Let’s say a stalker is threatening a female friend of yours. She asks you if she can borrow your handgun. She is trained and has no criminal record. Should you loan her your gun?

If you live in Maine, loaning her your gun may soon land you in prison.

And forget about Boy Scout shooting trips, where adults lend troops shotguns and rifles so that the Scouts can earn their firearm merit badges. Stick with that annual ritual and those adult leaders may soon find themselves in prison.

Those are just a couple of the hidden consequences if Maine voters pass referendum Question 3 on Tuesday, Nov. 8.

Everyone wants to keep criminals from getting guns, but the current background check system is a mess. It primarily disarms the most vulnerable citizens, particularly law-abiding minorities. Virtually every time that the government stops someone from buying a gun, it is done by mistake. I am not talking here about preventing guns from falling into the wrong hands. I am talking about people who are legally eligible to buy a gun.

Gun control advocates constantly claim that nationwide background checks have stopped 2.4 million prohibited people from buying a gun. But what they should really say is that there were 2.4 million “initial denials.” And more than 96 percent of those “initial denials” are errors that are dropped during just the first two stages of review. More cases are dropped later.

It is one thing to stop a felon from buying a gun. It is quite another to stop a law-abiding citizen from buying a gun simply because his name is similar to that of a felon.

That massive error rate occurs because government background checks focus on only two pieces of information — names and birth dates, ignoring Social Security numbers and addresses. The government looks for phonetically similar names (e.g., “Smith” and “Smythe” are assumed to be the same) and even ignores different middle names.

These mistakes affect certain racial groups more than others. Hispanics are more likely to share names with other Hispanics; the same is true of blacks. Because 30 percent of black males are forbidden from buying guns because of their criminal records, law-abiding African American men more often have their names confused with those of prohibited people.

The problem could be easily fixed if the government simply did what it requires of private companies. When businesses perform criminal background checks on employees, they have to use all of the information that is already available to the government: name, Social Security number, address and birth date.

Background checks on private transfers have another problem — they make gun buyers and sellers pay for the costs of conducting the background checks. That includes state fees and the costs of paying licensed dealers to perform the checks.

In Washington, D.C., the total cost is at least $125. In Washington State and Oregon, it is about $60 and $50, respectively.

Those costs can present a very real obstacle to poor people living in high-crime, urban areas. The most likely, law-abiding victims of violent crimes are usually least able to afford these costs. It isn’t like gang members are going to pay those fees.

Democrats claim that requiring free voter IDs imposes too much on poor minorities who want to vote. But they see no irony in requiring IDs (not free ones) and much more of those who purchase guns.

But the Democrats keep showing their true colors. When Colorado passed its private transfer background checks in 2013, Republicans proposed an amendment to exempt people below the poverty line from having to pay the new state tax on transfers. In the state house, all but two Democrats voted against the amendment. Don’t Democrats normally believe in tax exemptions for people below the poverty line?

Background checks experienced a post-2000 increase of 15 percent in per capita rates of mass public shooting fatalities. They also saw a 38 percent increase in the rate of injury. And there is no evidence that expanded background checks reduce rates of any type of violent crime, including mass public shootings, suicide, murder of police officers and domestic violence against women.

Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown — the source of glowing praise for these laws — never actually examines how crime rates change before and after the law is adopted.

The poorly-written and confusing Question 3 on the Maine ballot Nov. 8 is going to turn a lot of well-intentioned citizens into criminals. Furthermore, the fees and regulations attached to the initiative will make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to obtain guns for self-protection.

John Lott Jr. is the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

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