Another one of my stories and assumptions, Today we traveled 50 miles nort to a fairly large gun show. The show consisted of three buildings at a county fairgrounds. I was surprised at the steady turnout and the interest to purchase firearms. I witnessed several people that were making what appeared to be thier first ever gun purchase (SCARRY) and asking the dealer how to use the gun. There were several tables of survival stuff and one specific Y2K person preparing us for TEOTWAWKI by being a sport and selling us #10 can of Misc. food stuff from $12 to $40 per can...Damn can't afford to prepare at those prices. One thing I did notice was the dealers grumbling about the so called "Instand Checks" I spoke to one such dealer who said every large show he has attended since the Instant Check System was started in December 1998 has been this way. This got my brain ticking at a above normal speed....since the government (Bill Lewenski) wants the gun shows stopped, is this their way of doing it? They could slow down or overload the system so the dealers couldn't approve your sale. Now I am really on a roll. Did the government start this system in December so they could feel the "Pulse" of Honest Joe Blow to see how he is reacting to the Y2K issue? Could they slow down or stop(Due to technical problems..of course) the instant gun check if they see a panic and the people of the U.S.A. start preparing for the worst and want to purchase guns and ammo. Scary thought ..huh? On another issue, I was talking to a person (Friend) who works at a local paper manufacturing plant in our town. He told me that the company was considering a multi-million dollar computer expansion. The company wants to modernize the plant and has been waiting until the y2K got closer to be assured that the purchases would be compliant (They Hope) I guess they are looking at replacing about 300 employees by automation with robots and computers. They were faced with upgrading most of their process control equipment and thought "What the Hell" if we are going to spend that kind of money might as well eliminate some jobs to get it back sooner. Ain't life grand. Well I have spread my thoughts and facts on you enough...now I am going to bed and hide from the world!

-- Bill (y2kbill@hotmail.com), February 06, 1999

Answers

May the new computer system reverse the rolls of paper on the core.

-- TP (TP@TP.com), February 06, 1999.

Hi Bill,

the way the law reads right now, once the check has been submitted the govt has three days to respond, if they haven't responded after three days the sale is considered APPROVED (the old presumption of innocence thing, you know?). Anyway, the last thing they'd want would be for the system to go down completely.

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), February 06, 1999.

The secondary reason I got a concealed carry permit was to go to the gun shows and buy what I want. With the permit I can just fill out the 4473(the fed form you fill out for a weapon) and walk. The CCW makes me Pre approved. The bad thing is that the FEDS keep my finger prints, all nine of them til I become 99 years of age. But WTF, I think I'm on lots of bad lists anyway. Just my .02

nine

-- nine (nine_fingers@hotmail.com), February 07, 1999.

The way it works now is they just turn you down flat! You may have been okayed to buy the gun a month ago and pawned it and when you come to pick it up you are turned down.In this state at least they don't seem to know what they are doing anymore. Even turned down a sheriff last week!

We've been told if we can't get thru to our state FDLE that we should call the FBI number. When we tried that, the response we got was "we don't know how to do gun checks".

At this point we are having our state rep. looking into the situation (Fla.)

Sign me "Bogged down with appeals"

-- anonymous (youdon'twant to know@aol.com), February 07, 1999.

I recently purchased a rifle under the "instant check system." Needless to say, the dealer got a "hold" notification. The sale was OK'd the next day. The sales guy that I talked to said that 40-50% of gun sales got a hold notification.

-- d (d@fakeemail.new), February 07, 1999.

I posted this to our cool FEMA thread, but it fits better here:

********************

Posting the following article from American Handgunner (March/April), with our pal E. Coli in the audience is like throwing a bag of pigs' ears to my Scotch collies, but here goes. I guess Sec. Albright thinks it fine for the US to cruise-missle civilian workers in medicine factories at $1 million a pop, but I'm not to be trusted with my Remy 700 at the local range...

How Do You Say "Cold Dead Fingers" in Norwegian ?

Norway and Canada are leading a United Nations effort to limit ownership of firearms on a global basis. Norway hosted a 21-country conference in Oslo late in 1998 to consider the "control, collection, and reduction" of small arms worldwide. Norwegian foreign minister Knut Vollebaek said the world cannot wait for individual countries to enact regulations because "immediate action" is needed.

Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy called for a global treaty to ban the sale of small arms to private citizens. "This is part of the new humanitarian social agenda," Axworthy was reported to have said.

Meanwhile in the U.S., actor Michael Douglas declared himself to be a "messenger of peace" and promised to assist Norway and Canada in their efforts to ban firearms ownership worldwide.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told a U.N. Security Council hearing on Africa that the world has a responsibility to "stem the proliferation" of guns in private hands.

Canada has instituted a plan to share all firearms registration information with the ATF and other international police agencies. Targeted are hunters and target shooters who visit Canada and "temporarily" register their firearms, as required by Canadian law.

-- Runway Cat (Runway_Cat@hotmail.com), February 07, 1999.

What I find interesting was yesterday's (Sat 02/07) evening news blitz on all the networks attacking the private individual sale of firearms as being a "huge loophole" in the Brady Law. They played it up like there are more guns sold between individuals than by dealers. And of course there were the President and his lackeys making sound- bite sized statements that the press ran without questioning.

I worry that Bubba's solution will be to declare all gunowners as "potential gun dealers" and require every gun owner to pony-up for an FFL. Since he raised the fee a few years back there's been a drop in the number of FFL holders, because the folks couldn't afford to pay the fee.

Maybe this will be an excuse to try and make it too expensive to own a gun?

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), February 07, 1999.

anonymous - sorry to hear about Florida! whew! here in Virginia, it's running about the same as it was before the switchover - my friend with the squeeky clean background gets his okay right away, and mine the FFL generally has to wait and call back an hour later..at which time it's cleared anyway. Not exactly sure why this occurs in my case but it's been consistent.

WW - thing is, that they're gonna have a tough time getting the law changed before the roll-over, no?

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), February 08, 1999.