One point of common ground, the president said, would be ensuring that criminals and mentally unstable individuals like Jared Lee Loughner, who killed six people in Tucson, are unable to purchase firearms.
“I think a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals,” he said.
“I believe the majority of gun owners agree we should do everything possible to prevent criminals and fugitives from purchasing weapons," the president said. "That we should check out a person’s criminal record before they can check out at a gun store. That a mentally unbalanced individual should not be able to get his hands on a gun so easily.”
That last remark, a clear reference to the mentally unstable individuals responsible for the most recent high-profile massacres, received particularly loud applause from the audience.
While on the surface the president's points appear to be reasonable, there are reasons that gun owners disagree with them.
1) Due to the actions of liberals previously, gun owners are suspicious of the real motives behind their actions. "Kept away from the mentally unstable", can be defined to include just about everyone, and has actually already employed to that end. For example, all GI's exiting the service, especially those who have experienced combat, are encouraged to recieve psychological counselling--which is then recorded in their VA medical records as pshiatric care. This is then provided to the DOHS and the FBI and is accessible by the ATF who winds up doing the federal background gun checks. Consequently, those who are logically trained and most able to safely use guns are prohibited from getting them. This, as psychiatry is continuely over-reaching and expanding their "medical" definitions to label virtually anyone as having some kind of disorder--why can then be called unstable. Isn't everyone a little odd at one time or another?
2) That an AK47 or an AR15 would be be considered as a dangerous military weapon would certainly NOT be agreed upon by many gun owners. Such lables have been misapplied to semi-automatic guns which resemble military weapons, but which are no different than other non-military sporting rifles. This is no accident and has been effectively used by liberals in some states to outlaw sporting weapons.
3) All guns legally purchased from gun stores DO require criminal background checks. If a person does not have a criminal background, then a check discloses nothing.
4) Inquiring into citizens private medical records crosses some very scary lines, which incidentally is and automatic with OBAMACARE. Such information may be used to adverse advantage in many other ways that are an unintended consequence of such probes for signs of "conditions" mental, emotional, or physical, which may be used to wrongly deemed a citizen unworthy of owning guns. Sure, this may seem like no big deal to some liberal Americans, until they become the victim of such probes. It dosn't just affect gun ownership.
Gun-owners simply do not trust any efforts of liberals to further erode rights of legal gun owners while doing nothing to keep the guns out of the hands of criminals. There is that disenginuous political history there to back up these fears.
Adding to the suspicions of gun owning Americans is the high-profile bungling of the ATF, which appears to be illegal and gnat-straining in order to get bad data on the gun industryor at the very least, incompetent.
If anyone doubts whether additonal laws will create further expenses and problems. they have only to look at any beauracracy actionsn such as the "War on Drugs" to seen how problematic it can become. Or the Depatment of Energy in its original quest to make America less dependent upon foreign oil. When the department was started, it was a small thing and our dependence upon foreign oil was about 30%. Today the DOE is a huge fund-gobbling and restrictive agency that is infringing upon every-day citizens use of light-bulbs and toilets while killing jobs. Incidentally, our dependence upon foreign oil is now over 70%. Great success, huh?
It really comes down to, "who do you trust, yourself or your government." While there may be some legitimate areas where government enforcement is necessary, most citizens can see, upon a closer look at most areas of our life--not so much.