At any rate, just for the record, I wanted to say once again that, speaking on a more serious note about indiscretions of youth, that's not what's at issue here.
Second of all—and I say this with all due respect to my colleagues—I wonder how seriously this issue is being taken when we have amendments that say “10”, “20”, “50”, and now “adult or within the previous 10 years, whichever is the longer period”. That to me just doesn't show the seriousness with which we need to take this type of background check. It's completely arbitrary that there is literally a span of 40 years in between two of the proposed amendments.
I'm sure they wouldn't take this approach with sentencing or things like that in other types of legislation, which is not to say—for the record, before it gets twisted against me—that I am at all comparing sentencing with licence acquisition. I am once again acknowledging that this in no way will encumber someone's ability to obtain a licence if all we are talking about are these stated indiscretions of youth.
This is not shoplifting a bracelet from the pharmacy. We're talking about a way to make sure that someone who 20 or 25 years ago may have been involved in serious situations of domestic violence or others... I think back, notably, to Ms. Irons' testimony. I am sure my Conservative colleagues would agree that the types of things this individual was involved with should have disqualified him from having a licence. I acknowledge that what's in the legislation won't completely prevent that from happening—and Mr. Motz has raised some issues that can be debated—but I think that at the end of the day having the lifetime look at this is not that problematic.
My understanding, to judge by what I heard Mr. Calkins and others say, is that if we removed everything related to PAL, verification for transfers, and record-keeping the bill would get unanimous consent. Now we're trying to amend the background check, so I'm having a hard time following where the logic is, quite frankly.