I actually had an excellent proposal for implementing this thought about eligibility/ineligibility.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=175418&mesg_id=175525put it in the data strip. Ta da. And anyone needing to read the data strip for one purpose would not have a reader to get the data that's there for another purpose.
and later in that thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=175418&mesg_id=176041Data strips can include a huge range of information. They can be made so that only certain readers will read certain information. Firearms eligibility could be one of those pieces of information. Readers that could read that particular information could be tightly controlled.
Hell, readers could be set up in gummint offices. Or shopping malls. Or gunne shoppes. Or shows. People wanting to engage in private firearms transactions would go there, the purchaser would swipe his/her card and enter a PIN number, and authorization would be given or denied, in the form of a printout that would contain no identifying information unless authorization were given, that the seller would retain in records.
editing just to change that last bit -- probably best (from the paranoid gunhead point of view) if
(a) a denial of authorization simply results in a "no printout" response
(b) a grant of authorization results in a printout with a date/time stamp and confirmation of the grant of authorization
-- I gather the NICS system can't retain info about the request for a search, but I'm not clear about what the dealer does. Retains the form, right? With things like name and address etc.? I'd be concerned about private parties (not subject to the requirements of a dealer licence, which presumably include not disclosing personal info) having info of that nature, myself.
Identity document remains in possession of person to whom it belongs.
Firearms eligiblity data is in the datastrip.
Access to that data is PIN-protected.
Report given to seller of firearm contains only the date and time and identifying number of the NICS query. I suppose it might be wise to have a provision for showing the firearm transaction itself was completed or not completed.
It appears that the problem is that the NICS system currently doesn't retain the necessary identifying information. And I would personally object to a firearms seller who is not a licensed dealer retaining identifying personal information about the buyer, if this system were to apply to where I am.
Licensed dealers in the US apparently retain identifying personal information about purchasers which can be accessed by government agencies. It seems there's a great big huge difference between that and retention of the information by the government authority.
So I guess my clever scheme leaves the same problem: where the identifying personal information about the purchaser is to be kept.