We’ve got a few gun bills currently floating around in the House. Given that Joe Biden’s blue-ribbon panel hasn’t even issued any recommendations, these seem a bit premature. Irregardless, here’s a quick rundown.
HR 34 is this year’s iteration of the Blair Holt Act, seeking to require licensing for all gun owners. It has no cosponsors. HR 117 is proposed by a guy from New Jersey named Rush Holt. I’ve never heard of him, either. This one seeks licensing and registration of handguns. Again, no cosponsors.
HR 65 is an oddball. Citing it as the “Child Gun Safety and Gun Access Prevention Act of 2013,” Sheila Jackson Lee wants to append something about “semiautomatic assault weapons” to 18 U.S.C. § 922, but that term doesn’t appear anywhere in existing law, and she fails to define what an “assault weapon” is. So, um…yeah. Also, no cosponsors.
HR 35 is a bill seeking to repeal the 1990 Gun Free School Zone Act. I doubt that one has much of a chance in this atmosphere. Local boy Paul Broun is cosponsoring it, which earns him bonus points. Those points go slightly towards making up for his loopy disdain for evolution and science in general.
The one that I find troubling is HR 93.
Entitled the “Fire Sale Loophole Closing Act,” it seeks to “amend chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code, to restrict the ability of a person whose Federal license to import, manufacture, or deal in firearms has been revoked, whose application to renew such a license has been denied, or who has received a license revocation or renewal denial notice, to transfer business inventory firearms, and for other purposes.”
Among its provisions is this:
(a) Restrictions- Section 922 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
`(aa)(1)(A) It shall be unlawful for a person who has been notified by the Attorney General that the Attorney General has made a determination to revoke a license issued to the person under this chapter to import, manufacture, or deal in firearms, or to deny an application of the person to renew such a license, to–
`(i) transfer a business inventory firearm of the person–
`(I) into a personal collection of the person; or
`(II) to an employee of the person, or to an individual described in section 923(d)(1)(B) with respect to the person; or
`(ii) receive a firearm that was a business inventory firearm of the person as of the date the person received the notice.
So, what happens to the guns the dealer paid for and legally owns? Is he expected to relinquish personal property? I don’t see any mention of compensation.
FFL’s can be revoked for many reasons, not all being acts of malfeasance. Likewise, a denial could be a result of paperwork simply being submitted improperly.
This one’s vindictive, and it doesn’t really serve any utility to the general public. Although it has several cosponsors, none of them are big names, but it’s still worth dropping a note to your elected officials to decry this one.