On Wednesday, the Democratic Caucus in the Senate stood up and staged a filibuster to prevent the regular order of business to proceed. They staged this filibuster in an attempt to shame the GOP Senate majority to enact further gun laws to control who may purchase a firearm. The problem is that these sanctimonious Democrat Senators who did speak out, either lied repeatedly on the points they made or were monumentally ignorant of the gun laws on the books that already cover the "loopholes" that Dems claim exist.
The Dem's first claim is that anyone can buy a gun over the internet, as if that person was shopping on Amazon for a light bulb. Every gun purchased over the internet must be shipped to a gun dealer in the state of the buyer and the buyer then must pass the federal background check and comply with that state's gun laws through the dealer's record of sale (DROS) keeping with the state. No one can buy a gun over the internet through a lawful gun dealer that does not include a federal background check, PERIOD. To say otherwise is a blatant lie .
The next claim is that there is a gun show loophole that allows an individual to go to a gun show and buy a gun like it was bag of potatoes. The implication being that no background check is conducted at gun shows. Again, this is a lie. Gun show dealers must be ATF&E licensed in order to lawfully sell guns in their state. All their sales must go through the federal background check system along with any regulations mandated by the state in which the sale is to occur. Federal law already makes it a serious felony for a gun dealer to sell a gun outside of the prescribed federal process. State laws are just as stringent.
Every
gun that a gun dealer takes possession of from a gun manufacturer or
gun wholesaler must eventually be accounted for with a sales transaction
record and a federal background check, so there is no way a licensed
dealer can sell guns out the "backdoor" so to speak. Gun dealers are
subject to unannounced audits by ATF&E agents at anytime and those
ARF&E agents can shut down a dealer with questionable record keeping
until an audit is completed and the gun dealer is free of any
violations.
Here's a true story of an experience I had with the ATF&E. Years ago I was called by an ATF&E agent who enquired whether I had purchased a lever action .22 rifle from a dealer that he named. I was not familiar with the dealer's name he gave me because it was the name on the dealer's business license and not the name of the dealers business operations, a mere clerical distinction. I did indicate that I bought the rifle in question and compared the serial number with the one the agent gave me. It was then that I had to tell the ATF&E agent that the dealer I bought the gun from was the one and the same dealer that he was auditing. Conversation then ended. The point I am making is that the ATF&E does audit gun sales regularly to see that transactions meet the letter of the law and this is as it should be.
The Democrat filibuster was led by Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) who admitted that the Democrat gun control law being sought would only affect a couple of hundred potential violators on the "No Fly" list. If that's the case, one has to wonder why the Democrats are trying to affect untold numbers of law-abiding American gun owners with draconian legislation to prevent people on the "No Fly" list from obtaining guns. Do they not remember that the late Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy was at one time on the "No Fly" list and had to work to have his name removed from the "No Fly" list.
Here's a true story of an experience I had with the ATF&E. Years ago I was called by an ATF&E agent who enquired whether I had purchased a lever action .22 rifle from a dealer that he named. I was not familiar with the dealer's name he gave me because it was the name on the dealer's business license and not the name of the dealers business operations, a mere clerical distinction. I did indicate that I bought the rifle in question and compared the serial number with the one the agent gave me. It was then that I had to tell the ATF&E agent that the dealer I bought the gun from was the one and the same dealer that he was auditing. Conversation then ended. The point I am making is that the ATF&E does audit gun sales regularly to see that transactions meet the letter of the law and this is as it should be.
The Democrat filibuster was led by Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) who admitted that the Democrat gun control law being sought would only affect a couple of hundred potential violators on the "No Fly" list. If that's the case, one has to wonder why the Democrats are trying to affect untold numbers of law-abiding American gun owners with draconian legislation to prevent people on the "No Fly" list from obtaining guns. Do they not remember that the late Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy was at one time on the "No Fly" list and had to work to have his name removed from the "No Fly" list.
It
is not an easy process to engage in to get one's name removed from the
"No Fly" list. It requires an attorney filing a court claim for review
of the conditions and reasons that the individual was placed on the "No
Fly" list. The court then must investigate the reason why the
individual in on the list and then hold a hearing explaining the court's
findings, whatever that might be. Steven Hayes of the Weekly Standard
found his name on the "No Fly" list and found out just how difficult the
process is to get one's name removed from the list.
What is egregious is that the "No Fly" list flies in the face of Constitutional due process, since some obscure bureaucrat can place a person's name on the "No Fly" list with no advance notice or right to contest such action before it goes into effect. It is only after the fact that a person can contest the "No Fly" ruling through a legal procedure. In other words, a person is guilty until such time as they can prove their innocence, in order to be removed from the "No Fly" list. This flies in the face of Constitutional law, yet Democrats have no problem with condemning people without due process and denying these people their 2nd Amendment rights to obtain and own a gun.
The Senate would be better off if it provided more people power in the form of more FBI agents to execute current, comprehensive and complete background checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). This would go a lot further in preventing terrorists and other criminal types from obtaining guns illegally.
Instead, Democrats want to demonize law abiding Americans with slanderous lies about what they characterize as a false necessity for owning a military style assault rifle for hunting or recreational shooting with high capacity magazines. BTW, Democrats need to learn the difference between magazines and clips. They are not the same thing. A magazine is inserted in a semi-automatic rifle or pistol and remains in the gun until empty and removed. A clip is a simple metal strip that holds cartridges until the clip is used to insert the cartridges into the ammunition well of the rifle and then removed.
What is egregious is that the "No Fly" list flies in the face of Constitutional due process, since some obscure bureaucrat can place a person's name on the "No Fly" list with no advance notice or right to contest such action before it goes into effect. It is only after the fact that a person can contest the "No Fly" ruling through a legal procedure. In other words, a person is guilty until such time as they can prove their innocence, in order to be removed from the "No Fly" list. This flies in the face of Constitutional law, yet Democrats have no problem with condemning people without due process and denying these people their 2nd Amendment rights to obtain and own a gun.
The Senate would be better off if it provided more people power in the form of more FBI agents to execute current, comprehensive and complete background checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). This would go a lot further in preventing terrorists and other criminal types from obtaining guns illegally.
Instead, Democrats want to demonize law abiding Americans with slanderous lies about what they characterize as a false necessity for owning a military style assault rifle for hunting or recreational shooting with high capacity magazines. BTW, Democrats need to learn the difference between magazines and clips. They are not the same thing. A magazine is inserted in a semi-automatic rifle or pistol and remains in the gun until empty and removed. A clip is a simple metal strip that holds cartridges until the clip is used to insert the cartridges into the ammunition well of the rifle and then removed.
To
illustrate how ignorant many Democrats are about guns, earlier in the
week Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) declared in a news interview that
AR-15 rifles had a rate of fire of 700 rounds per minute. An ignorant
and false statement since the AR-15 is a semi automatic rifle with an
effective rate of fire determined by how quickly a shooter can pull the
trigger. Do the math and the actual effective rate of fire for an AR-15
is a small fraction of what Grayson claimed.
It's
all these misstatements of facts that make it obvious that Democrats
will lie to enhance their anti-gun argument for greater gun controls to
plug the fictional loopholes they imagine. How about if the federal
government enforces the gun control laws already on the books and
increase penalties on those who acquire and use guns illegally?
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