As many of us anticipated, the Democrat-led Congress this week is ready to pass two insulting and poisonous anti-gun-right bills, and this situation deserves a great deal of attention.
Nancy Pelosi and her allies just passed H.R. 8, the “Bipartisan Background Checks Act”on Wednesday (and with a cheesy-comfy name like “Bipartisan”, you know it’s gotta be dangerous). Mandating that nearly every firearm transfer in the US be done via a “licensed” firearms dealer, which, as Jacob Sullum reports for Reason, would mandate a federal background check in almost every case.
There are only a couple absurd exceptions, exceptions that would rarely be workable for most people in the real world. Nancy and her pals will magnanimously allow:
…temporary transfers when ‘necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm’ or in the course of target shooting or hunting, provided the owner is there to supervise.
Enjoy how those exceptions will be policed and adjudicated, Americans.
And if you don’t do as the politicians command?
Failing to comply with the bill's restrictions would be punishable by up to a year in jail and/or a maximum fine of $100,000.
So, if you feel threatened and you ask a friend for a firearm? It could be jail time for you – in federal prison. If you go target shooting and borrow a friend’s gun, then are out of visual sight of him or her? You could be up on federal charges. And… if you simply want to remain anonymous in a purchase, or want to not pay for the cost of the background check? Welcome to the federal prison system.
The second bill, is H.R. 1112, or, The Enhanced Background Checks Act, and it will expand the period of time you are ordered to wait while the feds rifle through your background, upping it from three days to ten.
That’s more than a week to wait.
Which puts lives at risk.
As Sullum writes:
…some law-abiding Americans will be forced to wait an extra week before the FBI decides whether they are entitled to own a gun. In most cases, that may be little more than an inconvenience, but it could have serious or even lethal consequences when a gun is urgently needed for self-defense.
Already, waiting periods have prevented women from obtaining firearms – women who have died because they were unable to defend themselves.
In 2015, Carol Browne obtained a piece of paper from the government telling a violent ex that he should stay away or he’d be in trouble. The paper was called a “restraining order”.
She also tried to obtain a gun permit. And she was told she had to wait to be vetted by the government.
She waited. The “restraining order” didn’t stop the ex.
He killed her before she got permission from the politicians to get a gun.
Proposals like H.R. 1112 will put more people like Carol Browne in jeopardy of being unable to defend themselves.
And the criminals will not bother conforming to the laws on guns. They are already intent on breaking the law.
And something else, a brief series of questions we can ask the gun-grabbers and those who would threaten us with arrest if we show the temerity of purchasing firearms the way we want. I’ve mentioned them before, and they might be worth repeating.
Is the possession of something a violent act? No.
Does possession connote intent? No. One might try to guess, but one can never say why someone has purchased something because we are all individuals and all subjective. In fact, if one were to assume the reasons for others buying guns, statistics from the government itself (stats the government tried to hide) show that citizens are 3.6 times more likely to use guns to prevent crime than to engage in them.
And should someone obtain a firearm in a manner the politicians don’t like, what will the police be carrying when those politicians send them to arrest the “evildoer”?
Nancy Pelosi and her ilk are threatening innocent people. They are doing so with bills written by their support teams – who are paid via taxation of those innocent people – and they are threatening those innocent people with armed arrest.
Those are the folks who ought not be trusted with guns at their disposal.