Pointless Question

[7x57]

I've about got my first CMP order ready. On page 1A CMP asks for the purchaser's race, a question which I regard as none of their business. Private organizations usually won't insist on this, but with the fed. government sometimes objecting does no good. Has anyone tried not answering this, and if so what happened?

7x57

[Blue]

I never understood why anyone cares about that. An old member here always used to check off "Native American". Hell we're all native if we were born here right?

[user5412]

I agree. Race is a social construct. Useless in the modern world.

[antarius]

They're trying to gather information about the purchaser. Why? So they have an idea of who owned it. The more information, the better. I understand we don't like to give the government any information so it's often seen as the less we give, the better, but since you already have to give them all of the goods so to speak (your name, addy, dob, etc); What's the problem in giving your race?

All this will do is prevent you from being mistaken as someone else later down the road, if it were to come to that...

[user5412]

What useful information comes from race?

[RedDawn]

Has anyone tried putting "other" on the paperwork.

[mousegun]

What useful information comes from race?

Information to facilitate passing the background check CMP does on all firearm orders. Leave it out at the risk of failing background.

[thefifthspeed]

Leve it blank, the worst that can happen is they send you an email asking for you to pick one.

[antarius]

Example:

You put your information in and a check shows you're a convicted felon. Oh but wait, the person who was convicted was listed as Hispanic or something other than what you put on your order form, they just have the same name as you. Cool, now they can check that you live at a different address and are a different race (and in California, its optional, have a different social security number [if you chose to put that on the form]) and can ship your rifle.

I'd rather not give them any information, but since we have to anyway, I'd rather them be accurate with it.

[dwtt]

I forgot which one I checked, but it's OK to randomly pick one of the choices. I still received my M1 by Fedex

[sorensen440]

I decided a while back that my race changes day to day

[CSACANNONEER]

Just put "Human" as your race.

[7x57]

since you already have to give them all of the goods so to speak (your name, addy, dob, etc); What's the problem in giving your race?

There isn't a practical "problem," in that I do not for a second believe the CMP is going to do anything sinister with it. I don't think they're going to do anything sinister, period (people who wish to do something sinister do *not* sell good weapons to ordinary people just on principle). But I don't think the government either is or should be permitted to know or have opinions about such things. The only value in such a question is gathering data to implement something like affirmative action, which I regard as neither Constitutional nor sane. So either it's a pointless question, or it's data for something stupid.

It may have been justice Roberts who said "the way to stop discriminating based on race is to stop discriminating based on race."

But yes, "native American" is perfectly accurate and perhaps a better way to answer if you want to feed garbage data to the machine. :-) Of course, theoretically you could be accused of lying on a federal form by someone who doesn't like that definition of "native."

7x57

[7x57]

I agree. Race is a social construct. Useless in the modern world.

That's a fair argument to make, but it isn't what I meant. Even if it is useful, only fools permit their government to take official notice of it.

[EDIT: wait, the CMP is now private and not quite "the feds," I seem to recall. Oh, well.]

7x57

[7x57]

Example:

You put your information in and a check shows you're a convicted felon.

It's a good point, and if my name were "Daniel Brown" a realistic fear, but not one that is likely to matter for me. My first name is rare and the spelling of my last name is even more rare. If there is a felon around with my name I'd already have been made uncomfortably aware of it, because he and I would probably be the only ones in the country with the name. That would bite, I admit that.

In any case, the SS# would disambiguate pretty nicely, I think.

7x57