Congressional Dems Launch Big Gun Control Push
California House rep Mike Thompson has been trying to force a
“Bipartisan Background Checks Act” for years.
One wouldn’t expect a piece of legislation with a simple number of H.R. 8 to cause so much trouble, but with a title such as the “Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021,” the brakes are off, and this runaway train is rolling right at you.
It has already passed the House on a 227-203 vote with eight Republicans defecting across the aisle, and is now ready for Senate action. It may have some trouble there, with West Virginia’s Joe Manchin providing something of a Democrat roadblock. Manchin is considered a “gun guy” by many of his Capitol Hill colleagues, so this fight may have a few twists.
However, since the bill’s unveiling, Second Amendment activists haven’t talked about much else. And, just like every other corrosive piece of gun legislation introduced over the past generation, proponents of this measure trotted out their best boilerplate rhetoric to sell the idea as the new best tool to fight violent crime.
House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force Chairman Mike Thompson (D-CA) declared, “The last two years have been a turning point in our longstanding fight to help prevent gun violence and we take another leap forward in helping to save lives.”
House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) chimed in, “I am proud to support the Bipartisan Background Checks Act to extend the firearms background check requirement so that we can help keep guns out of the hands of felons and others who are legally prohibited from possessing them. No longer should those who are prohibited from owning a gun use gaps in the law like the online sale loophole and the gun show loophole to obtain these weapons.”
Spoiler: These guys think the Second Amendment is a “loophole.”
Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) during a recent interview with MSNBC. (Source: MSNBC, YouTube)
And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tossed in a nickel’s worth of empty promises as though some noble calling inspired her and her colleagues.
“Guided by the voices of millions of young people marching for their lives and aided by the leadership of the Biden-Harris Administration,” Pelosi said in a prepared statement, “the Democratic Congress will continue our work to ensure H.R. 8 and other life-saving gun violence prevention measures are finally enacted into law. Enough is enough.”
Sources:
https://judiciary.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=4413
https://mikethompson.house.gov/sites/mikethompson.house.gov/files/THOMCA_009_xml%20%28signed%29.pdf
Where do criminals get guns? Contrary to Democratic belief, they don’t buy them at gun stores.
But Wait a Minute…
If Mike, Jerry and Nancy actually believe their own words, they need to do a little homework, because there are problems with their proposed solutions to violent crime.
In February 2020, Fox News asked the simple question: “Where do criminals get guns?” The network got its answer from David Chianese, a decorated former New York Police detective and writer at Law Enforcement Today.
“The majority of firearms used in criminal activity are obtained illegally,” Chianese said. “Stricter or additional gun laws do not reduce gun violence.”
Knock us over with a feather! According to Fox, “A 2019 survey conducted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) found that some 43 percent of criminals had bought their firearms on the black market, 6 percent acquired them via theft, and 10 percent made a retail purchase – 0.8 percent purchased a weapon from a gun show.”
Eleven percent of criminals have somebody else buy the gun for them. Another 15% get guns from “friends” or family members.
The 2019 report was based on 2016 survey of prison inmates for the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. This fascinating and data-filled 20-page document revealed, “About 1.3% of prisoners obtained a gun from a retail source and used it during their offense.” A few lines later the same report noted, “Among prisoners who possessed a gun during their offense, 90% did not obtain it from a retail source.”
Hmmm… Nobody read so much about this research, probably because it devastated long-standing gun control myths. There’s no “gun show loophole.” Background checks don’t prevent bad guys from getting guns. There really is a black market for guns that isn’t bothered by existing gun control laws or new ones that might come along. Who’da thunk it?
Sources:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/where-do-criminals-get-guns
Insider Likes Numbers
Insider prefers solid data to emotional conjecture and reading through the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) report, titled “Source and Use of Firearms Involved in Crimes: Survey of Prison Inmates, 2016,” offers plenty.
We believe data tells a more accurate story, and we typically cite raw numbers from the FBI and Justice Department. We don’t extrapolate or play other games with the statistics.
People like Pelosi, Nadler and Thompson should be required to read the BJS document and pass a test before throwing their weight behind legislation like H.R. 8. If they bothered, they’d find this gem: “About 18% of all state and federal prisoners in 2016 reported that they had possessed a handgun during the crime for which they were serving a sentence. Two percent or fewer possessed a rifle or a shotgun.”
Translation: Bad guys don’t often use rifles (including so-called “assault rifles”) or shotguns. This is confirmed by studying any annual FBI Uniform Crime Report, which invariably shows only 2-4 percent of all homicides are committed with long guns of any type.
So, why do Capitol Hill anti-gunners and their cheerleaders in the gun prohibition lobby insist there should be a ban on modern semiautomatic rifles?
It’s because they’ve reasoned if it is possible to ban one whole class of gun, they can move to ban another whole class because people will think it’s okay.
Do Background Checks Prevent Tragedies?
Now for the proverbial $64,000 Question: Should anyone expect so-called “universal background checks” to prevent mass shootings? Probably not.
Remember Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas mass shooter? He passed several background checks, and according to Wikipedia, his “only recorded interactions with law enforcement were traffic citations.” He hadn’t done anything prior to the massacre to suggest he was capable of such mass mayhem.
Remember Elliot Rodger, the love-starved Isla Vista killer? He legally purchased three handguns in California, where background checks are mandatory for all transactions, including private ones. To do that he also went through three California waiting periods.
Here’s something else: Three of Rodger’s victims were stabbed to death. He only fatally shot three people while wounding several others. Many anti-gunners would have you believe he shot all six of his victims.
Who else passed a background check? Nidal Hassan, perpetrator of the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting, did. And Ivan A. Lopez-Lopez, perpetrator of the 2014 Fort Hood shooting, bought his gun legally.
Charles Marino, CEO of Sentinel Security Solutions quoted in the Fox News story cited above, had this observation: “Statistics show that those individuals committing ‘mass killings’ during ‘active shooter’ events do so utilizing weapons that have been obtained legally by themselves or a friend or family member. Statistics show that those individuals committing what is known as ‘street crimes’ are typically doing so by utilizing weapons that have been initially stolen and may have further traded hands in the black market.”
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Las_Vegas_shooting
