A piece of anti-gun legislation passed by the Democrat-majority House on Thursday will receive a vote in the Senate, according to Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer.
H.R. 8, which was sponsored by Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson of California, passed by a vote of 227-203 with eight Republicans voting in favor of it. Also known as the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, the legalization will target firearms transfers between individuals that bypass the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
The bill would essentially criminalize friends who trade guns back and forth — forcing them to go the FBI first for clearance and making their transfers criminal if they didn’t abide by the new regulation.
“In the past, when they sent it over to us last time, it went into [former Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell’s legislative graveyard,” Schumer said Thursday, according to Fox News. “The legislative graveyard is over. H.R. 8 will be on the floor of the Senate, and we will see where everybody stands.”
“No more hopes and prayers, thoughts and prayers. A vote is what we need, a vote, not thoughts and prayers,” he added in an apparent insult to Christians who so often pray following gun tragedies that in most cases would not have been prevented by gun control measures or background checks.
Schumer of course also had to engage in hyperbolic rhetoric about the bill and his career pushing gun control legislation.
“Certainly hundreds of thousands — maybe millions — of people walking the streets today because we passed [the 1994 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act] would be dead,” Schumer said. “But when we passed the law, little did we know it had some loopholes in it that we didn’t know at the time. We didn’t know there would be an internet, so we didn’t prohibit internet sales without a background check.”
Schumer saved millions of lives, according to Schumer. The man is a liar and a fraud, and New Yorkers continue to elect him. Sadly, those voters have influence by proxy over gun owners across this vast country.
That statement the senator made about internet loopholes is of course also false. If you’ve ever purchased a gun online, you know very well that it must be shipped to an authorized gun seller who then ensures you pass an FBI background check before you can bring home your new firearm.
There is no loophole, but what would Schumer be doing if not lying? Democrats in Congress have a propensity to invoke “loopholes” that simply don’t exist.
In that vein, Democrats are also seeking to abolish the bureau’s three-day background check policy, which protects prospective gun buyers from being held up by the FBI system for prolonged periods of time. The current system stipulates that if a NICS background check doesn’t come back within three business days, the buyer is cleared to pick up the firearm.
This writer was protected three times last year and once this year when buying a firearm. Each time, after being put on an inexplicable hold with no criminal record, I was contacted by the gun dealer after three business days and passed the background check by default. It didn’t feel like gaming the system via a loophole, and it had never happened prior to June.
H.R. 1446, which would make such situations even more cumbersome for other law-abiding gun buyers, also passed in the House on Thursday. It would permit the FBI to hold background checks for up to 10 days instead of three, USA Today reported.
We were told the change was to prevent massacres like the one in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015 — when white supremacist and overall disturbed individual Dylann Roof picked up a firearm after clearing the three-day hurdle.
Roof’s actions were blamed on what is now known as the so-called “Charleston loophole,” which is essentially a scapegoat to protect the FBI. Roof applied to buy a gun and was cleared by default following the three-day window to get that gun after the FBI failed to confirm his criminal record, which is on the bureau, and not the rest of us.
Roof, of course, massacred nine Christians. But rather than blame Roof or the FBI for its failure to catch Roof’s record, the entire system meant to protect gun owners is now on trial in the House. For people who aren’t deranged killers in states with rational gun laws, something as small as a common name can hold up a gun transfer. It happens every day to people who eventually pick up their guns after the three-day wait.
H.R. 1446 is not scheduled for a Senate vote as of Thursday, but the agenda for House and Senate Democrats is clear: After passing their blue-state bailout known as the $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus package, they’re coming after guns with the backing of President Joe Biden.
The National Rifle Association weighed in on both bills on Thursday, with Jason Ouimet, executive director of the organization’s Institute for Legislative Action, calling them “a transparent attempt by gun control advocates in Congress to restrict the rights of law-abiding Americans under the guise of addressing the violent criminal culture in America.”
Ouimet argued that neither bill would “do anything to solve that problem, and that by “giving full power to unelected government bureaucrats to indefinitely delay and prevent lawful firearm transfers, H.R. 1446 could ultimately destroy the Second Amendment rights guaranteed to every law-abiding American by turning it into a privilege enjoyed by a select few.”
“H.R. 8, so called ‘universal’ background checks, cannot be enforced without a federal gun registry, will not prevent crime, and will turn otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals for simply loaning a firearm to friends or family members. If Congress is serious about the safety of law-abiding citizens, it should have passed concealed carry reciprocity so that Americans can safeguard themselves and their families across state lines and throughout our country during these dangerous times,” he added.
This is likely only the beginning of the coming war on the Second Amendment. More bills will surely come and pass, and each one will slowly erode our rights to own guns.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
