| Did you ever have the sneaking suspicion someone had lost their grip on reality?
Like your Great Uncle Morty who used to wander out for a short walks and get returned by the police a few hours later, it seems politicians aren’t listening.
Either that, or they’re willfully ignoring you hoping you’ll somehow be convinced you’re wrong.
That’s apparently the tactics politicians racing to introduce “common-sense, public-safety, we-have-to-do-something” legislation they claim will make life safer are using.
Their legislation will definitely make life safer: for criminals. Probably not anyone else.
Note: all this legislation is being introduced while they’re hole up in a barricaded Capital complex -with their personal security details.
Either they think we’ve become Uncle Morty. Or…gulp…. Uncle Morty and his pals are in charge.
Yesterday, just in time for the President’s first prime-time address, the House of Representatives passed two pieces of semi-cleverly disguised pieces of overtly anti-gun legislation.
One, HR.8, proposes universal background checks for all firearms transactions -public, private, interfamilial, whatever. And despite the fact that means a record of all guns is being created, we are all supposed to rest secure in the fact it’s not a de-facto gun registry because it says “not a gun registry” right in the text.
Since the House of Representatives took a total of only nine days to introduce, debate, discuss, amend and pass HR.8, that doesn’t do a lot to reassure me.
The second bill, HR.1446 could be called the “don’t call us, we’ll call you” bill for prospective gun purchases.
As it sits, the FBI has up to three days to return the results of completed background checks to requesting FFLs.
If there’s no FBI response after three days, the FFL has the option to complete the transaction.
It’s a system that works, so it’s a target for anti-gun politicians.
HR.1446 extends the minimum wait time to ten days. That’s a minimum wait time. There is no upper limit on how long you could be waiting. Hence, the “don’t call us, we’ll call you” description.
The bills now head to the Senate, hopefully 51 Senators will be willing to stand up and recognize the fact Americans are flocking to buy guns the same way their great grandparents raced to buy legal booze after Prohibition.
Every day, the American public is voting with their wallets on guns. The results are inarguable: a majority of citizens don’t believe we’d be safer without guns.
The latest NICS numbers are saying the same thing: Americans believe they need guns today more than ever before.
Meanwhile, the gun-grab politicians continue to shriek a “common sense” message no one’s buying.
If voters really wanted “common sense legislation” that would protect the public, we’d all be out in the streets demanding term limits for any public office.
We’d probably want the legislation to be retroactive.
If we had a gun sales calculator, it would be running nearly as fast as the nation’s debt clock.
Meanwhile, the ultimate gun controller’s fantasy: HR 127 is still out there. And it’s likely to get make it from the House to the Senate, too. It’s the nanny state’s cancel culture dream when it comes to guns.
Look it up yourself, you don’t take my word for it. It would ban, bar or burden everything associated with firearms ownership.
But please remember: no matter how bad the legislation, if passed, it becomes law.
Defeating bad legislation is considerably easier than repealing bad law.
To beat these bills flying out of the House of Representatives, all each of us needs to do is light up the Senate switchboard with our protests.
Follow up with an email. Then keep calling. Don’t depend on everyone else to do your job.
If you don’t, you can only comply or face the consequences of your inaction.
As we head into another welcome weekend, a quick shout out to our friend Paul Markel for his
| Look in the nooks and crannies of your ammo stash and you’ll likely find some you’re unlikely to shoot. Organize a swap and you could turn it into ammo you would use -or cash. |
“Ammo Swap Saturdays” suggestion. Instead of freaking out about the ammo you don’t have; Paul suggests taking stock of ammo you have. Determine what your not likely to use. Maybe you no longer have/shoot the caliber, or prefer something lighter than the full-house load.
Contact a few friends and suggest they do the same thing. Then get together for an “ammo swap.”
Instead of spending lots of money buying at today’s prices (if you could even find ammo), work out a swap.
I’ve just completed my first one.
A friend and I got together and swapped around $200 worth of ammo (according to the prices on the boxes). That’s not a bad savings. But using today’s prices, more than $1,000 of dollars worth of ammunition changed hands.
No “real” dollars changed hands. If that’s not enough incentive to pull an inventory and schedule a get-together, I don’t know what is.
Go enjoy the weekend. We’ll keep you posted.
—Jim Shepherd |
