The incoming Democrat House majority is readying legislation to criminalize private gun sales.
Ironically, the push comes nearly 227 years to the day after private gun ownership was hedged in by the Founding Fathers via the Second Amendment, which was ratified on December 15, 1791.
Politico reports that Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) is spearheading the current gun control push through “universal background” legislation. Such checks criminalize private gun sales, making it illegal for a neighbor to sell a firearm to his neighbor, a friend to his lifelong friend, and even a father to his son.
Under the Democrats’ plan, a background system like that in California would require a gun seller to seek government permission for any sale or transfer of a firearm. Such a system was put in place in California in the early 1990s and has failed to prevent some of our nation’s most heinous mass public attacks.
Breitbart News’s Joel Pollack observed:
Nevertheless, Thompson expects to push his gun control bill within “the first 100 days” of the new Congress.
Incoming House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) has already assured his colleagues that he will move the bill “very quickly” once it is introduced.
The criminalization of private gun sales would not have stopped a single 21st century mass shooting, as nearly every mass shooter bought his firearms at retail via a background check. The exceptions to this norm are the two or three mass shooters who stole their guns.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.