As always, when the new session of congress opened, Democrats filed their usual slew of anti-gun bills. They do it every single year, and most times, they contain nothing new and usually have zero hope of passing. In years past, I would have no concerns about the extremely overreaching, unconstitutional junk contained in HR 127. It never would have passed, but unfortunately we are no longer living in “most times.”
We Should All Be Very Worried
Some folks are sitting back and saying they are not worried. Frankly, those people are downright delusional. I say that as a guy who has lived through this exact scenario. California used to be a red state that had the same gun laws as everywhere else, but then the Democrats got a supermajority and now look at it.
The entire United States is on the brink of becoming just like California. The Democrats control both houses, and the barely lucid guy who occupies the oval office is a long time gun grabber. Not to mention the fact that since he took office, he seemingly signs any piece of paper they put in front of him. This whole situation has me very concerned.
What Is In HR 127?
It was originally introduced on January 4th as nothing more than a placeholder bill by Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) (Really Texas? Really?), but the text of the bill was received yesterday. The bill has a couple of distinctly different aspects, and as usual for Democrat lawmakers, the title is very misleading.
- Creates a national firearm licensing and registration system, which will include various types of licenses, and not only requires a criminal background check, but requires a psychiatric exam
- There is an $800 annual “firearm insurance” fee required to obtain a license
- Requires that before you can loan anyone a firearm, you must first notify the US Attorney General
- Every violation of any of the sections in the licensing section of the bill are federal felonies, save one, and punishable by anywhere between 5-40 years in federal prison
- Outlaws all ammunition “.50 caliber or greater”
- Outlaws “large capacity” magazines
As a retired cop, a cop from California where many of these things already exist, absolutely NOTHING in this proposed bill will do anything to prevent gun crimes, and will instead turn millions of Americans into felons overnight. Absolutely nothing in this bill will do a damn thing to prevent violent crimes by individuals armed with a gun (I hate the term “gun violence”).
Let’s take a closer look at each part of the proposal, and see if we can determine what good this will do to prevent crime.
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Registration
Within 30 days of the passing of this law, all gun owners in the entire United States are required to register every single firearm they own. It is required to submit make, model, serial number, when acquired and where it is to be stored.
Violation of this section is a federal felony for which a violation is punishable by 15-25 years in prison.
Does anyone think that the criminals out there committing all the “gun violence,” most of which are already prohibited persons (legally prohibited from possessing a gun), are going to register their guns? Anyone?
Licensing
In order to possess a firearm, this bill would require you to first obtain a firearm owners license. They list three different types of licenses: general, antique firearm display license and “military-style weapons license.”
In all cases, the applicant must be 21 years old, go through a NICS check (already done for a purchase), and must undergo a psychological exam with a licensed psychologist who has been approved by the attorney general, must undergo at least 24 hours of training on safe use and storage of a gun, and must provide proof of “firearms insurance” before the license will be issued.
Additionally, as part of the required psych exam, the psychologist will have to perform an exam of anyone else who lives in the household.
Also the psychologist is required to interview the applicant’s spouse, any former spouses, and at least two more people who are family members or “associates” of the applicant in order to determine the applicants mental and emotional state.
Gee, none of that is ripe for abuse… Have that coworker or relative that doesn’t like you or doesn’t like guns (we all have at least one of them), or have a less than amicable divorce? You are screwed.
Additionally, in my experience, most shrinks are not pro-gun. We routinely got calls from the psychologists at a local hospital that wanted us to go seize firearms from their patients.
Lastly, I am also curious where this vast supply of psychologists is going to come from, seeing as most psychologists already have pretty full schedules. It is not like there are thousands of them, let alone tens of thousands of them that would be needed to perform all of those required exams, just sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for patients. Just the wait time alone to perform these exams would stretch years, if not decades.
So, if I get a new roommate or have a friend stay with me for a couple weeks, does that mean I am in violation of this and my license is now void?
License Suspension or Revocation
Seeing as this is a license, it can also be suspended or revoked. Get arrested for any felony, your firearm license is suspended. Merely arrested mind you, with charges pending, not convicted. What happened to that whole due process thing? What about innocent until proven guilty? And any felony, including all non-violent felonies?
If you get convicted of the felony, or become a prohibited person in some other manner, your license will be revoked. If your license gets revoked, you are required by this law to turn all firearms and ammo over to the attorney general. In other words, you cannot sell them or give them to a friend or family member. The government just takes them, with no compensation. Seems to me that again, this violates one or more of those pesky constitutional bill of rights type things…
License Renewal
Also, since this is a license, it is going to expire. In fact, this law sets the expiration of the firearm owners license at every single year for people who have had their license for five years or less. If you are one of the lucky people who manages to get and keep your license for five years, your license now expires every three years from that point on.
In order to renew it, you have to go through every single step that you did to obtain it in the first place. So that decades long backlog for all of those psych exams just got compounded and is now multiple decades long.
For anyone who thinks this whole licensing scheme is a good idea, answer me one question. How does any of this prevent crime?
Again, criminals are not buying their guns legally. They are most often already prohibited persons. All this is doing is making it harder and harder for people who are trying to abide by the law to actually abide by the law. By definition, those people are NOT the people you should be worried about.
Insurance
This part right here is the biggest chunk of garbage in the entire bill. What they are calling “insurance” in this bill is nothing more than a fee that you have to pay the federal government every year for the privilege of exercising one of your specifically enumerated constitutionally guaranteed rights. The “fee” they are going to charge at the onset of this bill for your “insurance” is $800.
Slapped right here in the insurance portion of the bill is their list of “military-style weapons.” Nothing about this list is in the least bit surprising as it appears to have been recycled straight out of the 1994 federal assault weapons ban.
It still contains all sorts of gibberish that demonstrates the people writing it know nothing about firearms. They list a manufacturer’s name as if it is a model of firearm (Norinco), their obsession with bayonet lugs is still present, because there have been so many crimes committed by people using rifles with bayonets attached to them, and the whole barrel shroud part is still there. You know, barrel shrouds, that shoulder thing that goes up…
Punishments
Everything is a felony, well almost everything. In the days of decriminalizing actual crimes with real victims, the Democrats have decided to try and turn law abiding gun owners into felons.
Possess a gun without a license, felony. 15-25 years, $75k-150k fine.
Loan a gun to an unlicensed person, felony. 10-15 years, $50k-75k fine.
Sell or give a firearm or ammo to someone without notifying the government, felony. 5-10 years, $30k-50k fine.
Loan a gun to another licensed gun owner, but do it without notifying the attorney general, maybe a misdemeanor? No jail time specified, but $5k-10k fine.
Provide a gun to someone under 18 years of age, felony. So much for teaching your kids how to shoot. 15-25 years and fine of $75k-100k. If that gun is used in a crime, an accidental shooting or a suicide, then it bumps up to 25-40 years and $100k-150k fine.
Don’t have your “firearm insurance,” yep that too is a felony. 10-20 years in prison and $50k-100k fine. For not having “insurance.” No, I am not kidding.
Prohibited “Ammo”
What in the heck is the obsession by anti-gun folks with .50 caliber firearms? Yep, any bullet .50 caliber or larger is banned by this law.
Got a civil war era musket, you know, the guns the left claims the 2nd Amendment was written for, they are all now illegal, seeing as the smallest caliber guns back then were the .54 caliber model 1854 Lorenz Rifle and the model 1841 Mississippi Rifle. Calibers during the civil war were as large as a .70 caliber. All now illegal.
Oh wait, it was the muskets from the revolutionary war that the 2nd Amendment protects, my bad. You know, guns like the .62 caliber pattern 1776 infantry rifle or the .69 caliber Charleville musket. But wait, those too are larger than .50 caliber. What gives?
Also listed in this section under “ammunition” are “large capacity ammunition feeding device(s).” You know, standard capacity magazines. Not only do they mislabel standard capacity magazines as “large capacity” because they hold more than that magic number of 10 bullets, they just plain old ban them outright. No grandfather clause, not even a “buy back.” Again, pretty sure this violates that whole pesky bill of rights constitution thingy mabob.
And in case you were wondering, yep, all of this is a felony too.
Have too big a bullet, felony. 10-20 years in prison, $50k-100k fine.
Have a magazine that holds too many bullets, felony. 1-5 years in prison, $10k-25k.
Effect on “Gun Violence”
Since the overwhelming majority of violent crimes committed by persons armed with a gun (what the left calls “gun violence”) are committed by persons who obtained their guns illegally and in most cases, are committed by persons who are already legally prohibited from possessing a gun, this entire bill will have little to no effect on “gun violence.”
Additionally, the federal government has already proven time and again that it cares little about prosecuting felons who illegally attempt to obtain firearms (lying on the federal 4473 form) or those who illegally provide guns to prohibited persons.
A few years ago, Omaha Police Officer Kerrie Orozco was murdered just before she was set to take maternity leave by a felon with a gun. The felon’s girlfriend legally bought the gun, but knowingly, illegally provided it to the felon. For her part in the murder of the officer, she received a very short, informal probation sentence. That was it.
However, anti-gun states like California have proven time and again that when a normal, law abiding citizen makes a mistake while trying to comply with the insane maze of firearms laws, they go after them with a vengeance and try to make an example of them to all other gun owners.
True Purpose
This giant pile of gun control garbage is nothing more than the Democrat’s latest attempt to make gun ownership impossible. They seem to have given up on trying to outright ban guns, so now they are going to try and make the process to legally own a firearm so ridiculously expensive and onerous, that few will attempt to do so.
What this bill will do in all actuality is turn millions of law abiding citizens into felons overnight.
Turning your political opponents into felons for doing absolutely nothing wrong is very dangerous. One thing I know from my career in law enforcement is that when a felon is cornered and they think they have no way out, they will fight.
I’ve said it before, and I am saying it again. Do you want to start a civil war? Because this right here is how you start a civil war.
