Weekly Spotlight 9/26-10/1/22
House Democrats Try to “Fight Crime” By Regulating Firearms Out of the Hands of Law-Abiding Citizens
It is hard to look at the news today without seeing some lawmakers use phrases like “safer communities” when referring to legislation that will in fact weaken public safety while doing little to actually curb rising crime. This is in part due to the fact that anti-gun lawmakers refuse to admit what is really jeopardizing the safety of our communities – criminals – and instead, putting the blame on the tools used to carry out violent offenses while penalizing law-abiding gun owners at the same time.
This is exactly the case with the “Gun Violence Prevention and Safe Communities Act” introduced by U.S. Representatives Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ) and Danny K. Davis (D-IL), along with almost two dozen other House Democrats this past week.
On its face, this bill proposes higher taxes on firearms and ammunition. When studied more closely, the USCCA-FSL discovered it would be an egregious infringement of Americans’ natural-born right to self-defense as it is yet another attempt to regulate firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens. As reported by Fox News, the proposal includes:
- A tax increase on pistols and revolvers to 10.5%
- A tax increase on other firearms and shells/cartridges to 11.5%
- The annual tax that firearms importers and manufacturers pay each year as well as the transfer tax that must be paid when a firearm is sold will be inflation-adjusted each year
With the midterms around the corner, it is clear the politicians seeking reelection are trying to show their constituents they’re “fighting crime” by disarming the population through ineffective gun-control legislation – as if law-abiding gun owners haven’t been villainized enough through legislation that aims to take their Constitutionally-protected freedoms away.
Further, statistics show that the major metropolitan areas such as New York City, Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago and San Francisco have some of the most restrictive gun control policies in the country, yet are experiencing some of the nation’s highest violent crime rates. Take the House-passed “Assault Weapons Ban of 2022” for example. Not only does this bill propagate the arbitrary term of “assault weapon,” but, if passed by the Senate, it would effectively ban some of the most popular and commonly used firearms in today’s households, such as the AR-15.
At the end of the day, those responsible for committing crimes with a firearm are not studying the law. They aren’t even concerned about being caught or imprisoned.
What Americans need today are laws that will help them avoid danger and save lives. Legislation like the National Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act led by Congressman Richard Hudson (R-NC) will go a long way in supporting law-abiding gun owners’ right to self-protection, no matter where they are or travel to.
Instead of slapping the label “gun violence” onto the issue, lawmakers should take a hard look at what is causing crime throughout communities and tackle the issue head-on versus indirectly through the politically charged gun debate.
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OTHER NEWS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED
President Joe Biden’s most recent speech on gun control showed, once again, that he has little respect for gun owners or the Second Amendment. Consider, for example, where Biden mocked ( and not for the first time ) gun owners as being afraid of “deer in Kevlar vests” simply because they want to defend themselves and their families with the same guns that law enforcement officers use to protect the president and his family. It was just one unserious moment among many in a completely unserious speech in which Biden also reminded gun owners that they should just comply with gun control because, after all, he could just carpet-bomb them into submission.
CBS News: Supreme Court’s Gun Ruling Opens Door To Next Fight: Where Can They Be Carried?
State laws prohibiting people from carrying firearms in “sensitive” locations are providing the foundation for the next battle involving the Second Amendment in the wake of a recent Supreme Court decision, with the question in the courts shifting from whether Americans can have guns at home or in public to where they can be carried. Already, challenges to so-called sensitive place restrictions in New York and the District of Columbia have been filed, and more are expected to follow from gun rights supporters, who argue the measures keeping them from bringing guns into places like houses of worship, on college campuses and in public parks infringe on their right to keep and bear arms.
A federal judge in Syracuse, who has already declared that he believes New York’s latest gun control law is unconstitutional, may now get the chance to overturn it. U.S. District Judge Glenn Suddaby last month rejected a lawsuit seeking to overturn the state law, saying he didn’t have the power to strike down the state’s latest gun-control measure because, among other things, it hadn’t gone into effect yet. But he did make it clear that the state’s law – including a “good moral character” requirement, a mandate to disclose social-media accounts and an expansive list of banned locations – was problematic. “What law-abiding, responsible citizens of New York State are left with is a statute that is…plagued by a ‘profound Second Amendment problem,’” Suddaby wrote in his Aug. 31 decision.
FOX News reported the signing of the executive order, quoting Kenney as saying, “This gives them some protection, some peace of mind, some ability to call the authorities when some knucklehead decides they want to bring a gun into a rec center, and they see it, that’s part of what this is about.” The Philadelphia Inquirer noted, “The order bans guns and other deadly weapons at rec center buildings, athletic courts, fields, playgrounds, and pools. Signs about the prohibition will be displayed at the facilities, the order says, and District Attorney Larry Krasner said his office could charge those in violation with trespassing — even if they are otherwise legally permitted to carry the gun in the city.”