Senate Bill 2135: “Worst Gun Control In Over A Decade”

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(Washington, DC) — Last week, the U.S. Senate held hearings on the Cornyn-Schumer-Feinstein-Blumenthal-Murphy “NICS FIX” gun control legislation (S. 2135).

This is the Senate version of the legislation that was folded into H.R. 38, National Reciprocity, in the House just last week.

Make no mistake about it — gun-grabbers are salivating over the possibility of getting S. 2135.

It’s a HUGE gun control trap they never imagined they could get under a Republican controlled House and Senate.

We’ve pasted below for you today’s very informative national email from Gun Owners of America.

It lays out for you point-by-point exactly why you should oppose this massive expansion of the NICS gun ban database, or what GOA calls the “Traffic Ticket Gun Ban”.

The email is authored by the very respected Michael Hammond, former parliamentarian for North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms:

Dear Second Amendment Supporter,

The Senate held its first hearings Wednesday on the most serious gun control threat in over a decade.
The bill is the Cornyn-Schumer-Feinstein-Blumenthal-Murphy legislation, S. 2135. And it would bribe the states and force federal agencies to send every possible eligible name to the national gun ban list, NICS.

This means that a whole lot of decent Americans are going to be added into the system.

Some people claim that S. 2135 — and its counterpart in the House — are really not that bad. After all, they say, the bills don’t contain the words “traffic tickets,” “veterans,” “senior citizens,” and so forth.

But that’s the problem. Legislators like Chuck Schumer are not going to tell you this up front.

There’s more to it than just reading the bills

Remember the 2007 NICS Improvement Amendments Act that harmed so many veterans? That legislation NEVER contained the word “veteran.”

But GOA knew what legislators were up to … we knew how veterans were going to be impacted … and so we renamed the legislation, more accurately, as the Veterans Disarmament Act.

Sadly, more than 257,000 veterans have now been disarmed, proving that GOA’s analysis of that disgraceful law was accurate.

The key is this: You always have to read the legal code and the implementing regulations that are being amended by any particular piece of legislation.

Many gun owners don’t realize that NICS is already denying gun purchases to people who have unpaid traffic tickets — even though you won’t find the words “traffic” or “tickets” in the federal firearms code.

To read more about this, you’ll definitely want to see what a Massachusetts cop told GOA about how an unpaid traffic ticket can lead to a gun ban.

And you can click here to see Shannon Bream of Fox News quoting GOA to help viewers sift “fact from fiction”over the weekend in regard to the Traffic Ticket Gun Ban.

Again, the reason Cornyn-Schumer is so horrible is that it bribes states and forces agencies to achieve 100% compliance with current statutes and regulations — and this is going to result in gun bans for lots of decent Americans whose names are not already in the NICS system.

More horror stories to come under Cornyn-Schumer

If you have a terrible — but unenforced — statute and you come along with legislation to mandate enforcement, is that a bad thing?

Obviously, it is.

And the unenforced statutes and regulations surrounding the 1968 Act (18 U.S.C. 922(g)), the 2007 Veterans Disarmament Act, and the regulations implementing them are so sucky that they, if fully enforced, would disarm millions — perhaps tens of millions — of decent Americans.

The Code of Federal Regulations disarms you if a “lawful authority” determines you are a “danger” or are unable to manage your checkbook (see 27 CFR 478.11). “Lawful authority” means a psychiatrist who determines whether a person is eligible for federal benefits. Under these provisions, over 257,000 veterans have lost their guns.

And, in 2016, Barack Obama promulgated regulations which would trawl the SSI disability rolls to do the same for perhaps millions of people on disability. Congress was shocked, the regulations were overturned at the start of the Trump administration.

But guess what?

The next anti-gun president could do the same with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the children’s health insurance program, ObamaCare recipients, etc.

He could do this for people with guardians, or people suffering from ADHD, PTSD, post partem depression, regular depression, OCD, or even Alzheimer’s, which currently affects upwards of 40 million people according to a study financed by the National Institutes of Health. And Congress would not be able to generate the 2/3 vote in both chambers to overturn a veto of any legislation seeking to overturn his actions.

Or take people on medical marijuana lists. Or in diversion or treatment programs. They will be put on the gun ban list under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3). That’s a 100% certainty.

Or take states like New York, which sent 30,000 names to NICS, pursuant to the SAFE Act, because their private psychiatrist turned them in.

Or take California, which allows an ex parte gun ban without any hearing because a friend or relative complains about you.

Or take states like Massachusetts, which banned guns for 430,000 people on the basis of unanswered “bench warrants.” We know that large numbers of vacationers with unpaid speeding tickets are losing their guns because of this.

But the worst thing of all is that Cornyn-Schumer will revitalize the Brady Center, the Giffords’ organization, the Bloomberg operation, and dozens of other gun control zealots after years of decline and demoralizing defeats.

It is significant that Chuck Schumer is doing a “happy dance” over the victory Cornyn-Schumer would give to gun control, but is dead-set against a single word that would help gun owners.

So it is going to take every ounce of fight you have in you to stop the passage of this fast-moving, preordained gun control victory.

And it will only happen if we work together on a continuing basis over the next few months.

Tell them that the Cornyn-Schumer bill (S. 2135) — aka, the Traffic Ticket Gun Ban — is the worst gun control in over a decade for a bill that has a serious chance of passing.

Demand that they oppose it.

Sincerely,

Michael Hammond
Legislative Counsel