Opinion

New Jersey – -(AmmoLand.com)- As a New Jersey small business owner, I’m painfully familiar with government red tape. As a New Jersey gun owner, I’m painfully familiar with the government’s distrust and overregulation of a Constitutionally protected right. Now the 119th Congress is aspiring to pour more salt in that wound in the name of H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019.

You can ignore the title because it’s not a bipartisan bill; hardly any are these days. But what you can’t overlook are the additional hardships this bill would impose on law-abiding gun owners.

We’re told that H.R. 8 will prevent bad guys from getting their hands on guns. That would be great if criminals purchased guns legally. Unfortunately, they’re criminals and seldom follow the law. A recent Bureau of Justice Statistics report from the Department of Justice tells us just that. Released in January of 2019, the report found that the overwhelming majority of people convicted of gun-related crimes obtained those guns by stealing them, buying them on the black market, or through a straw purchase (where someone with a clean record buys a gun for a criminal). H.R. 8 does nothing to prevent any of those crimes.

What it does prevent is the private transfer of firearms. Not just private sales but private transfers as well.

That means an employee who is being harassed by a crazy ex-boyfriend can’t borrow a firearm for self-protection. It says my stepdaughter wouldn’t be allowed to borrow a firearm if she moves into a sketchy neighborhood. Not without finding a federally licensed firearms dealer to conduct a background check first. And after the threat has passed? When the crazy ex-boyfriend has gone to jail or moved away? Then I have to pass a background check before she returns my gun. How does this make any sense?

The sad part is people like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi already know that universal background checks don’t work. She knows this because Johns Hopkins and UC Davis released a study in December of 2018 that said California’s universal background check system had no impact on gun deaths. If universal background checks had no impact on gun deaths in California – a state with the strictest gun laws in the nation according to the Giffords Law Center – then why would anyone think they could have an impact on a national scale?

Probably because the only impact people like Pelosi and Michael Bloomberg (former New York City mayor and founder of multiple gun control groups including Moms Demand Action) are concerned with is the impact laws have on good, honest, law-abiding gun owners. H.R. 8 is one of those laws.

We elect politicians to improve our lives. To expand our freedoms and protect our rights. Passing the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019 will do none of those things. What it will do is outlaw a perfectly legal activity, make it more difficult for honest people to protect themselves and their loved ones, and have no impact on crime.

We didn’t send those politicians to Washington to make life easier for the bad guys. Maybe it’s time to remind them of that.

About Anthony P Colandro

Anthony P Colandro, a lifelong New Jerseyan, and Second Amendment activist, is the owner of Woodland Park Range and is running for the 2019 NRA Board of Directors.

The post “Bipartisan” Firearms Background Checks Bill Is More Useless Federal Legislation appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Opinion

Fairfax, VA – -(Ammoland.com)- The Nancy Pelosi Speaker Era 2.0 continued on Wednesday, Feb. 13, with a markup of H.R 8, the “universal” background checks bill, in the House Judiciary Committee. Following on the heels of last week’s Judiciary Committee hearing, the same committee held a markup on Wednesday, where amendments and corrections to H.R. 8 could be considered.

Unfortunately, the markup was clearly designed to allow the anti-gun Democrats who control the Judiciary Committee to grandstand and promote attacks on law-abiding gun owners, rather than consider efforts to combat violent crime.

It was clear from the outset that the anti-gun Democrats had no interest in considering reasonable approaches to addressing violent crime. The committee’s Ranking Member, Doug Collins (R-Ga.), offered the first amendment to the bill, which sought other approaches to combating crime rather than “universal” background checks, which study after study have shown to be ineffective, or their effectiveness inconclusive. His amendment was simply dismissed as not germane, without any discussion of its merits.

Please Contact Your U.S. Representative.

Ask Them to Vote Against H.R. 8 and H.R. 1112! H.R. 8 and H.R. 1112 cause undue burden's to law-abiding gun owners!

CLICK HERE TO CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES!

Representative F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) offered the next amendment. It simply sought to add to the list of exemptions from the “universal” background check requirements anyone who possessed a valid permit to carry a firearm. Adoption of the amendment would have still left the bill as an anti-gun mess, but it was a reasonable proposal considering carry permit holders already undergo a background check in order to obtain their permits. The anti-gun majority made clear they were not interested in anything reasonable, and the amendment was defeated.

The Sensenbrenner amendment was attacked by anti-gunners on the committee with ridiculous arguments and inaccurate information. Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) objected because not all states that issue permits to carry firearms require any training, even though the “universal” background checks mandated by H.R. 8 have no training requirements.Representative David Cicilline (D-R.I.) objected because, according to him, some states have no issuing requirements for permits, which is patently false. Other anti-gun legislators tried to claim that some states that issue permits after an applicant has submitted to a background check actually don’t check an applicant’s criminal history.

This process repeated itself throughout the day, with other amendments seeking to make even minor improvements to a monumentally bad piece of legislation being rejected similarly, either voted down or ruled not germane, by the anti-gun majority and Chair. This includes simple amendments that merely sought to put a cap on the fees that could be charged for a “universal” background check.

The Chair even spoke out against an amendment that sought to exempt victims of domestic violence from “universal” background check provisions of H.R. 8 by raising the concern of “evidentiary standards” when determining if the victim is actually a victim, even though anti-gun politicians have consistently refused to acknowledge “evidentiary standards” when promoting legislation to strip gun owners of their firearms.

After several hours, H.R. 8 was passed after anti-gun Democrats rejected every amendment offered by Republicans. The Judiciary Committee then took up H.R. 1112, legislation that would change current law that allows an FFL the option to transfer a firearm after three days if a NICS check is delayed. That discussion was much shorter, being dealt with in under an hour.

Although the actual language for H.R. 1112 has still not been made available on Congress.gov, as anti-gun Democrats have been apparently trying to rush legislation to the floor before it is truly ready for consideration, Chairman Nadler explained that the bill would extend the “delay” period from three days to 10 business days. However, after 10 business days, the transfer is not allowed to go through. The prospective purchaser must first file a petition with the Attorney General. If a “proceed” message is still not received 10 business days after the filing of the petition, only then may the transfer go through. However, NICS checks are only valid for 30 calendar days, so this new proposed proceed provision appears to be practically worthless because in almost all scenarios it will take more than 30 calendar days to accomplish.

The entire premise of H.R. 1112 is predicated on the notion that it would have prevented the horrific murders committed in Charleston, S.C., on June 17, 2015. Proponents have argued that the perpetrator of that crime would not have been able to commit his crime if the background check had taken longer. That, however, is simply not true, as the violent murderer was not prohibited from purchasing the firearm he used and his terrible crime took place more than two months after he first attempted to buy a firearm, so even the extended delay of H.R. 1112 would have had no effect in his case.

Ranking Member Collins may have best summarized this week’s markup and last week’s hearing in his opening remarks on Wednesday, when he stated, “I’m sad the bill before us represents another missed opportunity to prevent violence in our communities.” Neither H.R. 8 nor H.R. 1112 will do anything to address violent crime, but both will surely create problems for otherwise law-abiding gun owners and prospective gun owners.

Please thank Ranking Member Collins and the 13 other members of the House Judiciary Committee who voted against the misguided and ineffective legislation that is designed to score political points, not address crime, violence or mental health.

Please use this link to let your elected officials know that you won’t be blamed for the actions of violent criminals. Ask your Representative to oppose H.R.8 and H.R 1112. Additionally, you may call your U.S. Representative using the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.

About:
Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org

The post H.R. 8 Markup: Liberal Democrats Markup Gun Control Legislation appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Opinion
H.R. 8 Mandates “Universal” Background Checks.

Fairfax, VA – -(Ammoland.com)- Today, the newly minted anti-gun leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives passed its first gun control measure by a 240 -190 vote, offering further proof that anti-gun politicians are more interested in scoring cheap political points than doing their jobs and passing meaningful legislation that would make Americans safer.

Chris W. Cox, the executive director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA), issued the following response to the passage of H.R. 8:

“This extreme gun-control bill will make criminals out of law-abiding Americans. It will also make it harder for good people to defend themselves and their families. Criminals, on the other hand, will continue to get their firearms the way they always have – through the black market, theft, and straw purchases. Forcing more government paperwork and additional fees on good people trying to exercise a constitutional right will do nothing to make Americans safer. On behalf of our members and supporters, the National Rifle Association will continue to fight to preserve the constitutionally protected right to self-defense.”

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump issued a statement of administration action publicly stating he would veto H.R. 8.

WhiteHouse on H.R. 8:

” The Administration opposes H.R. 8 because it would impose burdensome requirements on certain firearm transactions. H.R. 8 would require that certain transfers, loans, gifts, and sales of firearms be processed by a federally licensed importer, manufacturer, or dealer of firearms. H.R. 8 would therefore impose permanent record-keeping requirements and limitless fees on these everyday transactions.

H.R. 8 contains very narrow exemptions from these requirements, and these exemptions would not sufficiently protect the Second Amendment right of individuals to keep and bear arms. For example, unless an exemption applies, both the act of leaving a weapon in the temporary care of a neighbor while traveling and the act of later retrieving that weapon would require processing by a licensed entity under H.R. 8. Also, unless such an exemption applies, domestic violence victims would be prohibited from borrowing a firearm for self-defense without first having the transaction go through such a licensed entity. The extensive regulation required by H.R. 8 is incompatible with the Second Amendment’s guarantee of an individual right to keep arms.

By overly extending the minimum time that a licensed entity is required to wait for background check results, H.R. 1112 would unduly impose burdensome delays on individuals seeking to purchase a firearm. For this reason, the Administration opposes the legislation. H.R. 1112 would require a federally licensed firearms importer, manufacturer, or dealer that initiates a mandatory background check on an individual seeking to purchase a firearm to wait ten business days on results before processing the transaction. If the Federal Government fails to complete the background check within this window of time, the individual seeking to purchase the firearm may petition the Government for permission to proceed with the transfer.

Under H.R. 1112, the licensed entity would be required to wait an additional ten business days after such a petition is filed before it is allowed to proceed with processing the transaction. Currently, such background checks are considered invalid 30 calendar days after the date the licensed entity initiated them. As the bill is written, therefore, an individual must file their petition on the earliest day possible. If they fail to do so, H.R. 1112 would effectively prohibit some firearms purchases from being processed because the initiated background check would be considered invalid before the end of the second ten-business-day waiting period. Allowing the Federal Government to restrict firearms purchases through bureaucratic delay would undermine the Second Amendment’s guarantee that law-abiding citizens have an individual right to keep and bear arms.

If H.R. 8, or H.R. 1112, are presented to the President, his advisors would recommend he veto the bill.”

Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America's oldest civil rights and sportsmen's group. More than five million members strong, NRA continues to uphold the Second Amendment and advocates enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation's leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the armed services. Follow the NRA on social at Facebook.com/NationalRifleAssociation and Twitter @NRA.

About:
Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org

The post U.S. House Passes Extreme Gun Control Bill, President Trump Threatens VETO appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Anthony Colandro ~ “not only fighting for your rights in New Jersey but Federally as well!”

Washington, DC – -(AmmoLand.com)- A host of Republican congressional members and second amendmentt actvists gathered outside the Capitol Building on Tuesday to express opposition to a pair of anti-gun pieces of legislation that House Democrats are poised to bring to the floor for a vote.

Several House Republican lawmakers held a press conference Tuesday on Capitol Hill to protest two Democrat bills that would restrict Americans’ Second Amendment right.House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), House Republican Conference Chairman Liz Cheney (R-WY), House Judiciary Ranking Member Doug Collins (R-GA), and Reps. Phil Roe (R-TN), Richard Hudson (R-NC), Randy Weber (R-TX), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), Greg Steube (R-FL), and activists Like Anthony Colandro from Gun For Hire in New Jersey attended and spoke against HR 8 and HR 1112 – Universal Background Checks.

“HR 8 is taking the fears and concerns of a nation over gun violence and perpetrating a fraud over them,” said Republican Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee. “[Democrats are] preying upon the very victims that they’re wanting to supposedly help by putting a bill out there that will not help them, by constantly bringing up the mass violence instances such as at schools and theaters and others — they’re saying this will help.”

“The problem with this bill, and they [Democrats] just exposed it to themselves, is the Obama administration’s Department of Justice said if you’re going to at least try universal background checks, you have to have a registry,” Collins continued.

Update: The Democrat house majority passed H/R. 8 and H.R. 1112 by a 240 -190 vote anyway.

The post GOP & 2A Activists Hold Press Conference on Universal Background Check Bill ~ VIDEO appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

At this point this and the second bill — an expansion of the number of days a dealer must wait to have background checks completed from three to 10 days — look to be symbolic. It’s meant to garner publicity and gin up demand from a public that only “knows” what it’s told about guns by those who want to swindle them out of their rights.

That means — barring an exploitable atrocity — the Republican-controlled Senate should be able to block the bills, and if they falter, President Donald Trump is believed to be prepared to veto them. He’s savvy enough not to burn all his bridges like he’s doing with “bump stocks” and other outlier RKBA issues that most gun owners believe (probably) won’t personally affect them. There are, of course, no guarantees, and politicians are creatures of self-preservation if nothing else, but the conventional wisdom says the gun vote is still a force you can’t cross certain lines with.

Those lines don’t appear as strong as they were a few years ago, though, and the fact that some Republicans appear ready to “compromise” with the gun-grabbers is something we will only see more of as long as those who do are allowed to get away with it. That’s why we see more and more coming out for “red flag laws,” and “bump stock bans,” raising the age to buy rifles, and even “assault weapon” bans.

As long as they keep getting rewarded after brazenly cheating on us, what’s their incentive to remain faithful?

We don’t need to rehash the flaws of “universal background checks” here, except to note an edict only the “law-abiding” will obey is hardly “universal,” and that no less an authority than the National Institute of Justice has admitted:

“Effectiveness depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring gun registration…”

That’s certainly another of the incremental goals on the way down Nancy Pelosi’s “slippery slope,” but it’s a mask the more restrained in the gun-grab camp deem too early to pull off.

So, for now, we’re left with noise, with Democrat photo ops and with the media helping spook the herd to gin up demand for more infringements. But rather than just hunker down and wait for things to blow over, there is something productive gun owners can do with this latest betrayal: Learn who the “Republicans” are and do what you can to make them feel your pain.

“Republican” co-sponsors of this latest Intolerable Act were:

• Rep. Peter King (NY-2)
• Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-1)
• Rep. Brian J. Mast (FL-18)
• Rep. Fred Upton (MI-6)
• Rep. Christopher H. Smith (NJ-4)

Joining them in voting for this attack on gun-owning constituents were:

• Vern Buchanan (FL-16)
• Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25)
• Will Hurd (TX-23)

What incentive will voting for “Republicans” like these give the GOP to offer better candidates?

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

The post Gun Background Check Bill Won’t Stop Violence but Helps ID Republican Turncoats appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Washington D.C. –-(Ammoland.com)- H.R.8, known as the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, passed the US House of Representatives.

The bill passed the chamber of Congress by a vote of 240 to 190. News media outlets like CNN claim that the bill passed with bipartisan support. Looking at the breakdown of the vote, the proposed law did not enjoy as much bipartisan support as CNN claimed.

Out of the 197 Republican members of the House only eight voted for the measure. Two Democrats, Jared Golden of Maine and Collin Peterson of Minnesota, joined the other 189 Republican members of the House in voting against it.

The bill was co-sponsored by Reps. Mike Thompson (D-CA), and Peter King (R-NY). The Republican has a long history of embracing gun control. In the past, he has supported gun control measures such as the “no fly, no buy” bill which would have prevented people on the no-fly list from buying a gun.

The “no fly, no buy” bill would have blocked people who are on a secret no-fly list from purchasing a firearm with no recourse. There is no due process when being put on one of these lists and flying is not a right, but purchasing a gun is a Constitutionally protected right. It is support for draconian laws like these that have earned King a “D rating” with the NRA.

King claims that the passage of the bill will not affect most people.

“This is not going to affect more than probably less than 1% of the American people and the ones it will affect either suffer from mental illness or are criminals,” King said in a press conference. “So to me, it's a phony issue being raised by some of the gun groups.”

Gun rights advocates argue that the majority of those denied by the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) are false positives. The stats back this up in most states with the successful appeal rate being that of greater than 50%.

According to the Government Accountability Office, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) attempted to buy 72 guns illegally without going through a background check and all the sales failed. Fifty-two of the sellers refused to sell the guns to the undercover agents.

Groups like the NRA-ILA use these statistics to prove that universal background checks are ineffective. Others believe that universal background checks will lead to a gun registry. They believe a national firearms registry will lead to gun confiscations.

Nancy Pelosi has made gun control her top priority in exchange for the support of the new far-left wing of the House in her bid to be elected as the Speaker of the House, and it seems like she is keeping her new promise. With these new far-left members the influence of groups like Moms Demand Action, the Brady Campaign, Everytown for Gun Safety, and former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords has increased.

“Today's historic gun safety victory in Congress is a testament to courage,” Giffords said of the bill. “When the days were darkest when it looked like the gun lobby's money, and influence would forever silence any debate in Washington about stronger gun laws, courage shone through.”

The bill will now move to the Senate where it most likely will be dead on arrival. The Republicans hold the majority in the Senate, and it would take a super majority of 60 to advance the bill to President Trump's desk.

About John Crump

John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. He is the former CEO of Veritas Firearms, LLC and is the co-host of The Patriot News Podcast which can be found at www.blogtalkradio.com/patriotnews. John has written extensively on the patriot movement including 3%'ers, Oath Keepers, and Militias. In addition to the Patriot movement, John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and is currently working on a book on leftist deplatforming methods and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, on Facebook at realjohncrump, or at www.crumpy.com.

The post Universal Background Check Bill Passes with Help From Turncoat GOP Members appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

The goal should be to reduce crime. Burdening law-abiding citizens doesn't stop armed criminals. We need crime-control, not more ‘gun-control'!

USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, admits that so-called “gun control” and crime control are different things, with different goals. Crime control focuses on criminals, putting them in prison, and develops reforms, cleans out neighborhoods and makes society safer—a key role of government.

So-called “gun control” in contrast controls the public with paperwork, record keeping, delays, bureaucracy, and big brother's nose where it doesn't belong. Many people see and understand this. Too many, including politicians pandering to voters do not recognize this fact.

Democrats' actions show disdain for the right to self-defense, which gets ignored in proposals for so-called “gun control,” and at the expense of crime-reduction efforts.

Enacted right after the Democrats' stunning affront to the Constitution in H.R.8, where innocently handing a gun to a friend would become a felony (a crimeless act), House Bill 1112, passed in the House on 2/28/19, adds lengthy delays to legally shopping at retail, to cover for law-enforcement shortcomings. JPFO denounced this attempt to further burden innocent citizens without focusing instead on armed criminals who cause mayhem and chaos on our streets. Even if identified, criminals in the new plan go free. The bad law helped move JPFO's symbolic Gun Confiscation Clock ahead by two minutes, to just 12 minutes to midnight.

House Bill 1112 now moves on to the Republican-controlled Senate. Please contact your Senators and tell them to vote NO for the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2019.

“The entire new outcry and push for more “gun control” laws came from children at Parkland high school who want to stop school massacres, a truly noble cause,” said Alan Gottlieb, the CEO of JPFO. “But this bill has nothing to do with that, it literally avoids the reason the children are so upset—how do Democrats get away with such a bait and switch?” he asked.

“Legislators promise they will work to end crime and violence, and then press ahead to limit the public's rights and ability to defend itself. It borders on insanity.”

JPFO is calling for gun education and marksmanship training in schools, where the subject is tightly censored.

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, http://www.jpfo.org is America’s most aggressive civil-rights organization, dedicated to destroying the notion of “gun control” as any kind of credible public-policy position. So-called “gun control” does not control guns and doesn’t control criminal behavior. What it does do is disarm the innocent, leaving them helpless in the face of criminals, tyrannical governments and genocide. History repeatedly proves this fact. Founded in 1989 by Aaron Zelman as a response to the Holocaust, JPFO speaks with the moral authority and tenacious commitment of survivors of persecution and knows that surrendering your personal and family safety to government protection courts disaster. “You don’t have to be Jewish to fight by our side, you just have to love liberty.” www.jpfo.org

The post Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2019, Restricts Gun Rights & Freedom: Take Action appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Opinion By Larry Keane

USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Last week a group of Democrats in Congress held a press conference to discuss gun control. It’s not entirely clear why their remarks were newsworthy. It was simply another instance of gun control advocates advocating for gun control in front of the media. Their hook was that it had been 100 days since the House passage of a bill requiring universal background checks for every private party firearm transfer.

Yes, all retailers are already required to run background checks through the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), regardless of whether the transfer is made through a store or at a gun show. But that isn’t good enough for those who wish to control the actions of every individual seeking to exercise their Constitutional rights under the Second Amendment.

And H.R. 8, their universal background check bill, sounds like the next logical law to pass when covered in the media. However, as we have said before, it can’t work.

Criminals Don’t Respect Laws

It can’t work because criminals who are prohibited by law from owning a firearm will not comply, as they do not comply with the existing laws. Government surveys have shown time and time again that the vast majority of prisoners obtained their guns from the black market or from theft.

There are zero indications that they will follow a new law requiring them to call the FBI as they are purchasing a stolen firearm on the street.

It can’t work because the only way to enforce the law will be to create a massive government database with a list of every gun owner and which firearms they own. That way, they can track whether a background check was run when the firearm was sold or given as a gift to another individual. In a time when every database is hackable and all personal information online is vulnerable, the last thing our country needs is a gun owner database.

Not an Antidote

According to the members of Congress who participated in this media availability debacle, H.R. 8 is needed to stem the “epidemic of gun violence.” As we have noted many times before, guns are not a disease and are used in healthy, legal ways every day. When asked whether the bill would have prevented the recent tragic shooting in Virginia Beach, of course the answer was no, as the shooter had already passed more than one background check. The illegal actions of criminals must be addressed, as well as the rising suicide trends and the fortunately rare cases of unintentional injuries. But H.R. 8 is not a solution.

A real newsworthy event would be for the Democrats pushing the gun control agenda to admit that H.R. 8 will not lower crime rates or address the gaps in our mental health system. How about a press conference to recognize the notably effective programs led and funded by the firearms and ammunition industry that help make our communities safer?

About NSSF

The National Shooting Sports Foundation is the trade association for the firearms industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of more than 11,000 manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations and publishers. For more information, visit nssf.org.

The post 100 Days Of Democrats’ Gun Control Nonsense appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Child gun deaths lower in states with stricter gun laws,” ABC News claims in a Wednesday “report” on a new “study” rehashing old deceptions. Yet another pediatrician is making the preposterous claim that citizen disarmament edicts, specifically so-called “universal background checks,” will save young lives.

Playing fast and loose with talking point terminology is evident right out of the starting gate, with the headline and the assertion that “More than 10 children die from firearms every day, and another 50 are injured by firearms daily.” Unless those firearms are self-animated and have wills of their own, intentionally leaving out the human actor is a deliberate deception.

This time out the “researchers” are judging the U.S. against “high-income countries,” a  term fabricated for a purpose.  Obama called them “advanced countries.” Some years back they were using the equally meaningless “highly developed countries” swindle until it was made obvious they were cherry-picking nations and deliberately leaving out some that had higher GDPs, economic complexities and literacy rates in order to “make their case.”

They also conveniently ignore countries with much stricter “gun laws” that have higher murder rates and numbers. The distinction is important because the headline says “deaths” are “lower” in more restrictive states, while the “study” synopsis says they have a “lower rate.” That means a high-population state can have plenty more murders than a low-population state yet claim a much lower rate, as any typical weekend in Chicago will demonstrate.

Note wherever you look, the vast majority of homicides committed with firearms take place in Democrat-controlled urban areas. If you take those out of the equation, the fact that it’s not the guns will be so obvious even a “progressive” pediatrician could see it – if she wanted to.

Speaking of which, of the “21,000 children” they say “died from guns” [!] we find “There were 14,583 deaths for 18-21-year-olds…”

Good grief, we’re talking gang-bangers here. At least that puts to the lie any notion that “background checks” will be “universal.” We’re also talking legal adults, pediatrics childcare admissions criteria notwithstanding. We’re talking people old enough to vote, to marry, to serve in the military and on many police forces.

Bring the age down to 16 and we’re talking a whole new population of Democrat voters if Nancy Pelosi gets her way.  And we know how they’re being manipulated by the older prohibitionists to vote away their birthrights.

“[T]his is a nonpartisan issue for us,” gun-grabbing pediatrician du jour Monika Goyal disingenuously claims, deliberately omitting the fact that it’s a huge issue for the Democrats. “This is not a political debate for us. We’re trying to figure out how to keep kids safe.”

Finally, there’s a point on which we can agree. Ultimately, it’s not a political debate for gun owners who will not disarm regardless of whatever evil and foolish edicts the monopoly of violence cultists enact. That's because we know the best way to ensure the security of a free state and keep everyone safe hinges on the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

The post ‘Child Gun Death’/Gun Law Correlation a Repackaging of an Old Con Job appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Opinion

USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- H.R. 8 is sold as a “background check bill” to keep guns away from bad people, but we know from 50 years experience that less than 1% of the bad people who fail the background checks are prosecuted.

Make no mistake, this is ONLY about setting up a process which can be later used for registration of guns and gun owners.

What is needed are not more background check laws, but enforcement of existing laws. If bad guys are illegally trying to purchase a firearm, they need to be punished. The lawmakerspushing H.R. 8 do not want to do that. They are not serious about stopping bad people from getting guns, they only care about gutting the Second Amendment.

Items not mentioned by most critics of H.R. 8 are:

1- There is no exception for Curio & Relic FFL holders as being exempt-only transfers to dealers, manufacturers and importers, and specifically defined close family members. This will end the ability of C&R FFL collectors to get items shipped direct, or purchase C&R handguns out of state, or ship direct to another C&R FFL holder. There are NO exceptions for C&R collectible guns, most of which are 50-120 years old.

2- The requirement for buyer and seller to be in front of an FFL dealer while they do the background check is a potential Trojan Horse to END ALL GUN SHOWS. If BATF writes the implementing rules to require them to be done at the FFL's “place of business” it will end any transfers at a gun show, except from a dealer's inventory to a person passing a check at the show. No “private sales” can be completed unless the ATF rules are written to allow a dealer to do that at a show. This threat to the existence of gun shows must not be underestimated. Remember, gun shows are the meeting place and rallying point for gun rights activists. Ending gun shows “would be a feature, not a bug” if they can write the rules cleverly.

3- H.R.8 allows charging a fee for a dealer to handle a transfer- but amount is unlimited. Transfer fees typically run $20-100 but mostly around $30-40 per gun. Although charged by the dealer, it is a de facto “2nd Amendment poll tax.” FIX; Mandate that all police stations be required to process background checks at no cost. Police stations are all over, gun shops may be many miles away.

4- H.R.8 specifically prohibits establishment of a national gun registry. But, it establishes the de facto process to gather the data which will reside in the dealer's bound books forever. When a dealer goes out of business, their records are sent to ATF. Scanning and OCR technology can convert all dealer records they have, or care to photocopy during dealer inspections, into digital databases in short order. That may not occur right away, but only a fool thinks the gun grabbers will not push for a national gun registry as the next step when their plans fail to stop criminals and crazy people. A one line amendment in a “must pass” appropriations bill could repeal the prohibition on a gun registry.

5- The bill has a known built-in loophole that can only be closed by mandating universal gun registration. A loophole the anti-gunners will demand be fixed as soon as the bill becomes law. As proposed, there is no way for the government to enforce the law, as there is no way to know whether or not a person who purchased a gun from a private individual actually had a background check performed. When confronted by law enforcement, an individual could tell which dealer performed the check and hope that that dealer properly kept records. But a person who violated the law could simply refuse to answer any questions, and other than searching every paper record of every dealer in the country, there is no way law enforcement could determine whether or not the check was performed. The only way to prevent this is to mandate universal gun registration. The anti-gunners would love to implement such a requirement today, but they know it is not politically viable. They are choosing instead to get half today and the rest tomorrow.

6- Many dealers will not handle private transfers–Walmart ended all gun sales in New Mexico because they did not want strangers bringing guns into their stores, and the potential hassles or risks for failed checks. If no one is available to handle transfers, no guns can be transferred.

About Utah Shooting Sports Council:

The Utah Shooting Sports Council represents the citizens of Utah who safely and legally own and use firearms, exercising rights guaranteed under both the United States and Utah constitutions. Visit: http://utahshootingsportscouncil.org/

The post The Dark Side of the Universal Background Check Bill HR8 appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Opinion

Ft Collins, CO –-(Ammoland.com)- This past week DJT (Donlad J Trump), responding to last weekend’s shooting incidences in El Paso, TX, and Dayton, OH, called for “meaningful background checks” to be imposed at a federal level upon any American citizen who wants to make a retail purchase of a firearm.

As I listened, it struck me:

“Wait! We already have an instant background check system in place. Our NICS System has been in mandatory operation, nationwide, since 1998!”

Is our current NICS System suddenly “meaningless?”

Imitating his Democrat/socialist opponents, DJT never got specific, never told us exactly what he means by “meaningful” background checks.

Our current NICS System performs a thorough records check of a perspective gun purchaser’s criminal history.

Most felonies, particularly violent felonies, will instantly bounce the application, as will current arrest warrants and protection orders, and documented mental-health deficiencies.

We’re now left to wonder what additional information about an individual is to be added to the NICS-check, in an effort to make it “meaningful!”

Will we now include rumors, speculation, and supposition?

• Will social-media presentations/opinions arbitrarily deemed “inappropriate,” (ie: politically incorrect) now bounce my application?
• Will letters-to-the-editor of local newspapers containing “divergent” opinions, similarly veto my chance to be armed?
• Will my membership in certain organizations, like NRA, GOA, RAC (Rock Against Communism), represent an automatic prohibition?
• Will my use of certain non-government-approved language, like personal pronouns, or my occasionally thinking non-government-approved thoughts, do the same thing?

Gee Mr President, just how “perfect” do I have to be in order to exercise my Second-Amendment rights as an American citizen?

Just how do I go about “proving” to your satisfaction that I’m not mentally ill, nor in another arbitrary category of citizens whom someone has offhandedly decided “should not have guns?”

“Nipping in the bud shoots of arbitrary power is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.” ~ John Quincy Adams

/John

About John Farnam & Defense Training International, Inc

As a defensive weapons and tactics instructor John Farnam will urge you, based on your own beliefs, to make up your mind in advance as to what you would do when faced with an imminent lethal threat. You should, of course, also decide what preparations you should make in advance if any. Defense Training International wants to make sure that their students fully understand the physical, legal, psychological, and societal consequences of their actions or in-actions.

It is our duty to make you aware of certain unpleasant physical realities intrinsic to the Planet Earth. Mr. Farnam is happy to be your counselor and advisor. Visit: www.defense-training.com

The post “Meaningful” Background Checks? Whatever That Means? appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “A dangerous gap in our federal gun laws lets people buy guns without passing a background check,” Giffords Law Center claims. “Under current law, unlicensed sellers—people who sell guns online, at gun shows, or anywhere else without a federal dealer’s license—can transfer firearms without having to run any background check whatsoever.

“Because of this loophole, domestic abusers, people with violent criminal records, and people prohibited for mental health reasons can easily buy guns from unlicensed sellers with no background check in most states,” the Gungrabby Gabby group elaborates. “In fact, an estimated 22% of US gun owners acquired their most recent firearm without a background check—which translates to millions of Americans acquiring millions of guns, no questions asked, each year.”

We could argue with their numbers and their claims, including how you’d stop such acquisitions, especially when no less a source than the Bureau of Justice Statistics tells us:

“An estimated 287,400 prisoners had possessed a firearm during their offense. Among these, more than half (56%) had either stolen it (6%), found it at the scene of the crime (7%), or obtained it off the street or from the underground market (43%). Most of the remainder (25%) had obtained it from a family member or friend, or as a gift. Seven percent had purchased it under their own name from a licensed firearm dealer.”

No one thinks that will change and that criminals will suddenly become “law-abiding” if new edicts are passed, do they? Still, the fact that the gun prohibitionists are mentioning the “millions of guns” already out there beyond government cognizance, corroborates another official assessment, this one from the DOJ’s National Institute of Justice in its “Summary of Select Firearm Violence Prevention Strategies”:

“Universal background checks … Effectiveness depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring gun registration…”

That and fear of subsequent confiscation are the biggest objections most gun owners have to background checks, with a smaller subset of us “shall not be infringed” types objecting because those words are pretty clear. But what if there were a way to validate that a gun purchaser was not a “prohibited person” without creating a record of who he is or what he bought—if anything?

That’s what the Blind Identification Database System, or BIDS, is all about.

“In BIDS, the word ‘blind’ refers to the fact that the government cannot detect who is attempting to buy or has bought a firearm and thus cannot add this person's name to a registry of gun owners. Nor can gun dealers randomly view a list of persons who have been denied the right to buy, own, and use firearms.”

I’m not going to go into a Cliffs Notes version here. I’ve written about the subject extensively over the years and there’s enough information at the above link—and at my War on Guns blog—for those interested in learning more.

While there’s no denying that BIDS would greatly reduce the risk of confiscations, I still won’t endorse it either as a way to validate private sales or to “improve” existing transfers through dealers. It’s still a prior restraint. Even though it’s “better,” it’s still an infringement, and if millions more gun owners took that position and then got effectively involved, we wouldn't need to argue with each other over compromises in the first place.

If something like this passed and replaced the intrusive NICS that NRA, NSSF and the Republicans have demanded to “fix,” I’d still be urging noncompliance with prior restraints, and pointing out that anyone who can’t be trusted with a gun can’t be trusted without a custodian.

That said, here’s where BIDS could prove a very useful tool to expose the antis and what they’re really after: If the “commonsense gun safety law groups” truly only want background checks, why would they not promote a system like BIDS, which creates none of the potential registration dangers that create such strong gun owner opposition?

So the question for anti-gun groups pushing “background check” edicts is “Why not BIDS?” After all, they say the reason they want background checks is to stop dangerous people from buying guns.

None will embrace it, even though they have known about BIDS for years. Here’s proof. (And yes, the deliberately indifferent “gun rights groups” have known about it for even longer.)

BIDS provides an opportunity to expose the background check frauds for the liars they are, and to prove they are really after registration. Perhaps if more were aware of that, some of those Republicans, gun owners, and NRA members we’re “told” support background checks might get a clue as to how they’re being swindled out of their birthrights.

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

The post BIDS Can Prove ‘Universal Background Checks’ are Really about Registration appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Gun prohibitionists are overlooking an important new development in the investigation.

USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Anti-gun-rights extremists are moving swiftly to exploit the tragic shooting in Texas to bolster their demand for so-called universal background checks, which gun owners believe is actually an insidious national gun registration scheme.

The Odessa murderer failed a 2014 background check, but he subsequently acquired a firearm via a private transaction. This is an anomaly, since nearly every other mass shooter in recent memory legally purchased their firearms and passed background checks in the process. Two murdered their parents and took their legally purchased guns.

Still, gun control zealots want a sweeping and invasive new national mandate. Public policy should never be decided on a single incident.

Gun prohibitionists hoping to capitalize on this single exception are overlooking an important new development in the investigation. Reports claim the firearm was illegally manufactured and sold, which would preclude the effectiveness of any background check or various other gun laws. But facts never matter to the gun control crowd.

Anti-Second Amendment extremists are presently hailing the decision by Walmart to stop selling most ammunition as well as handguns and modern sporting rifles, the latter because such rifles were used in recent incidents.

Consider this: In 2017, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Commission, 10,874 people died in alcohol-related crashes. That same year, according to the FBI, 403 people were killed with rifles.

Yet suddenly self-righteous Walmart continues to sell alcohol.

The news media, politicians and gun prohibitionists didn’t utter a peep when a legally armed citizen shot a violent madman in a Walmart parking lot last year in Washington state.

When will we see a major newspaper publish an editorial opposing a gun control scheme that penalizes law-abiding citizens? We would like to see where a First Amendment advocate draws the line on an infringement of the Second Amendment.

If we knew what they think is unreasonable, it could open a long-demanded dialogue between anti-gun and pro-rights advocates.

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing, and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.

The post Background Checks Policy Shouldn’t Be Decided On Just Odessa appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Opinion

Fairfax, VA – -(Ammoland.com)- Gun control laws aren’t about stopping violent criminals, they are about burdening law-abiding gun owners.

Few pieces of anti-gun legislation illustrate this fact better than H.R.1705/S.1924, which would extend anti-gun lawmakers’ cumbersome so-called “universal” background check proposal to cover the commercial and private transfers of ammunition. On September 23, 2019, this onerous plan received the support of 21 politically minded state attorneys general, who signed a letter to congressional leadership advocating for the proposal.

H.R.1705, introduced by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz (D-Fla.), would treat commercial sales of ammunition in the same manner as the commercial sale of firearms. Under the legislation, any person seeking to purchase ammunition at a store would be required to undergo an FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) check before acquiring the ammunition.

Moreover, the legislation would encumber nearly all private transfers of ammunition. The bill provides,

“It shall be unlawful for any person who is not a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer to transfer ammunition to any other person who is not so licensed, unless a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer has first taken possession of the ammunition for the purpose of complying” with the NICS background check requirement.

The legislation provides a minor exemption for ammunition transfers between immediate family members. There are other narrow exemptions for transfers “at a shooting range or in a shooting gallery or other area designated for the purpose of target shooting,” “while reasonably necessary for the purposes of hunting, trapping, or fishing,” or “while in the presence of the transferor.”

It is difficult to overstate how burdensome this policy would be for gun owners. Forcing all ammunition sales through a Federal Firearms Licensee would put non-FFL ammunition sellers out of business. This would severely curtail the availability of ammunition to the average gun owner. Gun owners would no longer be able to order ammo through the mail directly to their home, as they would need to have an FFL run a background check before taking possession of the ammunition.

Every law-abiding gun owner would be forced into a potentially lengthy background check procedure each time they purchased ammunition. A shooter couldn’t pick up a box of .22lr from his friend on the way to the range. A reloader couldn’t give a friend a new rifle load for them to try out on their own property.

This inconvenience is not a trivial matter. According to the 2018 NICS Operations Report, only 70 percent of NICS checks result in an instant determination, while 10 percent result in a significant delay. Only 1.2 percent of checks result in a denial.

Many individuals experience a delay for merely sharing a personal characteristic similar to that of someone with a potentially prohibiting record in NICS. FBI notes that “A delay response from the NICS Section indicates the subject of the background check has been matched with either a state or federal potentially prohibiting record containing a similar name and/or similar descriptive features (name, sex, race, date of birth, state of residence, social security number, height, weight, or place of birth).”

It is bad enough that such delays are so prevalent when Americans purchase firearms, which are a durable good. Extending this to ammunition sales, which occur with far more frequency because ammunition is a consumable good, would compound this injustice.

Despite being the top law enforcement officials in their respective states, it does not appear as if the anti-gun attorneys general know anything about existing federal gun laws. According to their letter to congress, the proposed legislation,

would make it illegal for individuals who are already “prohibited purchasers” under federal law – including convicted felons, domestic abusers, and individuals with serious mental health conditions – from purchasing or possessing ammunition.

The attorneys general might find it interesting to learn that prohibited persons are already barred from purchasing or possessing ammunition. 18 USC 922(g) provides that it is unlawful for a prohibited person,

to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.

A prohibited person found in possession of a single round of ammunition faces up to 10 years imprisonment.

The attorneys general also appear unaware that the U.S. has already experimented with federal ammunition control. The Gun Control Act of 1968 required all ammunition dealers to be federally licensed. Moreover, the GCA required all ammunition dealers to keep a record of sales of

ammunition to any person unless the licensee notes in his records, required to be kept pursuant to section 923 of this chapter, the name, age, and place of residence of such person if the person is an individual…

The experiment was not a success.

In 1982 .22 caliber rimfire ammunition was removed from the record-keeping requirement. In 1984, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee concluded that ammunition dealer licensing “was not necessary to facilitate legitimate Federal law enforcement interests.” In 1986, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms supported eliminating the record keeping requirement: “The Bureau and the [Treasury] Department have recognized that current recordkeeping requirements for ammunition have no substantial law enforcement value.” As a result, the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986 repealed the ammunition restrictions.

Federal ammunition control is a proven failure. Of course, that’s if the goal was to prevent criminal violence.

The current legislation pushed by Wasserman Schultz and the attorneys general is aimed at harassing law-abiding gun owners to further burden the exercise of their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. If enacted, H.R.1705/S.1924 would achieve this detestable intent.

About:
Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org

The post Anti-gun AGs Push So-called “Universal” Background Checks for Ammunition appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Texas – -(AmmoLand.com)- Precinct Two Commissioner Adrian Garcia has requested AGAIN that the Harris County Commission discuss and consider a resolution supporting so-called “universal” background checks on all firearm sales this coming Tuesday, November 12, 2019. He had previously pulled his item from the Commission's late October agenda, but now it is back on!

Gun control advocates have been relentlessly pushing this issue in the wake of mass shootings in Texas and as part of their national radical anti-gun agenda.

This would put the most populous county in Texas on record as supporting a California-style ban on all private firearm sales – including those between family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers, hunting buddies, and fellow gun club members. While the resolution would not have the force and effect of law, it would call on the U.S. Congress and your Texas Legislature to adopt legislation that requires these transfers be conducted through a federal firearms licensed dealer, which would include extensive federal paperwork, a criminal record check and payment of an undetermined fee. This type of law unduly burdens law-abiding citizens, would be ignored by criminals and is unenforceable without gun registration.

Tuesday’s Commissioners Court meeting is open to the public and begins at 10:00 am in the Commissioners Courtroom, located at 1001 Preston Street, Suite 934 in Houston. It is critical that you turn out for this meeting and voice your opposition to this ineffective, intrusive and unenforceable proposal.
If you wish to speak at the meeting, you must complete the online appearance request form found at: https://appearancerequest.harriscountytx.gov/ and note in the subject matter line: Resolution on Universal Background Checks on ALL Firearms Sales.

If you cannot attend Tuesday’s meeting, please contact Harris County Commissioners and tell them you OPPOSE this resolution. Contact information for commissioners can be found here (be sure to include the County Judge in your emails and phone calls): www.harriscountytx.gov/County-Judge-and-Commissioners/Harris-County-Elected-Officials

For information on why you need to oppose a ban on all private firearm transfers, please read below:

Why You Should Oppose A Ban On Private Firearms Transfers (Aka “Universal” Background Checks)

Imagine being forced to pay fees as high as $50-$100, complete extensive federal paperwork, and obtain government approval before selling or loaning your personally-owned firearms to immediate or extended family members, longtime friends, neighbors, and co-workers, or fellow hunters, competitive shooters, and gun club members.

That's what so-called “universal background check” laws do. They turn innocent conduct into a criminal offense. They target law-abiding gun owners, but not criminals who will scoff at any restriction, including new or expanded background check laws.

In their worst form, these laws mandate background checks on EVERY transfer, sale, purchase, trade, gift, rental, and loan of a firearm between all individuals. All such transactions would need to be conducted through a federally licensed firearms dealer because private individuals cannot access the national instant criminal background check system (NICS) system.

• It is ALREADY a federal felony to be engaged in the business of buying and selling firearms, for livelihood and profit, without having a federal firearm dealers license.
• It is ALREADY a crime for a federally licensed dealer to sell a gun without doing a background check – that's all dealers, everywhere, including at retail stores, gun shows, flea markets or anywhere else.
• Further, it is ALREADY a federal felony for any private person to sell, trade, give, lend, rent or transfer a gun to a person you know or should have known is not legally allowed to own, purchase or possess a firearm. State law also provides penalties for similar unlawful conduct.

The penalty for selling a gun to a person who is a felon, mentally ill, mentally incompetent, a domestic abuser, or an alcohol or drug abuser is a 10-year federal felony. That's now, today, with no changes to the law.

It is even a federal felony to submit false information on a background check form for the purpose of purchasing a firearm.

According to a September 2018 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, 112,090 people were turned down for gun purchases in FY 2017 and there were 12 prosecutions by U.S. Attorneys Offices as of June 2018. Why, when criminals are caught in the act of lying on the form to illegally attempt to purchase a firearm, are they not prosecuted? Why, when existing background check laws are not being enforced, are there calls for expanding those laws to cover private firearms transactions?

As Texas politicians wade into this divisive issue, it’s instructive to look at other states’ experiences with similar laws. California always provides one of the most striking examples of failed gun control policies, including expanded background checks.

In fact, a 2018 study by UC Davis – conducted by noted anti-gun researchers — determined that California’s universal background check law had no impact on gun homicide or suicide rates. Read that again – no impact on homicide or suicide rates.

But let’s look at a few other states which have adopted so-called “universal background check” laws.

A 2017 study by gun control researchers looked at “universal background check” laws in Colorado and Washington State. They found that the laws had “little measurable effect” after they were passed. Further, there wasn’t much difference in the number of background checks that were done after the laws went into effect as compared with the estimated number expected without the law. This was most likely attributable to noncompliance and lack of enforcement. (Washington State did not even have its first charge brought for a violation of that state’s law until after it had been in effect for almost two years.)

Gun control advocates claim overwhelming public support for so-called “universal background check” laws. Yet, voters in Maine defeated an Everytown-backed November 2016 ballot initiative to require background checks on private gun sales and transfers in that state, and Nevada voters only approved a similar measure by less than one percent of the vote, despite Michael Bloomberg’s national gun control organization spending $20M on that effort. Once gun owners and the public become educated on exactly what such a proposal means and how it will impact them, opposition grows significantly.

So-called “universal background checks” are ineffective, intrusive, and unpopular when explained beyond a sound-bite. But — perhaps worst of all — they are UNENFORCEABLE without a firearms registration scheme. A 2013 internal U.S. Department of Justice memo summarizing so-called violence prevention strategies stated that the effectiveness of background checks depends on “requiring gun registration.” That, of course, is what this is all about.

This particular gun control agenda item focuses on peaceable citizens, not violent criminals who obtain guns on the black-market to carry out unspeakable crimes already prohibited under federal and state laws. Instead of stopping crime and eliminating criminal conduct, they are targeting you.

That's why TSRA/NRA members need to oppose and fight these misguided proposals that have nothing whatsoever to do with curbing criminal violence but everything to do with stripping us of our guaranteed civil rights and our freedom.

Texas State Rifle Association

Founded in 1919, the Texas State Rifle Association is the largest firearms and shooting sports organization in Texas with 40,000 members. TSRA is also the largest, award-winning state affiliate of the National Rifle Association and is sanctioned by the Civilian Marksmanship Program. As a part of its public education efforts, the association produces a full-color bimonthly publication, TSRA Sportsman, which updates members on current news, hunter education programs, shooting sports competitions, and important issues effecting their Second Amendment rights. The TSRA also hosts an annual meeting every February that features exciting fund-raising auctions, informative speakers, exhibitors, and other events.

For membership or other information about the Texas State Rifle Association, visit www.TSRA.com or call 512.615.4200.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, the Texas State Rifle Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to defending the rights of law abiding Texans to own, enjoy and use firearms as guaranteed by the Constitutions of the State of Texas and the United States of America. For more information on membership or supporting the Texas State Rifle Association, call 512.615.4200 or visit www.tsra.com.

The post TX: Harris County Commissioners’ Resolution Call a Ban on Private Firearm Transfers appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- A study of the effects of California's institution of Universal Background Checks, along with a state ban of firearms ownership for people who had committed a violent misdemeanor, has been published in The Annals of Epidemiology, volume 30, February, 2020.

The study covered a decade before the laws were passed to a decade after the laws was passed. It found the laws had no effect on firearms homicides or suicides. Here is the abstract of the paper,  from Science Direct:

Purpose

In 1991, California implemented a law that mandated a background check for all firearm purchases with limited exceptions (comprehensive background check or CBC policy) and prohibited firearm purchase and possession for persons convicted within the past 10 years of certain violent crimes classified as misdemeanors (MVP policy). We evaluated the population effect of the simultaneous implementation of CBC and MVP policies in California on firearm homicide and suicide.

Methods

Quasi-experimental ecological study using the synthetic control group methodology. We included annual firearm and nonfirearm mortality data for California and 32 control states for 1981–2000, with secondary analyses up to 2005.

Results

The simultaneous implementation of CBC and MVP policies was not associated with a net change in the firearm homicide rate over the ensuing 10 years in California. The decrease in firearm suicides in California was similar to the decrease in nonfirearm suicides in that state. Results were robust across multiple model specifications and methods.

Conclusions

CBC and MVP policies were not associated with changes in firearm suicide or homicide. Incomplete and missing records for background checks, incomplete compliance and enforcement, and narrowly constructed prohibitions may be among the reasons for these null findings.

About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

The post California Universal Background Checks and Gun Ban: No Positive Effect appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Correction from VCDL. Initially, VCDL mistakenly listed Senator Norment as having voted for Universal Background Checks. It was Senator Hanger. This post has been updated to reflect the correction. Sincere apologies to Senator Norment for the mistake from the Virginia Citizens Defense League:

Virginia – -(AmmoLand.com)- 1. Three gun-control bills pass the Senate, two on party-line votes and one with the help of two Republicans – Dunnavant and Hanger

SB 35, Senator Surovell, guts state gun-law preemption, passed out of the Senate by a party-line vote on January 16. If you are represented by a Democrat, contact him and let him know you disagree strongly with his vote supporting SB 35.

SB 69, Senator Locke, reinstates the old One-Handgun-A-Month law, passed out of the Senate by a party-line vote on January 16. If you are represented by a Democrat, contact him and let him know you disagree strongly with his vote supporting SB 69.

SB 70, Senator Lucas, universal background checks, passed out of the Senate by a 23 to 17 vote on January 16. If you are represented by a Democrat, contact him and let him know you disagree strongly with his vote supporting SB 70.

If you are represented by Republican Senator Dunnavant or Republican Senator Hanger, let them know you are not happy with their vote on SB 70!

All three bills now head to the House, where they will start over again by being sent to a subcommittee for a vote, probably in mid-February.

2. URGENT Action item: Senate Red Flag bill is delayed

Our pressure is working – let's keep it up! SB 240, Senator Barker, a “Red Flag Law” bill, has been passed by (not voted on) for two days in a row on the Senate Floor. That indicates some problem with the bill or, perhaps, simply not enough support for it.

Let's keep up the pressure to kill SB 240. Click here to send a pre-written email in opposition to SB 240. Also, leave a voice message for your Senator to oppose SB 240.

About Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL):

Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.

For more information, visit: www.vcdl.org.

The post Virginia: 3 Gun-Control Bills Pass Senate, 1 With REPUBLICAN Help!?, 4th Delayed appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Thai Gunman Who killed 26 in Rampage Shot Dead in Mall,” the Associated Press reported Saturday. Another 57 people were wounded in a standoff at Terminal 21 Korat initiated by a soldier said to be “angry over a financial dispute,” who reportedly killed two people on a military base before driving to the mall. It took police sharpshooters 16 hours to put the killer down as terrified, unarmed shoppers fled, ducked for cover and “ran to hide in toilets.”

Television footage showed the attacker carrying “what appeared to be an assault rifle.” And it was the second “high profile mall shooting” in a month, the prior one committed by a masked  school director “carrying a handgun with a silencer [who] killed three people, including a 2-year-old boy, and wounded four others as he robbed a jewelry store.”

As the anti-gunners say here when such atrocities are committed, “something must be done.”

In the cases of the Thai mall shooters, something has been done, including everything Democrat politicians and gun-grab groups have been loudly demanding to be imposed on a state and national level here. Thailand’s got it all.

“The regulation of guns in Thailand is categorized as restrictive,” GunPolicy.org, a project of the Sydney School of Public Health advises. We need to stipulate up front that this effort is being bankrolled by globalist citizen disarmament interests, including the United Nations, but that doesn’t invalidate the reporting of restrictions, all backed with extensive source citations. Instead, it makes using the documentation “bullet-proof” from challenges by the antis, since we’re using their data.

So we find that “In Thailand, the right to private gun ownership is not guaranteed by law.” We find “In Thailand, civilians are not allowed to possess automatic and semi-automatic rifles,” that is, weapons the mall killer, being part of the government, reportedly had no problem getting his hands on.

If you want a handgun, a rifle or a shotgun, citizens have to overcome several prior restraints, including satisfying the government that they have a “genuine reason” for the license need to obtain a firearm and its ammunition (one license per gun). They need to pass a “universal background check” that includes “income” among its considerations (like “gun control” here, poorer citizens are most affected). And there are “red flag” disqualifiers like “domestic violence … Where a past history or apprehended likelihood of family violence exists, the law in Thailand stipulates that a gun license should be denied or revoked.”

“In Thailand, the law requires that a record of the acquisition, possession, and transfer of each privately held firearm be retained in an official register,” GunPolicy.org continues. We also find that in Thailand they have storage laws and transit laws. Open carry is banned, and if a citizen wants to carry concealed, they must “apply for permission to carry a firearm … to the officials who are competent to issue such license.”

Think of it as “Santa Clara carry.”

So leave it to the media to present Thailand as “awash with easily obtainable firearms, featuring one of the highest gun homicide rates in Asia.” To back it up they cite “the US State Department's Bureau for Diplomatic Security wrote in its 2013 safety report for overseas staff: ‘Thailand has a fervent gun culture on par with the United States and has become a world leader in firearms-related homicides.’”

Who headed State back then?

With the headline and the lede having established that murder with guns is comparatively high, we have to venture deeper into the report to find that the violence is being perpetrated by those who ignore all those “restrictive” laws. Millions have said the hell with approvals and licensing and registration and permits. GunPolicy.org estimates there are over four million “illegal” guns in Thailand but admits it really doesn’t know for sure. Plus there’s a Malay-Muslim insurgency with armed rebels, “as well as the mafia syndicates across the country.”

And then there’s the proliferation “along the Thai-Myanmar and Thai-Cambodian border,” as well as the claim by “experts” that “military, police and paramilitary officials not only have easy access to such weapons but have also been known to sell these to non-state officials.”

In other words, “gun control” doesn’t and can’t work, because the bad guys will always find whatever workarounds they want. And it’s not hard to see the parallels here, especially with the way the Democrats, in addition to demanding disarmament, also ensure our borders remain porous and that foreign populations with priorities inimical to founding principle established in the Constitution are being brought in and embedded into communities throughout the Republic.

Just like our Democrats, Thai officials point to more measures that will have no effect on those causing the problems. They’re calling for more registration and “introducing so-called ballistic gun data.” When those don’t work, and they won't, they’ll be back demanding more.

About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

The post Thailand Mall Shooter Broke Every Law Democrats Say We Need in U.S. appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- As the COVID-19 pandemic makes its way across the country, Americans are getting an important lesson in the dangers of placing a prior restraint on the exercise of a constitutional right. The vast increase in those seeking protection in the Second Amendment during this period of uncertainty has caused the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and Point of Contact State background check systems to buckle. Worse, some jurisdictions that have criminalized the private transfer of firearms have also shut down access to gun stores or their state criminal background check system. This lethal combination of misguided policies has made it impossible for millions of Americans to acquire, or even borrow or lend, firearms during this moment of crisis.

In peddling so-called “universal” background checks, anti-gun activists and politicians claim such checks are instant, and therefore don't encumber Second Amendment rights. For instance, according to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) firearm background checks take about 90 seconds.

Gun owners know that for many law-abiding individuals NICS checks, let alone point of contact state checks, have never been instant. In the 2018 NICS Operations Report, ​the FBI noted that 30 percent of all NICS checks were not “instant determinations.” The document explained that 20 percent of all checks required some additional analysis to complete, while 10 percent were delayed for further research. The problem overwhelmingly burdened law-abiding gun buyers, as only 1.21 percent of all checks resulted in a denial.

The simple facts outlined in the annual NICS Operations Report have not been enough to shame gun control advocates into dropping their “background checks are instant” talking point. However, the recent experience with firearms background checks during the COVID-19 outbreak should be enough to put their false claim to rest for good.

On March 17, the National Shooting Sports Foundation summarized the state of NICS in a message to federal firearms licensees (gun dealers). NSSF explained,

According to NICS, there are delays in the system due to an astronomical volume of transactions over the last several days. While much of the NICS System is automated and yields an immediate “proceed” or “deny” determination, transactions that result in a delayed status require the work of NICS examiners to investigate whether the transaction should be approved or not. With daily volumes roughly double that of last year, the NICS team is unable to begin investigations on all delays within three business days, creating a backlog in the delayed checks.

Colorado, a state that criminalized private firearm transfers in 2013, is a Point of Contact State where the Colorado Bureau of Investigation is tasked with performing firearms background checks. According to the CBI, as of March 24, background checks were taking four days. According to a report from the Reno Gazette, in Nevada, a state that criminalized private firearm transfers in 2019, “the onslaught of background check requests has made it virtually impossible to get through on the state’s Point of Contact Firearms Unit phone line.​”​ Due to these states' prohibitions on private firearms transfers, the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding residents are at the mercy of an overwhelmed government bureaucracy.

The situation is even graver in jurisdictions that, through a combination of laws that criminalize the private transfer of firearms and virus-induced shutdowns, have foreclosed the Second Amendment right to acquire a firearm.

On March 21, the New Jersey State Police issued the following message to Federal Firearms Licensees.

On Saturday, March 21, 2020, Governor Phil Murphy announced he is putting New Jersey in lockdown to combat the spread of coronavirus. Per Executive Order 107, he is ordering the residents of New Jersey to stay home, directing all non-essential retail businesses closed to the public. At this time, the order includes New Jersey Firearms State Licensed Dealers. The New Jersey State Police NICS Unit is directing the vendor of the NICS Online Application (NICUSA) to turn off the NICS Online Services for submitting NICS transactions by eliminating the “Request Form” button, effective 9:00 pm EST, Saturday, March 21, 2020. You will still have the ability to view the message board and the status of previously submitted transactions. This “Request Form” feature will remain off until further order by Governor Murphy.

New Jersey is a Point of Contact state where the New Jersey State Police are tasked with performing all firearm background checks.

In order to acquire a rifle or a shotgun in New Jersey a prospective owner must obtain a Firearms Purchase Identification Card. N.J.S.A. 2C:58-3d. requires that a background check be conducted before an FPIC is issued.

Likewise, in order to acquire a handgun, a prospective owner must obtain a Permit to Purchase a Handgun (PPH). The PPH is also issued pursuant to a background check.

Up until 2018, an FPIC or PPH holder could acquire a firearm from another private individual without further government interference. The logic being that the FPIC or PPH holder had already been thoroughly vetted by the government.

However, on June 13, 2018, Gov. Murphy signed A2757. This legislation added a background check requirement for every firearm transfer on top of the existing licensing requirements.

Therefore, with the March 21 change in state police procedure, New Jerseyans are not able to acquire firearms.

The situation is similar in Washington. In 2014, the state has criminalized the private transfer of firearms. RCWA 9.41.113​ requires that parties to a firearms transfer “shall complete the sale or transfer through a licensed dealer” pursuant to a background check.

On March 23, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) issued an order closing all “non-essential” businesses due to the threat of the Wuhan virus. The shutdown included firearms dealers. The governor's closure order, coupled with existing Washington background check law has made it so Washingtonians cannot acquire or transfer firearms during this crisis.

It should be noted that New Jersey and Washington's laws do not just require background checks on all firearm sales, but also on other types of firearm transfers. Under both state's laws, a gun owner could not lend their friend or neighbor a firearm for protection during this time of crisis without first conducting a background check.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the dangers inherent in laws that require government permission in order to exercise a constitutional right. Such laws make law-abiding Americans dependent upon the government's ability and willingness to grant such permission – something many governments have been unable to ensure. This crisis has shown that Americans cannot trust the government to act as a gatekeeper on their fundamental rights. Therefore, Americans must jealously guard their right to privately transfer firearms without government interference.​

About:

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org

The post Pandemic Exposes Dangers of So-Called “Universal” Background Checks appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Virginia – -(AmmoLand.com)- Effective July 1, 2020, Virginia will generally prohibit any person from selling a firearm “for money, goods, services or anything else of value” unless the seller has received verification from a licensed dealer that the buyer has undergone a background check and been approved by the State Police.1 Virginia law also prohibits anyone from buying a gun without undergoing this background check.

Antique firearms do NOT fall under the new Universal Background Check law. Here is the definition of “antique firearm” from state code:
“Antique firearm” means:

1. Any firearm (including any firearm with a matchlock, flintlock, percussion cap, or similar type of ignition system) manufactured in or before 1898;

2. Any replica of any firearm described in subdivision 1 of this definition if such replica (i) is not designed or redesigned for using rimfire or conventional centerfire fixed ammunition or (ii) uses rimfire or conventional centerfire fixed ammunition that is no longer manufactured in the United States and that is not readily available in the ordinary channels of commercial trade;

3. Any muzzle-loading rifle, muzzle-loading shotgun, or muzzle-loading pistol that is designed to use black powder, or a black powder substitute, and that cannot use fixed ammunition. For purposes of this subdivision, the term “antique firearm” shall not include any weapon that incorporates a firearm frame or receiver, any firearm that is converted into a muzzle-loading weapon, or any muzzle-loading weapon that can be readily converted to fire fixed ammunition by replacing the barrel, bolt, breech-block, or any combination thereof; or

4. Any curio or relic as defined in this subsection.

About Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL):

Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.

For more information, visit: www.vcdl.org.

The post Virginia: Upcoming Universal Background Check Law & Antique Firearms appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Opinion

USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- We’ve all heard, and probably used or argued against various analogies about regulating guns like we regulate cars, or comparing the ID requirements for buying a gun to the ID requirements for voting. Still, maybe it’s time to take these analogies out of the hypothetical realm of the debate platform, and into the real world of legislation.

What if pro-rights politicians were to craft legislation that echoed gun control laws, but was applied to such things as voting, purchasing an automobile, publishing a newspaper, and obtaining abortion services?

This line of thinking started with a recent dissent written by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas after the Court refused to hear ten different Second Amendment appeals on the same day. The cases had been pending before the Court for months. It was widely expected that they would take up at least one of them, since they haven’t addressed a Second Amendment case in a decade, and the lower courts have been openly butchering the last two Second Amendment cases they did hear, particularly the Heller decision. These current cases addressed issues such as New Jersey’s tight restrictions on the issuance of concealed carry permits, and several states’ restrictions on so-called “assault weapons” and “high-capacity” magazines.

The Supremes have kept silent, even in the face of such blatant distortion as lower court judges claiming that a minor comment in the Heller decision, comparing restrictions on military firearms like the select-fire M16 to civilian firearms like the semi-auto AR-15, means exactly the opposite of what Justice Antonin Scalia obviously intended in that landmark decision.

This court is supposed to be the most conservative Court since Reconstruction. Yet, they can’t muster four votes to agree to hear one of these cases, all of which directly impact on an enumerated, constitutional right.

Court watchers across the political spectrum agree that the main hitch in the Court’s get-along is Chief Justice John Roberts. Roberts, who was part of the majority in both the Heller and McDonald decisions, seemed reluctant to go along with those decisions unless they were written extremely narrowly and provided outs for legislators and judges in their efforts to restrict some guns in some places. Having replaced Justice Kennedy as the wavering swing vote, it could well be that the four “liberal” justices, and the four justices of the “conservative wing” have reached the same conclusion: they are all uncertain how he would vote on any of the recent cases, so they chose not to take any chances.

Saving our Second amendment from a ruling that could gut the human right for America.

A 4/4/1-wild-card Court Spilt?

Regular readers of my work will recall that I have said for years that the Court is not split cleanly with 5 “conservatives” and 4 “liberals,” especially on Second Amendment issues. While there are definitely four justices solidly in the “liberal” camp and almost always unified in their decisions, the “conservative” side has always been fractured. Initially, it was a 4/3/2 split, but now, with the addition of Kavanaugh, the split has shifted to more of a 4/4/1, with Roberts being the big wildcard.

The good news is that by refusing to hear any of the pending cases, there’s no chance of SCOTUS coming out with a bad Second Amendment decision right before the November elections. A decision that hurt gun rights would almost certainly have led to a backlash against President Trump and Republicans at the polls. As it is, some are calling for GunVoters to shift their votes to Libertarian candidates, but that would be equivalent to demanding jobs by burning down businesses. The only hope of getting a reliable Court to hear and favorably resolve Second Amendment cases, is to reelect President Trump and make sure he has a strong Republican majority in the Senate to confirm his judicial nominees. Trump’s brash statements, and especially his Twitter habit, can be off-putting, but what he does is far more important than what he tweets. His pattern is the precise opposite of the typical political animal, in other words, productive and to the benefit of the American people.

If GunVoters fail to turn out in strong support of Republicans – even the weak-kneed Republicans like Arizona’s Martha McSally, we’ll end up with Chuck Schumer running the Senate and anti-rights zealots like Mark Kelly (Mr. Gabby Giffords) backing him up. We absolutely can’t take that chance. Every GunVoter must be active and engaged leading into November, and they must bring along as many votes as possible to deny the Democrats any majority at any level. Maybe at some point in the future, we’ll be able to support pro-gun Democrats and Libertarians, but right now, the stakes are too high, and the Democrats have made their intentions clear.

When the justices refused all ten gun cases, Justice Thomas wrote the scathing dissent that raised some of the comparisons mentioned above. He asked if the Court would sit idly by if a state were requiring citizens to show a “compelling need” and get a permit before exercising their rights of free speech.

He then went on to suggest that “it seems highly unlikely that the Court would allow a State to enforce a law requiring a woman to provide a justifiable need before seeking an abortion.”

Well, then let’s put this theory to the test. Rather than just making these comparisons as rhetorical arguments, lets put them forward as legislative proposals, using gun control laws as the constitutional precedent to support them. Let’s propose and debate – and possibly even pass – actual legislation that would require that buying cars, voting, aborting a baby, publishing a newspaper, publicly protesting, etc., meet the same types of restrictions and requirements commonly applied to purchasing, possessing, and bearing arms.

Would legislators in Alabama, Oklahoma, and Texas support legislation requiring that a person seeking an abortion must demonstrate a “justifiable need,” like those seeking to carry in New Jersey and Maryland? And, of course, the determination of what constitutes “justifiable need” would be at the discretion of an un-elected bureaucrat. Lawmakers could cite the New Jersey and Maryland laws, and supporting court decisions, as evidence that the proposals are constitutional.

Or how about a law requiring prospective voters to submit personal identifying information, including a state or federally issued ID and submit to a full background check every time they go to the polls? Of course, every voter would have to go through the whole process each time they wished to vote, regardless of how many times they’ve voted n the past or even if election officials recognized them from previous elections or knew them personally.

Voter eligibility status can easily change, so better to “instant check” every time, like they do with gun purchasers, we need to be safe… right?

Instead of just talking about “what if other rights were as restricted as the right to arms,” let’s put those proposals on the table with legislative proposals, and let’s support those proposals with comparisons to existing gun laws and citations of current court precedents.

If it can’t be justified for voting, getting an abortion, buying a car, or publishing a newspaper, how can it be justified for the one right of the people that specifically states that it “shall not be infringed?”

It’s time to challenge hypocrisy head-on.

About Jeff Knox:

Jeff Knox is a second-generation political activist and director of The Firearms Coalition. His father, Neal Knox, led many of the early gun rights battles for your right to keep and bear arms. Read Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War.

The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs, and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. The Firearms Coalition has offices in Buckeye, Arizona, and Manassas, VA. Visit: www.FirearmsCoalition.org.

The post Time for Universal Background Checks for Abortions, Voting & Car Buying appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Opinion

LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA –-(Ammoland.com)-On Monday, Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) and Gun Owners of America (GOA) filed a lawsuit in Lynchburg, Virginia, for a temporary injunction to block the universal background checks law from going into effect in the Commonwealth.

In the previous legislative session in the Democrat-controlled legislature passed sweeping gun control measures, including a universal background check law. During early 2020, Virginia became ground zero for the battle over gun rights. Over 96% of jurisdictions within Virginia have declared themselves Second Amendment Sanctuaries with Sheriffs Jenkins of Culpepper County threatening to deputize all residents.

The lawsuit names Colonel Gary T. Settle in his official duties as the Superintendent of the Virginia Department of State Police as a defendant. The suit claims that VCDL/GOA member Raul Wilson intends to sell a firearm to Peter Elhert, another VCDL/GOA member after the law goes into effect in July. The lawsuit alleges that the mandatory background checks violate the defendants’ gun rights under Article One, Section 13 of the Virginia Constitution.

Another plaintiff in the case is Wyatt Lowman. Lowman is an 18-year-old resident of Lynchburg. In Virginia, 18-year-old residents can own and purchase handguns if they are buying it through a private non-dealer sale, but the new law requires anyone going through a background check for a handgun to be 21 years old.

The new universal background check law effectively raises the minimum age to acquire a handgun from 18 years old to 21 years old. The legislature never intended to change the age for gun ownership in Virginia, but it did through an unintended side effect.

GOA and VCDL view this stealth law change as just another overreach by a government out of touch with its citizenship.

The plaintiffs also argue the universal background check statute presumes that any and every citizen intending to buy a firearm is a prohibited person. The law puts the onus on the gun buyer to prove to the state that they are not a criminal who turns the due process clause on its head. The case argues that this requirement shifts the burden of proof from the government to the gun buyer.

The case also highlights that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is not always instant. In many instances, the Virginia State Police or the FBI delays the background check results for days. The lawsuit views these delays as an undue burden on the rights of the gun buyer and the seller.

The Virginia State Police charges a fee for each background check it performs. In addition to the state charged fee, the dealer also charges the gun buyer an additional cost. Gun rights advocate sees these fees as a charge to exercise a right.

Gun rights groups also claim that background checks lead to a gun registration. These groups then claim that these gun registrations can lead to confiscation. With anti-gun politicians clamoring for an “Australian style” confiscation, these fears seem real.

VCDL and GOA won in this same court district to reopen a Lynchburg area gun range. The two gun groups have also teamed up to sue for an emergency injunction against Virginia’s one handgun a month law.

Virginia State Police didn’t return AmmoLand’s request for comment at the time of this writing.

About John Crump

John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. He is the former CEO of Veritas Firearms, LLC and is the co-host of The Patriot News Podcast which can be found at www.blogtalkradio.com/patriotnews. John has written extensively on the patriot movement including 3%'ers, Oath Keepers, and Militias. In addition to the Patriot movement, John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and is currently working on a book on leftist deplatforming methods and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, on Facebook at realjohncrump, or at www.crumpy.com.

The post GOA & VCDL File For An Injunction To Halt Universal Background Checks In Virginia appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Giffords, the gun violence prevention organization founded by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, announced the Road to Universal Background Checks Tour,” a group press release announces. “At a series of virtual gatherings focused on states with key Senate races, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords will lead conversations with candidates and other activists who will speak directly with voters about the importance of electing a new Senate majority that will finally pass universal background checks.”

“Virtual gatherings”? There’s probably more than pandemic considerations behind that strategy. And characterizing this as a “tour” may give us some clues.

Michael Bloomberg tried something similar in meatspace some years back. His paid ad hacks tried to sell sending a propaganda bus on a 25-state 100-day as the “No More Names” tour. “Magical Misery Tour” was more like it.

They played coy with announcing actual locations, dates, and times for their scheduled stops, making sure the press and followers who signed up would know in time but keeping the general public in the dark until the last minute to avoid what ended up happening—being outnumbered by rights advocates. And the funny thing about the “victims of gun violence” named by the tour: They included the Boston Marathon bomber. One in 12 of the “victims” were crime suspects, including a “man shot by police while he was holding a gun in another man’s face,” and a 19-year-old who was shot by a man protecting his granddaughter from him.

The names also included those of a former Los Angeles cop who went on a killing spree (and who demanded more “gun control”), a suspect who “died in a shootout after … opening fire on police,” and another suspect in the killing of four people who also tried to shoot it out with the cops.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and Opposite Day “progressives” are nothing if not unoriginal, continually repeating what doesn’t work.  This we had the wildly unsuccessful (although you’d never know that from media report) Marx … uh … March for Our Lives “The Road to Change” tour from a couple of years back. As with the Bloomberg “original,” they kept dates, times, and specific locations within the cities close to the vest as well.

If interested, you can go to Giffords’ event site to see where the “tour” will go and when (the “National Kickoff” will be Tuesday, with Special Guest Infringer Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut), and to register yourself, just like they want “background checks” to do to your guns. The added “benefit” to “virtual gatherings” is only Giffords will know how many “attend,” so they can hide real results and paint their “success” any way they want to.

What you won't hear, because lies of omission are as important to the gun-grabbers as the overt kind, is an admission of their real “background check” agenda, pretty much spelled out in a report from the National Institute of Justice's “Summary of Select Firearm Violence Prevention Strategies“:

“Effectiveness depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring gun registration…”

Count on the DSM to give them all kinds of free advertising masked as “news” while deliberately ignoring opinions that differ. Between that and their propaganda operations enjoying taxpayer-funded loans due to COVID-19, the gun-grabbers appear to be riding high.

Don’t tell them that defective vehicles have a way of breaking down when you least expect it.

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

The post Giffords’ Virtual ‘Tour’ Will Be Even More Staged than Bloomberg’s Real One appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Family members sue Lubbock man and gunmaker a year after deadly mass shooting in Midland-Odessa,” The Dallas Morning News reported Saturday. “The suit says Kentucky-based Anderson Manufacturing ’should have known’ of illegal gun sales.”

After being fired from his job, the perpetrator, a “prohibited person” forbidden by law to possess a firearm, went on a killing rampage targeting police and random victims. Left unsaid is how the company “should have known.” Instead, the plaintiffs are insisting that the court ignores the law and that the defendants be held liable for standards that are impossible to meet.

First, there is the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. According to Congressional Research Service, “The PLCAA generally bars lawsuits in federal or state court against firearm manufacturers, distributors, and dealers when a third party acquires a firearm from that distribution chain and uses it for criminal ends.” It does not protect against “product liability actions stemming from design or manufacture defects,” nor against “actions brought against a manufacturer or seller who knowingly violated a state or federal statute ‘applicable to’ the sale or marketing of a firearm or ammunition.”

How Anderson Manufacturing “should have known” that a private party who legally acquired one of their products would then transfer it to the killer is not explained, because it can’t be. It would require psychic powers. The plaintiffs and their lawyer are looking to blame a party with deeper pockets than the dead killer's “estate,” and they want the court to ignore the separation of powers and usurp authority by legislating from the bench. They’re also trying to end private sales and overturn PLCAA, major gun-grabber goals as per the Democrat Party platform:

To build on the success of the lifesaving Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, we will expand and strengthen background checks and close dangerous loopholes in our current laws; repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to revoke the dangerous legal immunity protections gun makers and sellers now enjoy.

That’s parroted by the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris ticket.

As for those background checks, the real motive isn’t hard to find. It’s actually flat-out admitted in the National Institute of Justice “Summary of Select Firearm Violence Prevention Strategies”:

Effectiveness depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring gun registration…

Then there’s the matter of the killer having previously failed to pass a NICS check. The real question here is how it’s a good idea for someone “legally” deemed too dangerous to be trusted with a gun to be trusted to stalk freely among the rest of us.

As for the private seller, due process should apply if anything resembling the Bill of Rights still applies. Instead, per Everything Lubbock, his home has been raided, his firearms have been confiscated, and the feds have asked a judge to “permanently forfeit” them – all without a conviction for a crime.

The plaintiffs' lawyer alleges the seller should have known the killer was ineligible to own a gun because he had “two teardrop tattoos on his face.”

First of all, there is no state or federal law prohibiting people with tattoos from owning guns, nor has further legislation established what body placement, content, or artistic expressions should be disqualifiers. Not content to eviscerate the Second Amendment, the First is now deemed fair game.

True, tear tattoos would be outside the experience of and off-putting to many private individuals, some of whom would no doubt choose to avoid anyone so inked. But imagine the “progressive” attacks against “intolerance” and worse, and the lawsuits that would result if gun (or any) manufacturers used that as criteria to discriminate and deny purchases of lawful products.

“What about those tattoos?” lawyer John Sloan says the seller should have asked. “Why do you have those?”

Closing the Tattoo Loophole is a standard he and the plaintiffs really want to advocate? Is that something Sloan would presume to ask a potential client? Gun owners tired of nosy ignoramuses demanding to know “why” they “need” this or that have an answer for grabbers like Sloan. It begins with “Because” and ends with “that's why.”

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

The post Lawsuit against Seller and Gun Maker Demands Intolerance and Discrimination appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Montana – -(AmmoLand.com)- Dear MSSA Friends,

A gun owner in eastern Montana contacted me to say that a corporate chain store in his area that also sells firearms refused to transfer a new firearm to him until the background check cleared, even though he has a CWP and the background checks are being WAY slow.

I checked and other corporate FFLs are applying the same policy.

I thought you might be interested in my response to this guy (below).

BTW, this problem is just one reason it is so important not to let the anti-gunners [or a Biden-Administration] “close the gun show loophole” by invoking a “universal background check” that would make the Brady Law apply to private transfers of used firearms, in addition to the now effective government monopoly over new firearms.

Jim,

So, here's the deal.

The FBI runs the NICS “instant” check system. They have been slammed with workload and cannot keep up. They are running 30 days and longer on NICS checks.

The Second Amendment and its equivalent in the Montana Constitution, Article II, Section 12, are restrictions on government entities and government activities, but not on private parties. The Brady Law, the federal law that restricts sales of new firearms by federally licensed dealers (FFLs), says that if the FBI doesn't issue a denial via the NICS of a purchase within three days, then the vendor MAY transfer a firearm to a purchaser.

However, neither the Second Amendment or the Brady Law prevent a vendor from being more restrictive, as Runnings and other corporate FFLs (such as Cabellas, Sportsmans Warehouse, etc.) have chosen to be. It's like a private merchant's prerogative to enforce “No shirt, no shoes, no service. The only exceptions to this broad prerogative for private merchants would be for certain types of discrimination, such as a policy not to sell to women or Asians (although a merchant's policy to not sell Bowie knives or gunpowder to ten-year-old boys would probably be allowed as a class of discrimination).

I understand that the BATFE, which regulates FFLs, has recommended to FFLs that they wait to transfer affected firearms until the FBI catches up and clears a NICS check for that firearm. Because of this, especially corporate FFLs believe they might have some liability exposure if they transfer a firearm without NICS approval and that firearms is subsequently used for something illegal. Corporate FFLs have watched the destructive lawsuits by the anti-gunners against FFLs that transferred firearms that they allegedly shouldn't have transferred.

Despite that concern, a person would think that transferring firearms to customers who have a CWP (effectively a standing NICS check) would avoid that liability for FFLs, so the FFL would feel legally comfortable with the no-more-than-three-day-delay built into the Brady law. There may be an opportunity for education of FFLs concerning the NICS delays, liability avoidance, and transfers to people with CWPs.

Having said all of that, it should be an item of interest to actual and prospective customers if a vendor has a policy that will delay the consummation of a sale for a month or more. I'm working on getting some media attention to this issue so that customers will be better informed about where to shop, or not. Buyer beware.

Thanks for reporting this to me. Let me know if there's any more info I can provide.

Best wishes,

Gary Marbut, President
Montana Shooting Sports Association
http://www.mtssa.org
Author, Gun Laws of Montana
http://www.mtpublish.com

About the Montana Shooting Sports Association:

MSSA is the primary political advocate for Montana gun owners. Visit: www.mtssa.org

The post Firearm Purchase Delays in Montana & the Danger of Universal Background Checks appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

WASHINGTON, D.C. –-(Ammoland.com)- AmmoLand News’ sources inside the U.S House of Representatives have confirmed Democrats are readying a push for so-called universal “enhanced” background checks. Dropping two related bills BackGround Check bills, both taking away your privacy and restricting your rights.

Bipartisan Background Checks Act (H.R. 8)

California Democrat Mike Thompson’s “Bipartisan Background Checks Act” (H.R. 8) would end the way private sales of firearms are handled in the majority of the country.

The bill would require a gun to be transferred to a licensed dealer before the gun can be sold to another private party. Democrats have long called this the “gun show loophole,” even though most gun buyers go through a background check at a gun show.

The bill exempts law enforcement, the military, and private security firms from the universal background requirements. Also, the transfer of firearms given as gifts between family members is exempt as long as the person transferring the gun doesn’t have a reason to believe the recipient is a prohibited person.

There is also an exception if the firearm transfer is temporary and is necessary to prevent “imminent death or great bodily harm.” Gun ranges are also exempt them from the proposed law allowing them to rent out guns to the general public. The sponsors of the bill claim that it will prevent criminals from getting firearms.

If universal background checks pass, it will artificially raise the age to buy a handgun across the country to 21.

We can see one example of this problem in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Commonwealth’s law states one only has to be 18 to purchase a pistol from a private sale. When Virginia enacted universal background checks, it prevented legal adults between 18 and 20 from buying a handgun from a private sale because licensed dealers can’t transfer a handgun to anyone under 21. A Virginia judge stuck down the universal background law for people between 18 and 20.

The same bill was submitted in 2019. The bill passed the House of Representatives by a vote to 240 to 190 with two members not voting.

Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021” (H.R. 1446)

The second bill is “Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021” (H.R. 1446). South Carolina Democrat Jim Clayborn has pushed this bill claiming that it would make background checks more effective. The bill would make dealers wait ten days for a response before they can petition to transfer a gun to a buyer if National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) doesn’t respond with an answer. Right now, the law states that the dealer must wait three days for a response before they can transfer the gun in place of an answer.

If NICS doesn’t answer, the buyer would have to now file a certified petition with the same information from the 4473 to get the firearm. The dealer will have to then wait an additional ten days on top of the time already waited by the buyer. The law doesn’t state when the buyer can file their petition.

Internal sources inside the FBI reports that the FBI destroys all records of delayed firearms sales within 90 days. Most of the time, the agency destroys the records on day 88. The majority of documents that are delayed more than three days are never checked by the law enforcement agency, which means changing the delay period doesn’t affect the public’s safety.

Gun rights advocates worry that this is just a way to create more hoops for gun buyers to jump through. They fear that roadblocks might discourage new gun buyers from exercising their Constitutional rights.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) told AmmoLand News that she would stand up to attempts to pass the bills. She states that H.R. 8 is a gun registry. The Congresswoman is staunchly pro-gun.

The Congresswoman told AmmoLand: “As I said on the campaign trail, I am OPPOSED to National Gun Registration (H.R.8) and will fight alongside my colleagues in the house to defeat this dangerous attack on our Second Amendment rights.”

In an effort to fast-track bills and shorten the window for public outcry, Congress has changed its schedule to meet on Monday, March 8th, 2021 with the week’s first votes at 6:30 p.m. The last votes of the week will occur on Thursday, March 11th. Then again on Tuesday, March 16th, with the first votes of the week at 6:30 p.m. The last votes of the week will occur on Friday, March 19th, 2021.

About John Crump

John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.

The post Democrats Start Their Push For Gun Control: 1st Attack- Universal Background Checks appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Why only small-brain idiots believe banning gun shows will keep you safe! Where do criminals get their guns?

The Bureau of Justice Statistics is part of the Department of Justice. In 2019 they published a study on criminal use of firearms and the source of those firearms. A link to that publication is at the end of this article.

The report is the result of a 2016 survey of prisoners and was published just last year.

So what percentage of criminals got their guns at a gun show? 0.8%

“Internet sales” and sales from an unknown private individuals does not even appear on this list!

So the big issue for the gun-grabbing left, the sword they are willing to die on to keep you safe, is involved in less than 1% of all shootings or didn’t even make a list!

And there is the rub!. The purpose of these new laws is NOT to save lives or keep people safe but to destroy the firearms culture in America and punish those who disagree with them.

These new laws proposed by the Harris/Biden administration will not save one life; all they will do is further separate you from your right!

So let’s look at real solutions to gun violence,

• 80%+ of ALL shootings are gang and drug-related.
• 53% of all shootings are by black men under 30.
• 69% of guns used by criminals are purchased on the black market or acquired by family and friends.
• Most shootings happen in cities run by democrats.
• Closing gun shows will not affect gun deaths.

Democrat-run cities destroyed the black nuclear family and the local economy, forcing young black men to turn to gangs and drug dealing as a way of getting by; it is these liberal policies that are directly responsible for 80%+ of all shootings in the U.S.

Please consider this, the most dangerous 5% of counties, with the Democratically run big cities, account for 68% of all murders!

There are just over 3,000 counties in the U.S. Harris/ Biden won only 477 of them or 14.9% of all counties. Those counties won by Harris/Biden represent 85% of all murders!

• Trump/Pence won Counties =2,600 Counties = 15% of all Shooting Deaths.
• Harris/Biden won Counties = 477 Counties = 85% of all Shooting Deaths.

You are more than 5X more likely to be shot if you live in a County won by Harris/Biden!

So let’s face facts.

If gun deaths affected elections, Biden never would have won because most gun deaths happened in the Counties he won.

The new laws proposed by the gun grabbers in Congress are not intended to save lives because they focus on neither the source of illegal guns nor the root cause of gun violence.

Gun Banning is an excuse used to hide failed social policies that have destroyed our inner cities. You create a welfare state, destroy families and economies, and then blame anyone else for the violence you made.

The new laws are intended to punish people who do not toe the liberal line.

Let’s also face the facts that in a divided America, the gun grabber doesn’t give a damn about your feel, rights, or constitution.

Also, let’s face the facts Democrats control a few big cities, not states. Eliminate Chicago, and Illinois goes red. The same for most of the States with one big liberal population center.

So what can we do short of joining a right-wing death squad? (<—sarcasm)

Contact your Senator and House representative. Contact your Representative and demand honest verifiable election reforms.

Get politically active in the next set of house/senate races. Support ONLY pro-2A candidates. Nancy Pelosi is kept in power by less than ½ dozen votes. Take back the House and Senate and preserve our right! Those races are already starting!

Give your money DIRECTLY to the candidate of your choice, avoid groups like the NRA where you’re never quite sure where your dollars are going.

• • A copy of the original study is HERE
  • Statistics on gun violence are HERE

Source and Use of Firearms Involved in Crimes: Survey of Prison Inmates, 2016

About Don McDougall

Don McDougall is an NRA instructor and member of the Los Padres “Friends of the NRA” committee. If he’s not at the range, you will find him setting the record straight with on gun issues and gun safety on AmmoLand Shooting Sports News.

The post Only Idiots Believe in Banning Gun Shows & Universal Background Checks appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

by Michael Hammond

Washington, DC – -(AmmoLand.com)- We’ve been there before: Far-Leftist Democrats try to foist extreme unconstitutional gun control that was actually drafted in the offices of gun-hating lobbyists.

But, rather than call out this legislative garbage for what it is, Republicans have sometimes foolishly thought they could “clean it up.”

The result is always the same:  Every tiny concession we get in exchange for a massive gun control victory becomes a new battlefield on the day that the gun control bill is signed into law.

Example:  On the original Brady Law, Republicans fought hard to prevent the FBI from blocking all gun transactions by simply refusing to give its approval to a Brady Check. If the FBI REFUSED TO TAKE ANY POSITION on a gun purchase for three business days, the 1993 compromise provided the transfer could go ahead. So how’d that work out?

For the last 25 years, gun grabbers in the government have bludgeoned sellers to refuse to deliver a firearm after 3 days even if they legally could. And now Congress will soon be forced to vote on a bill (H.R. 1446) that solidifies the compromise entirely and replaces it with language that allows the government to hold up your constitutional right to purchase a firearm weeks and weeks for NO REASON.

And, given Joe Biden’s hatred of the Second Amendment, you can expect more and more long waits, as the FBI issues more and more delays. In the end, many law-abiding Americans will NEVER get their guns.

So let me ask you this:  How many residents of riot-torn inner cities are huddling with their families, as we speak, because bureaucrats have used delay tactics to deny gun owners their rights for weeks, months, or even years? And they’ve done so for no other reason than that the bureaucrats hate guns and don’t believe anyone should own them?

Remember Carol Bowne of New Jersey who was forced to wait for weeks to purchase a handgun? On the day her estranged boyfriend murdered her in 2015, she was still waiting for approval to purchase a handgun, which she needed to protect herself from the very man who killed her!

Republicans got fooled in 1993 by all the “compromises” we were offered, and if we are fooled by the same trick again, we have only ourselves to blame.

Also in 1993, gun grabbers tricked negotiators into okaying a massive gun control victory by agreeing to exempt non-dealer transactions from the Brady Check — gifts to relatives, hunting trips, shooting ranges, and the like.

Now Congress is faced with a bill (H.R. 8) which would turn all of us into criminals by replacing all of those reasonable exceptions with incomprehensible rules.

For instance, if you “sell” your gun to your son in exchange for yard work under H.R, 8, you are a criminal. So is your son. If you transfer your gun to your son-in-law, you are a criminal. If you show your new gun to your neighbor in your own dining room — and leave the room to go to the bathroom — you are a criminal. If you hear a bump in the middle of the night — and hand your gun to your son-in-law, and the bump turns out to be your cat — both you and your son-in-law are criminals.

Are gun-grabbers just idiots?  Or are they trying to create traps for gun owners?  Probably a little of both.  But with dozens of comical errors and missteps, it’s not something we can “clean up” — even if we wanted to.

One more problem:  If every gun transfer has a Brady Check, every transfer will have a Form 4473.  And we know ATF is photographing these in connection with its annual inspection in order to compile a de facto national gun registry.

So no, gun rights supporters are not going a negotiate over a national registry of gun owners. Rather, we’re going to use Democrats’ hatred of the Second Amendment to take control of the House in 2022.

Then we can pass the pro-gun legislation (like national reciprocity) which we favor.

Multiple times, during the past 30 years, radical Democrats have concluded that the country had reached a “tipping point” on guns. In 1994, Democrats lost the House.  In 2000, they lost the White House, and Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Arkansas, and the Florida panhandle.  In 2014, they lost the Senate.

What will Democrats’ hatred of the constitution cost them in 2022?  I’m sure eager to find out.

Michael Hammond is the Legislative Counsel for Gun Owners of America, a grassroots organization representing more than two million gun owners nationwide.

Gun Owners of America

Gun Owners of America has previously supported the right of members and staff to carry firearms on Capitol Hill for self-defense, as GOA supports the rights of all law-abiding citizens to carry firearms in their workplace. Gun Owners of America is a grassroots organization representing more than two million gun owners nationwide and is dedicated to protecting the right to keep and bear arms without compromise.

The post We Need to Kill Democrats’ New Gun Control, Not Make it More Palatable appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

New Jersey – -(AmmoLand.com)- If you’re a slightly right to center citizen from New Jersey, things are not easy. It’s an understatement that freedom-loving and civil rights-minded persons have an incredible challenge wading through some very bad and dangerous policy. To sit and list the continued onslaught against the people of New Jersey and stripping them of their freedoms would be far too lengthy for any one article. To be succinct, many citizens at large from the Garden State suffer from Stockholm syndrome.

Congressmen Chris Smith, one of New Jerseys’ “conservative” politicians is a shining example of a RINO (Republican in Name Only).

While yes, Smith has supported what one could consider healthy policy in the way he votes in the House, there are plenty of places that his stance diverges from what many would consider traditional conservative ideals. Truth be told, it’s unfortunate that the conversation is even being phrased that way, “traditional conservative ideals”. What are we talking about? The right to keep and bear arms, and Smith is no friend to the gun owner! This should not be partisan, as we know, but it is.

Going back to the beginning of Trump’s tenure as president, Smith had the opportunity to do what was right. In what manner? Simple, that little thing called HR 38, the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act. In December of 2017 Smith should have supported this legislation, but did not. In a previous open letter to Smith, I covered some of the issues the law-abiding gun owner face, and charged Smith with voting “yea” for HR 38.

Can you guess how he voted? That would be a big ole “nay”.

Smith seems more interested in not upsetting the applecart when it comes to reelections. Why would he stick his neck out for more freedom when it may cost him his seat in Congress? Or, perhaps Smith really does subscribe to the progressive ideals of less guns equals less crime? No one will really know…But what we do know is his voting record and what he supports.

Enter resolution/bill HR 8, “Bipartisan” Background Checks Act of 2021. The bill is proposed to have some wide-reaching support from both parties, but in reality, the bill is a veiled attempt to turn the rest of the United States into New Jersey.

It came as no surprise that Smith jumped onboard early as an original co-sponsor to HR 8 in its earlier version from 2019. And now he is one of three republican co-sponsors of the 2020 version.

HR 8 would destroy any peer-to-peer transfers of firearm ownership. But there is more, it will also federally codify that individuals cannot lend firearms unless they are borrowed under certain very narrow terms and conditions. Plenty of states already have unconstitutional laws that keep people from being able to lend other non-prohibited persons firearms. In fact, Congress should be looking to remove such restrictions on a federal level rather than codify them so everyone gets to have a piece of the anti-freedom pie. Much like every other “gun control” law or bill out there, HR 8 will do nothing to curb crime or violence, but rather stand as a roadblock in the way of the law-abiding citizen that is trying to live their lives with no malintent.

For you, the freedom-loving countrymen in the United States, think about New Jersey. And think about how from a freedom perspective the Garden State is the laughing stock to over 36 + other states in the Union. In reality, the pro-freedom voices are in the majority (look at the record number of Constitutional Carry States, and gaining) with a few outliers such as NJ, NY, CA, MA, MD, etc…Do not be ensnared to think that HR 8 is good policy, it is not.

There is nothing bi-partisan about a bill that is co-sponsored by a RINO from New Jersey.

With reports of Mom’s Demand Action also stroking Representative Jeff Van Drew to support this legislation, right to center New Jerseyans need to pay close attention to how fellow “gun sense” candidates vote and perform,

Smith included. Continued lack of support concerning civil rights shall not be tolerated and with nearly 40 years in office, it’s time for Smith to be primaried!

The ilk of Smith is an example of throwing out the baby with the bathwater!

Now is the time to reach out to your Congresscritter on this bill and all anti-freedom bills. We are under assault. It is also prime time for everyone in the country to reach out to Smith’s office directly and tell him to not turn the United States into New Jersey. Our country is at a tipping point and more progressive overreaching polices need to be squashed, rather than cultivated. Congressmen Chris Smith can be reached at:

Washington, DC Office
2373 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
phone (202) 225-3765
fax (202) 225-7768

Monmouth County Constituent Services Center
112 Village Center Drive, Second Floor*
Raintree Shopping Center
Freehold, NJ 07728
phone (732) 780-3035
fax (732) 780-3079

Ocean County Office
405 Route 539 (Pinehurst Road)
Plumsted, NJ
p (609) 585-7878
f (609) 585-9155

Hamilton District Office
4573 South Broad Street
Hamilton, NJ 08620
phone (609) 585-7878
fax (609) 585-9155

And via email through this web form.

John Petrolino is a US Merchant Marine Officer, writer, author of Decoding Firearms: An Easy to Read Guide on General Gun Safety & Use and NRA certified pistol, rifle, and shotgun instructor living under and working to change New Jersey’s draconian and unconstitutional gun laws. You can find him on the web at www.johnpetrolino.com on twitter at @johnpetrolino and on instagram @jpetrolinoiii .

The post Perpetual RINO Chris Smith, Cosponsors Dems’ Universal Background Checks appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Editors Update 03/29/2021: This is not the opinion of AmmoLand News.  It seems we are old school in that we still publish opposing points of view on controversial topics. Our regular readers all know where the ownership of AmmoLand News stands on the issue and we have 10,000’s of articles and over a decade of advocating for the RKBA. Sorry if we offended anyone but we still have the balls to print various opinions, for good or bad. And deciding whether they are right or wrong is left up to you, our readers, to decide. That is why we are one of the few media outlets left where you can freely leave a comment …uncensored. ~ Fredy Riehl, Editor in Chief.

Read Every Article from Rob Pincus on AmmoLand News here.

Open Letter By Dan Gross, Former President of The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence & Rob Pincus

USA –  -(AmmoLand.com)- Although many other issues have understandably dominated the news cycle, we are at a critical moment for guns. Over the last year, gun sales have reached unprecedented levels, as have gun-involved homicides, and the House has recently passed H.R. 1446, The Enhanced Background Check Act of 2021, which is currently being debated in the Senate. Recently, a wave of tragic mass shootings has put the gun issue in national headlines as President Biden has called on the Senate to pass the background check bill, adding that he supports a ban of “assault weapons.”

We are two advocates, activists and leaders from opposite sides of the “gun debate” who have come together because we both believe we are at a make-or-break moment. Suffice it to say, there is plenty that we disagree on, but for anyone with the genuine goal of reducing the number of preventable gun deaths in our nation, we believe we have an opportunity for real impact that has not existed in years and, if we are not able to seize it, it is likely to have negative repercussions for years to come.

The key to any meaningful change begins with changing the conversation, from one defined by politicians, lobbying organizations, and the media as a partisan political debate, to one that truly reflects the interests of the American people, whether they own guns or not. Change will never happen just by making “common sense” political proposals in the emotional aftermath of another mass tragedy, and then expecting the truth, a claimed respect for the Second Amendment, a latent overwhelming majority and skillful political strategy to do the rest. We are often asked how terrible a mass shooting must occur in order to inspire real change. We believe that is the wrong question. The fact is, a tragedy of horrific proportions happens every day in our nation, both in terms of the number of deaths and injuries that occur with guns and the extent to which they are preventable.

To expect meaningful and lasting change, we must first change the entire conversation, from one defined by politics to one defined by our common values and goals. This is not just a matter of deciding whether to call it “gun control,” “gun violence prevention,” “responsible gun ownership” or “gun safety.” It is about advocates, leaders and the media considering, far more than they have in the past, the narrative they are helping to create. It is about those who really care about impact, changing that narrative from one that is too-often divisive and counterproductive to one that genuinely unites the American public and provides the foundation that is necessary for real, lasting and fundamental change.

Common Ground Messaging

At the end of the day, every decent American, from those who love guns to those who hate them, and everyone in between, wants the same things: to protect themselves and their loved ones, and to make our homes, schools and communities safer. This common ground provides ample opportunity to achieve historic impact on the gun deaths we all want to prevent.

But bringing this opportunity to fruition is easier said than done. This basic point of fundamental agreement between people who own guns and those who don’t has always existed. Yet it is still perceived as a culture war and, as a result, little has been achieved. This is because no true counter narrative has ever been established to seriously challenge the polarizing political debate being perpetuated by extremists on both sides and, unwittingly by those with pure intentions. As long this remains the case we cannot expect anything to change. Fortunately, we believe a paradigm-shifting counter narrative exists, specifically:

Together, we can cut the number of gun-involved deaths in our country in half and make all of us safer, just by keeping guns from the people we all agree should not have them (i.e., people who are a danger to themselves or others).

We believe that it is essential to root any solution, political or otherwise, in this deceptively simple message.

• For gun control advocates, it demonstrates an authentic respect for rights, and a compelling context for the most impactful proposed solutions, a context which creates a more powerful whole greater than the sum of its parts.
• For gun rights advocates, it provides reassurance and tangible demonstration that no one is seeking to take rights away from responsible gun owners.

But simply saying this message is not nearly enough. Advocates must also wholly accept the onus of clearly demonstrating how any proposed solution, legislative or otherwise, actually impacts the number of gun deaths, and does it only by keeping guns from the people gun owners easily agree should not have them. This may be a tough pill to swallow for many of the staunchest gun control activists, most of whom strongly support solutions that have the potential to undermine this message. However, we would hope that the potential for real and significant impact makes that pill go down a little more easily.

Importantly, we must also consider the optics that are being created, often unwittingly, which have the potential to do irreparable damage to the credibility of proposed solutions and chances of their successful implementation. This requires looking at policy and program priorities through the lens of the messages they communicate, particularly to members of the gun-owning community that would otherwise be supportive (and whose support the media and gun control advocates enjoy touting). It also means giving more careful strategic thought to messengers. Truly shifting the narrative requires far more than the usual talking points from the usual suspects. You cannot expect the American public to perceive preventing gun deaths as anything other than a political issue if most of what they hear is from politicians, pundits and organizations that have effectively been cast as partisan.

Most importantly, in the end, true change is going to require an unprecedented degree of empathy and open mindedness from everyone with pure intentions who agrees with the fundamental goal of doing everything we can to prevent gun-involved tragedies without impacting the rights of responsible gun owners. This means all of us accepting, without the appearance of judgment, those who make different choices around gun ownership; This means truly listening in order to gain a deeper understanding of how our words are being perceived and the many, avoidable subtle cues that belie our best intentions and make it easy for those with other motivations to undermine us.

Policy And Program Recommendations

We believe there are three major areas of solutions that have the potential to elevate the conversation around guns in our nation from one defined by an ideological political debate to one defined by the common goals outlined above. Most importantly, taken together, the examples below have the potential to add up to an overarching campaign to cut number of gun deaths in our nation in half just by keeping guns from the people almost everyone already agrees should not have them:

(NOTE: These areas are ordered purposely in terms of the messaging that is most meaningful in genuinely engaging the gun-owning community)

1. Education, Awareness and Norm Change: In the long run, we believe this area represents the greatest opportunity for deep and lasting impact by reducing the staggering number of gun suicides and the far-too-many fully preventable unintentional shootings. Strong evidence also shows this area represents the greatest opportunity to prevent most school shootings. Achieving success here requires fostering a deep appreciation among gun owners of the real dangers of owning and carrying guns and what can be done to mitigate those dangers. Doing that requires a disciplined strategic approach, with messaging and programs that pass the smell test as being completely independent of any policy goal or those advocating for them. This is obviously tricky business, but we are certain there are numerous unscaled initiatives and ideas already out there, such as furthering public education about warning signs of mental illness and suicide that, with the right communications expertise and strategy, have great potential. Another area of education, awareness and action that clearly holds great promise is the work of “violence interrupters” in cities and communities across the country. We believe these efforts are entirely consistent with and complementary to all the ideas reflected in this document.
2. Simplifying, Clarifying and Enforcing Existing Laws. Of the many opportunities to have impact in this area, the strongest example, and the one entirely consistent with our messaging goals, is the opportunity to substantially reduce gun homicides in urban communities by cracking down on a small number of gun dealers that are clearly bad actors. Most federally licensed dealers are decent, law abiding folks who share in the goals of public safety. Significant evidence shows that there is a shockingly small percentage of dealers that are selling the overwhelming majority of guns used in crimes, and that they are doing it knowingly and illegally, and that this is a major source of the illegal gun trafficking and sales that are disproportionately plaguing too many communities of color across the country. We believe this warrants, at the very least, an investment in further investigation and then a proportionate response from law enforcement.
3. Policy. In short, we believe the key to success here is establishing a messaging principle, consistent with everything mentioned above:

“The greatest opportunity for policy impact lies not in keeping certain guns from all people, but in keeping all guns from certain people (the people almost everyone already agrees should not have them).”

As with other messaging recommendations, unlocking the potential of this one requires political strategists to think about more than near-term expediency. It requires a disciplined messaging approach to policy being pursued, with this as a clearly and consistently articulated goal. Successful policy change also requires giving careful and strategic thought to which policies reinforce this message and which have the potential to undermine it. This means evaluating the viability of policy proposals not only with the onus of demonstrating clear impact, but also through the lens of what they communicate to the responsible gun owners who overwhelmingly support the most impactful measures. This means viewing concerns about confiscation and slippery slope as legitimate, and going to the greatest length possible to avoid policy proposals that can be used to legitimize those concerns.

Expanded Background Checks.

Fortunately, the policy area with the most synergistic message is also the one that represents what we believe is the greatest potential for impact: Expanded Background Checks. The overwhelming majority of gun owners have already accepted that anyone engaged in the business of selling guns commercially, should be required to conduct a background check. At the same time the two of us believe that many private transfers, such as gifting a gun to a family member or letting a fellow member of a gun club borrow a firearm for a competition or hunting event should be legal and remain a private transaction outside of government regulation.

We believe any expansion of the Background Check requirement should be focused on transfers to strangers. Sure, there are some important details to work out around exceptions such as specific definitions of “strangers,” and exceptions that would make it impossible for the government to compile a comprehensive list of gun owners; but we are confident that there are solutions that can make a huge impact if we stick to the principle and message of only keeping guns from the people we all agree shouldn’t have them. This is also how to “walk the walk” in terms of demonstrating that we are not trying to limit gun ownership among responsible gun owners and how to give substance and true credibility to the claim of respecting gun owners and the Second Amendment.

An irony about expanded background checks is that they are perceived by many activists as being “softer” than an assault weapons ban when in fact, evidence shows they would have far greater impact. Considering that, and the potential for conversation about a ban of any kind to provide red meat for those who benefit from perpetuating a polarizing debate, we believe the public face of any policy push should, as entirely as possible, be focused on background checks. The same caution goes for other measures like repealing the second amendment and postures of public protest against gun rights organizations. These create easy opportunities for those with motivations other than our common good.

Finally, we believe an important part of the solution is a significant investment in an overarching, concerted and sustained messaging campaign which contextualizes all of the above solutions, and any others that fit within the recommended common ground goals and messaging as part of a greater unifying effort that transforms a series of on-off initiatives into a far more powerful whole greater than the sum of its parts (e.g., “to cut the number of gun deaths in the U.S. in half in 10 years by keeping guns out of the wrong hands”).

Conclusion

At this unique moment in history, there is a lot of well-intentioned rhetoric about empathy, overcoming divisiveness and uniting our nation around our common good. We propose that there is no greater way to do that than through the gun issue, and that the time to do it is now. But to bring this opportunity to fruition, we must build from the foundation up, giving every bit as much thought to messaging as to political strategy. Change is being made impossible by perceptions of a culture war that does not actually exist. There is no group of Americans that doesn’t care about safety, protecting our children or respecting freedom; yet inaccurate characterizations persist and thwart the possibility of change. To have a truly productive conversation, we must do the hard work of genuinely listening to each other, rather than reflexively retreating to our ideological corners. We must come together based on the common goals that can truly unite us and transform our advocacy efforts into a whole greater than the sum of its parts – a new united voice that results in the real change almost every one of us wants.

About Rob Pincus

Rob Pincus has been educating people about defensive shooting and related personal defense topics for over two decades. He is the Executive Director of the Personal Defense Network and the owner of I.C.E. Training Company. He has authored several books, produced over 100 training DVDs, appeared on several TV & Radio shows, and trained military, law enforcement, and armed individuals around the world. His advice focuses on efficiency and practicality based on his own experiences and continuing research of both real-world events and cutting edge training practices. www.icetraining.us

The post Guns in America: Ending the Culture War & Starting a Productive Conversation appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

WASHINGTON, D.C. –-(Ammoland.com)- A Freedom of Information Act document request (FOIA) obtained by Gun Owners of America (GOA) shows that people who haven’t committed a crime that would not make them a prohibited person could still be put on the prohibited list.

The FOIA request (embedded below) shows that the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) considers anyone with a warrant for arrest to be a prohibited person. The person doesn’t even have to be aware that a judge issued a warrant for their arrest. The crime doesn’t even have to rise to the level of a violation of the law that would block a person from owning a gun.

The form reads: “The legal counsel of the DOJ, the ATF, and the FBI have agreed that a hit on any active criminal warrant involving a felony or misdemeanor criminal charge disqualifies an individual from receiving a firearm. The element of flight does not have to be determined at the time of the denial.”

According to the FBI, a fugitive from justice is defined as the following:

• A person who has fled from any state to avoid prosecution for a felony or misdemeanor; or
• A person who leaves the state to avoid giving testimony in any criminal proceeding; or
• A person who knows that misdemeanor or felony charges are pending against him or her and who leaves the state of prosecution and does not appear before the prosecuting tribunal.

Let’s say the authorities obtain a video of a person doing donuts in a parking lot. The police issue a warrant for reckless endangerment. The FBI’s system considers that person a fugitive from justice even if they are not, and if that person goes to buy a gun, NICS will kick back a denial. The offense doesn’t have to rise to the level needed to strip a person of your gun rights, but you cannot buy a gun since there is a warrant out for that person.

The police have no obligation to inform a person of a warrant before that person becomes a prohibited person. NICS assumes that person is a fugitive from justice even if the FBI does not consider that person a fugitive from justice.

Since NICS will assume the buyer falls into one of the categories of a fugitive from justice, the person denied at the time purchase can appeal.

In the United States, we have a long tradition of “innocent until proven guilty,” but the FBI seems to take the opposite approach. The person who is denied has to provide the FBI with evidence that they have never fled the state.

This requirement equates to proving that a person never wore a red pair of shoes. The accuser insisting the person wore red shoes (in this case, the government is the accuser) doesn’t have to provide evidence. The person accused of wearing red shoes has to show proof that they have never worn red shoes. The task is almost impossible and one of the reasons the burden of proof falls on the accuser in legal cases.

To buy a gun from a gun dealer, the purchaser has to fill out a 4473 form. If the buyer is rejected because of an outstanding warrant, the FBI will notify the ATF that a prohibited person tried to buy a gun. This notification could lead to an investigation, and according to the FBI, the buyer has to prove that they never tried to flee the state.

To many, this FOIA shows why NICS is broken and beyond repair. It proves that background checks do not work and infringe on our rights as free people. With the current background check bills that passed the house and in the Senate, gun buyers might be facing more roadblocks in gun ownership.

FBI FOIA Request Shows the FBI Adding Non-Prohibited Buyers to NICS Redacted

About John Crump

John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.

The post FOIA Request Shows FBI Adding Non-Prohibited Buyers to NICS Preventing Gun Purchases appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Dan Wos, Author of – Good Gun Bad Guy

USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- You’ve heard them say it, “we need more background checks to keep people safe.”

It always comes from the political left. Why is it that we never hear it from a true Conservative? Because background checks, like other fantasies of the liberal-minded, speak to a dark corner of the ideological thought process of Biden supporters and those who believe that more government intervention will cure the ills of society. Just like socialism, mask mandates, and vaccine travel cards, the words “background check” are like fingernails on a chalkboard to freedom-minded Americans, Why? Because real Americans don’t want to live in a world where a small group of people decide what’s best for everyone else and we already know that the firearms background check system is a flawed, politically driven process that deters the gun ownership of law-abiding American citizens while doing nothing to stop the bad guys. The Bureau of Justice statistics show over 90% of prisoners surveyed in 2016 avoided the background check system altogether when acquiring firearms. You would think, that alone, would be enough to make even the staunchest of anti-gunners scratch their head and question their support of background checks. That is if their intent was really to stop the bad guys.

In 2017, the Government Accountability Office did a study that recognized 8,606,286 million NICS background checks. Of that 8.6 million background checks there were 112,090 denials. The anti-gun crowd sees this number as a success, touting the notion that 112,090 mass shootings were stopped. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Of the 112,090 denials, there were only 12,710 investigations. This tells us that the vast majority of the denials were false positives or cases that were unworthy of further investigation for one reason or another. In other words, good people being denied their right to gun ownership. Of the 112,090 denials only 12 people, who “should not have been purchasing a firearm,” were prosecuted. So now the anti-gun crowd chimes in and says, “See, we stopped 12 mass-shooters.” Wrong again Snowflake. If the 12 people who were prevented from purchasing a firearm were cold-blooded killers, wouldn’t they have already been in jail? If not, why not? The conclusion that I’m sure you’ve already come to, is that over 112,000 people in 2017 were denied the right to keep and bear while being rendered defenseless during the process for no good reason, but the anti-gun crowd wants to hypothesize who “may” do something bad with a gun and deny them their constitutional rights. Professor John Lott has estimated that up to 99% of NICS denials are false positives based on the number of actual criminals apprehended or convictions obtained.

Carol Bowne from New Jersey was stabbed to death by the very man she feared while she was waiting for her concealed carry, even after she had reported her killer to Police and filed a restraining order against him. After the state of New Jersey made her go unarmed and defenseless for 43 days while deciding if she deserved to defend herself, her abuser took her life.

So why is it that those on the left gravitate toward more of the policies that get good folks killed, while those on the right denounce the idea? It comes down to two distinctively different ways of viewing the role we as individuals play in society. Those on the left tend to be more willing to give up freedom for perceived safety, while those on the right are willing to give up safety for freedom. Those on the right are much more willing to take responsibility for the safety of their families rather than pretend that government will protect them. They also recognize that the reason we have the freedoms we do is because our Founders told the King what he could do with his dictates.

So, to all those in favor of background checks or to those who believe that more background checks will save lives, please pay attention. Putting good people in danger by delaying their firearm purchase with a failed system is something the gun-grabbers should be ashamed of. The 2nd Amendment is not a privilege. It’s a right, recognized by our Founders and written into The Bill of Rights for the sole purpose of stopping the misguided anti-gunners and ill-intentioned Legislators we find living among us today.

The 2nd Amendment is not a privilege.
It’s your right.

Dan Wos
Good Gun Bad Guy
The Loaded Mic

About Dan Wos, Author – Good Gun Bad Guy

Dan Wos is a nationally recognized 2nd Amendment advocate and Author of the “GOOD GUN BAD GUY” series. He speaks at events, is a contributing writer for many publications, and can be found on radio stations across the country. Dan has been a guest on the Sean Hannity Show, NRATV, and several others. Speaking on behalf of gun-rights, Dan exposes the strategies of the anti-gun crowd and explains their mission to disarm law-abiding American gun-owners.

The post Exposing the Left’s Real Intent Behind Gun Background Checks ~VIDEO appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “The Trump-rejecting Florida Republican who has a plan to fix the GOP Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has a message for leaders in Washington,” Politico reports. “Start thinking more like mayors.”

“Suarez is a Cuban Republican, but he doesn’t match some of the usual headlines surrounding Cuban American voters,” we are told. “For one, he didn’t vote for Trump in the 2020 election. He doesn’t have a great relationship with DeSantis, either, and has criticized him openly and done little to support him politically. He even voted for DeSantis’ 2018 Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum.”

In other words, he voted to help empower the Biden gun-grab agenda. And he tried to inflict a gun-grabbing, crystal meth-abusing, adulterous vomiter supported by socialists who sing songs about killing their enemies with knives and guns on his gun-owning constituents. I’m not making any of that up.

You’d think for a Cuban American, Suarez would understand the evil of the “¿Armas para que?” violence monopoly the tyrant Castro imposed to enslave the island under communism. You’d think the experiences and insights of those who escaped and know the essential relationship between an armed people and freedom would be the stronger influence.

Instead, Suarez in effect says that in order to win elections, more Republicans need to join him in demanding prior restraints on a fundamental right via so-called “universal background checks” that, according to the National Institute of Justice:

“Effectiveness depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring gun registration…”

Suarez in effect says that in order to win elections, more Republicans need to join him and his fellow mayors in demanding to criminalize and indefinitely delay private transfers.

And naturally, when it comes to immigration policy, Suarez says the winning strategy for Republicans is to favor “new shapers” (those would be foreign nationals) over “ourselves and our Posterity.” That’s despite all credible polling and all real-world experience proving cultural terraforming combined with a “pathway to citizenship” runs consistently around 70% to 30% in favor of  Democrats and citizen disarmament.

That, of course, is right in line with Establishment Republican interests, the ones who, like Suarez opposed the agenda that Donald Trump campaigned and that those who voted for him consider existential.

So it’s no surprise we see former House Speaker John Boehner, now that he no longer needs our votes, declaring “America First …  is one of the nuttiest things I’ve ever seen,” and “that gun control would be a top priority ‘if’ he were Speaker now.” And it’s even less of a surprise to see former President George W. Bush throwing out words that play right into Democrat hands like “isolationist” and “nativist” and not forgetting to throw the right to keep and bear arms under the bus:

“Bush remained hopeful that a more moderate Republican — one who supported reasonable gun reform measures, increased public school funding and a path to citizenship for undocumented workers, among other policies — could succeed in the party’s 2024 presidential primary.”

That’s despite an NRA endorsement that, tellingly, only mentioned “hunting and sport shooting” and promoted the asinine contention that “the Constitution gives people the personal right to bear arms.” (With former Democrat aides Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox being the only gun group “leaders” with Trump’s ear, no wonder he got the “give’ business wrong.)

Are Republicans really stupid enough to believe they can take the fire out of the bellies of their core constituents and give the Democrats everything they demand? And still not be ruthlessly attacked as “extreme”?

What is it leftist influencers are now saying about Boehner? His betrayal only earned him their contempt. And do you think they’re motivated to take back the “renegade right-wing extremist” charge against Bush? Even with his inner circle making a big show of abandoning the GOP?

This is what Suarez says Republicans need to project in order to win? That and be like Bloomberg’s mayors?

“GOP leadership has no clue what their base believes in,” Wayne Allyn Root writes on WND.com. He lists 14 statements he made at GOP events where he was the keynote speaker, each resulting in “wild applause” from the attendees, the very Republican voters the tone-deaf  GOP establishment refuses to acknowledge, let alone listen to.

So naturally, Nikki Haley, the epitome of an establishment Republican, is considering Suarez as a running mate if she decides to run for president in 2024.

It’s almost like their goal is an elephants’ graveyard.

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

The post Trump-Rejecting Republican Has Plan to Drive Gun Owners from GOP appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

Montana – -(AmmoLand.com)- I have received no direct response from Senator Tester about any one of the series of letters I sent to him explaining the Montana take on gun control likely to come before the U.S. Senate.

I did receive a form email that a lot of you may have also received, wherein Tester was carefully unclear about his position concerning Universal Background Checks (UBC).

UBCs, you may know, are a strategy to sweep private transfers of firearms into a national gun registration scheme by requiring that private transfers must have a federal background check to record the transaction. (If you believe it when they claim every transaction involving a background check is not recorded, I have some lovely beachfront property to sell you just outside of Malta, Montana.)

I was visiting with my friend John about Tester’s weak and flexible statement about UBCs. John asked if that statement should be interpreted as for UBCs or against UBCs. I told John I would compose a careful response to that question and email it to him. I thought you might be interested in my comment to John.

Gary

John,

I have been thinking about Senator Tester’s email in which he is unclear about his position on Universal Background Check legislation heading towards the Senate. Three things come to mind:

1. Tester claims to support the Second Amendment. Heck, EVERY politician claims that, no matter how anti-gun they are. That claim has become so trite, abused, and worthless that the claim may be entirely disregarded. It means nothing anymore.
2. Tester’s posture needs to be taken in Montana political context. A UBC was attempted in Montana (the Missoula SNAFU). That effort was successfully opposed by an Attorney General’s Opinion, a Montana Supreme Court decision (Missoula v. Fox), a bill before the Legislature (HB 357), and a ballot issue that the people approved (LR-130). Add to that political climate HB 102 and HB 258 that were passed by the recent session of the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Gianforte.  Against this current political background in Montana, Tester’s tepid comment about a UBC is so far estranged from the political realities in Montana that it is tantamount to an open declaration in favor of a UBC. To be anything like consistent with the current political intolerance for gun control in Montana, any statement from Tester about a UBC should be ringing opposition, not the squishy language he uses that could be interpreted any way the reader wishes.
3. I have made five separate attempts to reach out to Senator Tester both to convey what I understand to be broad sentiment in Montana about the gun control issues likely to come before him in D.C., and to initiate some dialog with Jon about these issues. I’d hoped he would be willing to engage in such a dialog. Jon and I know each other. We worked together when he was in the Montana Senate. He actually carried a bill for us then, one to require that DFWP publish their game counting methodology and results. Jon knows that I am the leader of the organization that is the primary political advocate for gun owners in Montana – that I speak for a lot of concerned Montana gun owners.

However, as a U.S. Senator, Tester has declined to respond to any of my letters to him. It appears that he wants to avoid any serious discussion about gun control with Montana.

That Tester has elected to avoid any such dialog, is not willing to even discuss it, does not argue for his openness on this issue. That, in turn, does not generate much confidence in the hope that he will actively oppose gun control in the Senate.

FYI, my series of letters to Tester, to which he has declined to respond, may be viewed at: progunleaders.org/Tester_Letters/

I assume that Tester is under heavy pressure by Senator Schumer and many others to go along with the gun control agenda. I assume he is also concerned about what Montana voters may think about that gun control agenda and how his votes may influence his reelection chances. I also assume that those in D.C. who want his vote for gun control have promised boatloads of money for his reelection campaign to overcome any animosity created among voters by his possible swing vote for gun control (ala Baucus, 1994). These conflicting pressures must surely dictate the nature of his tepid and flexible comments about the UBC headed to the Senate.

The right thing for Tester to do would be to clearly represent the recently demonstrated will of the people of Montana on the subject of gun control – vigorously oppose and be clear about that. However, there is also the seductive siren song of party, power, and money that Schumer and others are singing in his ears. I guess we’ll see how that works out.

Best wishes,

Gary Marbut, President
Montana Shooting Sports Association
http://www.mtssa.org
Author, Gun Laws of Montana
www.mtpublish.com

About Montana Shooting Sports Association:

Montana Shooting Sports Association is the primary political advocate for Montana gun owners. Visit: www.mtssa.org

The post Montana: Senator Tester Refuses to Commit to Protecting Your Gun Rights appeared first on AmmoLand.com.

UPDATE Democrats’ Efforts Were Unsuccessful, See the Video Below to Watch Them Fail:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -(Ammoland.com)- Are Senate Democrats scheming to ram universal background checks (H.R. 8) through the Senate without even attempting to pass it through a vote?

Reports have surfaced that anti-gun Democrats in the Senate are planning on exploiting the tragic mass murder that took place at an Oakland County, Michigan high school to pull off this political stunt. Six students tragically lost their lives at the hands of a 15-year-old student when the teen opened fire on fellow students with his father’s handgun.

The shooter’s father successfully PASSED a background check when he purchased his handgun used by the teen, which makes the move to push for universal background checks by anti-gun Senators even more puzzling.

Reportedly Democrats want to use a procedural move called “unanimous consent” to bring the bill to the Senate floor without a vote.

If no Senators were to object to the request, then the bill passes without a vote.

It is a long shot but it is reported that at least one “pro-gun” Republican will go along with a call for unanimous consent by Democrats. If any one Senator does NOT agree to the call for unanimous consent, then the motion would end. Democrats know that the bill will probably NOT pass the Senate by unanimous consent. But by forcing Republicans to object to the universal background check bill right after a mass murder where the killer used a gun, they believe that they will win political points with voters.

If true this stunt is not about making schools safer for our children. It is about trying to hurt Republicans’ midterm elections chances.

In this November’s past election, Democrats took a beating across the board. In the bell-weather state of Virginia, Republicans won all three top state offices, replacing three anti-gun Democrats and taking back control of the House of Delegates. Even in the Democratic stronghold of New Jersey, Republicans made significant gains and almost won the Governor’s office. Even in far-left Seattle elected a Republican mayor. The amount of ground Republicans took from Democrats was historical, and the best is yet to come.

The reports of a Democrat plan for trying to pass universal background checks by unanimous consent didn’t come to light until late Wednesday. Some believe that the last-minute goal is being kept under wraps to prevent the grassroots gun community from getting involved and flooding Senator’s inboxes and phone numbers. The anti-gun politicians want to dissuade as many Republican Senators as possible from standing up against their dirty tactics and make those who stand up look out of touch by playing on Americans’ emotions.

Gun Owners of America emailed out an emergency alert Wednesday night informing their members of the move by Senate Democrats. The NRA ILA and the Second Amendment Foundation both are monitoring the situation. Gun rights lobbyists are working behind the scenes to ensure that the ploy does not work.

Concerned gun owners can reach their Senator’s office by calling the Senate’s switchboard at 202-224-3121. Even if your Senator is an anti-gun politician, you must make it known to them that using dead kids as political pawns is not okay, and you know what they are doing.

UPDATE: 2:00am EST 12/2/2021

Democrats led by anti-gun U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) and backed up by gun banning buddy Richard Blumenthal (D-NY) called for unanimous consent on the Universal Background Check bill (HR 8). Senator Grassley (R-Iowa) objected to the motion, preventing it from becoming law.  Sen. Grassley then presented his gun bill that strengthens NICS, but Sen Murphy objected to that bill that some gun rights advocates consider anti-gun.  Both bills did not reach unanimous consent and failed to pass the Senate today.

“Democrats in the Senate knew this was a losing proposition. But their hatred of guns continues to cloud their judgment. They have a disconnect with reality and the fact that any expanded background check would not have prevented this most recent school murder rampage.” said Second Amendment Foundation President Alan M. Gottlieb.

“Once again Sen. Chris Murphy has failed to pass the so-called “Universal” Background Check bill. This legislation cannot be enforced without a federal gun registry, won’t prevent crime, and will turn otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals for the simple act of loaning a firearm to many family or friends. We thank Sen. Chuck Grassley for defending the rights of law-abiding gun owners, offering a real common sense solution, and blocking the misguided attempt by Sen. Murphy to exploit a recent tragedy by trying to ram gun control legislation through the U.S. Senate that would not have prevented the tragedy in the first place.” said NRA Spokesperson Lars Daleside.

About John Crump

John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.

After the mass shooting that killed eight people at a shopping mall in Allen, Texas, last Saturday, President Joe Biden said that horrifying crime reinforced the case for “enacting universal background checks.”

Yet the perpetrator, who was killed by a police officer at the scene, had been licensed as an armed security guard, which means he passed a background check and was legally allowed to own firearms.

In that respect, the killer was typical of people who commit crimes like this. That is the main reason why expanded background checks cannot reasonably be expected to have much of an impact on mass shootings, contrary to the impression left by politicians who reflexively recommend that solution.

Federal law disqualifies broad categories of Americans from owning firearms, including people who have been convicted of felonies or subjected to court-ordered psychiatric treatment. Background checks are required for all gun sales by federally licensed dealers, and some states extend that requirement to transfers by private sellers.

As several news outlets noted after the Allen attack, Texas is not one of those states. But that detail does not seem relevant in this case: Although the killer bought some guns from private sellers, CNN reported, the rifle he used in the attack was “purchased legally,” meaning he was not a “prohibited person” under federal law.

From 2016 to 2020, according to the Texas Online Private Security database, the killer was licensed as an armed guard, a job that is subject to stricter eligibility criteria than the average gun buyer. According to CBS News, “he did not have a serious criminal record.”

Nor does it seem that he had the sort of psychiatric record that would have disqualified him from buying a gun. The Washington Post reported that he “joined the Army in June 2008 but was ‘terminated’ three months later” because of “an unspecified mental health issue” after “failing to complete his initial training.”

Such separations, the Post explained, “are meant to quickly force out recruits who can’t perform military duties as a result of various physical and behavioral conditions. They are not typically punishments and would not show up on background checks.”

Like the Allen killer, most mass shooters do not have records that would be flagged by a background check.

In mass shootings from 1982 through April 2023, where the source of weapons was known, Statista reports 85% of the murderers obtained firearms legally.

According to a National Institute of Justice report on public mass shootings from 1966 through 2019, 77% of the perpetrators “purchased at least some of their guns legally,” while 13% made “illegal purchases.” In mass shootings at K-12 schools, more than 80% of the killers “stole guns from family members.”

Even theoretically, then, expanded background checks could make a difference in only a small share of mass shootings. The experience with state laws requiring background checks for all gun sales provides further reason to temper expectations of what that policy can accomplish.

A 2018 study found that such laws, which require that transactions be completed via licensed dealers, were associated with increased background checks in Delaware but not in Colorado or Washington.

That suggests these laws are widely flouted by gun owners who resent the additional expense and inconvenience that compliance entails.

Unlike mass shooters, ordinary criminals often have disqualifying records. But they generally obtain firearms from informal sources that would not be affected by new background-check laws.
Studies that aimed to measure the impact of expanded background checks on homicides have produced mixed results. The RAND Corporation deems the evidence concerning mass shootings “inconclusive.”

That’s not surprising since notionally “universal” background checks cannot be effective unless private sellers comply. Enforcement is inherently difficult when the government tries to regulate transactions that, by definition, are unrecorded and inconspicuous.

The policy that Biden recommends is undeniably popular. But there is little reason to think it would work as advertised.

About Jacob Sullum

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine. Follow him on Twitter: @JacobSullum. During two decades in journalism, he has relentlessly skewered authoritarians of the left and the right, making the case for shrinking the realm of politics and expanding the realm of individual choice. Jacobs’ work appears here at AmmoLand News through a license with Creators Syndicate.

WICHITA FALLS, Texas -(Ammoland.com)- Gun Owners of America (GOA), Gun Owner Foundation (GOF), and several Texas young adults have filed suit in a federal court in Texas over provisions in the Bi-partisan Safer Communities Act that require an enhanced background check for guy buyers under the age of 21.

After a tragic attack on Robb Elementary in Uvalde, TX, John Cornyn (R-TX) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) worked on a gun control bill that would become known as the “Bi-partisan Safer Communities Act.” Part of the bill requires enhanced background checks for those under the age of 21, leading to delays. GOA believes that these delays violate the young adult’s Constitutionally protected rights.

“GOA repeatedly warned legislators and the public how this would grossly violate young Americans’ Constitutional rights, and yet Texas Senator John Cornyn compromised away those rights anyway. Now we see young adults frequently and routinely being denied their right to purchase a firearm in a timely manner, and this right delayed is unjustly a right denied. Compromise is no way to legislate when dealing with people’s God-given rights,” said GOA Senior Vice President Erich Pratt in a statement released to the press.

After the passage of the bill, the FBI conducts an enhanced background check that pulls the prospective buyer’s juvenile record, contacts local law enforcement, and checks mental health records. Any hits on any of these could cause a person to be denied. Juvenile records are usually sealed, and mistakes as a child typically are not held against a person when they become an adult.

One issue with the system is that some agencies will respond to the FBI to provide records to be used for the enhanced background check, but others will not. If the FBI cannot get the records, then the perspective gun owner will be denied the transfer even though they were not disqualified. That means that the rights of the purchaser would be denied through no fault of their own.

A panel of three judges from the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld Florida’s age restriction on certain firearms for those under 21. GOA’s lawyers state they know the Defendant will use that case. Hence, the attorneys point out that the court used a law from the ratification date of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) instead of the ratification date of the Second Amendment (1791). Another federal court in Virginia this week pointed out how the Eleventh Circuit erred in using the reconstruction date.

The gun rights groups claim that there is no original text, history, or tradition for enhanced background checks for those under 21. In fact, there is no original text, history, or tradition for any background check for guns.

And the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is not always instant and experiences frequent outages.

The groups are asking the court to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) and a preliminary injunction against the new law. GOA and GOF claim that they are likely to succeed on the merits of the case, and the plaintiffs are suffering irreparable harm. Both factors must be satisfied for an injunction can be issued.

Temporary Restraining Order: Ethan Mcrorey, Kaylee Flores, Gun Owners Of America, Inc., And…

Ethan Mcrorey, Kaylee Flores, Gun Owners Of America, Inc., And Gun Owners Foundation, V. Merrick B. Garland…

About John Crump

John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.

Last week, we reported on the Biden Administration’s treacherous move to defund scholastic archery, hunting, and marksmanship programs under an obscure provision of the Orwellian Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA). The BSCA has proven to be the gift that keeps on giving for extreme and persecutory gun control, to the mortification of some of its more moderate supporters who thought they were voting for provisions aimed at reducing crime and increasing access to mental healthcare. Now, details are emerging of Biden’s latest plans to leverage the sprawling, sinister act in his continued pursuit of civilian disarmament. This time the target is eliminating the age-old practice of noncommercial, private firearm sales.

Biden has not been coy about his ambitions to push existing law as far as possible (and likely past the breaking point) toward “universal” firearm background checks. We have already reported on an executive order he released in March, the first item of which was “moving the U.S. as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation.” But Biden did have legislative help from the BSCA in this effort, which amended a critical legal term concerning who is considered “engaged in the business” of firearm sales, and therefore required to become a federal firearm licensee (FFL) and run background checks on all retail transfers.

Previously, an individual only needed an FFL when engaged in “a course of trade or business“ involving “repetitive” buying and reselling  of firearms with the “principal objective” of “livelihood and profit.” The BSCA removed the “livelihood” element so that profit seeking alone would fulfill the required objective of the sales.This change broadened the FFL requirement, but a “course” of “repetitive” buying and reselling of firearms is still necessary. Nevertheless, it has remained unclear where the lines are to be drawn.

Now, the New York Times is reporting that Biden will move ahead with implementing a longtime goal of the anti-gun movement: setting a numerical threshold of sales that will establish when an individual needs an FFL.

That article states:

The regulations will set a threshold number of transactions that would define a dealer; gun-control groups hope to see it at five sales a year or lower. The rules will be backed up by a renewed push to prosecute businesses that refuse to register, by accessing bank records, storage unit leases and other expenses associated with running an off-the-books gun business.

Indeed, gun control groups had pushed for this same move under the Obama/Biden administration. But even Obama’s army of anti-gun lawyers could not come up with a way around statutory language and judicial interpretations that pre-empted this approach. If the New York Times’s report is true, Biden is clearly hoping activist courts will hang their hats on the changes made by the BSCA to ratify the fiction that Congress used that act to authorize a numerical threshold for who is required to obtain an FFL.

Of course, the BSCA says nothing of the sort. “Livelihood” may not be the same thing as “profit,” but the structure that has always required a case-by-case determination based on the facts of each situation remains in place.  Also remaining in place are longstanding qualifications in the law that allow for “occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby” or for the sale of “all or part of [a] personal collection of firearms.”

Yet the Biden Administration has already shown a distinct willingness to ignore limitations on its authority in other ambitious gun-control rulemakings, a number of which remain mired in ping-ponging judicial proceedings that have substantiated plaintiffs’ allegations of overreach. This rule will almost certainly be no different.

Biden’s gun control schemes, however, reach well beyond agency enforcement and court proceedings. Collaborators in the technology and financial sectors stand ready to help the administration implement its policies with corresponding censorship, de-platforming, and de-banking. Armslist, which was featured at length in the Times report as a supposed private sales boogieman, lost its YouTube account within days of the article’s publication. And popular payment processing, website design, auction sites, social media, and business support software companies or online platforms have already banned even legal firearm sales from their business models. Absent explicit evidence of collusion, these “coincidental” confluences of private sector “business decisions” with administration enforcement policies will be difficult to reach through the judicial process.

The NRA of course opposed the BSCA and warned the public and its moderate supporters that it “leaves too much discretion in the hands of government officials and also contains undefined and overbroad provisions – inviting interference with our constitutional freedoms.” This warning, unfortunately, has been borne out again and again, and the upcoming background check rulemaking could be the most dramatic example yet.

Stay tuned for further developments, and rest assured that the NRA will use all available measures to continue to counteract the Biden administration’s abuse of the BSCA and other provisions of federal law.

About NRA-ILA:

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess, and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org

President Joe Biden and the Department of Justice announced a proposed rule to change who will need a federal firearms license (FFL) to sell firearms.

The long-awaited rule was hailed by anti-gun groups like Everytown for Gun Safety, Giffords, and Brady United as a way of closing the “gun show loophole” and the “internet loophole.” Anti-gun organizations claim this is a step towards universal background checks, a centerpiece of the Biden Administration’s anti-gun policy.

The proposed rule is powered by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), which was a law championed by Chris Murphy (D-CT) and John Cornyn (R-TX). The BSCA changed the law’s wording to describe who the federal government considers a gun dealer. The bill altered the language of Section 921(a) of Title 18, United States Code. The BSCA changed the definition of someone “engaged in the business” of selling guns from “with the principal objective of livelihood and profit” to the ambiguous statement of “to predominantly earn a profit.” Now, the Biden Administration is exploiting that change through the upcoming rule. At the time, some Republicans who backed the law blew off the concerns that an anti-gun administration would exploit the language. The change read:

(22) The term `to predominantly earn a profit’ means that the intent underlying the sale or disposition of firearms is predominantly one of obtaining pecuniary gain, as opposed to other intents, such as improving or liquidating a personal firearms collection: Provided, that proof of profit shall not be required as to a person who engages in the regular and repetitive purchase and disposition of firearms for criminal purposes or terrorism.

The new rule will also affect those that sell multiples of the same type of firearms. This section means that anyone who liquidates a collection of Glock pistols must acquire an FFL before they can liquidate the guns. Many people collect certain guns, and this would prevent the legal transfer of those firearms without an FFL.

Unlicensed sellers who sell through “online auctions” would be required to obtain an FFL under the proposed rule. This section is a targeted shot at sites like Armslist.

These websites do not sell firearms and currently do not have to get an FFL. The new rule seems to change that. This has long been a goal of the Biden Administration, which has put out false narratives about online gun sales, such as buyers not having to go through background checks for guns purchased online. The rule reads:

“In addition, it clarifies the term “dealer,” including how that term applies to auctioneers, and defines the term “responsible person.” These proposed changes would assist persons in understanding when they are required to have a license to deal in firearms.”

“These examples are provided to clarify for unlicensed persons that firearms dealing requires a license in whatever place or through whatever medium the firearms are purchased and sold, including the Internet and locations other than a traditional brick and mortar store.”

Armslist is specifically called out in the rule. Armslist is a firearms version of “Craigslist List.” Armslist has been the target of anti-gun groups for years who keep launching and losing lawsuits against the website. Many think this is a concerted effort to hurt the website’s business by stating up to 25% of people selling on the site will require an FFL under the proposed rule. The rule reads:

“To better estimate both online and offline sales, ATF assumed, based on best professional judgment of FIPB SMEs and with limited available information, that the national online marketplace estimate above may represent 25 percent of the total national firearms market, which would also include in-person, local, or other offline transactions like flea markets, State-wide exchanges, or websites within each of the 50 States.”

The rule would make it so that anyone who rents a table at a gun show will be assumed to be in the business of selling firearms, meaning that private citizens will no longer be able to sell their firearms at any gun show. Also, if someone advertises their firearms for sale, they could be assumed to be in the business of selling firearms, which will shut down most private sales. The rule reads:

“Based on this decades-long body of experience, the proposed rule provides that, absent reliable evidence to the contrary, a person is presumed to have the intent to “predominantly earn a profit” when the person: (1) advertises, markets, or otherwise promotes a firearms business (e.g., advertises or posts firearms for sale, including on any website, establishes a website for selling or offering for sale their firearms, makes available business cards, or tags firearms with sales prices), regardless of whether the person incurs expenses or only promotes the business informally;94 (2) purchases, rents, or otherwise secures or sets aside permanent or temporary physical space to display or store firearms they offer for sale, including part or all of a business premises, table or space at a gun show, or display case;95 (3) makes or maintains records, in any form, to document, track, or calculate profits and losses from firearms purchases and sales;96 (4) purchases or otherwise secures merchant services as a business (e.g., credit card transaction services, digital wallet for business) through which the person makes or offers to make payments for firearms transactions;97 (5) formally or informally purchases, hires, or otherwise secures business security services (e.g., a central station-monitored security) system registered to a business,98 or guards for security99) to protect business assets or transactions that include firearms; (6) formally or informally establishes a business entity, trade name, or online business account, including an account using a business name on a social media or other website, through which the person makes or offers to make firearms transactions;100 (7) secures or applies for a State or local business license to purchase for resale or to sell merchandise that includes firearms; or (8) purchases a business insurance policy, including any riders that cover firearms inventory. 101 Any of these nonexclusive, firearms-business-related activities justifies a rebuttable presumption that the person has the requisite intent to predominantly earn a profit from reselling or disposing of firearms.”

By requiring more people to get FFLs, it will prevent a lot of Americans from selling guns. The secondary market has been an excellent way for those less fortunate to acquire the means of protection. Those who choose to get an FFL will be subject to unannounced warrantless inspections. These inspections have been used to revoke gun shop’s FFLs under the Biden Administration’s zero-tolerance policy.

FFL revocation is up between 350% and 500% and is currently at a 17-year high. The amount of record keeping, cost, and hostile environment created by the ATF could mean that many will not get an FFL to sell their firearms, which could be part of Biden’s plan.

The government’s argument is most criminals do not get their guns from gun dealers. That fact is true, but most criminals do not get firearms from legal transactions. Most guns used in crimes are obtained illegally through such means as theft, which means this rule will not prevent criminals from getting firearms.

“The U.S. Sentencing Commission reports that “88.8 percent of firearm offenders sentenced under §2K2.1130 [of the United States Sentencing Commission GuidelinesManual (Nov. 2021)] were [already] prohibited from possessing a firearm” under 18U.S.C. 922(g). These individuals would thus have been flagged in a background check,would have therefore been prohibited from buying a firearm from a licensed dealer after their first offense, and would not have been able to commit the subsequent firearms offense(s) if their seller had been licensed.”

There will be an exception for gifting firearms between family members. Although this type of transfer only makes up a small portion of transfers. There will be a 90-day comment period once the proposed rule is posted to the federal registry. After the comment period, a final rule will be unveiled.”

AmmoLand News is currently reaching out to those Republicans who backed the BSCA to get comments.

ATF – Definition of “Engage… by AmmoLand Shooting Sports News

About John Crump

John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.

The F-35 stealth jet isn’t the only example of expensive technology that crashed recently.

The implementation of New York’s ammunition background check law – the rollout of which was, to be generous, extremely low visibility – was a disaster of its own, judging from initial reports.

The new law was actually passed as part of broader gun control legislation a decade ago. The so-called SAFE Act (2013) authorized a statewide ammunition background check database and required that the superintendent of the state police make a formal “certification” that the database was “operational” before the law could take effect.

Confusion over whether this has occurred and what the new changes involve is understandable.  Readers of the government’s official “Gun Safety in NYS” website were still being given the following outdated information as of September 21:

Is there any background check now required for purchasers of ammunition?

Not yet. The law provides that background check requirements imposed on all retail sellers of ammunition are scheduled to take effect on September 13, 2023.

To complicate things, the implementation of the ammunition background check law coincides with another gun control development in the Empire State, pursuant to which the New York State Police (rather than the FBI) is responsible for conducting all firearm and ammunition-related checks using both NICS and a “statewide license and record database.”

The database requires detailed personal information about the purchaser: name, “up to five additional names/aliases,” residential address, date of birth, height, weight, race, ethnicity, “prior military status,” country and place of birth, citizenship, whether and what driver’s license or government-issued identification the person has, social security number, contact information, and (for ammunition buys) the manufacturer, the “Ammunition Identification Number,” the caliber and amount of ammunition being purchased. (The State Police guide for dealers has, out of a total of 21 pages, devoted eight to the initial personal information needed.)

All background check transactions currently “need to be processed online,” as an “Interactive Voice Response (IVR) telephone solution is in the process of being implemented but will not be available until October.”

Shortly before September 13, a gun store owner indicated that there was no outreach: “No dealer in New York has been contacted by the state about how it will work.”

Other ammunition retailers complain that the new system isn’t actually working – apart from the time it takes just to enter the required customer information online, there are significant delays in getting the system up and running and in response times. “It took eight hours between a computer tech and me to play with their website to get their website working,” reported one gun store owner. Only a few days after the system went live, another retailer expressed frustration with delays before a sale could proceed, describing his longest wait time for a response (at that point) as 22 hours.

Even worse, an improper denial means the person has to appeal to the State Police and wait out the appeal period of up to 30 days before being able to purchase ammunition. Tom King, the executive director of the New York Rifle & Pistol Association and the holder of a state pistol permit for over 40 years, was denied when he tried to buy shotgun shells, and has since appealed. “They’re denying everybody I’ve talked to,” he said.

Gun owners are dinged with additional fees to pay for this, being $2.50 for ammunition purchase background checks and $9.00 for firearms, and the law will have other, less obvious financial repercussions.

“We lose money on every box of ammo we sell because of the time involved,” one retailer says, adding that, “It’s not going to get easier. We’re going to have to raise our prices.”

A newsletter from New York’s Assembly Minority Office of Public Affairs confirms there are “very legitimate concerns about the burden this new system will place” on the business community, the State Police, and gun owners.

“Costs will go up and it is unclear what benefits this new law will generate…This law targets law-abiding gun owners and puts yet another financial burden on already overtaxed businesses and individuals. It is hard not to look at this as anything more than a punitive fee for access to the Second Amendment.”

Empire State residents who are not gun owners won’t escape the reach of this folly, either – a reported $20 million in the 2023-24 budget has been allocated for the State Police for implementation, including the hiring of 100 additional personnel.

The most ridiculous thing about all this wasted time, money, ink, and effort is that New York’s dangerous criminals will continue to flout the law.

The executive director of one New York gun control group was quoted as saying that, although “lawful gun owners may have to wait a bit longer right now in the immediate, they themselves understand what could potentially happen if an individual who does not have a license or does not pass a background check is able to obtain that gun.” Contrary to her claims, lawful gun owners understand all too well that criminals don’t waste time jumping through government hoops to buy guns or ammunition.

“The only people that this is affecting,” says Tom King, “is the lawful legal citizen in New York state.”

About NRA-ILA:

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess, and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org