The Gekas amendment.

[russ1943]

This article (some below) in The TRACE helps explain a couple my personal problems with the gun enthusiasts positions. First I can’t count how many times I’ve cringed when reading gungeon dwellers claim that the NRA actually supported the “Brady Bill. The NRA fought tooth and nail against every facet of the intent of the bill and their support consisted of undermining it every step of the way. Second, although I didn’t know the Reps name the Gekas amendment is an appalling NRA piece of work effectively circumventing the goal of preventing prohibited persons from getting firearms, which is what the Brady bill intended!

While pushing back against the Brady bill with attack ads and campaign donations, the NRA was also fighting on a second front, promoting killer amendments through its allies in Congress. The political strategy behind the NRA’s killer amendments, Robert Spitzer writes in The Politics of Gun Control, “seemed to offer a meaningful reform yet posed no actual change in gun purchasing procedures for many years to come.” The bet was that the changes would never be achievable within the Congressionally prescribed timeline, and would take down the whole background check system when they proved infeasible. Gekas’s 1993 amendment proved to be the most important embodiment of this approach, because it shaped a bill that actually passed. It required that a computerized system — referred to then as InstaCheck — be installed within five years of Brady’s enactment. It also drastically reduced the five-day investigation period, calling for 24 hours instead. Since the NRA viewed the investigation period for Brady background checks as “arbitrarily selected,” they would expire — not when the technology was ready, but on a five-year timetable. Gekas’s NRA ties were not a secret. FactCheck.org would report in 2013 that an NRA spokesman was quoted in a press release saying that the group “worked closely with [Gekas] on the language and to round up support for it.” After further maneuvering in the Senate, the investigation period was raised to three days. In actuality, the NRA had triumphed. It managed to maintain political cover with supporters by fighting an unflinching war against the bill in the public arena while simultaneously watering it down from within. http://www.thetrace.org/2015/07/brady-bill-amendment-default-proceed-loophole-amendment-nra/


Last week, Jim Clyburn, a Democratic Congressman from South Carolina, filed legislation that would close the so-called “default proceed loophole,” which allows federally licensed firearms dealers to proceed with a sale if a background check — as in Roof’s case — takes more than three business days to complete. Connecticut Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal echoed the call, urging President Obama to take executive action to extend the window that federal examiners have for making a determination on a purchaser.

[flamin lib]

1. I remember the debate at the time.

Brady, as I recall, wanted a five day waiting period for the local police to do a background check including character witnesses. I would be very much like a permit to purchase. Then the gun lobby came up with something that, at the time was straight out of science fiction; a fully computerized instant check. Not content with that bit of witchcraft they won a time limit on clearing discrepancies in the check.

Like every other piece of legislation they amend it into ineffectiveness.