A prominent gun rights activist and board member of the American Conservative Union said this weekend he supports the Manchin-Toomey compromise, even telling associates that he believed “the gun grabbers have stepped into our trap.”

Alan Gottlieb, the chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and a power player within the conservative ACU, emailed nearly four dozen gun activists on Sunday with an explanation of the proposed legislation. His email address, incidentally, begins with “AkaGUNNUT”.

“If you read the bill you can see all the advances for our cause that it contains like interstate sales of handguns, veteran gun rights restoration, travel with firearms protection, civil and criminal immunity lawsuit protection if you sell a gun plus more,” he wrote in the email. (The email, with the “to” field redacted, is posted below.)

Gottleib claimed that if a gun owner has a concealed weapons permit they will not be required to submit to a background check every time they purchase an additional firearm, instead they would merely fill out a form that will be held by the dealer as a record of sale. Now, either he’s confused, or lying, especially where background checks are concerned.

“If you have any kind of current state permit to own, use or carry no check is done just the Form 4473 to stay with a dealer,” he said.

Wrong. The compromise bill contains no CCW (concealed carry of a weapon) exemption, despite his protestations.

[update: turns out that Mr. Gottlieb’s assertion is correct and that the provisions of the bill, despite mine and several others’ first readings, will allow CCW holders to avoid further background checks. But there is an additional problem therein raised by Dave Kopel. Many of the provisions in favor of gun rights, on further analysis, are anti-gun.

The limit on creating a registry applies only to the Attorney General (and thus to entities under his direct control, such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives). By a straightforward application of inclusio unius exclusio alterius it is permissible for entities other than the Attorney General to create gun registries, using whatever information they can acquire from their own operations. For example, the Secretary of HHS may consolidate and centralize whatever firearms records are maintained by any medical or health insurance entity. The Secretary of the Army may consolidate and centralize records about personal guns owned by military personnel and their families.

The Attorney General may not create a registry from the records of “a person with a valid, current license under this chapter.” In other words, the AG may not harvest the records of persons who currently hold a Federal Firearms License (FFL). Thus, pursuant to inclusio unius, the AG may centralize and consolidate the records of FFLs who have retired from their business.

I apologize to Mr. Gottleib for the initial error, but he might want to read Dave Koppel too.

———-

From: AkaGUNNUT
Date: April 14, 2013, 8:54:01 AM MST
To:
Subject: FYI

Just so you all know. I am in support on the Manchin-Tooney substitute bill to knock out the bad Schumer Background Check bill. I and our CCRKBA attorney lobbyist had a hand in influencing and writing parts of it.

The bill bans any federal gun registry and carries a 15 year prison term for anyone who violates it. We protect and expand a good number of pro-gun rights measures as well.

We also have an agreement that an additional amendment supported by Manchin and Toonry will be offered to even make it better by making it possible to get federal firearms rights restored negating the current Schumer legislation that blocks it.

If you read the bill you can see all the advances for our cause that it contains like interstate sales of handguns, veteran gun rights restoration, travel with firearms protection, civil and criminal immunity lawsuit protection if you sell a gun plus more. It also exempts the sale or transfer of firearms between family members and friends as well as sales outside a commercial venue from a background check. If you have any kind of current state permit to own, use or carry no check is done just the Form 4473 to stay with a dealer..

These advances for gun rights can not be made unless we win the Senate vote on Tuesday to substitute it for the current Schumer draconian background check that is in the bill at this time.

The gun grabbers have stepped into our trap.

It will be fun to see Obama forced to sign it!

Alan Gottlieb