Just passing along a heads up about a combination of potential gun legislation that I learned about this weekend that could be used as a tool to severely restrict gun rights as well as do damage to gun stores nationally.
- HR 8: We are aware of this already - universal background checks. This would end ALL private sales between individuals without passing the transaction through an FFL/NICS. This is a precursor bill that is completely unenforceable without a national database of all firearms owned by all people, which would likely follow and is likely the reason for this bill in the first place.
- HR 1112: Currently NICS checks must, by law, be completed by the FBI within 3 days. If not, the transaction is automatically allowed to go through. HR 1112 nullifies this, prohibiting any sale from progressing without a NICS response, NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES.
The combination of these two laws would:
- Increase the load on the background check infrastructure, slowing it down. This will slow the completion of transactions, and slow gun sales as a side effect.
- Open the door for exceedingly long delays in transactions and sales without repercussion. In the hands of anti-gun legislatures and executives, this could be used as a punitive restriction while they claim they are “doing the best that they can”. Again this hurts gun sales and stores. They could also starve the background check processing departments of financial and staffing resources to make such a claim seem plausible (and more effective from their standpoint). How many gun shops can survive prolonged delays in every sale?
- Use various excuses such as national emergencies, “mass shooting epidemics”, etc. to suspend background checks while they “study” and “debate”. How about Nancy Pelosi's "national emergency" threat over gun violence should they take the Presidency in the future?
While at present it seems somewhat unlikely that HR 8 will pass, HR 1112 could slip through as being seemingly innocuous and "common sense". Minimally, this shows that the politicians have become very savvy and comfortable with convoluted schemes hidden in the background noise of politics to get to where they want to go. This may or may not be a coordinated effort, but the results would be the same.
- HR 8: We are aware of this already - universal background checks. This would end ALL private sales between individuals without passing the transaction through an FFL/NICS. This is a precursor bill that is completely unenforceable without a national database of all firearms owned by all people, which would likely follow and is likely the reason for this bill in the first place.
- HR 1112: Currently NICS checks must, by law, be completed by the FBI within 3 days. If not, the transaction is automatically allowed to go through. HR 1112 nullifies this, prohibiting any sale from progressing without a NICS response, NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES.
The combination of these two laws would:
- Increase the load on the background check infrastructure, slowing it down. This will slow the completion of transactions, and slow gun sales as a side effect.
- Open the door for exceedingly long delays in transactions and sales without repercussion. In the hands of anti-gun legislatures and executives, this could be used as a punitive restriction while they claim they are “doing the best that they can”. Again this hurts gun sales and stores. They could also starve the background check processing departments of financial and staffing resources to make such a claim seem plausible (and more effective from their standpoint). How many gun shops can survive prolonged delays in every sale?
- Use various excuses such as national emergencies, “mass shooting epidemics”, etc. to suspend background checks while they “study” and “debate”. How about Nancy Pelosi's "national emergency" threat over gun violence should they take the Presidency in the future?
While at present it seems somewhat unlikely that HR 8 will pass, HR 1112 could slip through as being seemingly innocuous and "common sense". Minimally, this shows that the politicians have become very savvy and comfortable with convoluted schemes hidden in the background noise of politics to get to where they want to go. This may or may not be a coordinated effort, but the results would be the same.