Gang-Rape Safer Communities Act

Last night, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act text finally dropped. I started to look it over, but stopped out of fear that an anger-induced stroke might get me before I could fall asleep.

Always keep in mind just what “bipartisan” really means.

Background Checks
Engaged In the Business
Red Flag Laws
Straw Purchases and Trafficking
Domestic Violence
Miscellanea

The firearms-related portion of this bill is Title II – FIREARMs (there’s actually plenty more stuff covered, quite unrelated, to anyone but a politician/bureaucrat).

Background Checks
On page 25, we get to background checks for those under 21.

It opens up 16+ years-old juvenile records to inspection.

Under 21 instant checks are gone. Now NICS has three days to decide they need another week to do a database check. In effect, a 10 day waiting period.

Engaged In The Business
When we heard that these senate scum would “clarify” what it means to be in the “business” of selling firearms — requiring an FFL — I hoped, but didn’t actually expect, that they might finally set a threshold for number of sales in a defined time period. That isn’t what we’ve gotten.

Instead, they changed the definition from “with the principal objective of livelihood and profit” to “predominantly earn a profit”.

No longer would you need to be selling enough guns to make a living. Just a single sale, if your intent is to make money, suffices to require a Federal Firearms License. There is no exception for sales to friends or family. There is no exception for sales to pay off medical bills.

There is something of an implied exception for “improving or liquidating a personal firearms collection”. Although why anyone would be liquidating an entire private collection for anything but “predominantly one of obtaining pecuniary gain” beats me; so that would still seem to require an FFL.

If “intent” is the sole criteria for determining “business,” it looks to me like the only “sale” that wouldn’t require an FFL would be to a bogus gun “buyback” event, with the “intent” of getting your guns “off the street.”


Safety Tip: Don’t store your firearms on roadways.


USE OF BYRNE GRANTS FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF STATE CRISIS INTERVENTION PROGRAMS.
That’s sounds innocuous enough, eh? It isn’t. This is where the federal grants for states to impose “red flag” laws show up. In fact, it is grant for that and more.

‘(I) Implementation of State crisis intervention court proceedings and related programs
or initiatives, including but not limited to—
‘‘(i) mental health courts;
‘‘(ii) drug courts;
‘‘(iii) veterans courts; and
‘‘(iv) extreme risk protection order programs

Not just “red flag” laws, but entire new court/judicial systems designed to deprive people of their human/civil rights, making them “prohibited persons” factory assembly line style.

Particularly telling is that they want an entire special court system specifically for processing veterans, a class that tends to be trained and experienced in handling firearms, and tends to be conservative.

They do pay lip service to due process for the “red flag” laws, stating that they “must include, at a minimum— ‘‘(I) pre-deprivation and post-deprivation due process rights that prevent any violation or infringement of the Constitution.”

Since the very point of “red flag” laws is to eliminate the pre-seizure hearing for the accused, and go straight confiscation — ending the rights-recognizing process already in place in every single state — I’m going to assume that “pre-deprivation due process” is going to becomes the police serving the accused with a hearing notice before collecting the guns. The notice — of a hearing that actually occurs after the seizure — would be the due process.

I’m assuming that because that is exactly what every “red flag” law, proposed or enacted, that I’ve examined has done. Why would it change now?

Straw Purchases and Trafficking
They’ve added a specific crime of straw purchasing and trafficking. With one exception, it’s stupid redundancy; since lying on the 4473 is already a crime, purchasing and passing a firearm on can be, has been charged< as trafficking under existing law, and providing a firearm to a prohibited person is likewise a crime already.

The exception appears to be the penalty for straw purchasing and trafficking, generally increasing from 5 years to as much as 25, and with lots and lots of asset forfeiture.

MISDEMEANOR CRIME OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
They did exactly what I expected. They are adding “dating partner” to the list of qualifying relationships for domestic violence convictions. They include some qualifiers such as “have or have recently had,” serious, length, type, and frequency of the relationship; but they do not define any of them.

What is recent? Serious? You won’t know until you discover that you’ve been added to the NICS human/civil rights deprivation list.

The one not-as-bad-as-it-coulda-been aspect to this “dating partner” addition is that it does not apply retroactively to such domestic violence convictions that occurred prior to enactment of this act. In that one respect, it’s not as horrible as the ’97 Lautenberg Amendment which did specifically apply retroactively. Possibly one or two senators dipped a toe in reality and realized just how badly a repeat would piss off some of us.*

Miscellanea
Also stuffed in the bill is authorization for FFLs to use NICS for employee (and job applicant) background checks. I’ve seen various states try to pass laws requiring FFLs to run employee NICS checks, but currently that use is unlawful.

FFLs would get access to the federal database of firearms reported stolen. If the database is properly maintained, this might actually be a good thing.

The other Titles in this bill are largely pork masquerading as grants and studies of how to “improve” healthcare access and school “security,” along with more NICS funding.


* I personally knew someone who was so retroactively deprived of the right to effective self defense, and was beaten to death. There are days when I wish I believed in Hell so that I could take some joy in knowing that Lautenberg is burning for eternity for his role in that death, and likely many others. In my view, he should be joined there by everyone who had a bloody hand in enacting that amendment; but that’s Someone Else’s judgement to make.

None of this should pass. But it probably will.

 

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One thought on “Gang-Rape Safer Communities Act”

  1. Every time I read about these politicians with their taxpayer funded security voting for stuff like this I think of Carol Browne.
    https://www.foxnews.com/us/no-one-helped-her-nj-woman-murdered-by-ex-while-awaiting-gun-permit and I hope that Lautenberg has lots of company roasting with him as they are forced to watch the horrific murders they enabled over and over and over again in 3D large screen smell-o-rama. And since I’m wishing, I also wish they would FEEL what those victims felt as they went through that process deprived of a tool that could have changed the balance of power to their favor. Sometimes I’m a bit short on mercy…for they certainly showed none.

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