Gun-control organizations are rallying behind the bipartisan “Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act,” a federal bill introduced Wednesday that would require background checks on all private transfers, including those made over the Internet and at gun shows.
“Requiring background checks on all gun sales continues to be the single most effective thing we can do to keep guns out of dangerous hands and reduce the toll of 88 Americans who are killed by gun violence every day,” said John Feinblatt, President of Everytown for Gun Safety, in a press release.
“The steadily growing movement of Americans is making progress – as we’ve seen in states across the country that have passed laws to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, domestic abusers and the dangerously mentally ill,” Feinblatt continued.
As many as 17 states and Washington D.C. now require background checks on all private transfers. The “Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act” (H.R. 1217), which was sponsored by U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson (D-CA) and Peter King (R-NY), would mandate universal background checks in all 50 states.
Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was wounded in a 2011 shooting attack near Tucson, was on Capitol Hill Wednesday supporting the bill.
“Stopping violence takes courage,” she said at a press conference. “The courage to do what’s right, the courage of new ideas. … Now is the time to come together and be responsible. Democrats, Republicans, everyone. We must never stop fighting. Fight, fight, fight. Be bold, be courageous, the nation’s counting on you.”
Giffords was joined by her husband Mark Kelly, a former astronaut. Together the couple founded the pro-gun control organization Americans for Responsible Solutions.
The obvious question is will this bill clear both the House and Senate?
The previous UBC bill, known as the Manchin-Toomey amendment, failed to clear the Senate, falling six votes shy of the 60 needed to override a GOP led filibuster in April of 2013.
Given that the political landscape has shifted following the 2014 midterms and the GOP now has a majority in both the House and Senate, it’s arguably even more unlikely that it will. Nevertheless, the sponsors of the bill are optimistic.
“If this thing passes out of the House, it will fly out of the Senate,” Thompson told The Washington Post.
Rep. Bob Dold (R-IL), one of the few Republicans who supports the measure, said that despite the long odds, “we have to continually push; we have to continually try.”
“I’m not saying I’m going to the speaker, and it’s going to be on the floor next week — it’s not,” Dold said. “But my hope is this continues to build momentum and ultimately will be passed. … It is something that the American public wants us to do.”
Hurray for a new national back ground check law! I don’t understand why such a law has not been passed already. I mean, who really wants violent felons and adjudged dangerous psychotics to posses firearms?
Pssst! Want a back ground check bill to sail through the Congress with the strong backing of the National Rifle Association, (NRA)? It’s so simple that even the Democrats know how to draft it. But the Democrats refuse to write such a bill.
OK, here’s the not so secret way to get a back ground check through both chambers of the Congress with unanimous backing. Write the bill as being a back ground check measure! You know, a check with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, (NICS), located in Clarksburg, West Virginia, to determine if the prospective gun buyer has no record that would preclude him or her from purchasing of a firearm. Oops! Guess what? There is such a law background check regulation right now! Every gun dealer has to check with the NICS people to make sure the customer passes their background check procedure before he can sell the gun.
You might ask why the Democrats and the RINOS are trying to pass yet another “back ground check” law. Here’s why, the government wants to know who has what dangerous weapons. The government wants to apply the new law to ALL firearm transactions even those between private individuals and family members. They talk about “gun show loopholes” but they will write the new regulation to include ALL firearm transactions. The Federal Government wants all firearm records to be digitized on the gun dealers computers and instantly accessible over the Internet. Oh, a “dangerous weapon” is any firearm that could conceivably be used to resist a government that begins to abuse the rights of the people.
What the government wants, is a record of every gun sale, between citizens everywhere. The government wants to know the brand, model number, caliber, gauge and serial number of ALL firearms in private possession. This new regulation would certainly be ignored by the criminals, of course, but the government doesn’t really care about the relatively small number of handguns in criminal possession.
Why is the government so curious about the firearms that competent, law-abiding adult citizens own? The answer to this single question is what the whole controversy is about. The government needs to know who the gun owners are, so its jack-booted thugs can come knocking on your door to confiscate your firearms, every one of them that they find with their metal detectors.
The government doesn’t want a background check, it wants a defacto gun registration law. This is the first step in a gun confiscation program that would follow. Now you know why obama was so upset when his pet “background check” bill failed to pass when the Democrats controlled Senate. Many of the Democrat Senators were facing re election contests and they knew that their constituents would show them the back door if they went along with obama’s wishes.
Any citizen who submits the serial number of his rifle or shotgun to ANYONE is a fool. There is no credible reason that the government needs to know who owns what firearm. The handguns that are already registered at their state or county law offices? Who cares? It’s the long guns that the government wants to know about because they are much more of a threat to the would-be tyrants.
Of course none of this affects me because I don’t own a firearm. Dear readers, you believe that don’t you?
I was a Border Patrol Agent for over 30 years. On quite a few occasions, we caught shipments of firearms being smuggled into the United States by criminals who intended to sell them to other criminals on the black market. Who knows how many shipments actually got through, but I’m sure it was the majority of them. We have always been under staffed, at least in terms of Border patrol Agents who actually work on the line. Sometimes these weapons were automatic weapons (machine guns) and sometimes not. On one occasion, there was a shipment with Argentinian copies of pistols and Mac 10 sub-machine guns as well as real assault rifles, not the semi-automatics that the wackos in the gun control lobby call assault rifles. I have seized UZIs, real select-fire AK47s, FN-FALs, and lots more. We even seized a load of firearms from South Africa being smuggled in by the Mexican Mafia. My point is that you can make all the stupid gun control laws you want and it won’t stop a single criminal from getting a gun. If he has enough money, from getting even a machine gun! Gun laws only restrict the rights of legal gun owners and anti-gun people are by and large living in an alternate reality.
Toomey was and is a traitor; killers and crazies will either get a gun or use another means to do violence ~!
ANY PERSON THAT PASS THEIR BACK GROUND CHECK, BACK GROUND CHECK ONLY SHOULD BE GIVEN A CONCEL PERMIT FOR ALL THE US.
MOST PEOPLE KNOW THERE IS SOME BAD TIME’S COMMING. THANKS TO OBAMA AND LIBERAL DEM-O-RATS
Here we go again. Let’s pass another law that the CRIMINALS won’t pay any attention to. When will these left wing/anti-second amendment people get that through their thick heads. We already have a background check on firearm sales. Private transfers between relatives or friends are exempt and the language in this bill is way too onerous. You couldn’t even lend a firearm to a friend or relative even during a hunting trip without being in violation. It’s stupid and will solve nothing and if they get it passed, a big if, they will just go after something else like control and registration for all ammo sales. Understand that these people will chip away until your firearms are confiscated and they have their way.
Frankly the whole thing is bogus. The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution doesn’t say you can “bear arms subject to regulations passed by congress”. It says, “the right to bear arms shall not be INFRINGED”. So all these laws are constitutionally unsound and should be overturned. Bearing arms is NOT a privilege like driving a car, which they would have you believe. lI’s a RIGHT which the government, any government, is not empowerd to take away.
Every law they pass, no matter how seemingly minor, restricts ownership. THAT IS their goal, eventually it will be so difficult to possess that very few will bother. The rest they will get with ‘mental’ restrictions just as New York State is now doing. Go to the doctor and you are deemed mentally unsafe no matter what the doctor says. Over 35,000 since the law was passed 2 years ago.
these people do not know their axx from a hole in the ground
Here we go again! CRIMINAL = Law Breakers = that is….people who don’t follow laws! Doesn’t matter how many laws there are…..more laws won’t help. When will the LEFTYS get that through their heads!!??? Geesh!! “Common sense is a flower that doesn’t grow in some peoples garden” is a true statement for sure.
Over 1800 guns laws on the books now. Did it stop any of the mass shootings. I don’t think so. Stop trying to pass laws that don’t work and start enforcing laws that are on the books!! Punish the guilty fast and swiftly! Stop trying find out why at the expense of the victims fast punishment and harsh and let it be known!!
under the bill, background checks would continue to be conducted in the same manner as they have for more than 40 years.
They admit this themselves. Get busted on a nics check? So what, they do nothing to the bad guys they catch.
Best 7 minutes on gun control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=B5ELyG9V1SY