking.) I spent time helping on the family farm because my dad was badly injured in a horseback accident and the family needed help.

But what I haven’t been doing is writing.

The worst part is feeling guilty about it, because it paralyzes my ability to write. Then I feel more guilt, and the process repeats.

Contract Hunt has been over half done for quite some time, but my progress on it for several months now has been minimal…because of the loop.

It’s not unlike the problems I’ve struggled with in the past with depression. I had bad, bad problems with it in college; the depression and the guilt for screwing things up (because I was depressed) built on each other and paralyzed me, until I had a whole mountain of screw ups and I couldn’t dig my way out. It cost me an extra year of college (I should have been done in four) and a planned career path (education).

So now, the site is back up to date. The manuscript is laid out in Word, holes and all.

It’s time to write.

How did I miss Star Wars Day?

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I spent Saturday taking tin off an old shop my brother purchased.

Yesterday, my hands and wrists hurt too much to type.

I’m feeling somewhat better today; hopefully I can get back to Contract Hunt today!

I serve a Risen Savior

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Typically, I don’t write about matters of faith or politics on this site. It’s not my strength, and there are a number of authors who share my beliefs in part or whole who write much more coherently on the subject than I can. Also, given my youth in both age and experience, I’d often be lecturing people that I could do better to listen to and learn from.

On certain occasions, I disregard that rule of thumb. Easter is one of those times. I believe the message of Jesus Christ is far too important, too big for me to say nothing.

But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”

Several millennia ago, eleven men huddled behind locked doors, hiding from the local authorities.

They had followed a man into Jerusalem the week before, in preparation for the Passover. That man, they believed, was the prophesied Messiah, the son of God! The Christ rode into Jerusalem on a colt and was greeted with praises and cheers.

A week later, their Messiah was dead – crucified at the hands of the Roman authorities at the insistence of the Sanhedrin. One of their own had betrayed him, and the other eleven had been too frightened to stand up for their leader. Only Peter had dared strike at the enemy, and mere hours later he had cowered away from claiming the Rabbi as his teacher.

These eleven survivors had thought they were going to change the world.

The day before the Passover, their dreams were crushed.

And now they hid from the prying eyes of those who had killed the Messiah, striving only to preserve their own lives.

Perhaps chief among them was Peter. He had been the loudmouth, bragging about how he would never fall away from the Christ. Yet he had denied the Master thrice and slunk away in shame.

Andrew, Peter’s brother, lived in his shadow, and now hid in it. He had left John the Baptist to follow the Christ, but perhaps in those dark hours he regretted his decision.

James and John, the Sons of Thunder, were silent in the aftermath of the crucifixion.

Philip was an early follower the Master, and recruited Bartholomew to join as well. Now they, too, felt the heavy guilt of abandoning him in the Garden.

Matthew had been a tax collector, as corrupt as the others of his profession. He had given up wealth and power to follow the Son, but now his sacrifice seemed in vain. He had traded the world for Heavenly concerns, but now had neither – only his own life, which was precariously in the balance with the Master’s enemies surely looking to eliminate the heretics.

Thomas had risked his life to follow the Master; his faith had been bold, and now his doubt was a dark reflection. Had he badly misstepped when he chose to follow the Christ? He had been so certain, and now all was lost.

James was perhaps the quietest of the group, observing rather than speaking, thinking rather than proclaiming. His silence now was in mourning as he wondered how he had been so wrong.

Simon had been called the Zealot for good reason, but now was only zealous in fear for his life.

Jude had always been humble, but it had never know the extreme he felt now. The Master had been taken from them, and there was nothing more he could do.

And the Twelfth among them, Judas Iscariot, had betrayed the Master – had betrayed them all! Unlike the others, he did not hide away in fear or shame; he instead hung himself, unable to live with himself after delivering the Messiah into the hands of those who destroyed them.

Eleven broken men. Confused, lost, mourning, regretful, ashamed.

And the Messiah arose.

And eleven men changed the world.

Eleven broken men crisscrossed the world they knew. Eleven broken men taught the gospel of Christ. Eleven broken men followed their order: to preach to everyone. Upon the truth of the Messiah, they built a church: not a building of stone or wood, not a chapel or humble country building, but a body of believers.

Upon simple truths: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. Love your neighbor as thyself.

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

Eleven broken men were defeated with the death of their Messiah.

And when He rose, when he shattered the bonds of death, he brought victory where only defeat had been.

Eleven broken men changed the world, with only the faith and power of a living Messiah: Jesus, the Son of God.

Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

The quick and dirty guide to writing a novel in 30 days

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I had been asked to teach a class of high school students for a day, to go over my advice to them on completing a novel in 30 days. They’re starting the project today, and due to unforeseen circumstances – a cracked head on my Jeep – I never got the chance to talk to them about it. Still, I had spent some time preparing and it’d be a shame for the information I’d compiled to go to waste.

Note that this isn’t a guide to write the Great American Novel in 30 days – this is merely a “spew 30,000 words in 30 days”, and hopefully have it make some degree of sense when it’s done.

The project is for a creative writing class, and was inspired by “NaNoWriMo” – National Novel Writing Month, which takes place in November. While I’ve never completed NaNoWriMo, I have written a couple of novels in a very short period of time.

There’s an old cliche attributed to Ben Franklin: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” I hated it in college, where I heard it often from teachers who didn’t care for my planning methods and thought I should be doing exactly what they told me to do. (I may or may not have a slight problem with authority.)

There are two basic tricks you’ll need to get the project done: outlining and committed writing time.

When I was in high school and later college, I had teachers who stressed the necessity of outlines. Outlines, I was told repeatedly, were a skeleton to help me organize my papers; the actual writing would flesh it out around the structure I’d built. Personally, writing three to ten page papers, I never found the need. I instinctively knew how to organize a paper, so the outline didn’t do much for me.

That changed when I started novel writing.

Sarah Hoyt wrote on the subject of “pantsing” vs “plotting” some time back. With all due respect to a veteran author who’s been at it way longer than I have, if you’re writing your first novel on a tight deadline of thirty days, you can’t afford to be a pantser. You need to plot.

Even among those of us who plot, the level of detail that goes into outlining a novel differs wildly. Some authors write fifty page outlines of a three hundred page novel. Some have character sheets/notes/files for every character in a novel, including detailed backgrounds, motivations, and physical descriptions.

When I first started out writing novels, I did a scene-by-scene outline. It wasn’t as complicated as it sounds – most of the scene descriptions were a single sentence, or even a phrase. It was a good way of organizing my plans for a story without losing track of story threads (which makes editing far more arduous). A number of authors I’ve talked to, including my mentor, use this technique for plotting their novels.

I’m actually a bit looser than that now. Destiny’s Heir and Dead Man’s Fugue were both written with a chapter-by-chapter outline. Basically, each was plotted to be a twenty-chapter novel, with a brief one to two sentence description of the major story changes/developments for that chapter.

Any way about it, that outline will give you the structure you need to start writing, which leads into the second part: committed writing time.

You must commit time to write. Just like a basketball player spends regular time shooting hoops, and runners usually have a time of day they always run, an author must have a regular writing time. With a project like this on a tight deadline, anything less will be a failure.

Writing fiction takes a particular frame of mind. Some authors have a very easy time slipping into it. Louis L’Amour, the famed North Dakota author, could sit down and write anytime he found a few free minutes, and he wrote prodigiously. Jack London wrote 1500 words a day; Stephen King just 2000.

However, it’s easier to write if an author-to-be commits certain time to it. It’s the same reason children are raised with routines – it gives structure to life, and makes day-to-day events easier. A five-year-old girl with a strict bedtime routine will quickly fall asleep at the end of her regular path because her mind is trained to do it. Setting aside a certain time of day each day helps the brain switch into writing mode, with less work and stress, leading to a more productive writing session.

(Stephen King works on novels in the morning, and consider afternoons “for naps and letters”, with evenings for “reading, family, Red Sox games on TV, and any revisions that just cannot wait.”)

And here’s where the two combine – plotting (outlining) and committed writing time.

Every writer eventually encounters “writer’s block”, which is a phrase without a real useful definition. The blocks happen for a variety of reasons – pantsers may not know what should happen next in the novel; an author may know what comes next, but doesn’t know how to write it; or even simple desire to not write the next scene, because it’s necessary but “dull” or just doesn’t speak to the author.

And there’s the beauty of an outline: you don’t have to write the story from beginning to end.

Don’t want to write the next scene in your novel? Don’t! Skip forward and work on a scene that you’re ready to write! You’re on a deadline – you can’t afford not to write, just because you’re feeling ambivalent about a scene in your novel. Come back to it when you’re ready, and work on something further down the road.

If you stop writing, you’ll never finish in time.

Dead Man’s Fugue was outlined but written pretty much beginning to end. Destiny’s Heir, on the other hand, had chapters written in a very wild order that didn’t make much sense, but the outline pulled it all back together.

So, to recap: use an outline, write every day (at the same time if at all possible), and write what you want to write.

If you follow those basic rules, you can finish the project in time – and you may surprise yourself with what you’ve written.

What I Didn’t Expect

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Becoming an author has some odd quirks to it – things I didn’t expect. Maybe some of it is being an author in small-town North Dakota, where few people do big or unexpected things. (And believe me, writing not one but two books, particularly in scifi/fantasy, is rather unexpected.)

I’ve been asked to talk to a high school Creative Writing class.

Now, granted, it was my wife who asked me directly, but some of the other area teachers have expressed at least moderate interest in having me speak, and I’ve had several suggestions that I should do so at area libraries as well.

One of the oddest things about indie writing is publicity. I’m responsible for all of it. If I want my name in the paper, I need to make phone calls, write emails, send press releases, and so forth. So, when I get a chance for publicity, I jump at it–including talking to high school classes.

This particular class is going to be tackling a month-long novel-writing assignment. (Hence, bringing in the novelist.) It’s inspired by NaNoWriMo, though it’ll be taking place in March this year. The students will have 31 days to write 30,000 words of cohesive story, and I’m being brought in to tell them how to do it. Sort of.

This would be easier if I had figured out how to do it myself!