We all knew this was coming. Hillary Clinton unveiling her new gun control policies, which included the holy grail of liberal proposals–expanding background checks. Yet, she isn’t just going to throw policies out there for progressives to munch on; she’s threatening to use executive action to get some of them enacted (via AP):
Her campaign rolled out a robust set of proposals Monday, including using executive action as president to expand background check requirements. Under current federal law, such checks are not required for sales made at gun shows or over the Internet.Clinton pledged to require anyone "attempting to sell a significant number of guns" to be considered a firearms dealer, and therefore need a federal license. She did not say how many gun sales would constitute a "significant" number.
Efforts to require such comprehensive background checks have failed several times in recent years in Congress, where Republican leaders have shown no willingness to even hold votes on efforts to curb access to guns.
Clinton's attempt to circumvent staunch opposition would likely spark legal challenges from gun advocates, as well as from Republicans sure to question whether a president has the authority to act directly.
Clinton also said she would support a law to expand the definition of domestic abusers barred from buying guns. She also wants to prohibit retailers from selling guns to people with incomplete background checks, as happened in the June case of a man accused of killing nine people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Clinton proposed repealing legislation that shields gun manufacturers, distributors and dealers of firearms from most liability suits, including in cases of mass shootings.
If Congress refuses to act to end this epidemic of gun violence, I'll take administrative action to do so. -H
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 5, 2015Again, none of these policies are going to curb mass shootings or gun violence. The law already prohibits those convicted of domestic abuse from owning firearms–and rightfully so. Don’t take the bait; it’s just another chance for them to inject a war on women talking point. Since liberals still don’t get that all FFL (federal firearm license) dealers have to conduct a background check on all sales, let’s revisit yet another absurd claim about the gun show loophole. First, gun shows aren’t the problem. As mentioned prior, gun dealers with FFLs must conduct background checks on all sales; this includes gun shows, my progressive friends. There is no…safe space in which the laws connected to a federal firearms license is checked at the door of a gun exhibit. This is something that the Free Beacon’s Stephen Gutowksi took umbrage with concerning Maggie Haberman’s piece on Hillary’s gun control initiatives, where she wrote, “Mrs. Clinton’s proposals are the background checks on prospective gun buyers, which are required for retailers at stores. But under federal law, they are not required at gun shows or over the Internet with private sellers.” Gutowski noted, there isn’t some special carve out regarding these sales:
…Gun shows and online sales enjoy no special carve-out or loophole. Under federal law, all sales through commercial gun dealers, known as Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs), must be processed through the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Background Check System regardless of whether the sale was made at a gun shop, gun show, or over the Internet. Similarly, sales of used guns between private parties living in the same state are not required, under federal law, to go through the background check system regardless of where the sale occurs.A small number of states do require sales between private parties to submit to background checks.
Oregon is one of those states.
As a side note to our friends who lean to the left in the media, here’s a nice video from Bud’s Gun Shop, which details how you can buy firearms online. Notice step two: finding a FFL dealer in order to conduct a background check in accordance with all state and federal laws.
Also, the incomplete background check, or three-day delay provision, that allowed Dylann Roof to purchase a .45 handgun was the fault of the FBI. They admitted to the clerical error, where they forgot to update Roof’s admission to a drug charge; the three-day provision is included in the pro-gun control Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act; and it’s not a loophole! If liberals actually bothered to read the process of a delayed response on the FBI’s website, you’ll see that a) the dealer isn’t obligated to hand over the firearm to the buyer if the background check is still incomplete after three days b) if it is determined that the buyer had prior convictions–and that he was transferred the firearm–then the matter is referred to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives for gun retrieval. In other words, they will confiscate the firearm from the prohibited buyer [emphasis mine]:
In most cases, the results of a background check yield definitive information regarding a individual’s eligibility when the firearm background is initiated. However, not all inquiries can be provided a final status during the initial contact with the NICS Section. Many transactions are delayed because of incomplete criminal history records, e.g., a missing disposition or a missing crime classification status (felony or misdemeanor), which is needed to determine if a transaction can proceed or must be denied.When a validly matched record is potentially prohibiting but is incomplete, the NICS Section must search for the information needed to complete the record. This process often requires outreach to local, state, tribal, and/or federal agencies (e.g., arresting agencies, court systems). The Brady Act allows the FFL to legally transfer the firearm if the NICS transaction is not resolved within 3 business days. In some instances, the potentially prohibiting records are completed, and the NICS Section staff deny the transaction. The NICS Section notifies the FFL of the denial and determines if the firearm was transferred to the buyer. If it was transferred, the NICS Section transmits this information to the ATF for further handling as a firearm retrieval referral.
Once again, we’re left with no serious policy solutions that will curb gun violence because the ones being doled out are already law. Second, the real gun control goodie bag, which is being held by Gov. Martin O’Malley, includes provisions that also don’t curb gun violence, like the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban, or provisions that wouldn’t see the light of day in Congress, like the gun registry and the repeal of the Protection Of Lawful Commerce In Arms Act.
This movie is starting to become a horror franchise in the likes of Friday The 13th, which after part VIII devolves into a sad and absurd disaster. The only silver lining is that we know what’s going to happen. Democrats will propose measures that won’t curb violence, they may get some media buzz–maybe a few more people added to their email lists, and then they will go nowhere because the support isn’t there.
Roseburg, Oregon doesn’t want Obama in their town pushing the gun control agenda. The brother of one of the shooting victims said the real problem is mental health (he’s right), and the mother of Cheyenne Fitzgerald, who was shot in the back by Chris Harper-Mercer at Umpqua, said her daughter should have been armed, and that we should all exercise our Second Amendment right for self-defense.
For now, we have to bear and grin the drivel dished out by the anti-gun left, and their allies in the media. We have to once again hear liberals telling us the irrelevant views the rest of the world hold about our gun laws. And we need to read how liberals don’t understand basic gun laws and definitions. That was on grand display wit Obama’s remarks about the shooting this week, where he said there are responsible law-abiding gun owners, that we need new common sense gun control laws, and how we should model those laws based on the UK or Australian model, which were confiscatory acts. That’s not common sense.
Additionally, you have this from the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne [emphasis mine]:
After a psychologically disturbed man killed 35 people in Tasmania, [former Australian Prime Minister John] Howard championed state bans on the ownership, possession and sale of all automatic and semiautomatic weapons by Australia’s states, along with a federal ban on their importation. He also sponsored a gun buyback scheme that got almost 700,000 guns — the statistical equivalent of 40 million in the United States — off the streets and destroyed. “Few Australians would deny that their country is safer today as a consequence of gun control,” Howard wrote in the New York Times shortly after the Newtown killings.Politicizing this struggle means being unrelentingly candid in calling out an American conservative movement that proudly champions law and order but allows itself to be dominated by gun extremists who deride every gun measure that might make our country a little bit safer — no matter how many mass killings we have.
Conservatives all over the world are aghast at our nation’s permissive attitude toward guns. Is a dangerous and harebrained absolutism about weaponry really the issue on which American conservatives want to practice exceptionalism?
Well, the polling says yes we are–and that’s okay because we’re winning the public opinion, legislative, and legal war in this matter. Second, how is eliminating personal, constitutionally protected ownership of firearms common sense? Third, does Dionne know the difference between automatic and semi-automatic weapons? Banning the semi-automatic weapons means banning guns; it’s not common sense, legal, nor is it feasible. Fourth, the Boston gun buyback programs had nabbed one firearm this year. Fifth, even if this fairy tale of Americans just handing over 40 million guns to the government were to occur (in some LSD-laced, alternate reality), then we would still have close 300 million guns in circulation, most being in the hands of law-abiding citizens. Even Bernie is with me on that latter point. Sixth, why so much about gun extremism, the NRA, and gun bans? When will there be a substantive white paper on how to reform the mental health system in America, and a process to make sure those who are mentally unstable can’t obtain firearms?
Have we really devolved into gun bans and gun confiscation rhetoric in less than a week? It seems so.
Final Note: Oh, and of course Everytown had executive action recommendations on gun control for Obama, which–again–are already law.